Got into a fight with a friend's wife and she believes that "women are biologically not inclined to violence like men"

stoltestekriger · 2013-09-20T09:27:03+00:00

Ask her what she thinks about black people or Latinos, then.

AloysiusC · 2013-09-20T07:06:05+00:00

You can't directly compare men and women because their circumstances are different. You can get much more reliable information when you compare different people (even within the genders) across different classes. A very revealing fact is that with men, violence is inversely proportional to how powerful they are. In other words, the more helpless they are, the more violent they become. That directly contradicts the idea that men are inherently violent. If they were, then it would be the other way round. If anything, men's greater likelihood to be violent is an indication of their hardship and lack of power in general.

Another aspect people conveniently forget is that, if it were true that men were biologically more prone to be violent, then that would ethically justify lower punishment than for women. Claiming men are naturally violent is essentially pronouncing them not responsible. Somehow I doubt the femibabies wish to do that though I doubt any of them thought that far.

5th_Law_of_Robotics · 2013-09-20T14:39:59+00:00

Of the people I've seen casually hit another in public out of anger the vast majority have been women.

Side note: isn't it interesting how people will readily assign all manner of bad qualities to being biologically male but immediately cry "MISOGYNY!" if one attempts to link some good quality to being male? Men can be equal, or worse. Never better. Women can be equal, or better. Never worse.

Nomenimion · 2013-09-20T07:00:50+00:00

It may be entirely true that men are more likely to commit violent crimes. That doesn't mean that women are naturally more ethical, however.

If men were incapable of violence, women would have had no one to look out for them over the past 100,000 years.

Cthulusbaby · 2013-09-20T12:05:09+00:00

Well, she's partially right. Testosterone increases aggression and promotes muscle growth.

dbe · 2013-09-20T10:03:04+00:00

Just because men are more aggressive and more likely to be violent, doesn't mean there's not a ton of overlap. Men are also taller than women, but there's a ton of overlap there too.

Modron · 2013-09-20T09:31:06+00:00

The problem is that a woman can harass and dish out beatings for years without it being counted as it isn't taken seriously by victims or society. The second a man puts his foot down however, it's going to be counted and dealt with. This may also in fact be the plan and part of a long goading process. Most people underestimate and don't realize the effects of the long emotional grind. Imagine having a clown running loose in your house. That doesn't seem all that bad and is maybe even funny for a while, but eventually the little things it does wears you down as it gradually goes from suddenly blowing loud horns to suddenly throwing pies in your face. It's going to build up a lot of anger over time. Still, men become acclimated to a lot so it can take a really long time to snap. Maybe you come home after a particularly bad day and there's the clown shoving a pie in your face and laughing. And then you snap and give the clown what's coming to it. Bad idea. Proceed to jail. In jail and elsewhere everybody is wondering how could you? How could you beat up a funny clown? You are a terrible and violent man.

Similarly women like her think that when they're around it's a funny circus and an entertaining fun for all event when they throw fits and fists. It's not like when a man does it. That's just not the same. They're like the clowns. You're like the rabid animal that needs to be put down.

Nutz76 · 2013-09-20T13:36:06+00:00

By definition you cannot reason with someone who's being unreasonable.

Just tell her she's wrong and here's why:

www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm

crankypants15 · 2013-09-20T14:50:27+00:00

"women are biologically not inclined to violence like men"

That's not true. Women are more at risk for certain mental illnesses which can lead to violence. Sources:

http://www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/genderwomen/en/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_disorders_and_gender
"Women 40% more likely to develop mental illness than men." http://atlanta.cbslocal.com/2013/05/23/study-women-40-percent-more-likely-to-develop-mental-illness-than-men/
"Women are more likely to be diagnosed with anxiety or depression..." http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2011/08/mental-illness.aspx

iMADEthis2post · 2013-09-20T16:58:56+00:00

Your friends wife needs educating. Women are violent fuckers, it is the opinion of experts that women hit out more often than men. women generally use violence against family members (children and partners) men generally use violence against strangers when challenged for whatever reason, which does not exclude the opposite. These are just my observations going through life but I have seen many an article echoing my own experiences. I think you should find a few studies that show the following.

Women hit out more than men in domestic relationships.
In mutually violent relationships women start the violence most of the time.
Women are the primary abusers of children.
Testosterone has a calming effect on males, when it degrades into estrogen however it becomes a violent hormone.
In lesbian relationships the instances of rape is higher than the 1in4 statistic the feminists seem to love.

Also just to add to the last point, I have not seen a study looking at DV in lesbian relationships only rape, but that would be a very interesting read, If you find one please post back.

Geohump · 2013-09-20T18:20:04+00:00

Until there is scientific proof that attitudes about violence are cultural indoctrination, I'm afraid you won't get anywhere.

For some people ignorance is bliss. You can't take people's bliss away from them without a fight.

2013-09-20T18:22:04+00:00

use google scholar to search for gender-neutral studies on intimate partner violence. surveys that ask the same questions of men and women consistently show that men an women commit spousal abuse at the same rates. also, gender-neutral surveys concerning parenting trends also show that women are consistently more likely to abuse their own children than men are. it's baffling that this information isn't more widely known.

Jazzeki · 2013-09-20T18:53:16+00:00

She believes my opinion is based on the fact that my ex broke my heart and won't let me see my kid but in fact those events led me to /r/MensRights and I learnt a lot over the last year.

i'd suggest that "men are biologically not inclinded to be petty, vindictive and cruel like women" just to see how well that would go over. i have as much basis for my statment as she has for hers.

2013-09-20T14:39:46+00:00

Tell her that humans share 50% of their DNA with a banana (true fact, source provided), and that therefore because she's so dumb she must have got some extra of the banana DNA.

RogueWedge · 2013-09-20T12:11:06+00:00

The female of [some] animal / insect species dispute their claim. Lioness do the hunting in packs, female praying mantis rips the males head off after sex.. Why should female humans be all that different?

rightsbot · 2013-09-20T06:38:17+00:00

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2013-09-20T11:52:53+00:00

Men are not inclined to violence. There is this tiny minority of aggressive men who act violently every now and then, perhaps for a few minutes every week or even more often. But even they are non-violent almost all of the time. The rest of men are very seldom or never physically violent unless they feel threatened, feel that they have to protect somebody, or something else out of the ordinary happens. This is the big picture in every major culture.

Women are even less inclined to violence, I suppose, and clearly less capable because of their relative strength. But women do act more violently than men towards their own children where physical strength or the lack of it doesn't deter them.

Boss_Monkey · 2013-09-20T16:53:10+00:00

If men are more biologically inclined to violence, does that make female violence inherently more evil?

2013-09-20T17:25:09+00:00

Men are more aggressive, not violent. Women can be emotionally driven to violence pretty easily.

moodyone · 2013-09-21T03:40:52+00:00

I don't have the links that you require, but I don't think any amount of studies that simply demonstrate that domestic violence against men is real will disprove her claim that women are not biologically inclined to violence whereas men are--unless you believe that biology is destiny.

Interestingly, there doesn't seem to be a consensus on that point among MRAs or feminists (I have no idea about a scientific consensus). Another post on the first or second page of this sub right now lampoons feminists for claiming that Darwin was a chauvinist because Darwin made certain claims about innate sexual differences. The commenters on that post all seem to side with Darwin. In the linked article, however, one of the differences Darwin alleges is that men are more "pugnacious" than women. So, in other words, your friend's wife is on Darwin's side (at least, as that article has it) and on the opposite side of the feminists critiquing Darwin (again, according to the article). The comments on this post so far seem divided on the issue of whether men are biologically more predisposed to physical violence.

I think the real issue is, is this the real question that needs to be asked? Does everything really depend on establishing a biological inclination, or lack thereof, along gender lines? Because science has always been much, much worse at telling us how people naturally would be under some hypothetical set of circumstances than at telling us how they actually behave. Pure biological inclinations cannot be observed in humans.

If the real question is "are men the victims of DV, and to what extent?", I don't see how answering the other question even helps that much. After all, men might be the victims of DV, but in lower numbers than women; this in turn might suggest that women are less biologically inclined to violence than men (but not totally disinclined), but it wouldn't show that DV isn't real or isn't a big problem for men.

2013-09-20T11:38:04+00:00

Women are more biologically inclined to be violent. That's why, despite a lifetime of socialization telling them to be nice, they are more likely than the male parent to severely abuse their kids and as likely to abuse a female partner as a male is.

Eulabeia · 2013-09-20T12:49:50+00:00

She's right. Women aren't technically as violent because they can usually just get others to be violent for them.

It's like the difference between economic classes. Are richer people less violent? You could say yes but the reasons are obvious. They're more privileged, they can hire people to do their dirty work, and they're more prone to white collar crimes.

SHITLORDHERE · 2013-09-20T13:38:51+00:00

Ignore her. You can't win an argument with an irrational, shrill, histrionic factually/intellectually/logically challenged half-wit. It's like trying to convince a "fundy" that the earth ISN'T 10,000 years old.

SwanOfAvon22 · 2013-09-20T15:06:51+00:00

Men are more likely to commit violence and we are biologically programmed to be the more violent sex. Zoological giveaways include greater upper body strength, canine teeth and the clenching of fists in anger or frustration.

The reason we predominate in fields like math and engineering is the same reason women predominate in the humanities: men are, in general, more prone to "systematizing" and women more prone to empathy and building social relationships.

This really needs to be understood (study Pinker, Dawkins, Robert Sapolsky, Simon Baron-Cohen, etc etc etc) as it is the fundamental reason for why men and women are different and why these differences create unequal distributions in society (why men make more money/work longer hours, for example....).

None of this excuses a court system that excessively penalizes men and underpunishes women -- any given woman can be equally or more violent than any given man.

edit: Robert Sapolsky, human behavior biologist, explaining the evolutionary basis of aggression. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLE71i4JJiM

It doesn't help our cause to turn a blind eye to science. It only hurts spurious theories like "the patriarchy"

carchamp1 · 2013-09-20T12:45:58+00:00

Men are way more violent by absolutely any metric. Not sure what you're getting at here.

Title	Got into a fight with a friend's wife and she believes that "women are biologically not inclined to violence like men"
Author	[deleted]
Upvotes	65
Comments	108
Date	September 20, 2013 6:36 AM UTC (12 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/1mribh/got_into_a_fight_with_a_friends_wife_and_she/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/got-into-a-fight-with-a-friends-wife-and-she.1163396 https://theredarchive.com/post/1163396

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