We're not talking about "moral superiority" here - we're talking about mainstream masculine norms and how men are trained to treat and think about women as well as themselves and each other. Here's what a few "feminist" institutions such as the UN, the World Health Organization and others have to say on the subject of how these norms drive violence, harm men, and everyone else.
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.
Male identity and masculine norms are undeniably linked with violence, with men and boys disproportionately likely both to perpetrate violent crimes and to die by homicide and suicide. While biology may play a role in shaping a tendency toward certain forms of violence, the “nature” of men and boys is not the sole predictor of their violent behaviors or experiences. Rather, boys and men are often raised, socialized, and/or encouraged to be violent, depending on their social surroundings and life conditions.
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/violence-against-women
Gender inequality and norms on the acceptability of violence against women are a root cause of violence against women.
APA’s new Guidelines for Psychological Practice With Boys and Men strive to recognize and address these problems in boys and men while remaining sensitive to the field’s androcentric past. Thirteen years in the making, they 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.
“Though men benefit from patriarchy, they are also impinged upon by patriarchy,” says Ronald F. Levant, EdD, a professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Akron and co-editor of the APA volume “The Psychology of Men and Masculinities.” Levant was APA president in 2005 when the guideline-drafting process began and was instrumental in securing funding and support to get the process started.
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.
