men’s lives are valued far less than women’s. Men’s lives were also valued less than women’s lives in medieval Europe. The problem isn’t merely chivalrous men killing other men in service to women. A more fundamental problem is violence against men being normalized as only violence. In thirteenth-century Italy, Alberigo da Romano, the ruler of the city Treviso, brutally killed many men. Yet the Cardinal of Lombardy shrewdly displayed Alberigo’s cruelty to women to spur a crusade among local men to kill Alberigo and his family. Today,
Men’s violent deaths tend to be less notable than cruelty to women. Consider how the thirteenth-century Franciscan monk Salimbene reported a particularly horrific instance of Alberigo’s violence:
Men’s violent deaths tend to be less notable than cruelty to women. Consider how the thirteenth-century Franciscan monk Salimbene reported a particularly horrific instance of Alberigo’s violence: