Whatever ails you is always someone else's fault

"Lao Tzu once said that the strongest of men were those who could control themselves. When men try to control women, they are demonstrating their own weakness," wrote our blogpal Frank LoPinto way last June.  We stumbled upon the link in our Site Meter stats this afternoon and went back for a reread:

Where you have societies and cultures that, for whatever reason, want to control sex either for political or religious reasons, you find that it is women they tend to try to control. You rarely see these societies trying to get men to control themselves. No, they attempt to control male sexual responses by controlling female behavior.

In other words, the implicit assumption is that men are too weak to control themselves. And when a society's subliminal meme is of male weakness, to what degree to you think men try to compensate by showing strength in combat, I wonder?

I think there is a correlation with supression of sexuality and violence; in other words the more sexually repressive the society, the more violent it is.

'Reminds us of former Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky's "fear societies" and makes us think Frank's formulation works not just for sexually repressive societies but repressive societies in general.  Think secret police, from Nazi Germany and Soviet communism through Saddam's Iraq and the mullahs' Iran. Repress human nature's innate hunger for freedom, and violence against your fellow beings -- whether your women, your citizens in general or your perceived enemies -- becomes a necessity. Project your own weakness onto the "other," and then whatever ails you is always someone else's fault.

Comments

[StephenL]

I've thought of the men who make the women wear burkas as weak. Since they won't discipline their own minds against improper thought they blame the women and push it onto them.

[andophiroxia]

Or they project onto women as a temptress and she should be treated no other than like a little child, so that's why they have to chaperone her as well. Perhaps StephenL's point explains why in certain cases that a woman that has been raped is killed to fix the family's honor?