That we are evolved and biological beings is not in doubt. Just as violent behaviors can have evolutionary roots, so do acts of kindness and caring. Our job is to consider under what social conditions we lose the capacity for care and respect, and with what values we encourage violent actions.
The issue of the persistence of gender violence has critical social significance and is a source of individual and collective trauma. As someone who has spent considerable time as an activist working against gender-based violence, as a clinician helping people deal with trauma resulting from domestic violence, rape and sexual harassment, and as an academic reflecting on violence against women and on masculinities, I feel compelled to respond to Drew Forrest’s “An Evolutionary Theory of Male Violence to Explain the Persistence of Gender-Based Violence” in the mail and guardian on November 12 of last year.
The question of what we may have inherited from our distant cousins deserves a more nuanced look. And at least a more thoughtful reflection on the debates, and even counterarguments, in particular, to a simplistic presentation of the evolutionary determinants of our sexual behaviors.
In other words, the suggestion of a causal pathway from the evolutionary history of male sexual jealousy to the persistence of gender violence in today’s society is worrisome.
Even evolutionary psychologists, including Margo Wilson, whose work is the basis of Forrest’s op-ed, credit social and environmental factors as much or more of an influence on male violence than evolutionary history.
In an article on the influence of Wilson’s work, Holly Johnson notes: “Although suspicion of infidelity by female partners is seen as a provocation that is likely to lead to male violence in all societies…it is much less likely that used where tolerance is low and social costs are high. ”
So, he argues, evolutionary psychology could point to motivations for using violence, but “social influences are arguably even more important in understanding when those… motivations will be acted on.”
There is a rich history of feminist research and studies, and a long and hard, well-documented struggle by feminist activists to disabuse us of notions that our biology, evolutionary history, or genes determine our sexuality and sexual behavior.
This liberating work opened the door to understanding the profound influence of social and cultural factors on gender roles, inequalities, and hierarchies, and to our understanding of sexual behaviors as socially and politically located. Women—and, indeed, men—liberated themselves from beliefs that used biology to rationalize and justify fixed and oppressive social roles.
Women have entered the public sphere, where many have flourished. Men have been invited to become more active in caregiving roles at home, which many have done comfortably and with pleasure.
We do not have to deny our biology to disabuse ourselves of views that roles and tasks are specified by biological sex or that male sexual violence is driven by “primal drives.”
The feminists’ argument that biological and evolutionary theories of male violence can be used as an excuse is mentioned in Forrest’s op-ed, but hardly discussed. There are important reasons for this well wrung answer.
Deterministic views, biological or evolutionary, have been used at worst as dangerous excuses, at best as convenient rationalizations for perpetrating the oppression of women and children, and violence against women.
Where the dominant orders of masculinity are threatened, biological and evolutionary theories have been called upon to support arguments about what the “natural order” between men and women should be. And where men have felt threatened in contexts that sanction aggression, violence has been used to assert male dominance.
Historical research shows that at various points in history, women’s achievements and demands for rights as citizens, a place in the public spheres of government and the economy, and opportunities to become practicing professionals have led to crises and hostile reactions.
These have been termed crises of masculinity, in which women are seen as threatening the dominant social position that men hold in the family and in public life.
Alan Petersen, among others who have worked to unmask masculinity, refers to the recurring crises of masculinity.
For example, in the industrialized Europe of the late 19th century, when women sought political and economic rights, scientific, medical, and religious beliefs were used to demonstrate the “natural order” of things, presenting women as physiologically inferior and due to their reproductive capacities more suitable for their needs. domestic duties: “the place of women is in the home”.
Some have argued that South Africa’s transition to democracy, when gender equality was enshrined in the Constitution, constituted just such a “crisis of masculinity”. For some men, the gender rights project evoked potential loss.
Men frustrated by the failure of promises of political transformation to provide economic and social opportunity felt that their natural, biologically determined roles as “heads of the family” were threatened by women who were now equal before the law. In contexts where aggressive behavior was sanctioned, many men resorted to violence to assert their authority.
So we could argue, in contrast to Wilson, that it is vitally important to understand the social drivers of male-perpetrated violence, in addition to infidelity and sexual jealousy.
The most important question to ask is what social conditions trigger human capacities for violence and hate, and under what conditions our equally important capacities for care and love flourish.
Stephen J Gould, a Darwinist, notes that “violence, sexism, and nastiness in general are biological, representing a subset of a possible range of behaviors. But peace, equality and goodness are just as biological, and we could see their influence increase if we can create social structures that allow them to flourish.”
Dr. Tina Sideris is a clinical psychologist and psychotherapist.
