I’ve recently spent at least 10 hours studying the laws of war. I will be spending at least another 40 hours studying this topic before December. This experience has taught me a very important lesson.
First: that sometimes it doesn't matter if the lecture is in English, you can still have no idea what's flying.
Second: I am not a man.
As much as I am in many ways just as component as a man and have the same natural entitlements and obligations as a man when it comes to violence we are talking about apples and oranges.
I am quite simply not violent. I will never use force to get what I want. Additionally I have never been nor am I likely to ever be in an army or a war. As such, the world of perpetrating violence is not my world and I can't understand it.
Now if we want to talk about victims of violence I get it. Without actually having experienced any significant violence against myself, I still know what it’s like to be afraid and know that I have no real means of defence.
I know that this is not the experience of all women. Obviously not. The fact that I’m 5 ft nothing and just a smidge over 50 kgs and generally adorable makes me inherently vulnerable. But additionally violence simply wouldn’t be an efficient method for me to get what I want and that’s why I use other methods to get my way. Like smiling, hair twirling or logical arguments. I don’t think ever about using violence and I can’t understand people who do use it. It simply doesn’t run through my decision making process ever. Even if other people threaten violence with me, counter violence doesn’t even play in my mind as a means of defence.
As such, there is a whole part of the world, of the man’s world, that is not part of my world. Now this realisation is significant in two ways
1) It’s something, which is at least partly biological (though also cultural) that differentiates me from the masculine, this is an uncommon reality b/c in most other ways I am the same as men, b/c ultimately we are all just people
2) I probably cannot be a human rights lawyer, at least where human rights relate to war or conflicts. B/c I just don’t get violence or war. I don’t understand it and hence would make a totally shit lawyer in this area. Goodbye potential job opportunities in the middle-east.
So does it bother me to not be a violent man? Not really. But it would be nice if even men weren’t violent in the first place.
2 comments:
This is the type of feminism that I find unhelpful.
There are plenty of women who are violent, for good and for bad and plenty of non-violent men.
Don't reduce it to gender, because then it makes the woman into a victim when there is no need to.
Also, have you really never slapped, pulled the hair, scratched anyone or grabbed something from someone by force from when you were young until now?
I do not project this as any type of feminism at all - infact - I'm uncomfortable with this realisation of mine b/c it contradicts my general understanding of gender..
Additionally i did state in the post that it's not the experience of all women - but that its a strong experience of mine.
lastly, from a very young age i internalised the message of the futility of me using force to get what i want, so from age 9 at the latest I'd say i havnt hit anybody. Moreover, take note that this is a gender and not sex issue - meaning that this reality is based on cultural norms and not on biological destiny
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