Why do men?
Male entitlement is dangerous
More stories from Sabrina Ftouhi
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We see “I hate men” and “all men are trash” plastered on social media. Let’s explore that: What are cisgender men responsible for anyways?
A few weeks prior to me writing this, I came home to my roommates telling me a former UW-Eau Claire athlete drove up to our house trying to convince one of my roommates (who identifies as queer) to have sex with them.
After my roommate had to say “no” on more than one occasion, he drove off and proceeded to consistently message them, and I, just to see if I would play the wingman for him.
The harassment never stopped on its own. We had to collectively block him for his predatory behavior.
We see “I hate men” and “all men are trash” plastered on social media. Let’s explore that: What are cisgender men responsible for anyways?
Well, colonization, slavery, climate change, pedophilia in the catholic church and homophobia.
And, most infamously, the generations of emotional and physical trauma put onto women due to the lack of decent fathers — which only repeats this cycle.
Take a look at America’s militarized police. As of October 2020 88% of police officers were men, and recent studies show police officers are 40% more likely to be abusive or be involved in family violence.
You can connect the rest of the dots on that one.
For those cis straight men who are reading this: if these words have you feeling a little defensive or straight up offended, just think about it like when a person of color talks about white people.
For example, my non-performative white friends willingly acknowledge their privilege on a regular basis. When they hear me or my other friends complain about white people being problematic they just sit back and laugh because they know it’s true.
This goes for the boys too. If you get offended by statements regarding anti-garbage men, you sir, are part of the problem. I think now would also be the appropriate time to address this “not all men” discussion that’s been trending on Twitter recently.
I’m the cohost of a podcast on Blugold Radio Sunday called “Mind Ya Business” and last week we talked a bit about this. Technically yes, not all men are trash, but not everyone really has COVID-19, that’s why we wear masks.
Not everyone has a sexually transmitted infection, but that’s why it’s smart to use a condom, and etc.
Michelle Obama said it herself: as a society we don’t raise the boys, we coddle them so they become entitled. We raise daughters to clean up after male entitlement, and I’m tired of it.
It’s about time that men hold each other accountable instead of relying on the women and non-binary folk to do the hard work for them. Same with white people expecting POC to constantly lead the educational discussions about race.
It’s not our responsibility. Men just have to be better — let’s hope in this new decade that won’t be too much to ask.
Ftouhi can be reached at [email protected]
The 40% statistic you mention is from a survey in the 1990s (not “recent studies” by any stretch): Neidig, P.H.., Russell, H.E. & Seng, A.F. (1992). Interspousal aggression in law enforcement families: A preliminary investigation., as well as a similar survey: Lanor Johnson (Johnson, 1991).
It’s worth noting that this is actually a survey and not an empirical study. The “40% of cops are domestic abusers” stat is of course totally misleading, and this is made apparent when examining the data. “Violent incidents” for the purposes of the survey, included “loss of temper,” “acting out in anger,” “shouting,” and other incidents which do not meet the legal criteria for domestic violence. Congressional testimony regarding the 40% figure was conducted, leading to more evidence refuting the statistic. When the officers were surveyed, “We did not define the type of violence. Thus, violence could have been interpreted as verbal or physical threats or actual physical abuse.” (https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED338997)
I’d like to leave you with one last thought-provoking article. “Intimate Partner Violence Within Law Enforcement Families ” was published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Interpersonal Violence, written by a criminal justice PhD and a doctoral student. Their article, which cites an array of other studies (including the first one I mentioned that introduced the 40% statistic) finds that “correlation coefficients show that female and nonwhite respondents were likelier than male and White respondents to engage in physical aggression against an intimate partner.” (1181-1183). You can connect the rest of the dots on that one.
We actually don’t have to connect the dots because the article does it for us.
The two variables that showed a significant effect on the dataset were “authoritarian spillover” and “negative emotions”. When measuring these variables, white males were shown to have a strong correlation between authoritarian spillover and aggressive behaviors at home. That means that the authoritarian position of their job affected how they treated those who lived with them.
Negative emotions were more likely to predict aggressive behaviors at home for women of both races and black men. While the study specifically says that more research would need to be done in this area, they speculate this is likely because women and black people are more likely to experience emotional burnout than white male officers. Here’s the specific quote I’m pulling this from:
“To further examine our unexpected finding, we developed separate logistic regression models explaining IPV for different genders and racial groups. Results, shown in Table 3, suggest that differential social dynamics may explain the self-reported physical aggression of men versus women or of Whites versus African Americans. The negligible role in IPV played by authoritarian spillover and the powerful role played by negative emotions that we identified for female and African American officers is consistent with Johnson’s assertion that female and African American officers are more likely to experience “emotional burnout,” an exhaustion and emotional depletion attributed to work, than they were to experience “depersonalization,” manifesting in impersonal, unsympathetic behavior toward the public (1991b, p. 38). Some female and African American officers who did not engage in
authoritarian spillover as a coping mechanism nevertheless were physically aggressive at home, we found, and the behavior was attributable to accumulated negative feelings about their work.”
It would seem from the study you cited that the most likely explanation for the increased violence exerted by black men and women and white women is the social environment that these people are placed into in their job. This is a good indication, in my opinion, that there are some serious mysoginistic and racial sentiments within the policing institution itself that would better predict their increased rates of violence than whatever you’re suggesting.
Oh and just to round this out, here’s the section of your study that specifically mentions why black people and women may commit domestic violence at a higher rate, based on the results of this study:
“Studies have indicated that female law enforcement officers’ policing style is gentler, less aggressive than male officers’ style (Johnson, 1991a). That the female officers were found to be so affected by negative emotions, in terms of their self-reports of physical aggression against intimate partners, may indicate a completely discrete (from their male counterparts) yet key channel leading to domestic violence. That we found a significant role for authoritarian spillover in male officers’ intimate-partner aggression—and not in female officers’—implies that work-derived depersonalizing attitudes, frustration, and anger are likelier to spill over to the intimate partners of male police officers.
Our models for both male and female police officers showed that White officers, compared with the nonwhite (usually African American) officers, in
the study were less likely to be physically aggressive at home. This result supports findings of previous studies of racial and ethnic differences in domestic violence (Caetano, Cunradi, Clark, & Schafer, 2000; Ellison, Trinitapoli, Anderson, & Johnson, 2007). In our study, negative emotions significantly explained African American officers’ IPV, although the effect of negative emotions on self-reported physical aggression was not as strong as among females. Female African American officers in our study were more likely to be physically aggressive at home than male African American officers were. 1188 Journal of Interpersonal Violence 26(6)
Among the White police officers, in contrast, physical aggression did appear to be significantly explained by authoritarian spillover, negative emotions, and education but was not significantly associated with gender. The White officers most likely to report engaging in IPV were those less educated. Such a negative relationship between education level and domestic violence was not unexpected (Rani & Bonu, 2009; Simister & Makowiec, 2008). Similarly, racial distinctions in factors explaining IPV among police officers were confirmed by our study.”
If you care about actually fixing this problem, then you want to change the policing institution. Otherwise, you don’t actually care about this problem
Thanks for taking time to respond!
Imagine thinking that placing women, the sex evolved on raising offspring and gathering resources for millions of years, WOULDN’T have psychological issues when in the evolutionary blink of an eye placed in the male role of fighting and resolving violent conflicts. Women’s bodies have a fraction of the upper body strength of men’s They are shorter and lighter. They are slower. Their bones are smaller, and less dense than men’s. Is it any surprise that women’s minds are not identical to men’s, and react to violence differently? But I guess “sexism” is the easy answer.
I think the most disturbing part of what I just read is that it seems to shrug and dismiss that “women will be women,” and as long as we have a police force full of people with Internalized Misogyny™, nothing will be changed and certain demographics of our police will continue to violently assault their families at unusually high rates. I definitely agree–we really should be looking at changing our policing institutions.