When boys are shamed out of their emotional vulnerability, they often grow up as aggressors vis-à-vis women
Consider this: the number of people killed on 9/11, that exemplary day of male violence, was almost identical to the number of women murdered by their male partners that year in the US. One called for a military response and changed world politics; the other was life as usual. On Violence and On Violence Against Women by the philosopher Jacqueline Rose explores the nature of this violence against women, and its deep roots. It draws on literature, psychoanalysis and philosophy to show the male fragility at the heart of male violence.
Rose sees patriarchal violence at the intersection of many forms of violence – the ‘impotence of bigness’ and fraud of masculinity that is at work for many authoritarian leaders around the world, and their ardent followers. She identifies an erotic charge, an obscene pleasure in the license to violence.
Rose sees patriarchal violence at the intersection of many forms of violence – the ‘impotence of bigness’ and fraud of masculinity that is at work for many authoritarian leaders around the world, and their ardent followers. She identifies an erotic charge, an obscene pleasure in the license to violence.