Are Men Heroes or Villains?

I like men. I really do. Some people doubt that because I posted a while back about how rape is a male crime.

Well, most crime is a male crime.

I posted about rape because of a quote by Golda Meir. Due to the high incidence of rape in Israel in its nascent state, some were advocating putting curfews on women. Golda Meir pointed out that it made more sense to put a curfew on men, since they were the violent ones.

FBI crime statistics and other documentation tends to bear out the predominance of males when it comes to violent crime. This doesn’t mean women are somehow saints — perhaps they are less likely to commit violent crimes because, biologically, they tend to be less strong. Or perhaps it’s because of societal pressures that makes it less acceptable for women and girls to be assertive. Meanwhile, a male tendency towards violence invites less social condemnation.

And this male tendency towards violence seems to start young, at least from my own anecdotal experience.

I remember volunteering to watch a group of young children one year at my church. They needed someone to come in on Saturday for a couple of hours while the mothers were in a small group. The lady who had been watching the 3–7 year olds had to quit and I took her place.

What I observed fit gender stereotypes, I’m sad to report.

The little girls mostly played quietly together and chattered with each other or with me. The little boys played with toy cars and trucks but also would punch each other, wrestle and otherwise engage in mock battle.

For the most part, this was play violence and aside from some bruises, no one was really hurt. However, the boys really relished doing this.

Again, anecdotally, I’ve heard stories from male friends of mine about some of the things they did as children — things I found horrible. For example, one guy I knew told me that when he was a little boy, he’d take the mice that were caught in traps in his parents’ attic and drown them because he liked to hear the sound their lungs made when they popped. This horrified me. It struck me as incredibly cruel and I couldn’t believe a man I thought was so kind would have done such a thing

Other male friends told me about shooting birds with bb guns. And of course little boys do seem to like to play with toy guns a lot more than little girls do.

It’s not that little girls can’t be violent or aggressive, but it’s more a matter of degree. The percentages seem to be different.

Does this mean that men are “bad”?

Well, if all we look at are FBI crime statistics or the membership rankings of groups like the Russian mafia or MS13, then it would seem that they are.

But then we could also take a look at the statistics on heroes and inventors and those who give generously to friends in need. Men are also over-represented in those groups.

When you read a story about a child or a kitten being rescued from a burning building — what is the gender of the rescuer? When I turned on the news and saw a story of volunteers in boats going through the wreckage left after Hurricane Katrina to rescue stranded people — what was the gender of most of those people?

It’s not that women don’t give, and give generously, to those they love. They do, as I can attest to since my fight with cancer. My women friends have been remarkable.

But when it comes to things like helping a drowning horse out of a river or getting in front of a bullet to save the life of a loved one — it’s most likely a man that is doing it.

Same with things like patents. Read the patent lists. There are, of course, female inventors. As a woman nerd who is into technology myself, I love to read about these women — from actresses like Heddy Lamar to former slaves like Sarah Goode. I love the fact that in modern times the barriers have been removed for women who want to work in the sciences and focus on their careers, since reaching the higher levels in tech fields requires focus and dedication that was hard for women to manage in the past.

Even today there are barriers to women in the sciences, but these are no longer legal barriers but societal ones — boyfriends, spouses and lovers who expect the women in their lives to bear the brunt of household chores, for example, which makes it harder for women to concentrate on their research.

Nevertheless, I suspect that even if we did have a level playing field, men might still be filing more of the patents.

The thing is — whether we like to admit it or not, there are differences between biological men and women. It’s because of these differences that trans-people know they need to transition. It’s because they don’t feel they belong in the body nature assigned them. They know at an intrinsic level that they are “different”. Hopefully they feel more whole when they do transition. Again, anecdotally, from friends who have transitioned — it seems that it does help them.

But this type of transition would not be necessary if men and women were really interchangeable.

I’m a feminist in that I believe that men and women should be treated equally under the law and that there should be no unfair barriers imposed on either gender. If a woman wants to major in engineering or become a firefighter or an MMA warrior — she should be able to. And if a man wants to be a nurse or a home-maker or crochet — again, that is his right.

However, I also don’t believe men are intrinsically bad. Most men are not rapists. Most fathers love their daughters and would never abuse them. Very few men as a percentage of the population actually commit violent crimes.

Statistically, men are over-represented in the prison population. But they are also over-represented among those who die to save the lives of other people.

I think it’s a good idea to see both sides of the coin.

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This post was previously published on shefaliohara.medium.com.

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