It's Dangerous to Be a Boy NYT article

[Harry Bosch]

Do you think culture/society and societal/cultural norms play any role?

Perhaps, but it will never happen until the military industrial complex is taken down. And that will never ever happen, because when some rare anti war politician like Trump does finally get into office, it is the people like yourself and Nancy Peloci who do their best to end his time in office.

Everything related to our culture begins at the top and filters down. If the sec state Clinton and Obama feel the compulsion to wipe an entire country like Libya out of existence, those extreme violent norms become our norms. There is absolutely no point at all to try to fix societies ills at the lower level when our military kills and wipes out innocent civilians on a daily basis.

People like yourself want a violent society because people like yourself elect violent leaders like Obama. He is by far holding the record for the most civilian kills by military drones.

Is this hopeless or can society do better by men and boys?

It is hopeless if you and others continue to support the military complex by electing democrats like Obama and Hillary Clinton. Yes we can do better and yes we should do better. Join Occupy Peace. https://occupypeace.com/

Where in the world do you get your information? Libya is far from "wiped out". Trump is way ahead of Obama in droned civilian deaths. I'm not going to waste time with a link. Just google it for god's sake. One of Trump's first actions was to eliminate the drone protocols to reduce civilian deaths. Sorry for aside...

 

[Toni]

Do you think culture/society and societal/cultural norms play any role?

Perhaps, but it will never happen until the military industrial complex is taken down. And that will never ever happen, because when some rare anti war politician like Trump does finally get into office, it is the people like yourself and Nancy Peloci who do their best to end his time in office.

Everything related to our culture begins at the top and filters down. If the sec state Clinton and Obama feel the compulsion to wipe an entire country like Libya out of existence, those extreme violent norms become our norms. There is absolutely no point at all to try to fix societies ills at the lower level when our military kills and wipes out innocent civilians on a daily basis.

People like yourself want a violent society because people like yourself elect violent leaders like Obama. He is by far holding the record for the most civilian kills by military drones.

Is this hopeless or can society do better by men and boys?

It is hopeless if you and others continue to support the military complex by electing democrats like Obama and Hillary Clinton. Yes we can do better and yes we should do better. Join Occupy Peace. https://occupypeace.com/

So boyhood/manhood improved and was less dangerous under Hitler and Qaddafi and Putin?

 

[BH]

I am male and have only been in one fist fight back when I was in high school. I was tricked into that one. I have never bullied people ever become violent and attacked anyone just to dominate them. Most of the boys I was around growing up were never violent nor most of the men I know now either.

 

[BH]

Question the women. Could it be that women are less violent because they are raised knowing they will later become pregnant and have been taught not to take risks with their bodies that may damage their ability to reproduce.

 

[Trausti]

Bateman’s Principle.

 

[Toni]

Bateman’s Principle.

What’s Bateman’s Principle and how does it apply here?

 

[ZiprHead]

Bateman’s Principle.

What’s Bateman’s Principle and how does it apply here?

 Bateman's principle

Bateman's principle, in evolutionary biology, is that in most species, variability in reproductive success (or reproductive variance) is greater in males than in females. It was first proposed by Angus John Bateman (1919–1996), an English geneticist. Bateman suggested that, since males are capable of producing millions of sperm cells with little effort, while females invest much higher levels of energy in order to nurture a relatively small number of eggs, the female plays a significantly larger role in their offspring's reproductive success. Bateman’s paradigm thus views females as the limiting factor of parental investment, over which males will compete in order to copulate successfully.

Although Bateman's principle served as a cornerstone for the study of sexual selection for many decades, it has recently been subject to criticism. Attempts to reproduce Bateman's experiments in 2012 and 2013 were unable to support his conclusions. Some scientists have criticized Bateman's experimental and statistical methods, or pointed out conflicting evidence, while others have defended the veracity of the principle and cited evidence in support of it.

 

[Toni]

It's interesting that so many of the responders here seem to believe that boys/men's behavior is based on biology rather than societal/cultural influences as the OP article suggests.

It's also interesting that very few male posters are willing to go more than a couple of sentences deep in discussion. This is a sharp contrast with discussions about women winning custody of children or getting child support or *gasp* alimony.

If men are innately more violent, shouldn't women be awarded custody of children as a matter of course? Shouldn't men only have supervised visits with their children?

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

If men are innately more violent, shouldn't women be awarded custody of children as a matter of course? Shouldn't men only have supervised visits with their children?

(edited) Are you seriously perplexed at how non-violent men may complain about generalizations like this effecting their child custody cases?You can recognize sexism when its against women. Can you recognize it when you push the same against men?

 

[Trausti]

If men are innately more violent, shouldn't women be awarded custody of children as a matter of course? Shouldn't men only have supervised visits with their children?

Men are innately more violent, but to other men. But most men aren't violent. Don't know how this would relate to child custody. Munchhausen by proxy is an uniquely female phenomenon.

 

[Toni]

If men are innately more violent, shouldn't women be awarded custody of children as a matter of course? Shouldn't men only have supervised visits with their children?

Are you trolling again Toni? Or are you seriously perplexed at how non-violent men may complain about generalizations like this effecting their child custody cases?You can recognize sexism when its against women. Can you recognize it when you push the same against men?

Nope. And I'd appreciate you dropping the 'again.' Trolling is not my style. I'm just trying to move the conversation and am playing devil's advocate and taking the position that most of the posters in this thread have taken: boys/men are more violent because of genetics.

The article linked in the OP talks about societal and cultural forces that make boyhood dangerous and how those forces create men who are more likely to be violent.

Most of the posters in this thread are suggesting that boys are boys because of evolutionary forces--it's in their DNA.


If it's in their DNA to be more violent, shouldn't they spend less time with children?

FWIW, I think that the author/article cited in the OP is correct and actually, more relevant. We can do something about how we raise children and we can alter the world in terms of society and culture to help reduce the danger and violence that boys face.

My opinion is that we are all shaped by genetics but also by culture/society and by our own choices.

 

[Toni]

If men are innately more violent, shouldn't women be awarded custody of children as a matter of course? Shouldn't men only have supervised visits with their children?

Men are innately more violent, but to other men. But most men aren't violent. Don't know how this would relate to child custody. Munchhausen by proxy is an uniquely female phenomenon.

Most of the victims of violence are men, yes. But women are also victims of violence. In the case of both male and female victims, most of the perpetrators are men.

I'm not sure where you're getting the Munchhausen stuff but it's not relevant. In fact, men can exhibit Munchausen by proxy

https://adc.bmj.com/content/78/3/210

Published reports on Munchausen syndrome by proxy child abuse (factitious illness abuse) emphasise that the perpetrator is nearly always the child’s mother.1-4 It is very rare for the father to be actively involved in the abuse. There are several single case reports of Munchausen syndrome by proxy abuse perpetrated by fathers,5 but a critical reader might categorise some of these as repetitive physical abuse that was at first unrecognised by paediatricians, rather than typical factitious illness abuse.

Despite involvement with many cases of factitious illness abuse, I did not encounter a male perpetrator in the first 10 years of dealing with these families. However, in the last 10 years I have been involved with 15 cases involving male perpetrators.

Also (my bolding):

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/9834-factitious-disorder-imposed-on-another-fdia

In this mental illness, a person acts as if an individual he or she is caring for has a physical or mental illness when the person is not really sick. The adult perpetrator has the diagnosis (FDIA) and directly produces or lies about illness in another person under his or her care, usually a child under 6 years of age. It is considered a form of abuse by the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children. However, cases have been reported of adult victims, especially the disabled or elderly. FDIA was previously known as Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy.

People with FDIA have an inner need for the other person (often his or her child) to be seen as ill or injured. It is not done to achieve a concrete benefit, such as financial gain. People with FDIA are even willing to have the child or patient undergo painful or risky tests and operations in order to get the sympathy and special attention given to people who are truly ill and their families. Factitious disorders are considered mental illnesses because they are associated with severe emotional difficulties.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 5, is the standard reference book for recognized mental illnesses in the United States. It describes this diagnosis to include falsification of physical or psychological signs or symptoms, and induction of illness or injury to another associated with deception. There is no evidence of external rewards and no other illness to explain the symptoms. Fortunately, it is rare (2 out of 100,000 children).

FDIA most often occurs with mothers—although it can occur with fathers—who intentionally harm or describe non-existent symptoms in their children to get the attention given to the family of someone who is sick

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

If men are innately more violent, shouldn't women be awarded custody of children as a matter of course? Shouldn't men only have supervised visits with their children?

Are you trolling again Toni? Or are you seriously perplexed at how non-violent men may complain about generalizations like this effecting their child custody cases?You can recognize sexism when its against women. Can you recognize it when you push the same against men?

Nope. And I'd appreciate you dropping the 'again.' Trolling is not my style. I'm just trying to move the conversation and am playing devil's advocate and taking the position that most of the posters in this thread have taken: boys/men are more violent because of genetics.

And you followed that up by positing that perhaps men shouldn't have custody of children etc, because if some men are prone to violence, then by golly they all must be, ya? Its in their DNA after all.

Most of the posters in this thread are suggesting that boys are boys because of evolutionary forces--it's in their DNA.

If it's in their DNA to be more violent, shouldn't they spend less time with children?

Well Gee, its also more common in women to be more nurturing and more relationship and feelings less object and hard logic oriented. Will you conclude from that that women should stay at home to look after the kids and not be career oriented? Should we lock them out of the offices so they take care of their kids? Does me flipping this around make you realize how incredibly sexist this all sounds?

 

[ruby sparks]

If men are innately more violent, shouldn't women be awarded custody of children as a matter of course? Shouldn't men only have supervised visits with their children?

Wtf.

Even if you were playing devil's advocate, it still wouldn't make any sense, because the vast majority of men would not be violent and therefore depriving them of custody as a matter of course would be unjustified.

Furthermore, your claim that most or all posters here are saying it's all nature/dna, as a basis for playing devil's advocate, is very suspect in any case. Look again at the first page and the initial responses. At least two posters explicitly cited a mix of nature and nurture. You however chose only to reply to the one person who had cited nature only. Immediately after your reply to that person (trausti) another poster restated the nature/nurture mix paradigm. Are you actually reading what people write or just making stuff up to suit an agenda that's already installed in your head? Whatever the explanation, it's odd.

 

[Harry Bosch]

I'm far from an expert, but it appears to me that aggression in boys in most likely a complicated mixture of nature/nurture. I wonder how much of a role video games has on kids? As a father of several teen agers (and most of our friends have teenagers); we've noticed that the girls tend to want to do activities with friends/family (skiing, kayaking, camping, sailing) where most of the boys tend to just want to stay at home and play video games with each other.

 

[Toni]

Nope. And I'd appreciate you dropping the 'again.' Trolling is not my style. I'm just trying to move the conversation and am playing devil's advocate and taking the position that most of the posters in this thread have taken: boys/men are more violent because of genetics.

And you followed that up by positing that perhaps men shouldn't have custody of children etc, because if some men are prone to violence, then by golly they all must be, ya? Its in their DNA after all.

Most of the posters in this thread are suggesting that boys are boys because of evolutionary forces--it's in their DNA.

If it's in their DNA to be more violent, shouldn't they spend less time with children?

Well Gee, its also more common in women to be more nurturing and more relationship and feelings less object and hard logic oriented. Will you conclude from that that women should stay at home to look after the kids and not be career oriented? Should we lock them out of the offices so they take care of their kids? Does me flipping this around make you realize how incredibly sexist this all sounds?

I postulated a position based on the premise that several posters held: men are more violent. I think most of us agree that violence plus childrearing is a bad mix. It is not my premise. I merely extended the premise to what, for me, was a natural conclusion: men should not raise children. I don't agree with that premise.

In reality, I don't hold the position that men are inherently violent (and that women are not) or that men should not raise children. My position is that children do best when raised by fathers and mothers and that ideally, children are raised by more than one parent of any gender. Childrearing is a difficult task. For purely practical reasons, at least one other parent/parental figure is really important. I also think that children do best when they are raised by fathers and mothers, even if both fathers and mothers do not live together. A gay couple raising children would be wise to make sure that their children also had a lot of interaction/familial relationships with women; a lesbian couple would be wise to make sure that their children had a lot of interaction/familial relationships with men. Divorced/separated parents should learn how to get along well enough to both be positive influences and care givers in their children's lives, and so on for any combination of circumstances you can think of.

 

[Toni]

If men are innately more violent, shouldn't women be awarded custody of children as a matter of course? Shouldn't men only have supervised visits with their children?

Wtf.

Even if you were playing devil's advocate, it still wouldn't make any sense, because the vast majority of men would not be violent and therefore depriving them of custody as a matter of course would be unjustified.

Furthermore, your claim that most or all posters here are saying it's all nature/dna, as a basis for playing devil's advocate, is very suspect in any case. Look again at the first page and the initial responses. At least two posters explicitly cited a mix of nature and nurture. You however chose only to reply to the one person who had cited nature only. Immediately after your reply to that person (trausti) another poster restated the nature/nurture mix paradigm. Are you actually reading what people write or just making stuff up to suit an agenda that's already installed in your head? Whatever the explanation, it's odd.

WTF, indeed.

Responses from the front page:
#2: males are more violent
#3 males being more violent is an advantage
#4 males by nature influenced by nurture
#5 taking a piss at #4
#6 me asking a question about whether violence = aggression, dominance, etc.
#7 Response to #6 maybe but it's nature
#8 It's nature but can be modified by nurture
#9 Me asking #6 for more
#10 taking a piss at #5
END OF PAGE 1

Page 2:
11 Image of art that I am interpreting as men being violent and perhaps it's the will of God or perhaps it's nature
12 Political rant/dig at perception of liberals
13 Response to political rant in #12
14 Response to 13, again mostly political
15 More than 2 lines! Thoughtful piece about ways that society lets men/boys down
16 Disagreement with some facts in #15
17 Mixed influences: nature plus nurture
18 Correcting some facts in #16
#19 Disagreeeing with #16 about side issue with more discussion of cultural reasons
20 Response to #19
End of page 2

Page 3
21 Response to 12 (political)
22 Response to earlier political post
23 Mostly disagreeing with the premise that boys are inherently violent/more violent'
24 Question about females/biological forces driving female behavior
25 2 words no description or discussion of why/how the two words are pertinent
26 Asking for information about those 2 words
27 Definition of 2 word term in #25
28 Me noting that few posters are willing to offer more than a sentence or two and posing the question about whether, if men are violent by nature, should they be awarded custody
29 Personal attack
30 Men are more violent but towards women and offer of Munchausen by proxy as strictly female

Page 4
31 Response to 29
32 Response to 30 with actual facts and links
33 Personal attack/deliberate misunderstanding of post
34 post in which you do not speculate whether is is nature or nurture but you're sure I'm deliberately misinterpreting responses and that many more are note nurture/combo vs combo
35 Nature/nurture

We're up to date


Maybe pages display different/different numbers of posts on your screen compared with mine but that's the first page on my computer. Most of the responses give nature the predominate place in driving male behavior.

I'm actually reading AND counting.

Are you looking at anything other than the poster's name to decide what you believe they mean?

FWIW, I think the entire discussion about violent behavior, aggression and male gender to be a very difficult discussion, no matter your position: it's nature, it's nurture, it's a mixture.

I also think it's one of the most important discussions we can have as a modern society.

 

[ruby sparks]

If men are innately more violent, shouldn't women be awarded custody of children as a matter of course? Shouldn't men only have supervised visits with their children?

Wtf.

Even if you were playing devil's advocate, it still wouldn't make any sense, because the vast majority of men would not be violent and therefore depriving them of custody as a matter of course would be unjustified.

Furthermore, your claim that most or all posters here are saying it's all nature/dna, as a basis for playing devil's advocate, is very suspect in any case. Look again at the first page and the initial responses. At least two posters explicitly cited a mix of nature and nurture. You however chose only to reply to the one person who had cited nature only. Immediately after your reply to that person (trausti) another poster restated the nature/nurture mix paradigm. Are you actually reading what people write or just making stuff up to suit an agenda that's already installed in your head? Whatever the explanation, it's odd.

WTF, indeed.

Responses from the front page:
#2: males are more violent
#3 males being more violent is an advantage
#4 males by nature influenced by nurture
#5 taking a piss at #4
#6 me asking a question about whether violence = aggression, dominance, etc.
#7 Response to #6 maybe but it's nature
#8 It's nature but can be modified by nurture
#9 Me asking #6 for more
#10 taking a piss at #5
END OF PAGE 1

Page 2:
11 Image of art that I am interpreting as men being violent and perhaps it's the will of God or perhaps it's nature
12 Political rant/dig at perception of liberals
13 Response to political rant in #12
14 Response to 13, again mostly political
15 More than 2 lines! Thoughtful piece about ways that society lets men/boys down
16 Disagreement with some facts in #15
17 Mixed influences: nature plus nurture
18 Correcting some facts in #16
#19 Disagreeeing with #16 about side issue with more discussion of cultural reasons
20 Response to #19
End of page 2

Page 3
21 Response to 12 (political)
22 Response to earlier political post
23 Mostly disagreeing with the premise that boys are inherently violent/more violent'
24 Question about females/biological forces driving female behavior
25 2 words no description or discussion of why/how the two words are pertinent
26 Asking for information about those 2 words
27 Definition of 2 word term in #25
28 Me noting that few posters are willing to offer more than a sentence or two and posing the question about whether, if men are violent by nature, should they be awarded custody
29 Personal attack
30 Men are more violent but towards women and offer of Munchausen by proxy as strictly female

Page 4
31 Response to 29
32 Response to 30 with actual facts and links
33 Personal attack/deliberate misunderstanding of post
34 post in which you do not speculate whether is is nature or nurture but you're sure I'm deliberately misinterpreting responses and that many more are note nurture/combo vs combo
35 Nature/nurture

We're up to date


Maybe pages display different/different numbers of posts on your screen compared with mine but that's the first page on my computer. Most of the responses give nature the predominate place in driving male behavior.

I'm actually reading AND counting.

Are you looking at anything other than the poster's name to decide what you believe they mean?

FWIW, I think the entire discussion about violent behavior, aggression and male gender to be a very difficult discussion, no matter your position: it's nature, it's nurture, it's a mixture.

I also think it's one of the most important discussions we can have as a modern society.

Only Trausti said on page 1 that the cause of male violence is nature/dna alone. For some reason, you only replied to Trausti, not to those who agreed it was a mix. Your later comment that 'so many posters here are saying that it's nature/dna and not culture' is therefore odd. And it's even odder that you should then play devil's advocate against it with a suggestion that men should be denied child custody as a matter of course, because that rather controversial suggestion wouldn't stack up even in the (incorrect) case that it was just nature/dna that caused the gender disparities, because even then most men would not be violent, and a very small minority of women would, and so you'd be suggesting awarding children to a certain parent regardless of actual circumstances. I don't think there's any doubt that (a) you're mischaracterising the responses by only noticing one type and (b) making provocative statements about child custody issues as a result, albeit while playing devil's advocate.

 

[thebeave]

And you followed that up by positing that perhaps men shouldn't have custody of children etc, because if some men are prone to violence, then by golly they all must be, ya? Its in their DNA after all.

Most of the posters in this thread are suggesting that boys are boys because of evolutionary forces--it's in their DNA.

If it's in their DNA to be more violent, shouldn't they spend less time with children?

Well Gee, its also more common in women to be more nurturing and more relationship and feelings less object and hard logic oriented. Will you conclude from that that women should stay at home to look after the kids and not be career oriented? Should we lock them out of the offices so they take care of their kids? Does me flipping this around make you realize how incredibly sexist this all sounds?

I postulated a position based on the premise that several posters held: men are more violent. I think most of us agree that violence plus childrearing is a bad mix. It is not my premise. I merely extended the premise to what, for me, was a natural conclusion: men should not raise children. I don't agree with that premise.

In reality, I don't hold the position that men are inherently violent (and that women are not) or that men should not raise children. My position is that children do best when raised by fathers and mothers and that ideally, children are raised by more than one parent of any gender. Childrearing is a difficult task. For purely practical reasons, at least one other parent/parental figure is really important. I also think that children do best when they are raised by fathers and mothers, even if both fathers and mothers do not live together. A gay couple raising children would be wise to make sure that their children also had a lot of interaction/familial relationships with women; a lesbian couple would be wise to make sure that their children had a lot of interaction/familial relationships with men. Divorced/separated parents should learn how to get along well enough to both be positive influences and care givers in their children's lives, and so on for any combination of circumstances you can think of.

I believe the statistics indicate that women are the greatest perpetrators of child abuse. Specifically, their mothers. And when it comes to domestic violence, the perpetrators are about 60% men versus 40% women. So, its not quite as lopsided as you might think.

 

[ruby sparks]

And when it comes to domestic violence, the perpetrators are about 60% men versus 40% women. So, its not quite as lopsided as you might think.

That may be true, but those sorts of figures do not tend to distinguish between levels of violence and injury. When those qualities are taken into account, men are much more likely to be the perpetrators in the more serious incidents, as I understand it. I believe that pattern holds for psychological as well as physical violence/abuse.