Torrey Orton, a psychologist with more than 20 years’ experience, is familiar with Dr Fine’s work and agrees with her conclusions. “These are social systemic things not attributes of any sub-groups or individuals,” he says.
The underlying driver in violence and crime is not male hormones or “wiring”, but power – and the need to find some recognised level of power in how we see ourselves and our place in the world. “We are also at the losing edge of a historical downturn in our power, the rage gets extra urging, often outside of consciousness,” Orton says.
His views support the dynamic playing out so clearly in the #MeToo stories of the powerful preying on the vulnerable.
“People in powerful positions are anxious about their power. This is expressed in attacks on anyone deemed critical of the powerful.”
The acquisition of power is also a never-ending process. Men who achieve any level of power quickly become accustomed to it. It becomes the status quo, and the need for power can be fulfilled only by acquiring more. As Orton says, “their need is unfulfillable”.
And the dual threat of seeing more powerful men ahead of them and the potential loss of power to people coming up behind creates a constant uncertainty and fear.
The roots of violence lie in that uncertainty. From the moment they’re born, men are taught they have an inherent right to power – all the small and large lessons of gender: that boys are tough and strong and aggressive and have a right to anger, that girls are gentle and pretty and compliant; that emotional and domestic labour are women’s roles and men are violent, protective, providers and dominant.
Even in the most progressive and balanced of families, little boys see these lessons play out in the books they read and the movies they watch and the media constantly feeding into their subconscious.
The combination of having a natural assumption of power and the fear of losing it means men need to constantly prove to themselves and the world that the power they have still exists. Violence committed against a less powerful person is one sure way to test and prove that power.
Not just in the act itself, but in their victim’s inability to fight back or find redress.
The rate of violence and crime committed by men “reflects very longstanding dominant traits of masculinity that come from how we socialise men and boys to dominate, take risks and refrain from empathy,” says Michael Flood, Associate Professor at the Law faculty of QUT. “These traits play themselves out in both violent and non-violent crimes.”
Flood also says this issue must be considered in the context of class and ethnicity as well as gender. “Men who are socially disadvantaged can feel they have little status or access to socially legitimate forms of power,” he says.
Men who lack power may look for other ways to show the power men are expected to have to prove their manhood, which also explains men’s participation in non-violent crimes. “Research tells us that crimes like joy riding, public violence and dealing drugs is a way to display manhood, particularly in front of other men,” he says.
While many individual men may feel powerless, the facts of male power are undeniable. They are proven in the huge economic disparity between men and women, and the male domination overparliament, the judiciary, the corporate sector, science, entertainment, the arts and sport.
NonSpecifica 
One thought on “Systematic Failure”