Pensamiento - Literatura

Part I. Becoming a Man: Consecrated Patriarchal Bonds

§6. The rituals for becoming a Man rely on connecting violence to honor, courage and power; on the universal use and abuse of women and the loathe of "the weak."

Violence Will Make a Man of You

§7. There are several stories that deal with how violence is essential for building male identity. Honor appears as a distorted version of dignity; women's inferiority is recurrent-their presence, irrelevant, uninteresting and only acknowledged when used (see BR #31, §14). When men's bond to violence is questioned, it encourages men's longing to communicate and express feelings (see RITH#33, §11, and MSTM#36, §12).

§8. In "The Man Who Was Almost a Man," 1940, (#27, 372), a boy is infatuated with the idea that becoming a man means having power to terrorize and kill people: "The first movement . was to reach under his pillow for the gun. . he held it ., feeling a sense of power. Could kill a man with a gun like this. Kill anybody, black or white. holding his gun . nobody could run over him; they would have to respect him." (376-77) The equation instilling fear = being respected , here exposed, is vital in patriarchies.

§9. In "A Late Encounter with the Enemy," 1953, (#29, 398), by Flannery O'Connor, Sally Poker uses her grandfather, a war veteran, as proof of power in her graduation: "Glorious upright old man standing for the old traditions! Dignity! Honor! Courage! See him!" (399) His sword appears as the greatest symbol of honor: ""Put the soward acrost my lap. where it'll shine." . "You look just grand," she said." (403) Readers become critical of the man's role, but not of the person behind. This is an unpatriarchal approach to exposing what is being questioned, and a good model for analysis.

§10. "Hunters in the Snow," 1982, (#47, 621), by Tobias Wolff, questions the violent patriarchal model of relationships between men. Violence degrades human beings, it cannot be an option. When two friends, Kenny and Frank, mistreat a third, Frank's reply to the complaint, "You shouldn't have just left me back there like that" [in a hostile isolated place] is "You're a grown-up, Tub. if you think you're the only person with problems." [His problem, wanting to leave his wife for their baby-sitter] (625). This dialogue will gain in meaning at the end of the story, when we realize men's "friendship" is based on the "alliance of the powerful and cruelty towards the weak," on the idea that if you are not strong and cruel you don't deserve to live. A change in the power relation develops by chance and alliances shift-Frank and his former victim will let Kenny bleed to death at the back of a truck because Frank can play pretend with Tub now. This story scans the patriarchal model for men, depicting its built-in violence.

§11. In "Rain in the Heart," 1944, (#33, 463), Peter Taylor exposes the male ritual of verbal abuse of women and presents a model of a true person-to-person relationship. This combination is unusual. The sergeant, having been granted permission to visit his wife, is "still filled with a dread of the jokes" (464). Soldiers' manhood rituals are misogynous (466). Our sergeant is a model of a different type of man. "This was the second year in the Army and now he found himself continually surprised at the small effect that the stream of words of the soldiers had upon him" (465). "[H]e dreamed longingly of the warm companionship he would find with [his wife]" (469). "And while he was thinking of the complete understanding and sympathy between them he heard her saying, . "You're probably not so tired from soldiering as from dealing with people of various sorts all day". He leaned toward her and kissed her, holding her until he realized that she was smiling" (476). "He . stood a moment studying the effect she had achieved in her arrangement of objects on the table. it was such a pleasing isolated arrangement" (477). "She too, he realized, felt a terrible unrelated diversity in things" (478). "[He] was again overwhelmed by his wife's perception and understanding" (479). The Father in §12 would envy this relationship.

§12. In a tragic and beautiful story, full of lyricism, " My Son the Murderer, " 1968, (#36, 504), Bernard Malamud poses the gender critique to machista dogmas-men are imprisoned in a senseless world of violence, where love and communication are banned.

My son the stranger, he won't tell me anything (505). My dear son Harry, open up your door (505). [I]t's hard to deal with a person who won't reciprocate to you (506). That's the real worry because if he won't tell you, you can't get inside of the other person and find out why. (507) He looked to see if one [letter] of them was, by any chance, from his son to him. My dear father, let me explain myself. The reason I act as I do.There was no such letter (508).

Violence Against Women: Perverted Visibility and Omitted Violence

§13. The first and most important factor in shaping the lives of women has been gender (Anderson and Zinsser, 1988). Patriarchy has traditionally used violence against women to establish men's supremacy in every domain. Structurally legitimized, it is invisible, an event of "natural order," or it is made visible by a perverted view which makes misogynous violence useful for encouraging Man's bravery and showing his power.

§14. Perverted visibility presents rape as a "promise" of excitement for men, in spite of the fear it may instill in some. This is clearly illustrated in the passage of the dancer (443-445) in "Battle Royal," 1952, (#31, 441), by Ralph Ellison, and in how it is used in the whole of the story-as a highlighter of abuse on men, a preamble to extreme fear and violence. "We were rushed up to the front . I almost wet my pants. A sea of faces, some hostile, some amused"-this is part of the terror ritual of abuse, they enjoy it-"ringed around us, and in the center, facing us, stood a magnificent blonde-stark naked" (443) . "I felt a wave of irrational guilt and fear. Yet I was strongly attracted and looked in spite of myself" (444). The writer describes the woman, who is wearing make-up-a recurrent "trigger" to justify Man's violence. "I wanted at one and the same time.to caress her and destroy her, to love her and to murder her" (444). The climax is near, "Chairs went crashing, drinks were spilt, as they ran laughing and howling after her. They caught her just as she reached a door, raised her from the floor, and tossed her .above her red, fixed-smiling lips I saw the terror and disgust in her eyes". At last, a realistic perception. Sadly, it is not (only?) out of sympathy-we approach the end of an effective preamble, as the closing of the sentence shows: "almost like my own terror and that which I saw in some of the other boys" (445).

§15. The impact of male domination in how individuals regard and interpret reality is shown in the different degrees of noticing violence, as mentioned. We find writers embarking on a conscious attempt to deal with violence, but which violence? Which is approached consciously and which is not? Which is used for an intended critical purpose and which is actually betraying this intention? Can we accept the fact we live in violent machista societies, the existence of taboos we are not yet fully aware of? We see that becoming sensitive to instances of oppression does not necessarily imply becoming sensitive to all of its forms. A fine perception of reality is hard to pursue because uprooting misperceptions implies questioning the construction of one's own identity.

§16. How rape is presented in fiction offers significant information on how standardized violence against women is. Rape has only recently been acknowledged as a crime against humanity,* in spite of the fact that it has been a pervasive abuse everywhere, repeatedly denounced by women in the 20 th century. Changing this reality-and art plays a role in social change-requires awareness. In the context of women being second-class people, omitted violence results from the "biological" fallacy that rape is inevitable. Consider the case of the protagonist's mother in "The Sheriff's Children," 1899, (#10, 137), by Charles W. Chesnutt. The rape of black women is most invisible-even for her own son, who is actually concerned with recognition. Why should exposing men's violence against men imply omitting men's violence against women? Not acknowledging reality works as a powerful mechanism of justification.

§17. Consider the war stories in our anthology. War and the macho role is criticized as bad for men as a gender group, also for the human race, but there is no mention of a gender-specific type of harm which is in-built in war: war has always involved women being raped by "the enemy" and "their own" men. There is also the harm that rape does to men, a dehumanizing action. This could be a subject in the critical analysis of what war/violence does to men. But it is not. Perhaps rape is omitted in men's analysis due to an unconscious drive towards defending the status quo of social organization. (Why should torture excite sexually? Is it not because patriarchy has used it to express dominance?) It could also be the result of the unconscious shame resulting from the disturbing association of violence and sex in men's minds, century after century. Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried," 1990, (#48, 637)-an excellent story-presents comprehensive understanding of burdens on soldiers, but shows no trace of what could be the heaviest. Is there not a way to solve this "structural misperception" in fiction?

* The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court , 1998, enforced in 2002, included rape in Crimes Against Humanity, article 7, 1(g) and War Crimes , article 2(b) (xxii) ( The Rome Statute)

Next: Part II

Please, quote the author and the site: michelle renyé, at mujerpalabra.net.
Another quotation style: michelle. "Violence & Gender. We See What We Believe In. Tracking Taboos". Mujer Palabra. 2005. Path: Pensamiento. Date of Access <https://www.mujerpalabra.net>.