Girl Rage “Feeling Manly Enough”

In order to understand coping with male violence, we first need to identify the sources of this violence. Male violence is not something that can be explained by individual psychological problems such as men being more prone to aggression due to their high testosterone levels or “my partner has anger problems”. If your partner has anger problems, why doesn't he/she use violence against his/her boss when he/she gets angry? Why do we observe that the subject of male violence is usually a woman or a child? Those who define male violence in terms of psychological “problems” legitimize the perpetrator's crime and address the political reasons behind male violence in an implicit or non-explicit context. Putting aside the explanations of male violence that we hear based on individual psychological backgrounds or biological sex, we must first examine the sources of male violence.   

The source of male violence is the perception of “masculinity”. Masculinity - I prefer to call it perceptual masculinity - is generally associated with power, dominance and authority. Most men are born into this perception of masculinity, they want to be “manly” enough and - supposedly - maintain their position at the top of the hierarchical structure. The source of male violence is primarily due to the fact that men systematically seek dominance by using their hierarchical and hegemonic positioning (in a cultural context). Men who try to nurture their “masculinity” by systematically seeking power, dominance and authority do not actually have an anger problem. Contrary to popular belief, these men are not like this because they were exposed to violence as children or they do not / may not have a psychological background that is affected by the conflict in their families and creates violent tendencies. Male violence is a political issue, and what makes it political is the perception of “masculinity” that is created and into which we are born.  

A study on the cycle of Perception of Masculinity and Violence focuses on how masculinity is constructed and how it transforms into the problematic of violence, and aims to address male violence as a political issue, freeing it from shallow and inadequate discussions linking it to certain individual or physiological characteristics. Male violence and the construction of masculinity are fundamentally structured by the patriarchal system as a goal and product of the masculine social structure. Men, like women, grow up as a product of the gender regime, but unlike women, they are molded in the problematic processes that the masculine world recognizes as advantageous, and the advantageous image of these processes blinds them to the problematic aspects of the process. In this process of being molded, they try to understand and fulfill what it means to “be a man”. In this process of understanding and fulfillment, there is a regular aim of “proving manhood”.  Various stages such as circumcision and first sexual experience are culturally and socially associated with proving one's manhood. Each milestone prepares the ground for “how to become more of a man” and brings with it a series of responsibilities with unclear boundaries. When we look at this process from a big picture perspective, the man born into the gender regime becomes a structured and molded being, pushing aside his own emotions and self. It is important to know the formation and components of this process, but as a point I would like to emphasize: the effort to know and understand the process is important not in the context of legitimizing this violence, but in the context of transforming and improving the process. Any explanation in the context of legitimization is not sufficient. Because male violence is not an issue that can be legitimized.   

The man is actually a “loser” in all his life practices for one reason or another because of the impossible masculinity complex he has entered into. Because even in attitudes and behaviors that appear to be alternatives to each other, he is in a blind dilemma where he does not think about his own free choice to “be man enough” and even if he does, he cannot realize his own wishes. And unfortunately, he often believes that this dilemma is advantageous. 

This perceptual understanding and pursuit of “masculinity” can easily turn into violence and aggressive behavior as it is full of repression. A case in point is the Incel Movement. The Incel Movement is an acronym coined by ChatGPT for “involuntary celibate” and is a community of some men who have formed out of their experiences of being unable to have romantic or sexual relationships with women. Members of this movement can often feel anger and frustration with societal norms and their experiences of sexuality.” However, what men and the ChatGPT coded by men fail to see here is that the frustration is not a frustration with social norms and the experience of sexuality. This frustration is a frustration with “not being man enough”. The movement that brings together these “not man enough” men encourages each other to express sexist, misogynistic and violent views on the internet and social media. This group, whose main goal is to feel “man enough”, tries to make women pay for their insecurities, masculinity complexes and impossible perceptions of masculinity. Their failed sexual experiences make them feel less of a man and they know this deep down inside, but if there is anything less of a man than having a failed sexual experience, it is admitting that they had a failed sexual experience. Here, too, the individual who does not feel man enough works with great devotion to avoid confrontation, blames the other party, the woman, and tries to make the woman pay for not being man enough.   

The cyclicality of masculinity and violence is fundamentally related to the repression caused by the blindness created by the perception of masculinity. Femicide and male violence is not a women's issue. It is not an issue that women should solve. It is about men's reactivity to “prove their masculinity” within the gender regime. Although the subject is a woman, the issue is very much a male issue. It is an issue that men, who are in a supposedly advantageous position but who form a constructed identity, must confront themselves with. This confrontation is the individual responsibility of men. An individual responsibility left by those who have made women pay the price of “not feeling man enough” throughout history.   

Author's Note to Men: As a woman, I felt obliged to tell you about the perception of “masculinity” that I have not experienced. As a woman, I should not tell you about “masculinity”. Why did I tell you? Because until today, some of you - and there are quite a lot of you - have punished women for the masculinity they could not feel. We have even reached a point where “not feeling man enough” has become a women's problem. Because some of you could not deal with your repressed masculinities, the gift of the gender regime, it left women, it left us with a ton of problems to deal with. Male violence transformed and became violence against women. The subject is still a woman, the one who goes to the demonstration is still a woman, the one who seeks rights is still a woman. This problem will continue until you feel that you are man enough. But unfortunately you were born into such a toxic perception of masculinity that you will never feel “man enough”. And most of the time you will turn to women to make you feel man enough. We don't have the solution to this. It is not women's job to make you feel man enough. And the bad news is that you don't need to feel man enough. Please realize how much this position, presented to you with the illusion of advantage, takes away from you and your identity. Put as much effort into building your identity as you put into building your masculinity. And please, don't turn the problems you have with being a man into a problem for us women, as some of you have done. It is not for us women to repair the damage caused by the quest for dominance, power and authority that you have been taught throughout history. See it as your individual responsibility to compensate for the damage done by some of you and think about what “being man enough” has taken away from you. Because it has taken a lot of women away from us.   

Source   

““Men (also) cry!”: The construction of masculinity and the cycle of violence in the context of gender roles” Fe Dergi 8, no. 2 (2016), 1-12.