Boys and Violence in America

In the book Boys Will Be Boys, Myriam Miedzian examines issues of gender in American society, specifically with an eye to analyzing why boys in America turn to violence so often in contemporary society. The subtitle is "Breaking the Link Between Masculinity and Violence," suggesting that the book will show ways of altering the usual connection seen between being male and being violent.

The author finds that what we call male behavior is accepted in society as the norm, as if males were violent by nature and so had to act out certain rituals as part of their genetic heritage. The differences between the genders were considered set and were fully accepted for much of our history, but the women's movement and the civil rights movement challenged many of the basic assumptions about people and how they were to be divided. This brought about a reexamination and a reconsideration that is ongoing. However, as the author also notes, there has still been a lack of focus on violence as a male problem, and instead, theorists tend to see human beings as a group as violent, focusing on aggression in society rather than on male aggression as such. One reason for this, though, is that male behavior is seen to be the norm for the human community, showing a gender bias that is pervasive.

The author addresses criticisms he believes would be leveled at him for suggesting a change so that we would be raising a nati

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at the author finds human beings to be violent, but that he differentiates males from all human beings and finds that they have been acculturated to violence. Other theorists have found relationships between human beings and the animal kingdom to show that human beings have an in-bred tendency toward violent behavior. Much of our political structure is based on a belief that this is the case. We believe we have developed far beyond our ancestors, who lived closer to the earth than do we, yet we still see ourselves as a violent society, with good reason. In the eighteenth century, several social philosophers, notably John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, considered the issue of the social contract and the way in which people shifted from a primitive state of nature to a society. These philosophers believed that this was a voluntary act undertaken to protect certain interests, and they also believed that there had to be compelling interests involved to entice people to make this sort of commitment and to give up the absolute freedom they enjoyed in nature. Today, we have become accustomed to living in a social setting and to making the necessary adjustments to the social contract. We have developed laws and public instituti
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1543
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)

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