Stop Saying ‘People’ When You Really Mean ‘Men’
“Humanity doesn’t have a violence problem, we have a male violence problem.”
Humanity doesn’t have a violence problem, we have a male violence problem. It sounds confronting when you hear it put in such clear terms, but denying reality won’t change reality, whereas accepting and discussing it might.
The numbers don’t lie.
Some women are violent, but that doesn’t alter the fact that the majority of violence, whether against women or men, is perpetrated by men.
For those few of you who’ve been living in an alternate universe, I’ve included links at the bottom citing what we already know. Men are a lot more violent than women, across the board. Men throughout all cultures, ethnicities, men of all colours, creeds, and religions are much more violent than women—to each other and to women.
Men are the main instigators of war, commit at least 90% of all violent crime, and behave as though raping women in wartime is an aperitif.
Allow me to pause here for a second to allow the ‘not-all-menners’ to step away from the keyboard. If you’re not a violent man, you’re not under discussion, nor are my fiance, my son, or my brothers. Just as you know when you read an article about scientists searching for a cure for cancer they don’t mean all scientists, you already know “men” doesn’t mean “all men.”
How did this happen?
Nobody knows.
You can posit whatever theories you like, and they are plentiful. All we truly know is that somewhere humanity took a wrong turn. Some men, at some point, decided that the simplest way to get what they wanted was to use violence to get it. And they did that because they could.
Somewhere, at some time, physically stronger men decided that it was okay to harm others if their immediate whims were satisfied. Somewhere, somewhen, men started suppressing the knowledge that women are human too. Other men quickly learned they had to be violent to have their whims satisfied, too.
Women began being taught that defending themselves could lead to being beaten raped and murdered. Of course, women not defending themselves leads to them being beaten raped and murdered too, so women being taught to be subservient just makes it easier for violent men to harm women. But when you live in a society shaped by the most violent men (and we do) that sort of clear thinking logic is difficult to apply.
“It’s tempting to assume male dominance is the natural state of human society. It isn’t.”
We can apply all the theories we want. But the truth is, it doesn’t really matter why we have ended up living in such a dangerous, violent world run by dangerous, violent men. The reality is, we unfortunately do.
Sugar and spice and all things nice—men just can’t help it.
If we all woke up tomorrow and women were just as physically strong as men, many of your cherished myths about what is “natural” female behaviour would be dispersed fast. I know I’ve never remotely resembled a submissive or placid little doll who’d be happy to let you stomp on her rights. But that’s irrelevant because we won’t wake up in that world tomorrow.
However, what is relevant is that violent men are, for the most part, choosing to be violent men.
How many times have you seen the man who just snapped and couldn’t help himself from assaulting or murdering a woman at the local supermarket, church, school run, PTA meeting—or even the local pub? You haven’t. And if you claim to have seen this, you’re in the tiny minority. Even in a place where alcohol is regularly consumed, it is almost unheard of for men to “just snap.”
They wait until the woman is unprotected and choose to assault her away from protective eyes.
On almost every occasion violence occurs, men are choosing that violence. It is a choice. It starts as a choice to use violent language and moves into violent behaviour which ends, a lot more often than it should, in the rape and death of women by men.
Make the link.
The Make The Link Organisation discusses the link between sexist jokes, speech, and behaviours, and more violent behaviours. Turning a blind eye to ugly slurs and insults means you are turning a blind eye to potentially dangerous men.
Please don’t pretend you don’t already know that men who speak in foul terms about women are dangerous men. There is a direct link between sexist or misogynistic behaviours and “jokes” and more dangerous behaviours.
Why It Matters.
Language shapes attitudes. Attitudes shape behaviour. We police ourselves.
Our ape brains accept what the society of other apes accepts as normality. The majority of the time we naked apes will go along with the majority consensus. Blame evolution. Only when we actually make the effort to remove a behaviour from society do we see real change.
Remember when women weren’t allowed the human right of voting? Remember when people smoked everywhere, planes trains and automobiles? Remember the hardened believers telling everyone they couldn’t change anything, it was just the way it was and always would be?
And yet change things we did.
The vast majority of behaviours complied with by societal agreement are not policed by any outside source. It would be an unmanageable system. Without being aware of it consciously, we agree to social terms when approved by the majority, and for the most part, as social apes do, we go along to get along.
And male violence is taught to children, normalised, accepted and winked at, at every level of society. From kindy to the grave we make excuses for and turn away from male violence. The why of that isn’t really the issue. The issue is that we can change this.
And one easy way to start that change is to remove the bubble wrap around speaking about male violence. Stop worrying about hurting men’s feelings. Start thinking about pushing back and changing things for the better.
When reporting the news, commenting on an article, writing a post on Facebook, or out in the real world, indeed anywhere at all, if discussing male violence and male crimes, say so.
Say men kill women. Say men kill men. Say men are responsible for at least 90% of all violent crime. Say men start wars. Say men murder one another in horrific amounts. Say the word men if you are talking about men.
Violence didn’t kill her. A man killed her. Do not use the word people if you mean men.
If you imagine we already do this, I’m afraid you’d be wrong. Really look at the words people use and the headlines. Read things critically. Then name the problem. Let “people” see the extent of the problem the world has with male violence.
A First Step
The first step to forcing those men responsible for most of the violence in the world is to actually speak about their violence as being unacceptable in a loud clear voice. If we make the effort, as “people” to state the facts about male violence clearly, if we call out men for their violent behaviour instead of hiding behind the word people, we drag the problem into the light.
We can only do that by naming the problem. The problem is not human violence. The problem is male violence.
Once in the light, the second step should be speaking up loudly, often and regularly (when safe to do so) on how it is totally unacceptable that these men are so violent. Never victim-blaming. Never pontificating. Simply stating that violent men are disgusting men, they are choosing to be violent, and we want them to stop it. Make it clear that these men should and must stop it.
Shame As A Societal Tool
Shame violent men into being less violent. Shame is a well-studied tool, and it works.
There will always be a small core of resistant psychopaths, those with cognitive issues, and anti-social deviants. But if you bother to make a behaviour unacceptable (as we have in no way done with male violence) over a relatively short time all but the most hardened recalcitrants will, at worst, minimise their behaviour, and at best, stop it.
“Through the lens of evolutionary biology, shame evolved to encourage adherence to beneficial social norms. This is backed up by the fact that shame is more prevalent in collectivist societies where people spend little to no time alone than it is in individualistic societies where people live more isolated lives.”
Not only don’t we shame violent men, but we also glorify them. We glorify them in the media, in our speech, in our leaders. And then we hide male violence behind the word “people.”
The third step—who knows what that might look like. If we can all, collectively, agree to steps one and two, we can collectively find a third step to move forward.
Make the first step. You can do one thing differently. One thing that matters.
Please stop saying people when you mean men. Because the truth, for some, could be a matter of life and death.
Sources:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23831740-400-the-origins-of-sexism-how-men-came-to-rule-12000-years-ago/
https://makethelink.org.au/make-the-link/whymakethelink/
https://fs.blog/2020/01/positive-side-of-shame/
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/violence-against-women
https://www.ourwatch.org.au/quick-facts/
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/85-002-x/2018001/article/54978/02-eng.htm
https://www.womensaid.org.uk/information-support/what-is-domestic-abuse/domestic-abuse-is-a-gendered-crime/
https://ncadv.org/statistics
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4628110/
Alison Tennent is Scottish by birth, bloodline and temperament, and Australian since 2002 by citizenship ceremony. She’s worked as a counsellor (Grief and Loss), and in disability and mental health for many years. She is an outspoken advocate for de-stigmatising mental health disorders and challenges, and resides in Queensland, Australia, where the weather offers sunshine one day, cyclones the next. You can find a link to her Medium work here: https://medium.com/@besomandbletherskite