Male violence is much more than primal impulses

That we are evolved and biological beings is not in question. Just as violent behaviours may have evolutionary roots, so do acts of kindness and care. Our job is to consider under what social conditions we lose the capacity for care and respect, and with what values we encourage violent actions. 

The issue of the persistence of gender-related violence is of critical social significance and a source of individual and collective trauma. As someone who spent a substantial time as an activist working against gender-based violence, as a clinician assisting people to address the trauma that is a consequence of domestic violence, rape and sexual harassment, and as an academic who reflected on violence against women and on masculinities, I feel compelled to respond to Drew Forrest’s “An Evolutionary theory of male violence to explain the persistence of gender violence” in the Mail & Guardian on 12 November last year.

The question of what we may have inherited from our long-distant cousins deserves a more nuanced view. And at the very least a more considered reflection on debates about, and even counter arguments, particularly, to a simplistic presentation of the evolutionary determinants of our sexual behaviours. 

In other words, the suggestion of a causal path from the evolutionary history of male sexual jealousy to the persistence of gender violence in current society is concerning. 

Even evolutionary psychologists, including Margo Wilson whose work is the foundation of Forrest’s opinion piece, credit social and environmental factors with as much or even more influence on male violence than evolutionary history. 

In an article on the influence of Wilson’s work, Holly Johnson points out: “Even though suspected infidelity by female partners is viewed as a provocation likely to elicit male violence in all societies … it is far less likely to be used where tolerance is low and the social costs are high. ”

So, she argues, evolutionary psychology might point to motivations for using violence, but “social influences are possibly even more important for understanding when those … motivations will be acted upon”.

There is a rich history of feminist research and scholarship, and a well-documented long and hard struggle by feminist activists to disabuse us of notions that our biology, our evolutionary history, or our genes, determine our sexuality and our sexual behaviour.

This liberating work opened the door to understanding the profound influence of social and cultural factors on gender roles, inequalities and hierarchies, and to our understanding of sexual behaviours as socially and politically located. Women — and, indeed, men — were freed from beliefs that used biology to rationalise and justify oppressive and fixed social roles. 

Women have entered the public sphere, where many have flourished. Men have been invited to participate more actively in caring roles in the home, which many have done comfortably and with pleasure. 

We don’t have to deny our biology to disabuse ourselves of the views that roles and tasks are specified by biological sex or that male sexual violence is driven by “primal impulses”. 

The argument made by feminists that biological and evolutionary theories of male violence can be used as an excuse is mentioned in Forrest’s opinion piece but is hardly discussed. There are important reasons for this well-wrung riposte. 

Determinist views, biological or evolutionary, have been used at worst as dangerous excuses, at best as convenient rationalisations for perpetrating oppression of women and children, and violence against women.

Where dominant orders of masculinity are threatened, biological and evolutionary theories have been summoned to support arguments about what the “natural order” should be between men and women. And where men have felt under threat in contexts that sanction aggression, violence has been used to assert male dominance.

There is historical research showing that at various times in history, women’s gains and demands for rights as citizens, a place in the public spheres of government and the economy, and opportunities to become practising professionals, have provoked crises and hostile reactions. 

These have been termed crises in masculinity, in that women are seen to be threatening the dominant social position that men hold in the family and in public life. 

Alan Petersen, among others who have done work on unmasking masculinity, refers to recurring crises of masculinity. 

For example in industrialising Europe of the late 19th century when women sought political and economic rights, scientific, medical and religious beliefs were used to demonstrate the “natural order” of things, casting women as physiologically inferior and because of their reproductive capacities best suited to domestic duties — “a woman’s place is in the home”.

Some have argued that the transition to democracy in South Africa when gender equality was enshrined in the Constitution constituted just such a “crisis in masculinity”. For some men the gender rights project evoked potential loss. 

Men who were frustrated by the failure of the promises of political transformation to provide economic and social opportunities felt their biologically determined natural roles as “heads of households” were under threat by women who were now equal under the law. In contexts where aggressive behaviour was sanctioned, many men resorted to violence to reassert their authority. 

So we might argue in contrast to Wilson, that it is crucially important to understand social drivers of violence perpetrated by men, other than infidelity and sexual jealousy. 

The more important question to pose is what social conditions provoke the human capacities for violence and hatred, and under what conditions do our equally important capacities for care and love flourish? 

Stephen J Gould, a Darwinist, makes the point that “violence, sexism and general nastiness are biological since they represent one subset of a possible range of behaviours. But peacefulness, equality and kindness are just as biological — and we might see their influence increase if we can create social structures that permit them to flourish.” 

Dr Tina Sideris is a clinical psychologist and psychotherapist.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Mail & Guardian.