A sidetrack: I think men’s physical strength is a minor factor compared to their ability to organize for violence. If the organizational ability were reversed—if men who seriously displeased women were mobbed by 4 or 5 armed and organized women and didn’t have male back-up, the world would be very different.
I’m honestly baffled by what you might have in mind here. These days, in most of the First World, and especially the Anglosphere, there is virtually no organized violence except for the government security forces and the organized crime that’s rampant among the underclass. Even the most rudimentary forms of it that were once extremely common are nowadays rare to nonexistent, and for non-underclass men it’s a completely alien concept. (When was the last time you read about a mass bar fight, or some impromptu vigilante action against street criminals in your corner of the world?)
What would be, according to you, the situations where men’s aptness for organized violence is relevant for the relations between the sexes in the contemporary West?
Ancestral environment, mostly. Other than that, I’ll need to think about whether I just got entranced by an interesting theoretical riff, or actually had something worthwhile in mind.
This isn’t the West, but it is contemporary: Iran is infamous for stoning women for mere adultery This seems like a clear instance of a mob organized for lethal violence. The disparity in sentencing between men and women cited in the linked article also make it relevant to relations between the sexes. (One thing that I don’t know is what the gender composition of the killers at a stoning typically is.)
NancyLebovitz:
I’m honestly baffled by what you might have in mind here. These days, in most of the First World, and especially the Anglosphere, there is virtually no organized violence except for the government security forces and the organized crime that’s rampant among the underclass. Even the most rudimentary forms of it that were once extremely common are nowadays rare to nonexistent, and for non-underclass men it’s a completely alien concept. (When was the last time you read about a mass bar fight, or some impromptu vigilante action against street criminals in your corner of the world?)
What would be, according to you, the situations where men’s aptness for organized violence is relevant for the relations between the sexes in the contemporary West?
Ancestral environment, mostly. Other than that, I’ll need to think about whether I just got entranced by an interesting theoretical riff, or actually had something worthwhile in mind.
This isn’t the West, but it is contemporary: Iran is infamous for stoning women for mere adultery This seems like a clear instance of a mob organized for lethal violence. The disparity in sentencing between men and women cited in the linked article also make it relevant to relations between the sexes. (One thing that I don’t know is what the gender composition of the killers at a stoning typically is.)
I don’t read about them (bar fights aren’t newsworthy), but they’re hardly unheard-of hereabouts.
I believe the relevant violence is by street-criminals, and they’re all over the place.
“Underclass”? And how, pray tell, does one recognize such a person? Hat color?
More or less.