And to be fair, traditionalists have been prattling the same way about it going much further back than feminism’s second wave. Where it concerns violence against women, traditionalists are just feminists without funding and hashtags.
The result is that after a half century of so-called feminist scholarship, squandering billions of other people’s dollars on government acts like VAWA, the only perspective we’ve gained on the subject from feminists is a dead match for the time-tested, traditionalist edict, “There is no reason for ever hitting a woman. Ever.”
It’s the domestic violence version of Nancy Regan’s vapid, “Just say no to drugs.”
Whether preached from the mouth of Jessica Valenti or your great-grandfather, that virtue signaling, along with the entrenched belief that men are inherently bad, serves as the unquestioned foundation for thought on the subject.
Hundreds of generations of psychosocial evolution and 50 years of corrupt ideology now intersect at the same gynocentric platitude, like two ticks latched on to the same clueless dog.
We are informed that violence against women continues to be a scourge demanding panicked, high profile intervention…..on men, and men only. And we’ve embraced a model that sees men as aggressors whose attacks happen in a vacuum, as though their pitiable female victims were not even remotely involved in their abuse till fist met face.
It appears that violent men are fires that set themselves. And that fire is the only thing that matters. Not the causes and not the means of prevention.
It serves feminists and traditionalists well to take that position, too, because if they ever stood back and took a good, strong, clear-eyed look at the big picture, they’d have to acknowledge something that would send foundation shattering shock waves through their worldview.
When it comes to violence against women, many of them ask for it.
What’s that I hear? A great big collective gasp? The clatter of pearls being clutched? Aye, all that and the sound of fainting couches being rolled out across floors of outrage.
That’s the false piety of modern times. In saying that some women play a role, that they have direct responsibility in getting their asses kicked by the men in their lives, I have committed social sacrilege. I’ve tread on the inviolable belief that any hint of female culpability for their physical abuse is inherently immoral – even sinister.
Fine then. Let us all twirl our moustaches and continue.
The never blame the victim, sloganeer’s approach to this issue is confounded by the fact that what I am saying about many women’s culpability in their own victimization is true. 100%, undeniably factual.
To explore this further, I am going to refer to a talk by Tom Golden, a friend of mine who also happens to be a licensed clinical social worker.
His talk is about relational aggression, or what I prefer to call the other intimate partner violence. And as you may suspect, it is predominately the domain of women. Tom provides the research to back that up.
Now, in going into this, I want to be careful not to give the impression that physical aggression is a male characteristic and relational aggression is a female characteristic. Exhaustive research proves that in intimate partnerships, women are as likely or more likely than men to initiate physical assaults.
We also know that in unidirectional, or one-way, unreciprocated physical violence that women are the perpetrators 70% of the time. All of this about women’s physical violence is well established, empirical fact.
What I am talking about here is the least studied, least understood and most widely misunderstood kind of intimate partner violence; that of unidirectional, unreciprocated, male violence against women. And in particular, the correlation between relational aggression in women and resulting physical violence in men.
Now, admittedly the best we can do is make educated guesses about this. As Tom pointed out to me, there hasn’t been much, if any, research on the correlation between relational aggression in women and physically aggressive responses from men.
And I’d venture to say we won’t see any such studies anytime soon. There’s no money in it for feminists, and no sanctimony for traditionalists. Nope, the only insight we are going to get about it will come from red pill analysis.
Let’s start then, with a definition of relational aggression. Researchers define it as behaviors that harm others through damage or threat of damage to relationships. In short, relational aggression is bullying without violence.
It’s important to note here that the relational aggression studies Tom refers to are not focused on intimate partnerships as much as they are social groups. Behaviors such as excluding, ignoring, teasing, backstabbing, lies, false accusations, rumor-spreading and hostile body language are cited as forms of predominately female relational aggression perpetrated within social groups.
It does not take much of a stretch, however, to see that some of these aggressions are also common to women in intimate partnerships. All it takes is a small measure of common sense, and the willingness to commit the taboo of holding women accountable for their actions, to conclude that it can and does result in their being physically assaulted in retaliation. Or, in plainer vernacular, they were asking for it.
Part of the problem here is that relational aggression in women, unlike men’s physical aggression, is a form of violence that is encouraged. Women are socialized into relational aggression as an active and normal part of their behavior in relationships.
Again, referring to Tom’s talk on the subject, a study of Disney Films revealed that they averaged 11 acts of relational aggression from attractive, rich and popular female characters per hour. Those acts were depicted as justified, and did not result in negative consequences for the aggressor.
The problem, of course, is that life is not a Disney Movie, even with as much as we train women to have the expectation that it is.
To understand the real-life consequences that do happen as a result of women’s relational aggression, we have to keep in mind the fact that relational aggression is relationship violence.
Feminists have been in lockstep with this idea going back a long way. Men who verbally berate and abuse their female partners, men who exercise excessive control, who routinely criticize, judge and devalue their intimate partners, are committing acts of violence in the relationship – at least according to the feminist and prevailing mental health industry narrative.
Feminists have routinely rushed to the defense of women who react to this kind of treatment with physical violence, even with women who took that reaction to lethal ends.
The problem is, and the research does bear this out, these kinds of behaviors, all examples of relational aggression, are much more common in women than they are in men.
In fact, let’s take a look at the notorious Duluth Power Wheel, the go to model for feminist use as a guideline for defining abusive behaviors in men.
As you go around the wheel and look at the identified abusive behaviors you get a perfect template for predominately female relational aggression.
How many men are coerced into isolation in their relationships, giving up friends and interests, even family members? How many men have had their objections to unfair or abusive treatment in a relationship denied and minimized? Oh, and using children as a tool to coerce and manipulate?
Well, we did not coin the term parental alienation because fathers were doing this so much. It was because of mothers.
You can even take a look at the section of the wheel containing economic abuse. Feminists, as they are often want to do, have flipped this one on its end. They use it to tag men who cut their intimate partners off financially as a form of domestic abuse, even when the women are spending compulsively and irresponsibly.
Compulsive, irresponsible spending is the real abuse here, exploiting men who work as primary breadwinners, and robbing the family of financial stability.
It is one more example of women’s relational aggression. As are false allegations, belittling, questioning a man’s masculinity and the like.
I read a tweet just recently from a man who worked twelve hours a day with a long commute, only to come home to a stay-at-home wife who nagged him incessantly about his being a poor provider, worthless as a man.
That is relational aggression, and if it one day results in that man punching her in the face the only criticism I would have is that he should have left before making himself legally vulnerable to even more of her relational aggression. That, too, is part of the picture. Relational aggression from women is also associated with third party violence, from the state, and from outsiders who rush in to act on the abusive woman’s behalf.
Domestic Violence pioneer Erin Pizzey understood the problem of relational aggression all too well. In fact, she coined an aptly descriptive term for these women in her book, Prone to Abuse. She called them emotional terrorists. And here is what she had to say about them, and their horrific effect on the family.
The family well may be characterized as violent, incestuous, dysfunctional, and unhappy, but it is the terrorist or tyrant who is primarily responsible for initiating conflict, imposing histrionic outbursts upon otherwise calm situations, or (more subtly and invisibly) quietly manipulating other family members into uproar through guilt, cunning taunts, and barely perceptive provocations. (The quiet manipulative terrorist usually is the most undetected terrorist. Through the subtle creation of perpetual turmoil, this terrorist may virtually drive other family members to alcoholism, to drug-addiction, to explosive behavior, to suicide. The other family members, therefore, are often misperceived as the ‘family problem’ and the hidden terrorist as the saintly woman who ‘puts up with it all.This is, in my mind, the perfect description of women’s relational aggression. Like Erin, I’ve seen this play out over decades in family after family seeking help for troubles with addictions and violence. And it is for this that many women ultimately find themselves on the business end of a knuckle sandwich. And far, far worse, which surely sets the feminist and traditionalist outrage machine into high gear.
Now, there is sadly little to do with this information other than file it away from whatever purpose it may serve. Men who fight back, and make no mistake, losing it an punching someone so abusive to you is fighting back, will pay an unfair price for doing so.
Perhaps the only real value in this information is to benefit masochistic women. So, to those women I say, if you like pain, if you want to get beat up, find a man who has self-respect and a snapping point. Many of them do, but they are not everywhere, so choose carefully.
Once you’ve found him, belittle his efforts to take care of you. Shame him for doing anything for himself. Use his children against him. Question his masculinity, preferably in front of his friends and family, but strangers will do in a pinch. Just keep doing what you’ve been trained to do by the world you grew up in, and with a little luck and a bit of hard work, you’ll get the beating you’ve been asking for.
And if he is lucky, you will set him on the path to red pill wisdom. In the end it could be a win-win
About Paul Elam
Paul Elam is the founder of A Voice for Men, focusing on men's mental health issues. Paul was featured in The Red Pill Movie and founded the International Conference on Men's Issues series. He is the co-author of the acclaimed book, Say Goodbye to Crazy, and offers personal consulting for men.Source
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