Our Culture Breeds Violent Men
In my previous work as a crisis counselor, I encountered a number of cases of physical and sexual abuse. I met very young children who were victims of incest (abused by their fathers, uncles, grandfathers, step-father etc.) as well as women who were victims of domestic violence. Although I abhor all forms of violence and support all of its victims (regardless of race, age, or gender), I have observed that most victims of violence are often the women and children, and the perpetrators are mostly the men. Why is this so?
One explanation may be the fact that most of modern cultures are patriarchal in nature. In a culture of patriarchy, men’s property rights extend to (and over) both women and children. Hence, men have more power and control as well as privileges than the women.
There are many factors which I think contribute to why women in most societies are often the victims of violence. In this post, I will discuss one, which is the influence of Family Socialization and Parenting Style in a Patriarchal Culture.
According to Bandura’s “Social Learning Theory”, a child learns to behave aggressively through observation and imitation of aggressive behavior. Parents may reinforce aggressive behavior directly through their own examples, or indirectly when it is seen in the context of “standing up” for himself (herself) instead of being a “cry baby”. Hence, “crying” is seen as a sign of weakness and often associated with a girl’s behavior, while aggression in males are more tolerated and in some degrees expected.
In a patriarchal culture, men are generally socialized to be more aggressive than the females. This could be observed for example, in the types of toys and games that we encourage our children to play with early on in their childhood (i.e. toy guns, balls, trains, trucks for our sons, while dolls, toy houses, and the like for our daughtersa). Similarly, we are more tolerant of our sons when they engage in rough play (”boys will be boys”) since we expect that it goes with the territory of being males. Hence, early on, we are already socializing and preparing them to their stereotyped gender roles - for the boys to be strong and aggressive, and for the girls to be nurturing, weak and emotional.
In dating relationships, the males are expected to be the “pursuers” and the women are the “pursued”. Although this practice is slowly changing, this is still the norm especially in most Asian countries. Similarly, there is a belief that women initially “play hard to get” when they turn down men who pursue them. Men on the other hand, find this as a challenge and “push” harder. When taken to the extreme, this leads to date rape and the perpetuation of the rape myth that “women mean yes when they say no”.
Furthermore, the sense of “ownership” that males feel over their wives/girlfriends/daughters/sisters etc. somehow also provides them justification for domestic violence. Because of this unequal power relationship, women are more prone to abuse than the men.
This is one of the reasons why I think our culture breeds violent men . . . any violent reactions?!