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- From: rh@smds.com (Richard Harter)
- Newsgroups: soc.women
- Subject: Re: What does "Male-dominated society" mean?
- Message-ID: <1993Jan27.072711.11999@smds.com>
- Date: 27 Jan 93 07:27:11 GMT
- References: <1993Jan20.181338.22062@lmpsbbs.comm.mot.com> <1993Jan23.201246.9736@leland.Stanford.EDU> <1993Jan24.010521.28434@smds.com> <1993Jan26.024228.23288@leland.Stanford.EDU>
- Reply-To: rh@ishmael.UUCP (Richard Harter)
- Organization: Software Maintenance & Development Systems, Inc.
- Lines: 68
-
- In article <1993Jan26.024228.23288@leland.Stanford.EDU> farthing@leland.Stanford.EDU (ljf) writes:
- >In article <1993Jan24.010521.28434@smds.com> rh@ishmael.UUCP (Richard Harter) writes:
-
- >>Quite simply and, it seems to me rather obvious. Men direct most of
- >>their violence against other men. If one counts all cases the target
- >>of male violence is more likely to be male than female by a ratio of
- >>about 3 to 1. If one excludes domestic violence then the ratio is
- >>more like 10 to 1.
-
- >But the discussion (and apparently the view held by several posters)
- >is that men have a cultural/societal proscription against violence
- >towards women, while women don't have a similar proscription against
- >violence towards men. As far as I know, you're the first to start
- >talking about male violence against men.
-
- I would suppose it is implicit in the topic. There isn't much doubt that
- there is such a proscription -- do you really doubt that? I mean, the
- existence of a proscription, as distinguished from its universality or
- its effectiveness? Given the existence, one asks does it apply everywhere
- or only in certain situtations. One also asks -- is it effective, or is
- something honored in word only? Given that there is no similar male/male
- proscription, we have a basis for comparison to measure whether the
- procscription has effect. If all other things were equal we would
- predict that if the proscription had no effect, then men and women
- would equally be the victims of male violence. Since males are the
- target of preference, the natural inference is that the proscription
- "works", i.e. a smaller proportion of women are the target of male
- violence than would be the case if there were no proscription. In
- other words, the ratio of male/female targets for male violence is
- evidence that there is a proscription and that it works. [But not
- that is universally successful.]
-
- Similarly, the fact that the ratios are very different for domestic
- violence vs non-domestic violence is evidence that the proscription
- is much less successful there, or that it is much weaker.
-
- ...
-
- >>>This nearly sounds like a moral superiority of women
- >>>that a few feminists suggest.
-
- >>Indubitably, if one accepts that non-violence is morally superior.
- >>It is well known, for example, that rabbits are morally superior
- >>to wolves. Ask any rabbit.
-
- >As far as I know, this discussion has been about domestic violence and
- >who takes the offensive. We haven't really gotten into the discussion
- >of whether the women and men are fighting back abusive mates or just
- >hitting them because they can.
-
- And I wasn't raising that issue; rabbits and wolves were meant as
- metaphors for the relatively non-violent and the relatively violent.
- You sentence [and it was your sentence I was commenting on] talked
- about moral superiority of women. My comment was a reminder that
- people naturally attribute moral superiority to those virtues that
- they themselves possess. One can as readily argue that men are
- morally superior because they suppress a natural proclivity to
- violence, whereas women are morally inferior because they do not.
- I don't believe this; but you may choose to, if you like.
-
- As to the discussion in general, people have said any number of
- things. I seem to recall that it is a bit broader than you claim.
- Be that as it may, my comments were addressed to what you said.
- --
- Richard Harter: SMDS Inc. Net address: rh@smds.com Phone: 508-369-7398
- US Mail: SMDS Inc., PO Box 555, Concord MA 01742. Fax: 508-369-8272
- In the fields of Hell where the grass grows high
- Are the graves of dreams allowed to die.
-