"The Internet Miniskirt"

A writer named E. J. Graff wrote a piece by this name at the American Prospect last week; I happened on it this morning.  The subject is the sexual threats that haunt women who enter the public space, especially to venture strong opinions.  She offers numerous examples, if examples are needed -- I expect that all of us have observed this behavior at some point -- and then concludes:

After a certain age—say, by 19—women know that we must keep our heads up and our eyes open in the back stacks of libraries or hidden areas of public parks, lest we encounter flashers or worse; be alert when walking at night or in empty areas; stay near streetlights and away from parked cars; keep our keys splayed in our fingers as potential weapons if jumped; check our back seats before getting into our cars and to lock the car instantly on getting in; make sure a friend knows where we are at all times....

A lot of men have no idea how fully women's lives are limned by caution and fear. This is the invisible burka for women in the West. I don't mean to exaggerate it—god forbid that I should be mocked by Katie Roiphe, who has made a silly career of asserting that sexual violence is just flirting by another name—but neither should this gendered background noise continue to go unnoticed. 

Here's the larger question for me: Why do so many men feel comfortable having and acting on such sexually violent attitudes toward women? What will it take to end this underlying beastly treatment of women who dare to be anything but silent bodies? How do we end this epidemic of violent disrespect? I am honestly asking for your thoughts.

I have no use whatever for the kind of man she is describing.  I am going to offer my thoughts, since she asks for them, with the understanding that I would also like to see a society in which this kind of behavior was driven out of the public space.

Before I do that, I want to say a few words to clarify the nature of the problem.

Ms. Graff says that a lot of men have no idea of the degree to which women's lives are full of the fear of violence.  I would gently suggest, as a counterpoint, that she herself does not seem to appreciate the degree to which men have a very different relationship to violence.  She understands that men are more likely to cause violence, especially sexual violence to women:  what she doesn't seem to appreciate is that men are also far, far more likely to experience violence.  The exception is sexual violence (see table 5), but otherwise the vast majority of violence is targeted at men.  This is true not only of criminal violence, but of lawful violence:  the number of men versus women who are imprisoned, say, or the number of men versus women killed in war.

Thus, if by the age of 19 a woman learns to carry her keys in a certain way, a man by that age has learned to fight.  He will probably have had to do so.  I have been punched, kicked, mobbed by groups of up to three, machinegunned, mortared, rocketed, and shot at with an AK-47 at various points.  I suspect that most men have been in fights, if not as adults than as young men:  certainly we fought often where I grew up.  I've also studied violence -- not only in the martial arts, but also chronicles from Thucydides to Froissart to T. E. Lawrence, military histories, and theoretical works from Sun Tzu to Vegetius to Clausewitz.

Violence in politics is the ordinary condition of humankind.  There has almost never been a state of affairs in which it was unusual, let alone unheard of, for anyone entering politics to be subject to violent intimidation if not actual attacks.  This is why -- as Hannah Arendt reminds us -- Machiavelli held courage to be the most important political virtue.

Nor is violence outside of politics an unusual condition.  When Ms. Graff writes that a woman learns always to 'keep her head up and eyes open' and to 'always look in the back seat of her car before getting in,' I am strongly reminded of the opening lines of the Havamal, where the god Odin is giving advice to the wise:

At every door-way,
ere one enters,
one should spy round,
one should pry round
for uncertain is the witting
that there be no foeman sitting,
within, before one on the floor

Likewise, on travel:

Let a man never stir on his road a step
without his weapons of war;
for unsure is the knowing when need shall arise
of a spear on the way without.

This is not new, then, nor is it unusual.  There are ways of dealing with it so that you can go about your life unafraid, and these strategies include:  study and practice, such as I described above; the habit of keeping and bearing arms, which has been my constant habit since youth; constructing friendships with people who will stand up for you, and with you, and fighting for them in return; and of course "keeping your head up and your eyes open," with which Ms. Graff is plainly familiar.  It's an excellent practice.  

If we can see the problem of violence and threats in this broader light, we can begin to make sense of the question she's after.  How do we put a stop to this state of affairs in which there is violent disrespect for women in the public space?  I will suggest that it's not a problem for women, but a problem that men and women need to think about in concert.

Possibly the most popular post I have I ever written was "Social Harmony," which treats the problem of violence in society.

Very nearly all the violence that plagues, rather than protects, society is the work of young males between the ages of fourteen and thirty. A substantial amount of the violence that protects rather than plagues society is performed by other members of the same group. The reasons for this predisposition are generally rooted in biology, which is to say that they are not going anywhere, in spite of the current fashion that suggests doping half the young with Ritalin. 

The question is how to move these young men from the first group (violent and predatory) into the second (violent, but protective). This is to ask: what is the difference between a street gang and the Marine Corps, or a thug and a policeman? In every case, we see that the good youths are guided and disciplined by old men. This is half the answer to the problem. 

But do we not try to discipline and guide the others? If we catch them at their menace, don't we put them into prisons or programs where they are monitored, disciplined, and exposed to "rehabilitation"? The rates of recidivism are such that we can't say that these programs are successful at all, unless the person being "rehabilitated" wants and chooses to be. And this is the other half of the answer: the discipline and guidance must be voluntarily accepted. The Marine enlists; the criminal must likewise choose to accept what is offered. 

The Eastern martial arts provide an experience very much like that of Boot Camp. The Master, like the Drill Instructor, is a disciplined man of great personal prowess. He is an exemplar. He asks nothing of you he can't, or won't, do himself--and there are very many things he can and will do that are beyond you, though you have all the help of youth and strength. It is on this ground that acceptance of discipline is won. It is the ground of admiration, and what wins the admiration of these young men is martial prowess. 

Everyone who was once a young man will understand what I mean. Who could look forward, at the age of sixteen or eighteen, to a life of obedience, dressed in suits or uniforms, sitting or standing behind a desk? How were you to respect or care about the laws, or the wishes, of men who had accepted such a life? The difficulty is compounded in poor communities, where the jobs undertaken are often menial. How can you respect your father if your father is a servant? Would you not be accepting a place twice as low as his? Would you not rather take up the sword, and cut yourself a new place? Meekness in the old men of the community unmakes the social order: it encourages rebellion from the young.....

The martial virtues are exactly the ones needed. By a happy coincidence, having a society whose members adhere to and encourage those virtues makes us freer as well--we need fewer police, fewer courts, fewer prisons, fewer laws, and fewer lawyers. This is what Aristotle meant when he said that the virtues of the man are reflected in the society. Politics and ethics are naturally joined.

Now, true virtues are virtues for anyone.  Courage is a true virtue because, no matter what you want out of life and no matter what your opinions or values are, courage will help you achieve it.  The martial virtues are likewise true virtues -- and Ms. Graff shows some evidence of them!  After all, she has learned to arm herself (if only with car keys), keep aware, and ensure that she has friends she can count on to come after her.   These are things that she apparently wishes she did not have to do, but perhaps she should take pride in them instead.  These are strengths, which allow her to live the life she wishes to live in the teeth of a dangerous world.  It should be a joy to defy the wicked.

There is another answer, though, which is indicated by "Social Harmony."  Women cannot do this alone.  Partly this is because young men need old men with the right values, to whom they can look up to for an example.  It is critical that old men set this example, and it is critical that society supports them in doing so.  When an old man by example teaches his son to refer to all women as "ma'am," society should support his efforts to instill a sense of reflexive respect for ladies.  When the old man disciplines the young man for failing to show this reflexive respect, society should reinforce him by showing honor to the old man for doing it.  This will point out the path to receiving honor for the young man, who by nature hungers for honor above all things.

The other part is that women should encourage men to take up and enjoy the role of defender.  This is archetypal:  the form here is that of the Lady of the Lake.  

The key things that matter are these: the lady is noble of spirit; she, like the Lady of the Lake or Queen Victoria, has the power to bestow arms, or to approve of their use in her defense and interests; she is morally worthy of service; and she calls men to channel their feelings of admiration for her, even love for her, into practical service.

It is a commonplace among scholars who write about the Arthurian legends to assert that the Lady of the Lake is a kind of holdover from an ancient goddess of sovereignty.  Numerous forms of the myth appear in journal articles; what people rarely stop to ask is why there should be so many such forms in which a woman bestows a weapon upon a man.  If men did not care about womens' approval, why would this myth be so strong and so pervasive?  The truth is that men care very deeply about this.

To be entrusted by a lady with her defense, as in marriage, is perhaps the highest honor that a man can know; outside of marriage, it is nevertheless a high reward.  It is a pleasure as well, one that opens the way for the kind of friendship that can only arise in conditions of genuine trust.

It is also, I would warrant, why the 'Western burka' wears so much lighter than the Eastern one.  General James Mattis got into hot water a few years ago for making a remark along these lines.

"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years, because they didn't wear a veil," Mattis said. "You know guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot 'em."

I imagine Ms. Graff would not care for the general's celebration of violence, even in as good a cause as ending the abuse of women who did not wish to be subjected to the burka.  Even so, note the definition of manhood he offers to his Marines:  it is one that is not only opposes violence toward women who wish to speak and be seen in public, but defines manhood in terms of defending rather than abusing those women.

No doubt I am not the kind of man Ms. Graff would completely approve of either:  she and I obviously differ on politics in fairly fundamental ways (although I may have to read her book on marriage, since she starts from exactly the right question and then arrives at the opposite conclusion that I have reached:  I imagine it's an interesting argument).  

For all we may disagree, she would never be safer than in my company.  If she does not wish to endorse my service, she shall have it anyway:  if I am wrong in this, I shall gladly die in my error.  If she does not approve of me, though, she ought to demand such a defense from the men of whom she does approve.  It will please them no end to be asked, and it will go a long way to establishing the space she desires.

I realize that a feminist theorist may have objections to the idea of seeking protection from men, but they should rethink this question.  A woman who has developed the martial virtues in herself, as Ms. Graff has done, should have no fear of forming an alliance to defend her interests.  Nor should she want to construct a society in which the men she admires are denied one of the greatest pleasures that life affords them.

If they are good and strong men -- good enough and strong enough to succeed at establishing and upholding the example -- young men will follow them.  Bad men will fly from them.