Part 3
In Part 1, I shared my challenges with depression, the fact that the suicide rate for men is much higher than for women, and how these events have affected men and their families. In Part 2, I looked deeper into the underlying causes and possible solutions to this global problem. In Part 3, I’ll build on an evolutionary understanding and how it can help us address the main problems of male violence, both inwardly and outwardly directed.
We don’t often think of suicide as a form of violence or depression as an underlying cause of violence, but they are closely related. The World Health Organization (WHO) produced an in-depth analysis of violence and published the information under the title “The Global Report on Violence and Health”. The report is the result of 3 years of work, during which WHO relied on the knowledge of more than 160 experts from more than 70 countries.
The report details the estimated world-related deaths as follows:
These numbers vary in different years and violent death rates also vary by country and within each country with different groups. But it is clear that suicide violence accounts for nearly as many deaths as war-related violence and homicides combined. All forms of violence are tragic and many have come to believe that violence is simply part of human nature. But this is not true.
Violence of any kind can be understood and prevented.
“Violence thrives in the absence of democracy, respect for human rights and good governance,” said Nelson Mandela. We often talk about how a “culture of violence” can take root. This is indeed true—as a South African who lived through apartheid and lives through its aftermath, I have seen and experienced it. No country, no city, no community is immune. But we are not powerless against it either.”
To understand and prevent violence, we must first accept the reality that men, on average, are more violent than women. We see this from the WHO report on violence mentioned above. Here are additional statistics on estimated global homicide and suicide rates by age group and gender:
At every age, men die from homicide and suicide at much higher rates than women. It is also true that men commit more violence that leads to death than women. Although biology is not destiny, we must accept that biology plays a significant role in the increased prevalence of male violence.
Richard V. Reeves is founder of the American Institute of Boys and Men and author of the book Boys and Men: Why the Modern Man Struggles, Why It Matters, and What We Should Do About It. In his chapter “Making Men: Nature and Nurture Matter,” he says,
“It is not helpful to deny or dismiss gender differences”
and quotes anthropologist Melvin Conner as saying:
“I want my sons and daughters, my hundreds of students, or any young person, or anyone else to ignore the fact that there are differences between the sexes that are not shaped by culture, but are more fundamental, rooted in evolution and biology. “
Reeves goes on to talk about the effect of hormones on men and women.
“One result of the testosterone bath of the male brain is a greater propensity for physical aggression, not only in humans but in almost all primates and mammals. Male individuals are more physically aggressive in all cultures at all ages. Boys are five times more likely than girls to be frequently aggressive by age seventeen-seventeen months, namely. The gap widens into early adulthood before narrowing again. Around the world, men commit over 95% of homicides and the vast majority of other violent acts, including sexual assault.”
Male violence is not inevitable
When describing the biological realities that make male mammals, including human mammals, more aggressive, some people conclude that male violence is inevitable and immutable. This is not true.
James Gilligan, MD has spent his life working on male violence. He is a world-renowned psychiatrist and former director of the Center for the Study of Violence at Harvard Medical School. He is best known for his book series titled Violencewhere he drew on more than 25 years of work in the US prison system to describe the motivations and causes behind violent behavior. When asked what drew him to work with violent offenders, he shared his personal story.
“I think the ultimate answer, as with most major life decisions people make, goes back to my early childhood. I grew up in a family with a father who was quite violent with my two brothers. He would really run. He would knock them across the room to the point where I was afraid he would accidentally kill one of them.
“Now, it’s true, the level of violence didn’t reach the extremes I later experienced when I worked with prisoners who were often the children of fathers or mothers who had killed a family member. My father didn’t go that far. He was never arrested and no one ever filed a report of child abuse or anything. This was in the days before people even had the idea of child abuse. The whole concept of abused child syndrome was not formulated and expressed until about 1963 in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Before that, people didn’t even talk about child abuse.”
In his book, Violence: Our Deadly Epidemic and Its Causes, Dr. Gilligan links his family’s violence to societal violence.
“My father was caught in a generational cycle of violence that played out in our family as it did, in fact, on the land we lived on, a land bought with the blood of the indigenous people we displaced.”
He goes on to describe the relationship between violence and male adulthood.
“All of this violence—against the native peoples of the country, against my brothers—was part of a larger pattern—that, statistically, most legal violence is committed by men against other men. Violence is primarily the work of men. it is most often performed against men and is about maintaining masculinity. To say this is not to minimize men’s violence against women. is, rather, to take the first step towards understanding the etiology of violence against men and women”.
Males are violent because their souls have been violated
I have worked with violent men throughout my career as a psychotherapist specializing in men’s mental and emotional health. I had similar experiences to what Dr. Gilligan describes when he first entered a prison.
“Looking at the gate that leads to the Massachusetts prison you don’t see Dante’s motto written on it, ‘Forbid all hope to all who enter here,’ but it needn’t be, for most of those I see there have already given up everything. hope. To speak of these men as ‘the living dead’ is not a metaphor I have invented, but rather the most direct, literal and least distorted way to summarize what these men told me.”
In his book, Under Saturn’s Shadow: The Wounding and Healing of Men, Jungian analyst Dr. James Hollis says simply,
“Men’s lives are violent because their souls have been violated.”
He goes on to say, “Mass murderers and serial killers have been subjected to violent verbal and physical abuse. The disillusioned postal clerk or bank clerk running amok has become commonplace on the six o’clock news. But this is only the tip of the iceberg. Soul murders happen all the time in people’s lives.”
The Moonshot For Mankind: Bringing Organizations Together for Good
My father suffered his own kind of soul murder when he was prevented from doing the work he loved, which I described in Part 1 of this series. My own work for the past fifty plus years has been to heal the male soul. Three years ago I invited a group of colleagues to join what I called “a moonlight for humanity” to work together to heal the mental, emotional and relational wounds that lead to violence.
On our website, MoonshotForMankind.orgyou can learn about our efforts. We invite organizations that share our goals to participate. Here are some of the organizations that have joined the movement:
Shana JamesManAlive Podcasts. Shana says,
“For 15 years I have coached more than a thousand leaders, CEOs, authors, speakers and visionaries to step into stronger leadership, start and grow businesses, create more effective teams, increase their impact, get promoted, find love, reignite the spark, create a legacy and become more personally inspired and fulfilled.”
Frederick Marx, Warrior Films. Frederica says,
“My goal is to provide some of the tools that will enable men everywhere to reach their own human transformation and help men everywhere. Warrior Films inspires needed social change by telling compelling stories that highlight transformative solutions.”
Lisa Hickey, The Good Men ProjectLisa says,
“The Good Men project is one of the world’s largest conversations about what it means to be a good man in the twenty-first century. We’re trying to create big, sweeping, social change—overturning stereotypes, eradicating racism, sexism, and homophobia, and becoming a positive force for things like education reform and environmental improvement.”
ManTherapy.org: Man Therapy is an evidence-based, decades-long, multidisciplinary effort to break down stigma, improve help-seeking behavior, and reduce male suicide. And they have the statistics to back it up. Learn more here.
MenLiving.org: MenLiving offers programs and experiences to help create a world of healthy, purposeful, connected men who can heal and thrive. Learn more here.
Men and Boys Compassion Initiative (MBCI) is an international movement that helps men and boys cultivate their compassionate selves. This also requires cultivating the courage and wisdom to heal the male disconnection crisis.
