How to explain and redress the matreatment of women?

If a society wants to reduce the maltreatment of women by men, it may look at how its child rearing turns the sons into cocky machos, male chauvinists, frontier cowboys, eternal Casanovas or habitual rapists.

This approach does not blame, it explains. It does not see mothers or fathers as causes, it sees kinship systems as causes. In that way it can be tremendously helpful. But it is not for sissies.

This does not mean anyone is to be blamed. It means we may look for an explanation. It does not mean to see women as the cause, it means to see kinship systems as the cause. In that way it is tremendously helpful. But it is not for sissies.

If mothers, in the emotional or physical absence of their husbands, have unhappy marriages, they may direct their love and admiration to their newborn sons. The baby boy may feel like a god who enjoys all admiration and servitude from women and takes it for granted.

But he may also feel unshielded against the overwhelming presence of his mother and builds up fear about her and other women. That fear can turn into rage against her and other women in later years. There you have the wide-scale maltreatment of women.

Once married, the man may try to stay away from an intimate relationship with his wife, and the causational cycle starts again.

Many societies show such a pattern, be with variations. Think of the matrifocal family in the Caribbean, soldiers or fishermen and their left alone families or widows, and the proverbial American cowboy leaving the woman he rescued for a horse ride to next adventure. Or consider symbols such as the both loving and murderous goddess Kali in India and the Madonna-whore complex in southern Europe.

So what to do? Zee that maltreating men live in fear. Disrespecting men cannot respect themselves, cannot love themselves. See and feel the kinship system as the repeating source of their fear or lack of self-respect and self-love. Improve their upbringing by breaking the vicious cycle. It’s up to the fathers and the mothers to change the future.