There's a lot of ungendered violence in the world, or violence with
division of labor: football players and cheerleaders. And all those women
who love a man in uniform.
One cause of violence, male or female, is fear. But it's not the only
cause. And one kind of fear is fear of women. Some violent men have
troubles sexual desires, some don't. I'd like to believe that those I
dislike or fear don't have as good a time as I do, but I'm not persuaded
it's the case. I'm also not persuaded that any such simple explanation
describes the action of any group. I do think that the function of
gender-based comments like this is often gender-bonding, whether of the
male, or, as here, the female kind. Which is not to say that one should for
one moment tolerate the treatment of or attitudes toward women that we
ascribe to this particular bunch.
Haven't we got enough problems, aren't we divided enough, without
dehumanizing even the worst of us?
Mark
At 09:42 AM 10/2/2001 +1000, Alison Croggon wrote:
>Yep, that seems to pretty well sum it up. Male violence is in my
>observation rooted in deep fears, and one of the fears is women, on whom
>these young males project their own troubled sexual desires. That's why
>women have to be totally erased or imprisoned or controlled. Depressing,
>banal and often (but not always) insoluble.
>
>There are precious few women talking heads on the teev apart from the
>ubiquitous Condoleeza Rice, who seems like one of those hyper-real
>cartoon/games figures, but that's how it goes... seems to me that gender is
>one of the deep and much unanalysed side-issues of what's going on at
>present, it bubbles along under the news reports, a sort of dis-ease, but
>maybe I'm imagining things.
>
>Best
>
>A
>
>
>At 11:21 PM +0100 1/10/2001, Paul Green wrote:
>>
>>
>> Thanks for your feedback, Geraldine. Having spent sizeable periods of my
>>life drubbing away at the serrated edge of the education industry I can
>>certainly endorse your point :
>>
>> terrorists are almost without exception young males
>> with no forseeable goals (sorry about the unintended
>> pun) who are so disaffected or plain dumb stupid and
>> selfish (and almost always the ones who think women
>> are 'things' to oppress to make them feel big in their own
>> littleness in the big universe of their everday grind and
>> boredom of going nowhere ) that they'll join any cause to
>> make their lives worth while.
>>
>> And this would seem to be born out by what little is known of the
>>hi-jackers.
>>
>> Best wishes
>>
>> Paul
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
>
>Alison Croggon
>
>Home page
>http://users.bigpond.com/acroggon/
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>
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