Houellebecq, welcome.

Nice to see another view point, and I think you articulate some very important points.

Happy New Year!

Houellebecq:"silence on the male posters part in response to personal accounts and emotive arguments is taken as a lack of empathy (I think wrongly)."

So do I. However, I just take it as read that people understand that I'm empathic, rather than simply trotting out the boilerplate. I'm much more interested in discussing something about the subject than getting off into meta-discussions about feelings, unless it's very germane.

I think you're right about the gender difference in such interactions and the question that then need to be asked is whether that is genetic/ hormonal and hence largely immutable or whether it is a social construct. The grrrls believe the latter; I'm not so sure. It is certainly partially socially constructed, but there is a great deal of predisposition involved as well. No matter how hard some try to socially engineer SNAGS, they can only skew the curve a little, I suspect. Nature will out, as my Mum used to say when someone she didn't like did something she disapproved of

I would say in general that it is nearly always a case of social construction but mainly for the women. If you have been a victim of domestic violence you do not need empathy or validation of your experience. If someone has broken your nose you will certainly know about it! Everyone around you will naturally be empathetic because they know that a broken nose is very painful. You should not need confirmation of these things from others.

When people relate their experience it is often because they are looking for sympathy – they want people to validate how they have dealt with or interpreted that experience because they are not at peace in themselves with the way they have handled it. I don’t think men are socialized to be not empathetic it is just that in most cases it is not necessary. Men are socialized to ignore or suppress their own emotional responses to their own experiences which is a different thing and this suppression can often lead to domestic violence.

I think when the issue of DV comes up women are often looking for sympathy because they are socialized to do so. Instead of sitting down and trying to solve the problem of how to react to a partner who is violent they often seek validation of their decision to stay in the relationship. They will seek out other women who have responded in the same way as them. They will not seek out women who have left the relationship. That is why you get the ‘clubbing together’ effect where there is a loyalty to each other but not necessarily a loyalty to the truth. When they claim there is no empathy they usually mean no sympathetic support for their own denial.

cont.

If you watch the way women socialize you can observe that a great deal of their communication is about sympathizing with each other and supporting each other’s poor responses to common experiences especially in relationships with partners. Women are ‘taught’ to support each other even when they are doing great damage to themselves. Few have the courage to stand apart from this insidious socialization and critically examine their own experience and human nature.

Men deny their own pain so they do not go looking for validation, empathy or sympathy. They simply refuse to acknowledge they are hurting at all. Women admit to pain but often the way they react to it is not logical or in their own best interests and so they go looking for others who will affirm their response as valid. For example they will seek validation of their choice to stay in an abusive relationship because their real fear is of loneliness or of being partner-less.

On public forums such as this I think the aim should be to contribute opinions that help to bring about a solution to the social problem of domestic violence. If people come here looking for sympathy then they have come for the wrong reason and they will feel disappointed. They can become aggressive because their need is not being met and such aggression is usually a sign that they are here for the wrong reasons. The issue of DV is too important to be hijacked for personal needs.