Synopsis
Why are men more aggressive than women? To find out, psychologist and criminologist Anne Campbell listened to the voices of ordinary men and women, as well as people for whom aggression is a central fact of life—robbers and gang members. The answer, she argues, lies not only in biology or in child rearing but in how men and women form opinions about their own aggression. Women believe their aggression results from a loss of self-control, while men see their behavior as a means of gaining control over others. Daughters are deeply ashamed when they get angry, but sons learn to associate aggression with integrity, courage, and triumph. Campbell shows how men's and women's different views of anger and restraint profoundly affect their actions—from rage in marriage to violence in the streets—and what this means for us all. The misreading of the meaning of aggression drives a wedge between the sexes, affecting everything from their ability to communicate with each other to the way that traditionally male-dominated spheres such as law or medicine pathologize and punish women's aggression. The book draws together two research areas that have had little dialogue with one another—aggression and gender differences—to present for the first time a theory of their interrelationship. The book also reveals the links between criminal violence and psychological processes common to all of us. A major contribution in the tradition of You Just Don't Understand and In a Different Voice , this book offers a new understanding of a vital issue.
Reviews
In her concise exploration of male and female attitudes toward anger and aggression, Campbell ( Girls in Gangs ), a British psychologist and criminologist, claims that women view aggression as a "temporary loss of control caused by overwhelming pressure and resulting in guilt," while men regard it as a means of imposing control over others. Campbell argues that patriarchal society considers women's aggression "evil or irrational," and that women are obliged to conceal, deny or redefine their anger. The notion of "premenstrual syndrome," she suggests, is just such a redefinition. Discussing battered women, she states that those who strike back at their attackers are treated unjustly because they have supposedly violated natural as well as criminal law. With compelling, sometimes chilling examples, Campbell also explores the impact of male and female styles of aggression on the nuclear family as well as on criminal behavior.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
A karate course and a key chain with a Mace backup are not enough to bridge the gap between men's and women's capacity for aggression, according to the author of this intriguing study. Campbell (ed., The Opposite Sex, 1989; Health, Social and Policy Studies/Teesside University) has for years studied and written about women gang members and female delinquents. Further tweaking the idea of the female aggressor, Campbell finds major differences between men and women's aggressiveness--differences based primarily, she believes, on socialization, not on testosterone or other hormonal differences. Women view aggression- -getting angry, attacking verbally or physically--as a loss of control. To them, it is ``expressive,'' often of feelings of anger and frustration restrained until the breaking point. The resulting explosion may manifest itself as verbal or physical violence, frequently followed by feelings of shame and guilt. But for men, Campbell contends, violence is ``instrumental''--a strategy for taking control, learned early on, when, for instance, teachers acknowledge boys' aggression (although not necessarily approving it) while ignoring girls who fight back. Women target their anger most frequently against men ``because it is [men] who impose their will most strongly over women''--but women's anger is more often concealed, denied, or ``redefined'' (meaning that the anger of women who strike back against abuse or a lifetime of frustration is called ``craziness'' rather than ``rage''). Of additional interest here are the chapters on young boys cut off from gender experimentation by being labelled ``sissies'' (``tomboy'' girls are okay at least until puberty), and on PMS as the excuse for ``erratic'' behavior that might be more appropriately expressed as ``I'm angry.'' With the advent of Hillary Rodham Clinton as President manqu‚e, some of the ``second-sex'' discussion here seems dated. But, overall, this is a clearly stated volume on why men and women differ in their aggressive behavior: It owes more--at least according to Campbell--to the imperatives of the schoolyard than to DNA. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Campbell begins by asking "How do most women avoid fighting?" She concludes that the reason lies not in biology but in social representations, i.e., how people think about aggression and express its meaning through behavior. Men view aggression as instrumental, a tool divorced from emotion that is used to control the behavior of others. Women, on the other hand, view aggression as expressive, an eruption of emotion that breaks relationships. In exploring instrumental versus expressive uses of aggression, Campbell compares the behavior of "ordinary" men and women, gang members, and perpetrators of domestic violence. According to Campbell, those women who react in normal female aggression patterns are labeled as "mad" or "bad" by our social, medical, and legal systems, which are based on instrumental (i.e., male) patterns of aggression. Her provocative and well-written book is highly recommended for public and academic libraries.
- Lucy Patrick, Florida State Univ. Lib., Tallahassee
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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