What drugs are you even on? This OP was not a rant about anything at all. It was a straightforward recounting of a particular exercise that the author engaged in, first with her sons, and then with a few other men. She asked them a clear question and they answered it — usually without missing a beat. We have the culture that we tolerate, and it was a very direct and clear indicator of why we live in a rape culture even though a comparatively small number of men are perpetrators. The rest of the culture (including women at times) too often turns a blind eye to problematic men, which allows them to harm people -including other men, unfettered and unchallenged. That's not feminism - is basic sociology - as is the fact that men perpetrate well over 90% of all violence - against women, children, and other men.
Negative behaviors wouldn't be happening at the extreme levels that they are if they were actually viewed as anything other than how "real" men are supposed to behave in this culture at this period in time. There are cultures where there is no rape and very little violence of any sort — because they culturally do not tolerate it. And this isn't me saying it - it's mainstream sociology and psychology coming out of over 40 years of research - much of it done by men.
https://www.apa.org/monitor/2019/01/ce-corner
"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."
Violence is not a species issue in the way that you want to believe. For 97% of our history, humans experienced very, very little violence - and no systemic violence. The Smithsonian clocks the first war at 10k years ago, and even that was a small massacre of about 27 people and not a war as we commonly think of them. Greater population density, and resource competition play a part, but the bulk of it stems from patriarchal dominance hierarchy social organization. I don't have time to lay this all out for you, particularly since I've already written about it extensively, but suffice it to say, this is my academic area of expertise.
“Chapter 23, The Evolution of Agonism noted, “As we shall see, unrestrained aggression (the last category in Figure 23.1) is exceedingly rare among mammals. An important implication of this fact is that any claim that escalated, unrestrained fighting is species-typical in humans must be strongly justified, rather than simply assumed a priori, as such a claim flies in the face of a well-documented mammalian pattern of restrained agonism. The burden of scientific proof reasonably rests with any claimants that human agonism (the benefits of conflict) in this regard constitutes an exception to a widespread mammalian pattern. The logical default proposition would be that human aggression rather opposes than constitutes a reversal of selection pressures to favor homicide or war.” (p. 455)”
“In contrast with the peoples of Old Europe as well as those of Mesopotamia, who worshipped a life-giving goddess that brought abundance, law, art, and beauty both the Kurgans and the ancient Hebrews worshipped a god of war and mountains, one who had no balancing female consort like that of the goddess. These invaders glorified in the death and destruction that they brought in the name of their god (Jehovah or Yahweh for the Hebrews), and in the case of the Kurgans, they actually paid devotion to their swords.
The one thing they all had in common was a dominator model of social organization: a social system in which male dominance, male violence, and a generally hierarchic and authoritarian social structure was the norm. Another commonality was that, in contrast to the societies that laid the foundations for Western civilization, the way they characteristically acquired material wealth was not by developing technologies of production, but through ever more effective technologies of destruction.
Eisler, Riane. The Chalice and the Blade (p. 86). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.”
Patriarchy is not just about power differentials between men and women. This was just one aspect of a larger socio/political development characterized by Might Makes Right. Those with more power took what they wanted, and those who did not have the power to resist fell under their control. This applied not only to women but also to weaker, poorer, men as well and a highly stratified class system emerges for the first time in human history. In fact, social stratification is the central element of patriarchy.
Western individualism tends to pit each person against others in competition for resources and rewards. It includes the right to accumulate property and to use wealth to control the behavior of others. In contrast, as Tim Ingold (1999) has most explicitly emphasized, hunter-gathers’ sense of autonomy connects each person to others, in a way that does not create dependencies. Their autonomy does not include the right to accumulate property, to use power or threats to control others, or to make others indebted to oneself. It does, however, allow people to make their own day-to-day and moment-to-moment decisions about their own activities, as long as they do not violate the band’s implicit and explicit rules. For example, individual hunter-gatherers are free, on any day, to join a hunting or gathering party or to stay at camp and rest, depending on their own preference. (source)
