It’s not just boys and men who are aggressive, say Caryl Rivers and Rosalind C. Barnett in “The Truth About Girls and Boys.” But in this excerpt from their new book, they note that women are far more often seriously hurt or killed.
Times are changing. Girls aren’t so “girly” anymore.
Perhaps it began with early female action figures. Perhaps with “Charlie’s Angels.” Or maybe with scores of elementary girls playing soccer, or with older girls playing contact sports at elite levels.
Most likely we will never know exactly how or when it became okay to talk about female aggression–female-to-female aggression and female-to-male aggression. Whatever its origins, this new narrative is challenging the once omnipresent scenario of the male violent aggressor–passive female victim scenario. It is now increasingly acceptable to talk openly about female aggression and to conduct serious research on this topic. (Source)
Rivers and Barnett have a point: the “male violent aggressor–passive female victim” scenario is essentialist and totalizing. It leaves little room for contextual differences and displays too much of a dependency on “nature.” However, I wonder how Rivers and Barnett are defining “female” violence, and how this definition treats self-defense. Too often women get a bad rap for standing up for themselves, and thus, what should be deemed resistance is problematically interpreted as a form of incivility–by not only the abuser, but the powers that be. I guess this highlights abuser privilege. And no, it’s not gender specific.
The essentialist argument is too often deployed these days to shut women up. Men are the perpetrators of violence – and they direct it towards women. There is no comparison between male / female violence. Sounds like Carl and Rosalind are scratching around for a new topic to research, instead of focusing on the real problem – which is men's violence against women.
Hello. Thought I'd share my indirect experience with this subject.
My father was married with child to another woman whom he'd met in college, before marrying my mother and having me. He told me that at the time, she was a nasty alcoholic who had a true drunken temper. On the subject of domestic violence, he once told me the story of his own experience.
It was very late one night, and she had come home at around two o'clock in the morning. He was still awake waiting for her, and when she came in he insisted she tell him where she had been– I think he might've suspected her of having an affair after a night of drinking, or something like that. Anyway, without missing a beat he said, she screamed something at him and then threw a punch at his face.
My dad was an Army man– had served in Korea as a Captain, in charge of the lives of over 100 men of all backgrounds; one of the first interracial companies in the service. He did not lose his temper with her, but he recalled it was that night he finally left to stay in a hotel, and start talking about divorce.
Anyway, just thought I would share that little story as it relates to your topic. I'm not ordinarily a visitor of blogs like this, but I think the issue raised here (that victimization of all types is a two-way street, essentially) is a very important one that needs to be tossed into the national dialogue, along with male victims of rape and others. Thank you for giving me an appropriate forum to share this