Certainly there are men who do kind/protective things for women - particularly women in their own families, but your impression of the way the world works is deeply out of line with mainstream sociology and psychology on this topic as well as the personal experiences of nearly all women. We live in a violent rape culture where nearly all women have been harmed by men on some level - often by the men in their families. If that weren't tolerated and the norms that lead to those behaviors fostered as intrinsic to masculinity, it wouldn't be happening.
Every women I know has stories of men ignoring or minimizing harm being done to them by other men -often right in front of them. Katie Jgln has a very on-point story about just this.
“After I confronted my boyfriend and the man who assaulted me at that New Year’s Eve party, something unexpected happened.
Several of my female acquaintances, who were also there and overheard the whole thing, approached me as I was leaving the venue to tell me this happened to them as well — at that same party and in front of many other people.
Although at that point I’d already experienced multiple situations like that — I was in my early 20s — it was the first time I realised this really wasn’t something only happening to me. This happens to almost all of us.
One in four women has been subjected to some form of sexual violence since the age of 16, and nearly all young women have experienced sexual harassment in public spaces in their lifetimes.”
Mainstream "traditional" masculine norms are based in aggression, dominance, and control of women. This drives violence against women but also against other men, including sexual violence.
“[Ours] is a culture in which sexualized violence, sexual violence, and violence-by-sex are so common that they should be considered normal. Not normal in the sense of healthy or preferred, but an expression of the sexual norms of the culture, not violations of those norms. Rape is illegal, but the sexual ethic that underlies rape is woven into the fabric of the culture.” — Robert Jensen
Men’s violence against women is a pervasive social phenomenon with deep roots in existing personal, social, and institutional arrangements. In order for people to understand and ultimately work together to prevent it, it is first necessary for them to engage in a great deal of personal and collective introspection. This introspection can be especially threatening to men, because as perpetrators and bystanders, they are responsible for the bulk of the problem.
Katz, Jackson. The Macho Paradox (p. 24). Sourcebooks. Kindle Edition.
In the United States, the 2017 National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey from the Centers for Disease Control shows the enormity of the problem. One in four women has experienced severe physical violence by an intimate partner. One in ten women has been raped by an intimate partner.2 Government statistics point to 4.8 million physical assaults and rapes against women in intimate relations each year in the United States.3 In the time it takes you to read this short paragraph, two women were beaten or raped.
Kaufman, Michael. The Time Has Come (p. 153). Catapult. Kindle Edition.
https://www.apa.org/monitor/2019/01/ce-corner
“Thirteen years in the making, they (guidelines for psychologist working with men and boys) draw on more than 40 years of research showing that traditional masculinity is psychologically harmful and that socializing boys to suppress their emotions causes damage that echoes both inwardly and outwardly.
The main thrust of the subsequent research is that traditional masculinity—marked by stoicism, competitiveness, dominance and aggression—is, on the whole, harmful. Men socialized in this way are less likely to engage in healthy behaviors.”
Traditional masculinity (TM) is conceptualized as a risk factor for the well-being of men and those around them. Further, TM is often considered a key factor in male violence against women, and the positive association between these two factors has been supported by numerous studies.
In other words, the violence that too many women experience isn’t only because of men’s power over women — and the way that some men use physical, emotional, and sexual violence to express and enforce that power. It’s also because of the opposite: the unconscious feeling that a man has no power and, hence, he is not a man. And how can he compensate? How can he restore his masculine equilibrium? Violence becomes a tool to do just that.
Kaufman, Michael. The Time Has Come (p. 177). Catapult. Kindle Edition.
