Orlando Shooting: Let's admit it! Male-Pattern Violence Rides Again

Do libertarians and peaceniks have the CHUTZPAH to name who is initiating and fighting most wars, with a few female camp followers or Thatcher/Clinton types in the mix?? If we can't face naming who does 98% of aggression, we are USELESS... 

It doesn't matter if Mr. Mateen killed people because he was a homophobe or an ISIS supporter or just crazy, or all three.  What matters is he dealt with personal/political issues in the way that alpha males and those who work for them or rebel against them have been doing for thousands of years: taking up a weapon and injuring and killing people. Whether they do it alone or with a small gang or a big gang (aka an army), it's all the same dynamic.

This is the most important article I've read in a few years:  MALE-PATTERN VIOLENCE by Jennie Ruby in the Feminist publication OFF OUR BACKS.  I had heard the phrase before but never seen an explanation of WHY it is such an important differentiation from "male violence".  I'll give you a few quotes from the first half of the article:

The statement “Most violent crimes are committed by men” is often misheard as “most men are violent,” or even with a kind of gender dyslexia, as “women are never violent.”

The conversation never goes on to examine what it is about men that causes the violence, what we could do to help men stop their violence, or anything else constructive.

This reluctance to talk about men’s violence is widespread and seems to amount almost to a taboo.

Why do both men and women resist naming male violence? One reason is that we are afraid to insult, alienate, or anger male family members and loved ones—and men are often angered by discussions of male violence. ...When feeling accused, a man may lash out by raising counter-accusations, confuse the issue, deny the wrong-doing, become sullen and withdrawn, or even, dare I say it, become violent...

Another reason men resist naming male violence is that men tend to think of the male as the default human. This means they can’t see male patterns as male—they just see them as human. So male researchers and theorists often write about “human” aggression, “humanity’s” wars, and so forth. But can we stop “human” violence without acknowledging and examining the fact that it is disproportionately committed by men?...

United Nations Economic Commission for Europe data show that in the U.S. and Europe, 85%-100% of people convicted of assault are men. And 90% of murders are committed by men...

The sooner we stop denying that men are the ones who commit most violence and begin to examine what it is about men that causes this, the sooner we start to solve it.

We need terminology that will break through the statistical dyslexia and the resistance surrounding the term “male violence” and allow us to focus on the problem. I think we’d have more success with a phrase that could not be misinterpreted as “all men always do it.” For example, most people can understand that “male-pattern baldness” is a male problem and that when women do have thinning hair the pattern and etiology are usually different. What if we start calling male violence “male-pattern violence” as distinguished from “female-pattern violence”?

Male-Pattern Violence
“Male-pattern violence,” then, is characterized most notably by its far greater overall prevalence than female-pattern violence. A far greater proportion of men commit male-pattern violence than women commit either male-pattern or female-pattern violence. Male-pattern violence also has a different etiology than female-pattern violence. Male-pattern violence is often characterized by motivations of aggression, revenge, competition for dominance, competition with other males (for example in drug- or gang-related violence), or feelings of ownership or entitlement toward women. Male-pattern violence includes sexual violence, including sexual violence against their own children. ... Male-pattern violence ranges in scope from these individual crimes up to full-scale war and genocide.

Female-pattern violence is more often characterized by self-defense, response to long-term abuse by a husband, killing children because she cannot properly care for them, and involvement in male-initiated and male-led violence ranging from crime to war (e.g., women in the military)...

I think the term male-pattern violence side-steps the whole “some men aren’t violent” thing because it is obvious it is talking about a pattern that most often occurs in men, but can also happen in women...

See article for the complete argument...