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It is December, when men are routinely and ritually shamed for violence against women, in the December 6 ceremonies commemorating what has become known as the Montreal massacre. I see this shaming as a very unhealthy, destructive trend in our society, and I want in this short essay to explore its roots and offer a diagnosis. I will build my essay around three memorials that demonstrate the shift that has occurred during the last hundred years in our cultural perceptions of men and women.
First memorial
We start in 1912, with the maiden voyage of the Titanic. Some of the richest, most powerful men in the world were on that ship. If it's true that men have oppressed women, if it's true that men have had all the power and control, then those wealthy men should have been the first into the lifeboats. Were they?
Encyclopedia Britannica records the survival rates. First and second class children: 100%. First and second class women: 93%. First and second class men: 21%. Benjamin Guggenheim, realizing death was inevitable, donned evening dress in order to "die like a gentleman." Those patriarchal, oppressive, capitalist men gave their lives to save women and children. Why? They did it for honour. Because of their deep, abiding belief that good men protect women and children, even unto death. A belief shared by most men in every civilized society, then and now. It's something that men can be really proud of.
The women who survived were proud of it too. In 1931, after fundraising for nineteen years, the Women of America erected a memorial inscribed, "To the brave men who perished in the wreck of the Titanic, April 15, 1912. They gave their lives that women and children might be saved." The memorial was erected in downtown Washington, DC, but was later moved to a more obscure site on the Potomac in a residential part of town. At first, there was a program of annual wreath layings on the anniversary of the disaster, in the spirit of "lest we forget." But the wreath layings have stopped. We have forgotten. We have forgotten about men's service, men's honour. We have stopped praising men, as men, for what they do for women and children. We are telling a different story now.
Second Memorial
More recently, in 1982, the Vietnam War Memorial was erected in Constitution Gardens, Washington, D.C., listing the names of all those who died in that war. The memorial represents all occuptions and all branches of the service. Over 58,000 men's and eight women's names are listed.
Of those eight women, most succumbed to sickness: only one died from enemy fire. Yet some women argued that the women who served in Vietnam deserved a separate memorial, one for them alone.
The Vietnam Women's Memorial was erected in 1993 on the same site. The American Legion helped them build it. It praises women alone and uniquely, even though they were included in the first memorial anyway, and even though only eight died. What is happening to us as a society, that it felt right to us to do this?
Third Memorial
More recently still, a series of memorials have been erected across Canada in honour of "women killed by men." Vancouver, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Toronto and Ottawa are only some of the cities that have seen fit to do this. These monuments go beyond separating out women specifically for honour, to something uglier. Implicitly or explictly, they shame men.
When a society begins to erect public monuments that shame a particular group, we have sunk low indeed. Consider: we didnąt do this even in the aftermath of massive wars, with all of the anger, fear and hate that war can engender. I know of no war memorials dedicated to those killed "by Germans" or "by the Japanese." We know as a society that this would be wrong; unhealthy and inappropriate. Why, then, have women's monuments ‹ and only women's monuments ‹ become so shaming?
Chivalry subordinates men
The answer has its roots in that same honour code that I began with, the code that led powerful and not-so-powerful men to give their lives for women and children. Something strong enough to overcome the individual survival instinct is strong indeed, and chivalry may be the strongest cultural force of all.
When women claim that it is an emergency, that their lives are at risk, as they are doing today in the debate about domestic violence, even powerful men will do their bidding. And so city councils have approved these shaming monuments, for the sake of honour, for chivalry and the protection of women and children.
However, the focus is wrong. In these times when we are holding a social vision of equality between men and women, it is necessary to point out that women are already the most protected, the safest members of our society. Every indicator, from police reports to scientific surveys, shows that men are victims of violence at a rate two to three times above that of women.
Not only is the focus wrong, but the approach is wrong too. Men restrain themselves from violence for the sake of honour, to be known as good men. If all men are being shamed as violent or abusive, if all men are dishonourable, then where is the benefit for men in restraint?
There are no customs to curb women's abuse of power
So it is for chivalry, for honour, that men have allowed these monuments to be erected, even though we know, deep down, that this is wrong, unhealthy and inappropriate. But a question remains: why do women want these things?
My answer will trouble some people, I feel sure. For thousands of years, men have held social power roles, and women have not. And so we have evolved cultural forces to restrain the abuses of power that men tend to use. Indeed, chivalry itself is a way of obliging men to accept the responsibility of power, to serve others and not themselves, even at the cost of their lives.
However, the widespreaed use of social power by women is brand new in evolutionary terms, less than fifty years old, and none of our restraint mechanisms work very well against female abuses of power. Neither the internal mechanisms such as chivalry (no cultural "honour code" in women obliges them to protect men), nor the external mechanisms such as courts and legislation, which still are predisposed to see women as victims. And so women today are exerting great power in our society, with no cultural mechanisms restraining their abuses of this power. As they do what feels right to them, some of their actions are doing massive harm.
Eventually, of course, this will correct itself: great social harm cannot be forever hid. We will learn as a society to recognize female abuses of social power, and evolve mechanisms to constrain them. Between now and then, I predict much suffering. In this life, suffering is often the price of learning. May we learn swiftly and well.
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