(no subject)
Jun. 5th, 2005 04:31 pmSteve and I had an interesting talk on Friday that I forgot to bring up yesterday, about males, females, and violence. In his observation (and he may be onto something here) males are more aggressive and females are more violent. Explanation follows.
I'd been reading a blog off of someone on![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
garpu's friendslist. It's of a woman currently deployed to Iraq, and she was musing on the same topic. One of HER friends, a 5'11 female forest ranger, commented that male animals use aggression as a *display*, to attract females and drive off other males. However, male-to-male combat does not usually result in death. Female animals on the other hand, normally don't attack, but when they do, it's to kill. She cited bighorn sheep. Males have curved horns to protect their skulls when butting heads. Females have sharp, straight horns to out and out kill predators.
Male humans again tend to fight to impress other guys by being alpha male or women by being Big Tough Macho Man. Women don't go for that, which has created the mistaken impression (as I see it) that they are more peaceful. In my observation, women just need what they see as a better reason to use violence, and when they do, they do lethally.
I was watching a little two minute film on bayonet training, which is done against a dummy. The DI in the film was talking about how you had to "let your aggressions out". I can see where a man might be able to get more into this than a woman. Guys have all that nice, handy testosterone that can be aimed at such an object. I'm waiting to observe if women have more trouble with bayonet training, not because they are nice and gentle but because....it's a dummy. It's not a real threat, even if it represents one, so it might be harder to get "het up" enough to go after it. I'll report my findings when the time comes.
I'd been reading a blog off of someone on
garpu's friendslist. It's of a woman currently deployed to Iraq, and she was musing on the same topic. One of HER friends, a 5'11 female forest ranger, commented that male animals use aggression as a *display*, to attract females and drive off other males. However, male-to-male combat does not usually result in death. Female animals on the other hand, normally don't attack, but when they do, it's to kill. She cited bighorn sheep. Males have curved horns to protect their skulls when butting heads. Females have sharp, straight horns to out and out kill predators.Male humans again tend to fight to impress other guys by being alpha male or women by being Big Tough Macho Man. Women don't go for that, which has created the mistaken impression (as I see it) that they are more peaceful. In my observation, women just need what they see as a better reason to use violence, and when they do, they do lethally.
I was watching a little two minute film on bayonet training, which is done against a dummy. The DI in the film was talking about how you had to "let your aggressions out". I can see where a man might be able to get more into this than a woman. Guys have all that nice, handy testosterone that can be aimed at such an object. I'm waiting to observe if women have more trouble with bayonet training, not because they are nice and gentle but because....it's a dummy. It's not a real threat, even if it represents one, so it might be harder to get "het up" enough to go after it. I'll report my findings when the time comes.
