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Masculinity and Violence

Due to the fact that the history of violence is such a broad topic, I will be specifically researching into what I believe are the four most violent acts a human can commit; war, genocide, torture and rape, and how themes of masculinity run through all of these atrocities. I do not intend this investigation to be an attack on men; women have also committed great atrocities, however themes of masculinity and violence have historically been entwined to a greater extent.

Violence, and what is considered to be a violent act, is in the eye of the beholder; it can be many different things depending on who is perceiving, suffering or committing the act, which therefore condemns the study of violence to ambiguity. The World Health Organisation defines violence as “the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment or deprivation”.[1] Furthermore, the organisation states that the word ‘power’ was included in their definition as it “broadens the nature of a violent act and expands the conventional understanding of violence to include those acts that result from a power relationship”.[2] This addition of ‘power’ is interesting, as it perfectly complements different definitions of masculinity. Each dictionary entry available for the word ‘masculinity’ regurgitates the same general definition; “a man’s masculinity is the fact that he is a man”[3], and this description is usually followed with synonyms of ‘macho’, ‘muscular’, ‘strong’, ‘brawny’, and ‘powerful’. On the other hand, the toxicity of masculinity means that men are stereotypically not supposed to show any weaknesses, like forming emotional attachments or feeling fragile. Power, and the act of being powerful, is something that always has been, and is still considered to be, a desirable attribute in men. To be strong and powerful is to be masculine. Therefore, if violence is linked with power, and power to masculinity, it is no surprise that most acts of violence that have occurred throughout history have been committed by men. However, masculinities need to be theorised as “historical, context dependent, shifting, and multi-faceted identities”[4], and this perspective shows that “men’s gender identities, or their masculinities, are constituted through social discourses and practices; they are not biologically determined”.[5]

A man’s sense of self and masculinity is almost taken advantage of in cases of war. Harland and McCready state that “men fighting, dying or being wounded during war and other conflicts appears to have been embedded in the human psyche from the beginning of time”.[6] Men are expected to risk their lives and take up arms, and soldiers are depicted as brave heroes; the embodiment of masculinity and power. The virtues that the military instil in men, “such as aggression, strength, courage and endurance have repeatedly been defined as the natural and inherent qualities of manhood, whose apogee is attainable only in battle”.[7] Such “courage and bravado elevated the social status of ‘brave men’ due to their prowess and ability to protect their family and community”.[8] This bravado of bravery, however, has been doctored by governments who wish for the lower men to fight their physical battles; Graham Dawson asserts that “if masculinity has had a role in imagining the nation, then so too has the nation played its part in constituting preferred forms of masculinity”.[9] He furthers this by adding “those forms of manliness that have proved efficacious for nationalist endeavour have been approvingly recognised and furthered with all the power at the disposal of the state”.[10] Scholars researching in the areas of “nationalism and international relations have also engaged with the relationships between the ideals of normative masculinities and men’s involvement in violent nationalist conflicts”[11], and have found that “the ideals of normative manhood have served nationalist struggles by forming part of the discursive narrative that […] ‘hails’ or ‘calls’ men to protect and fight for the nation”.[12] It is believed that “military sociology and studies of militarised masculinities have analysed the role of male-dominated and masculine-coded institutional cultures, homosocial peer-to-peer dynamics, sexualised induction rituals and fratriarchy in encouraging forms of violence” [13], and without the influence of military life, most men would not participate in such activities. Furthermore, the toxicity of masculinity negates any experiences like trauma that the soldiers may endure; men are supposed act as killing machines, without any remorse, and are largely forgotten about by the government if they suffer mentally afterwards. War throughout history has been painted to be an exciting adventure, and most soldiers did not, and do not, realise the serious mental impacts committing violence would have.

Even the language used to describe war is gendered and plays to a man’s masculinity; ships, tanks and other weapons of destruction are described as feminine, or referred to as ‘she’. This use of language is utilised to produce a psychological response; weapons are objects designed to be controlled by men, so their use would stimulate a masculine feeling of power. Furthermore, when setting out on expeditions to discovered new lands, men often described their discovery as stepping foot on ‘virgin’ land or territory. The act of taking a virginity, or sex in general as it was typically viewed as something that ‘happened’ to a woman by a man, would instil a further feeling of dominance and power. Carol Cohn notes how use of ‘virgin’ is also used in terms of nuclear weaponry; when a nuclear bomb exploded in India, the explosion was referred to as “‘losing her virginity’; the question of how the United States should react was posed as whether or not we should ‘throw her away’”.[14] This is because such an initiation into the “nuclear world involves being deflowered, losing one’s innocence, knowing sin”[15], and “although the manly United States is no virgin, and proud of it, the double standard raises its head in the question of whether or not a woman is still worth anything to a man once she has lost her virginity”.[16] Cohn concludes that the very essence of nuclear war terminology is sexual, and this in turn influences the perpetrator to feel masculine and dominant; they are not the passive victim, but the “competent, wily, powerful purveyor of nuclear threats”.[17] The gendered language of war can affect a man’s masculinity in other ways too; for example, if a wrecked ship is referred to as ‘she’, and it must be saved, this could prompt a man’s masculine urge to protect women.

Similarly to acts of war, it is a fact that “most, but not all, acts of genocide and mass atrocity have been perpetrated by more or less organised groups of men”[18]; however, sometimes these atrocities are “directly or indirectly assisted by boys, girls and women”.[19] According to Henri Myrttinen, there are two main reasons why this is the case; first of all, “agency in the public realm has been, and still is in most cultures, regarded as being a mostly or exclusively male domain”.[20] Furthermore, he states that “this is all the more the case for the use of physical violence in this realm, as is the access to and wielding of the requisite tools of perpetration, from machetes to guns and gas chambers”.[21] Secondly, “the necessary administrative, judicial and political institutions which provide the legal and logistical enabling framework for genocide have been historically populated by men”.[22] However, the idea that all men were complicit in the undertakings of such horrific violence is simply not true; “individuals are not born violent”[23], but violence has been utilised as some see it as a way to deal with times of struggle. Men were mostly threatened and used by those in power to get the job done, and doing their ‘jobs’ “may also act as a coping mechanism for the men to distance themselves from the acts in which they are engaging”.[24]

Furthermore, “in cases of planned, systematic, industrial-scale genocide, as with the Nazis, tropes of the efficient, modern, rational and disinterested male can also have played a role, especially among those not directly doing the killing but administrating, planning and improving on its technical details”.[25] The Nazis, and the atrocities they committed during the Second World War, are good examples of masculinity and power getting out of control. The ‘Aryan’ race, in Nazi ideology, “were gendered hypermasculine […] while a whole host of others were defined as ‘degenerate’ or ‘unworthy of life’”.[26] Whilst women were a part of Hitler’s idealised race, they were only present to give birth to children and raise families, not to have a more active role in government and society. Additionally, when it came to their victims, “Nazi racial propaganda more often depicted the male, rather than the female Other as the threat to the nation which needed to be purged”.[27]

The Holocaust isn’t the only example of power and masculinity taking control in cases of genocide, but while “in other genocides the masculinist bent of the ideological frameworks has been less explicit”[28], it is still present. During the Rwandan and Burundian genocides, the underpinnings of the violent acts committed were “highly gendered and racialised […] while the men of the other side were, de-humanised and cast as a danger to the purity and moral rectitude of the nation, the men of one’s own side were called upon to carry out the violent purging of these Others”.[29] Caroline Williamson believes that the Rwandan genocide was “as much a crisis of masculinity as it was one of ethnicity”[30], as “political stagnation, economic decline and civil war had left Hutu men suffering from unemployment, insecurity and the remnants of an inferiority complex”.[31] Marc Sommers furthers this by demonstrating how young men were exploited to commit atrocities; civil war following the invasion of the Rwandan Patriotic Front, along with food shortages and drought, made “poor, unemployed male youth easy pickings for those organising the genocide”.[32] Therefore, by “exploiting the weaknesses of young Hutu men, the orchestrators of the genocide were able to persuade them to participate by promoting the Interahamwe through idealised masculinities and by referring to the killing as ‘work’”.[33]

Torture has notoriously been used as a devise by governments, also under the guise of ‘work’, in times of war to both instil fear into their enemies whilst also gaining valuable intelligence. Darius Rejali believes that there is some kind of pressure in the minds of torturers; “either you do so, and prove you’re a man. Or you do not, and then you show you are weak, because your values – democratic, enlightened, liberal, idealistic – made you weak”.[34] This ultimate ‘test’ of manhood has been exploited by people in power, who usually manipulate men into doing their dirty work for them, so the blame doesn’t fall back on governmental bodies. In Afghanistan in 2003, an American interrogator goaded men to not “be pussies”[35] and perform these violent acts for the greater good of the country and the gathering of intelligence. Darius Rejali states that it has previously been believed that “it is democratic life that makes men weak, particularly soldiers, and that being tortured and in turn torturing others is an antidote to this weakness, allowing men to return to themselves as men and overcome the weaknesses engendered by democratic life”.[36] However, he furthers this by adding his own analysis; that “the notion that democracy corrupts human beings or that the demand for equality undermines manliness is an old one”[37], and that the real question is “whether violence and torture can shore up one’s manhood in the face of this corruption”.[38] Torturers are not born; they have to be created through military settings and the manipulation of their masculinity. They were ordinary, everyday men who turned to sadistic violence due to the circumstances they found themselves in.

In comparison to war, torture is not “where individuals struggle for victory and recognition as masters and slaves […] Torture arises after the defeat of one side, and is born in hatred”.[39] The torturer wishes for his victim to lose all sense of human dignity, and often “the torturer pits himself against the tortured for his ‘manhood’”.[40] Nevertheless, and as is the case with war and genocide, torture has been interpreted by historians to involve a “phallocratic”[41] nature; it advocates masculine dominance and power. Marnia Lazreg believes that “sex is always present in the torture chamber”[42], from the act of stripping down the victim to their most vulnerable state to threatening another person’s genitals as the final straw that makes them crack. Furthermore, the re-enactment of sexual situations during acts of torture “goes far beyond a simple, albeit real, gratification of sexual fantasy; it enables the torturer vicariously, through sight more than touch, to re-assert his masculinity as he coerces another man’s body to mimic sexual pleasure agony”.[43] Lazreg furthers that this could be due to the fact that “a naked male body evokes a narcissistic satisfaction of maleness”[44], despite such homoerotic acts typically being viewed as emasculating and effeminate.

Darius Rejali interestingly titled his article ‘Torture Makes the Man’, and further explores “why we might think violence, and torture in particular, requires and generates a kind of manly strength”.[45] However, he concludes that “in fact, torture does not and cannot make the man – it leaves behind broken victims and burned out and traumatised interrogators, and that is all that it leaves behind”.[46] The flip side of masculinity, or its toxic aspects, also means that “abused men seldom describe their sexual humiliation and manipulation under torture”[47], and this is due to the fact that the physical violation that men endured altered their sense of self; their very “identity as a male was violated”.[48]

Whilst men have suffered sexual abuse through means of torture, they have also been perpetrators of sexual violence, namely rape, throughout history. Rape is a slightly different category from those previously explored in this essay, as committing rape is generally something done through free will; there are no governmental bodies or influencers manipulating men into committing the violence. In this case, “the infliction of cruelty is a choice”.[49] Many feminists stress that “rape is an extension of the social construction of male sexuality as active, dominant and aggressive; in this sense, rape is sexual as well as violent”.[50] However, Anna Clark argues that “male sexuality […] must be put into historical perspective in order to avoid the notion that men have always had a biological sex drive which compelled them to rape for sexual gratification”.[51] Joanna Bourke furthers this argument, as she believes that “focusing on perpetrators of sexual violence is risky”[52], as “in innumerable subtle ways, misleading dichotomies of male-active and female-passive emerge within texts of violence”.[53] She questions “might the focus on male agents of suffering reduce women to mere spectacles of victimisation, thus contributing to cultural fantasies of female passivity?”[54] Furthermore, “there is also the danger of strengthening the other side of the dichotomy: the purported natural link between masculinity and aggression”.[55] Whilst men have always been perceived as aggressors, ready to rape at will, this is simply not the case.

Nevertheless, it is true that most cases of rape are committed by males. Furthermore, when prosecuting a rapist there are many obstacles that must be overcome; there are myriad definitions of what constitutes as rape, and this ambiguity has allowed many sexual violators walk free. Also, “since rape legislation has often been framed from a male perspective, the victim’s unique identity has often been effaced in the legislation, making rape the act of having sex with a woman who does not ‘belong’ to the perpetrator”.[56] Therefore, it is not uncommon for married men to be “automatically spares prosecution under rape legislation if their actions were directed against their own ‘property’, that is, their wife”.[57] Marital rape was only officially made illegal in 1992 in the United Kingdom. For a man to be sent to prison for rape, the court would demand “either direct witness of good repute, which was rarely available, or physical evidence”[58], which the victim would usually have to gather themselves. If the victim “failed to provide a surgeon’s testimony of injuries, their case was almost invariably doomed”.[59]

In the eighteenth-century, “so many obstacles lay in the path of prosecuting a rape charge”.[60] Furthermore, “scholars have recently detected in that era not simply a continuation of traditional patriarchy but an actually ‘rising tide of misogyny, and in particular a new pressure upon (or encouragement of) men to be more sexually aggressive with women”.[61] The eighteenth-century saw a “libertine discourse [which] permeated slang and masculine popular culture, glorifying rape as a source of amusement, or a way of proving their masculinity to other men”.[62] Women were perceived as commodities to be won; the property of men, and because of this men were seemingly allowed free reign to do whatever they wished to female bodies. In the words of Anna Clark, “men did not rape because they had an uncontrollable sexual urge; rather, men who raped believed that sex involved the ‘taking’ of women and that they had a right to women’s sexuality”.[63] However, women are not always the victim; in terms of men being the victims of rape, they “may question their masculinity or sexual orientation, as male rape essentially challenges or contradicts men’s power, strength, self-reliance and independence”.[64] This is why most men who get raped do not report it to the authorities; they feel ashamed and embarrassed about what they went through, as the violation of their bodies is seen as a weakness that does not fit in with their desired image of masculinity.

To conclude, acts of great violence that have been documented throughout history “involve men and boys in central roles – be it as perpetrators, victims and survivors; as enablers, preventers, by-standers and chroniclers”.[65] The history of violence is intrinsically intertwined with concepts of masculinity; a socially created phenomenon that has been utilised and often taken advantage of by those in positions of power, and its presence is shown both in the language we utilise and the acts we commit. In the words of Arthur Brittan, “masculinism is the ideology that justifies and naturalises male domination”[66], and by understanding masculinity, we can better understand “the ideological underpinnings which enable genocide and [other violent] mass atrocities, and also the micro-dynamics of perpetration at the personal and unit level”.[67]

Further Reading:

Ashe, F., and Harland, K., ‘Troubling Masculinities: Changing Patterns of Violent Masculinities in a Society Emerging from Political Conflict’, Studied in Conflict & Terrorism, 37 (2014)

Bourke, J., Rape: A History from 1860 to the Present Day (London: Virago Press, 2007)

Brittan, A., Masculinity and Power (Oxford: Blackwell, 1989)

Clark, A., Women’s Silence, Men’s Violence: Sexual Assault in England 1770-1845 (London, 1987)

Cohn, C., ‘Sex and Death in the Rational World of Defence Intellectuals’, Signs, 12.4 (1987)

Dawson, G., Soldier Heroes: British Adventure, Empire and the Imagining of Masculinities (London and New York: Routledge, 1994)

Harland, K., and McCready, S., Boys, Young Men and Violence: Masculinities, Education and Practice (Basingstoke Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015)

Harper Collins, ‘Masculinity’, in Collins Free Online Dictionary <https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/masculinity> [accessed 19/12/18]

Javaid, A., ‘The Unknown Victims: Hegemonic Masculinity, Masculinities, and Male Sexual Victimisation’, Sociological Research Online, 22.1 (2017)

Lazreg, M., Torture and the Twilight of Empire: From Algiers to Baghdad (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2008)

Myrttinen, H., ‘Men, Masculinities and Genocide’, in Conellan, M. and Fröhlich, C. (eds), A Gendered Lens for Genocide Prevention (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018)

Rejali, D. M., ‘Torture Makes the Man’, South Central Review, 24.1 (2007)

Sommers, M., ‘Fearing Africa’s Young Men: The Case of Rwanda’, Conflict Prevention & Reconstruction, World Bank Social Development Papers, 32 (2006)

Wiener, M. J., Men of Blood: Violence, Manliness and Criminal Justice in Victorian England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004)

Williamson, C., ‘Genocide, Masculinity and Post-Traumatic Growth in Rwanda’, Journal of Genocide Research, 18.1 (2016)

World Health Organisation, ‘Violence – a Global Public Health Concern’, World Report on Violence and Health (Geneva: World Health Organisation, 2002)

References:

[1] World Health Organisation, ‘Violence – a Global Public Health Concern’, World Report on Violence and Health (Geneva: World Health Organisation, 2002), p.5

[2] Ibid.

[3] Harper Collins, ‘Masculinity’, in Collins Free Online Dictionary <https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/masculinity> [accessed 19/12/18]

[4] Ashe, F., and Harland, K., ‘Troubling Masculinities: Changing Patterns of Violent Masculinities in a Society Emerging from Political Conflict’, Studied in Conflict & Terrorism, 37 (2014), p.749

[5] Ibid.

[6] Harland, K., and McCready, S., Boys, Young Men and Violence: Masculinities, Education and Practice (Basingstoke Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), p.3

[7] Dawson, G., Soldier Heroes: British Adventure, Empire and the Imagining of Masculinities (London and New York: Routledge, 1994), p.1

[8] Harland, K., and McCready, S., Boys, Young Men and Violence: Masculinities, Education and Practice (Basingstoke Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), p.3

[9] Dawson, G., Soldier Heroes: British Adventure, Empire and the Imagining of Masculinities (London and New York: Routledge, 1994), p.1

[10] Ibid., pp.1-2

[11] Ashe, F., and Harland, K., ‘Troubling Masculinities: Changing Patterns of Violent Masculinities in a Society Emerging from Political Conflict’, Studied in Conflict & Terrorism, 37 (2014), p.750

[12] Ibid.

[13] Myrttinen, H., ‘Men, Masculinities and Genocide’, in Conellan, M. and Fröhlich, C. (eds), A Gendered Lens for Genocide Prevention (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), p.36

[14] Cohn, C., ‘Sex and Death in the Rational World of Defence Intellectuals’, Signs, 12.4 (1987), p.696

[15] Ibid.

[16] Ibid.

[17] Ibid., p.707

[18] Myrttinen, H., ‘Men, Masculinities and Genocide’, in Conellan, M. and Fröhlich, C. (eds), A Gendered Lens for Genocide Prevention (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), p.32

[19] Ibid.

[20] Ibid., p.33

[21] Ibid., p.32

[22] Ibid., p.33

[23] Harland, K., and McCready, S., Boys, Young Men and Violence: Masculinities, Education and Practice (Basingstoke Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), p.3

[24] Myrttinen, H., ‘Men, Masculinities and Genocide’, in Conellan, M. and Fröhlich, C. (eds), A Gendered Lens for Genocide Prevention (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), p.33

[25] Myrttinen, H., ‘Men, Masculinities and Genocide’, in Conellan, M. and Fröhlich, C. (eds), A Gendered Lens for Genocide Prevention (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), p.33

[26] Ibid., p.34

[27] Ibid.

[28] Ibid., p.35

[29] Ibid.

[30] Williamson, C., ‘Genocide, Masculinity and Post-Traumatic Growth in Rwanda’, Journal of Genocide Research, 18.1 (2016), p.42

[31] Williamson, C., ‘Genocide, Masculinity and Post-Traumatic Growth in Rwanda’, Journal of Genocide Research, 18.1 (2016), p.42

[32] Sommers, M., ‘Fearing Africa’s Young Men: The Case of Rwanda’, Conflict Prevention & Reconstruction, World Bank Social Development Papers, 32 (2006), p.8

[33] Williamson, C., ‘Genocide, Masculinity and Post-Traumatic Growth in Rwanda’, Journal of Genocide Research, 18.1 (2016), p.42

[34] Rejali, D. M., ‘Torture Makes the Man’, South Central Review, 24.1 (2007), p.163

[35] Ibid., p.151

[36] Rejali, D. M., ‘Torture Makes the Man’, South Central Review, 24.1 (2007), p.151

[37] Ibid.

[38] Ibid.

[39] Ibid., p.155

[40] Ibid.

[41] Lazreg, M., Torture and the Twilight of Empire: From Algiers to Baghdad (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2008), p.100

[42] Ibid., p.123

[43] Lazreg, M., Torture and the Twilight of Empire: From Algiers to Baghdad (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2008), p.127

[44] Ibid.

[45] Rejali, D. M., ‘Torture Makes the Man’, South Central Review, 24.1 (2007), p.151

[46] Ibid., p.152

[47] Lazreg, M., Torture and the Twilight of Empire: From Algiers to Baghdad (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2008), p.124

[48] Ibid., p.125

[49] Bourke, J., Rape: A History from 1860 to the Present Day (London: Virago Press, 2007), p.6

[50] Clark, A., Women’s Silence, Men’s Violence: Sexual Assault in England 1770-1845 (London, 1987), p.6

[51] Clark, A., Women’s Silence, Men’s Violence: Sexual Assault in England 1770-1845 (London, 1987), p.6

[52] Bourke, J., Rape: A History from 1860 to the Present Day (London: Virago Press, 2007), p.6

[53] Ibid., pp.6-7

[54] Ibid., p.7

[55] Ibid.

[56] Ibid., p.9

[57] Ibid.

[58] Wiener, M. J., Men of Blood: Violence, Manliness and Criminal Justice in Victorian England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), p.83

[59] Ibid.

[60] Ibid., p.78

[61] Ibid.

[62] Clark, A., Women’s Silence, Men’s Violence: Sexual Assault in England 1770-1845 (London, 1987), p.6

[63] Ibid., p.7

[64] Javaid, A., ‘The Unknown Victims: Hegemonic Masculinity, Masculinities, and Male Sexual Victimisation’, Sociological Research Online, 22.1 (2017), p.2

[65] Myrttinen, H., ‘Men, Masculinities and Genocide’, in Conellan, M. and Fröhlich, C. (eds), A Gendered Lens for Genocide Prevention (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), p.27

[66] Brittan, A., Masculinity and Power (Oxford: Blackwell, 1989), p.4

[67] Myrttinen, H., ‘Men, Masculinities and Genocide’, in Conellan, M. and Fröhlich, C. (eds), A Gendered Lens for Genocide Prevention (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), p.28