This week’s prompt is:
“This is a patriarchal truism that most people in our society want to deny. Whenever women thinkers, especially advocates of feminism, speak about the widespread problem of male violence, folks are eager to stand up and make the point that most men are not violent. They refuse to acknowledge that masses of boys and men have been programmed from birth on to believe that at some point they must be violent, whether psychologically or physically, to prove that they are men.”
― bell hooks, The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love
I don’t really agree with that. Rather, everyone is raised with some sense of becoming a martyr. Women sacrificing themselves in care jobs or at home is an example. Men sacrificing themselves at war or to protect the society or their home is the other.
I’m not sure whether it’s a Christian thing or older. Maybe it’s a human society thing even.
I would say that seeing women as martyrs for staying home with their families while men go sacrifice themselves historically as cannon fodder and plow horses is another source of anger.