At home with placating masculine rage.
Most blokes can keep a lid on their anger. I dunno the stats but I'm sure the majority of men don't get apoplectic with rage.
But some men go from zero to Fight Club in seconds. The families of these men learn to navigate this unpredictable way of life. They form coping strategies. In such circumstances, women are quick on their feet. They coo soothing words, the kind you might say to a child having a tantrum. The difference is, you can easily overpower a child if the shit hits the fan. When these incidents occur, excuses are made but rarely do you hear the words “I’m sorry”. There’s no need to admit your behaviour is out of proportion (and incredibly inappropriate) when family members are powerless to challenge you on it.
I’m not against aggression.
Anger can propel you into action, I don’t mean the violent sort but the productive sort. It’s an internal alarm system that acts as a useful tool. If we sit with rage long enough it might teach us something. It’s a biological response to an outside threat. It’s a survival mechanism, especially in our early evolution but there are no more sabretooth tigers to hunt so it makes you wonder what rage is for.
Some years back, I commented on a social media post.
I shared the truism that rape is an act of violence, it has little to do with sex. A bro life coach immediately got defensive and couldn’t wait to tell me that men are more likely to be victims of violent crime than women. The bro was right: “Males maintain a higher risk of being victim to personal crime than females. In 2021/22, 3.3% of males were victims of personal crime, compared to 2.9% of females. In 2020/21, 594 homicides were recorded; 70% of victims were male and 30% female.” – UK Government Statistics
I guess that told me. My wrist was (metaphorically) slapped. Statistics are great, aren’t they? Yeah, they are but they require context. Men are more likely to be victims of violent personal stranger crime than women, and as I told this bro, men are the main perpetrators of violent crime to both women and men.
For fellas, that is quite a big dick to swallow. It suggests there’s a much larger problem with men. This is the perfect moment for the bewildering #NotAllMen advocates to step in. Bewildering in the sense that seemingly intelligent humans won’t acknowledge facts—and blokes usually love facts. Instead, they deflect and refuse to confront the scary man (who could almost certainly crush me with his bare hands) in the room. To those men I say, try a critical thinking course and maybe revisit this article when you’ve managed to appraise facts dispassionately. (I thought blokes were the stone-cold logical ones but the more years I live the more I experience thin-skinned men with an inability to self-reflect.)
Disparity begins at home.
Men are weaned on toughness. The conditioning of traditional manliness starts with Mum and Dad. Showing any effeminacy is a weakness. The worst thing a boy can do is behave like a girl because girls are easily victimised. When you are, on average, taller and stronger, being the dominant sex is a given. Boys learn to assert their masculinity or risk the shit kicked out of them. Growing up with these attitudes, is it any wonder men don’t report crimes of violence perpetrated by women?
Women are weaned on fear. They are conditioned to be mindful of men because if the Pelicot case has taught us anything it’s that violence can come from any man, even the men who declare their love. Women are more likely to be raped and murdered by someone they know. Sadly, it’s quite often a romantic partner. Women understand how defenceless they are against the men who mean them harm. It’s almost part of their DNA to carry weapons disguised as keyrings and avoid walking alone in the dark.
Perhaps this is all imagined but if there isn’t a larger, cultural issue, why do women take such precautions? Why are women taught to modify their behaviour and their clothing to prevent male violence?
Boys and girls have a different social indoctrination. Resulting in functioning yet fucked up adults with skewed views of either sex—which no amount of positive masculinity or female empowerment seems able to fix. Children become attuned to family life dynamics. They are emotional thermometers. For some kids, home is a warzone. My working-class childhood was indicative of 1980s Britain. It was a happy environment punctuated with anger and violence. Dad was the boss. Like a lot of bosses, he could be an arsehole. His personality was all-encompassing. He could alter the vibe of a room depending on what mood he was in. He dominated the household—and he had the last word because his word was law. And just like the Hulk, you wouldn’t like him when he was angry.
Don’t get me wrong, Dad was a reasonable man. He was usually a calm and funny guy. We kids just knew not to piss him off. But sometimes, I managed to light his ire by being me. I was a late developer (in more ways than one). It took me forever to learn to read so Dad decided to ‘teach’ me. His methods were unorthodox. They ranged from mild frustration to shouting my brain into submission. I remember pleading with Mum to make him stop but it did no good. No one tells the boss what to do.
Mum also had to toe the line.
One time they argued about Dad working nights. Mum was frightened to be home alone (presumable she worried that—wait for it—a man might get in and murder her). The row escalated to such a point that he broke her nose: “We argued and he went to punch me, I tried to dodge it but wasn’t quick enough.” She didn’t get medical treatment until some time later: “I couldn’t breathe through my left nostril properly so the hospital had to put it back in place. I had a brace on it for a couple of weeks, I looked like a right twat.” Yes, this sounds mental—because it is but this level of violence, although horrific, was rare and during this era, men quite often knocked their missus about. It was a husband’s right, a wife’s body wasn’t hers. It didn’t become illegal for husbands to hit their wives until 1978 (UK). Marital rape wasn’t a crime until 1991 (UK). The reasons women don’t report these acts of brutality are complex but women of my Mum’s generation would be unlikely to go to the police as this would be considered ‘a domestic’, not something to waste resources on.
Physical violence wasn’t regular but the threat of it was. As kids, we were often told to “wait until ya Dad gets home!” whereby he could administer the slipper (he rarely did because it was Mum we fucked off, not him). These were not enlightened times and both parents could be volatile. Mum also struggled to regulate her anger and there were times she could be just as terrifying. Once, with all the exaggeration of a Punch and Judy sketch, she’s chased Dad up the stairs with a carving knife. Petrified, he locked himself in the toilet.
Ah, memories…
It’s fair to say, Mum was spirited. And sometimes she refused to bend to Dad’s will, risking a black eye (or broken nose). Perhaps her dissent was worth a brief moment of defiance.
As a culture, masculine aggression comes with reluctant acceptance. Male rage is something to be managed—not by men but by the people around them. Living in this way is so commonplace that partners, wives, and children avoid doing things that trigger reactions that could escalate. Women carry out preventative measures. They minimise the outbursts and pretend they aren’t a big deal. It’s how you exist among men who are unable to control tempers. Make them comfortable despite your own discomfort because the alternative might prove deadly.
Manly anger is not only normal, it’s nurtured.
To make things tricky, men are genetically predisposed to aggression. It’s fair to say they have to work against a natural proclivity. When you encounter a problem but the only emotion you’re comfortable expressing is anger, it results in failed relationships and damaged children. All the more reason to develop emotional intelligence to deal with difficult situations. Unfortunately, the pressure is on to be blokey—in the cliched sense, so effectively communicating isn’t something a lot of men learn to do. Nonetheless, without taking personal responsibility, at a broader level not much will change.
