Uh yeah, you actually do (you guys, not you personally) or it wouldn't be taking place at such a high rate. The mainstream masculine norms all boys are indoctrinated into are a direct link to the rates of violence in this country. Rape culture and violence culture take place because they are in fact not just tolerated but actively messaged as acceptable every day in every way. Exhibit A - go to any action adventure movie. Exhibit B - go to any men's locker room anywhere.
Sure, not all guys buy into that to the same extent, but it is still demonstrably hard to go against that grain and men who do often pay a social price. It's great that you've tried to distance yourself from that stuff, but it's also deeply in your subconscious because you were indoctrinated into that your entire life you don't actually know the ways that it still impacts you unless you are actively doing that work on an ongoing basis - something few men are doing.
Yes, women participate in patriarchy in all sorts of ways as well, but since women were second-class citizens by law a mere 50 years ago, there's still quite a power differential and a host of systemic ways that they are marginalized. If you think that the world is even remotely safe or remotely equal for women then you aren't an actual ally. If you don't clearly see just how much more work there is to be done, then you are indicting yourself and making my point for me.
Manhood or masculinity alone is not the cause of violence, but the way we socialize boys to become men is clearly a factor.
We emphasize in this report that there is nothing inherent about being male that drives violence. Being biologically male is not the key cause of men’s violence, and in fact, contributes little to understanding and preventing violence. Boys (and girls) are raised, taught, socialized, encouraged, traumatized into, and made to witness violence. They are not born to be violent. The research also clearly presents the extent to which men and women, and boys and girls, can and do resist violent ideas about manhood and resist violence every day.
“[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
Individuals need to be held accountable for their actions, but violent individuals must be understood as products of a much larger cultural system. By offering up a steady stream of images of sexually aggressive men and connecting dominant notions of masculinity with the control of women, the mainstream media and entertainment culture — which includes the enormous pornography industry — play a critical role in constructing violent male sexuality as a cultural norm. And here is the paradox: this very “normality” makes it harder to see just how pervasive the problem is. If heterosexual men are routinely turned on by representations of women in which sexiness is indistinguishable from mistreatment, the equation becomes unremarkable — if not part of sexuality itself.
~The Macho Paradox by Jackson Katz
