Elle Beau ❇︎
2 min readAug 23, 2024

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Not by law - but any person who knows the first thing about cultures is that they don't flip overnight. The things that were "normal" to your father's generation or grandfathers still get passed down as "normal" to you the children and if you aren't vigilant in challenging what was normal to your parents it still lives in the collective subconscious. I'm 60 years old - that means my peers were 10 before any of this started to change. Do you think they all magically transformed their thinking just because the laws changed? Don't be silly. Again, not exactly rocket science. You don't have to be a Ph.D. sociologist to be able to understand that.

96% of organizations who study this stuff agree, traditional masculine norms that demand aggression, domination, and control of women from "real men" drive violence - against women, but also all violence - against men as well. That doesn't mean men are evil - it means they've been socialized into the sort of Might Makes Right culture that came with the Kurgan invasions 6k years ago. Again, any thinking person who isn't just reflexively in their emotions about this stuff can understand this.

More police won't do anything - sometimes the police are the perpetrators as with Sarah Everard. What will make a difference is (circling back to the OP) more men take on shifting the culture away from the masculine norms that harm men and everyone else, and if more men stop turning a blind eye to the violence, discrimination, and marginalization they see taking place in front of them.

In reality, real men can be very selective about what truths they are willing to confront. Until recently, men as a group have been largely AWOL from the fight against gender violence. In one sense, it is easy to see why. 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.

Stop being a part of the problem and start becoming a part of the solution.

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Elle Beau ❇︎
Elle Beau ❇︎

Written by Elle Beau ❇︎

I'm a bitch, I'm a lover, I'm a child, I'm a mother, I'm a sinner, I'm a saint. I do not feel ashamed. I'm your hell, I'm your dream, I'm nothing in between.

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