How deep the problem is?

Is gender-based violence implicit, and built-into, our current "civilization"?

My point is not that gender-based violence is unacceptable: of course it is. The real question is, how to eradicate? Repressive measures are necessary, and should also be applied. My question is: are they sufficient?

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It was something alike 36 years ago. I attended my secondary school in the western outskirts of Milan, in the working class district of Baggio.

On a day, during playtime, two of my schoolmates isolated a girl, locked in a room, and stripped her.

They did not arrived to a full rape, as the children involved were 12 years old.

The final effect was right the same. Even children can perform sexual abuse.

Her desperate cries attracted attention, the two were discovered, and were suspended from school for two days.

Of course, they were surprised of the punishment. They imagined their behavior was "normal", and acceptable.

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I've seen the same pattern repeating from then on.

Sometimes, it takes so a blatant form to finish on the press with some people convicted, and some others wounded, crying in the dark, or dead.

In most cases, however, an evil have been made, but subtler. It may stay covered, but you notice it nonetheless. I find the statistics claiming something like "40% of women has experienced some form of abuse t least once in their life" really surprising. Guess the correct number is closer to 100%, including men too.

What made me upset, of what happened to that girl, was the totally gratuitous, almost "leisurely", nature of the aggression. They chosen their prey at random, and disposed of her as with a thing, totally neglecting her.

It was a deliberate show of power. An act of an "us" against a "them", totally void of empathy, as if these "others" are not really human, but objects which can be used, forced, contrived. Killed, possibly?

After that event, our teachers reacted sensibly, skillfully and sensitively. I remember how our Italian teacher, especially, cared to educate all of us, both perpetrators and would-be victims. And how well she was able to establish herself as a positive, strong role model.

Her help was important, to educate and heal.

But, what of her? Has someone helped her? Healed her wound? Her name has remained secret, so I can't say for sure. My impression was, she had received little attention, if any at all. Hope no, but can't say.

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Maybe the term "gender-based violence" is more accurate than "sex-based violence". Sex may have a role, but I feel it's not, strictly speaking, essential.

"I do not care of you."

This, the message.

"Your problem, not mine."

"I am stronger, and glad of your fear, unease, suffering."

Human resources?

"I will kill you."

"We will kill competitors."

I'd say our society is deeply misogynistic, would this term be sufficiently accurate. As I see, hatred is not confined to women, but rather to the whole human nature.

On "women", this disdain is more blatant. As "women" are imagined by "men" as representing nature?

The formation of a "man", in this society, is a sort of revolt against nature. All played around being different. "Non-female?" Apparently that, as my schoolmates so keenly said.

This is not too surprising in a species characterized by a lower-than-average sexual dimorphism than our closest evolutionary relatives, and tending towards a neoteny whose main effect is of strongly "feminizing" the appearance of humans, women and men alike, compared to, e.g., gorillas.

Predictable, but not fully "understandable". The standard male socialization may be conceived as a sort of self-domestication, helped by strong social pressures. Exerted by men, and women too.

Is the seed of gender violence right there?

Would like to know what you think about. Before to act, I feel we should "know" - and here I feel a large knowledge hole exists.

Love.

Mauri