Marija Gimbutus, Her Works

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Actually thinking about it a little more I can't imagine why a man would get sexual satisfaction out of abusing a woman so it must go beyond sex for sure.

Think for yourself, if I was a man, I'd probably do the same s**t. In fact, I'd be you're friend that you never knew did anything violent because I had hidden it so well from my peer group. What's up now? You'd be condoning it without even having knowledge.

It's pretty hard to hide anything in that particular environment.

Oh, you'd be amazed at what I've seen people hide from peers. AND I've taken notes.

Mixtapebooty, I disagree with you here. You don't know for certain that the membership purposefully provided a framework for what happened in that case. What would be the point? Don't forget whilst these things are social, the members are also competing with one anther at the same time. So it is an assumption that there is an intentional framework for the purpose of two members to commit an attack. If anything they took advantage of it, if it has anything to do with the club at all.

In garyw's favour these clubs can be a positive way to release pent up aggression, for men and women a like.

Motorcycle mobs/gangs are another thing altogether. That is not what garyw is in. Motorcycle mob/gang, football hooliganism, etc these are less about the subject matter (football, bikes) and more about having a forum for people who are raring to fight in the first place. They also can provide a good front to do criminal deals, there are random people around to make it look chaotic, when in fact it is organised behind the scenes.

These people are not enthusiasts, who go home afterwards and indulge in their hobby. They probably don't spend a great deal of time tinkering with their bikes.

I think there is a fantasist element to crime that doesn't really get talked about for some reason. People try to live out a fantasy that makes them feel like they are a part of something big. Sometimes some of them are smart enough to make the transition to big time criminals. Most of them are just ripe pickings for exploitation.

I don't think it is wrong to have these fantasies. They never really address this fantasy element in a positive manner when tackling youth crime. It is almost hush, hush dirty word.

Anyway, I'm going to sign off on this one Folks. I find it too addictive, so if I don't stop I will be replying all year.

Enjoy.

I've done a lot of reading on violence, so here are my thoughts. I think women are targeted because they are easy targets. Also, people who grow up to be emotionally repressed often project their repressed anger on outgroups and don't even see themselves doing it. There was a lot of research on this after the Holocaust, and as a result experts recommended not using an authoritarian parenting style any more. And women are an outgroup, so it's easy for men to resent women as a group (and vice versa) if they're ducking anger at other people in their own ingroup and want somewhere to send all that energy.

But I think the problem is violence in general, something people who are bigger and stronger are generally better at. In particular I really like the research of Lonnie Athens, discussed in Richard Rhodes' book Why They Kill. Athens, from a violent blue collar home himself, went into prisons for his PhD research and interviewed dangerous violent criminals. After a while he saw patterns in how they got that way (no one is born that way). Rhodes' book is worth a read if you want the full details. At any rate, Athens decided that he didn't become a violent criminal because he was too small to be any good at beating people up and intimidating him. So he became a scholar instead.

Also, the Stanford Prison Experiment demonstrated how easy it is to cue violent behaviour in group situations. Zimbardo has a recent book out on it, with descriptions of other relevant social science research as well as his own.

Past civilizations were more violent than today (even though the 20th century has seen rising crime rates). I think that's partly due to better parenting and education today, leading to greater emotional maturity and impulse control. We are simply way more civilized as a species than we used to be. (Though Hollywood violence may be undermining that.)

And I don't think people were as uniformly socialized in past societies than they are now, so how people behaved was more of a free for all. That's what I got out of reading primitive texts.



Why, thank you. I was a prostitute as a minor. I'm never sure whether activists in the sex trade would include me, though, because I was forced into it. They may say I'm in a different category because of that. Of course, many are forced into it (trafficked, etc.). Do they count? The customers don't seem to be able to tell the difference (unless they're paying more for minors). If you don't choose it, you don't seem to count, at least in some discussions of it. What about those who "chose" it but want out and can't get out? Do they count? I always get mixed up about this. Seriously.

At any rate, there are undoubtedly many amazing women and men in both voluntary and forced prostitution.



Sex=power is a pretty old cliche. You know, power as an aphrodisiac.

garyww, you come across as extremely naive. Or in denial?

The idea that men are more violent than women is usually backed up by the proportion of each sex in prison. As far as women being dominant goes, women have traditionally been dominant in the home (and are most likely to be violent there) and men are traditionally dominant outside the home (and can be equally violent in both places, I think).

It is a biological fact that boys become more boisterous than girls (as a group) by their third birthdays, and it is at this point that girls prefer not to play with boys in groups (though one at a time is often ok). Boisterousness isn't violence, but it may help in being good at it.

Gary has a big tendency to read between the lines, but for some odd reason, cannot make inferences about objective human traits to immediate physical behavioural characteristics, and in the paradoxical world that is now dubbed a non violent gang, there exists only the framework for a peaceful order which in turn results in random acts of chaotic yet isolated violence. Due to the fact that any sort of social order actually creates violent behaviour and tendencies in males, and it has nothing to do with who they are in their perfect natural state as innocent and often scared childlike beings in constant need of protection from the 'other' violent people on earth, men have been declared naturally faultless of violent activity. Any violence that takes place is a result of 'other' men creating a non violent framework through a peace loving and naturally kind male centric social structure. This would in turn provoke 'other' non violent males to completely rewire their inherent thinking and instincts in order to create a counterbalance under the exclamatory notion that they cannot be controlled, and in turn have the right to be violent which is actually now, non violent due to the completely peaceful methood in which the violence was condoned.

Gary- you read too much SciFi.

Too many men can't accept that every single societal ill that we have is because of the oppression of women. This isn't an opinion. It is demonstrably true, and can be shown to be so, complete with graphs and time lines. It can also be proven that even when women are violent, that too can be traced back to the oppression of all women. I think that the truth scares the crap out of them, so they find ways to continue the abuse of women, by blaming them for the nightmares that this system has wreaked on us all, men and women alike.

Part of the problem too, in combating violence, is that too many males enjoy it to a great deal. The mens rights activists believe that there is a war on their natural tendency towards violence, and they think it's their right to keep being violent. Just writing that made me dizzy. It's mind boggling to think that people can enjoy such evil.

Yes, but if entertainment value were determinative of truth value, they'd have a very strong case.

Contesting and ignoring are not the same thing.



Your understanding is correct.



SheKnight, I do not know where you get your definition of matriarchy from, but it is not consistent with the definition in my Pocket Oxford, the definition given in glossaries to anthropology texts I am familiar, the definitions I have seen defined and applied in sociological texts, or indeed any definition I have ever encountered. It's a definition I would reject without good cause to adopt because it appears impoverishing of the language and inconsistent (given the meaning of patriarchy).

We already have a word to refer to egalitarian societies, that word is...well, egalitarian. If matriarchal means not sexually stratified (aka sexual egalitarianism), and patriarchal refers to sexually stratified societies where males dominate power and/or authority, then what word would refer to a sexually stratified society where females dominate power and/or authority? Double plus matriarchy, or perhaps double plus unpatriarchy?


That's a rather inaccurate claim, (although significantly less so if anthropology is narrowed to 'cultural/social anthropology').


A truth often too readily overlooked.



This makes as much sense as being surprised someone won't admit motor-vehicle operators are inherently violent when that same someone knows of incidents of violent road-rage.
How about those who will not admit food is inherently dangerous even though they are aware of numerous instances of food poisoning?

Pandd,

Let me guess. I've just encountered my first MRA on Wrongplanet, right?

When I speak of matriarchy, I am not referring to an idea, but an actual noun, something that exists. Within matriarchies, the power between the sexes is equal, and therefore egalitarian. Perhaps the writers of the dictionary were not familiar with matriarchal societies being something we can point at, but such is life under patriarchy. I stand by my definition of what matriarchy is.


Edited for clarification.

saying that all men are violent towards women is like saying that all women kill their babies. And the number of women in prison compared to men has more to do with courts than crimes.

I don't think that all men are physically violent towards women. I think most men are pretty indifferent to the violence committed towards women, though. Some men also contribute to an environment where it is acceptable to be violent towards women by using pornography or prostitutes. They know logically that the images of women they use are of real women, who have likely been through hell. But that doesn't seem to bother a lot of men. Even most men who don't use porn or prostitutes are not refraining due to concern for the humans on the receiving end, and still have the Madonna/whore separation in their minds.

Still, there are a few that get it.

That's why women need a real rights movement and not some glitzy hollywood/mediacentric outfit like N.O.W. which seems to have about as much interest in women as the national wrestling association.

I don't find NOW ineffective at all. What are your criticisms of them?

I just don't think they actually do much more than suck up money. During the primaries they were literally invisible and sometimes the site is almost as bad as Cosmo's with respect to journalistic content.
Other than that it's an organization like most others.