Gender and Peace

What is the relationship between the equality of men and women and the achievement of a culture of peace? I believe that one aspect of it is the fact that women have historically already developed a culture of peace from which men must learn, and on which basis we could redesign our structures of violence.

Historically, practical considerations have caused gender differentiation of roles by which men have gravitated more towards the 'public sphere' and women have gravitated more towards the 'private sphere'. In these different scopes of action, men have developed certain typical behaviors and women others, which have crystallized into our gender identities: what it means to be a man or a woman.

Garnering from several authors, I have come up with a list of qualities traditionally assigned to males, who have been seen as being more conflictive, confrontational, competitive, impulsive, aggressive, physically strong, tool-oriented, invasive, conquering, logical, linear, analytical, intellectual, data-oriented, hard, insensitive, hiding feelings, justice-centered, rigid, greedy, and avaricious.

The qualities traditionally assigned to women are harmony, conciliation, collaboration, reflection, tenderness, moral strength, word-oriented, consolidating, preserving, cultivating, intuitive, creative, affective, understanding-oriented, soft, sensitive, expressing feelings, mercy-centered, compassionate, generous, and charitable.

Over time, these 'masculine qualities' came to characterize the public sphere (politics, lawmaking, economics, etc.), while the 'feminine qualities' shaped the private sphere (homemaking, child rearing, networking, etc.). These two spheres and their traditional occupants became differentiated as two very different cultural configurations: public-private, male-female (Mars-Venus?).

While the masculine qualities were useful in the public sphere for a time, they are now causing more harm than good and need to be at least balanced by the feminine qualities. This requires that men reassess what it means to be masculine and acquire ‘new’ qualities from the female camp, and that women enter the public sphere without thereby losing the private-sphere culture.

As for intra-family violence, it is often caused by males reaffirming their masculine identity out of fear of giving way to the temptation of sinking comfortably into the female culture of the private sphere, while females resist giving up their feminine identity by standing up to abuse and refusing to allow the family ‘homeostasis’ to settle into violent patterns.

My thought on this subject was heavily influenced by the book I got you by Michael Karlberg (Beyond the Culture of Contest), especially the section that starts on page 85. You might also want to take a look at some of the other parts listed under ‘women’ in the index, page 265).

I am very wary of theories that place the cause of human behavior outside of our unassisted control. They tend to ‘essentialize’ human nature as a single package and then root it in biological and other deterministic sources. They also have the negative effect (intentional or otherwise) of perpetuating the status quo by ‘naturalizing’ cultural constructs, i.e., telling us that we act the way we have been socialized into acting because it is in our nature to act that way.

Studies of past and present cultures all over the world show a broad array of behavior patterns, most of which are actually much more peaceful than the common Western view of human nature would have it, including male-female relations (see Marc Howard Ross, “The Culture of Conflict”).

The only thing our biology does is give us the tools or resources needed to act in whatever way we decide to, and that those decisions are influenced but not determined by our cultures. Testosterone and estrogen may also predispose us to different muscle mass and activity levels, but what we do with it is up to us.

We are not genetically programmed to act in any given ways; our genes only give us the makeup needed to act as we decide to (see “Not in our Genes” [thick] or “Biology as Ideology” [thin] by Richard Lewontin).