The odd shadow lurking between cognition and behaviour

In a recent academic paper titled "Men's Report of Domestic Violence Perpetration in Bangladesh: Correlates From a Nationally Representative Survey" published in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence I found a significant association between men's egalitarian views and perpetration of intimate partner violence (IPV) – but not in the direction that I had expected. Contrary to what one may think, the study, based on a national sample of men, revealed that men with egalitarian views were more likely to perpetrate violence against their wives. 

What this means, in real life terms, is that while men are cognitively able to understand the notions of gender equality and women's right to work, this understanding does not translate into actionable behaviours (even when the responses are self-reported!). Or, it could mean that they have learned the feminist language and they use it, but they don't actually believe in it. However, that does not explain why they are more likely to perpetrate IPV than men who do not subscribe to egalitarian views. What makes sense, then, in a convoluted way is: patriarchy — based on the idea that patriarchy protects women (even while it controls and oppresses them).

Let us now imagine that man with non-egalitarian views – the man who thinks that women should not work outside the house. Why would he hold such views? One good non-misogynist reason to not want your wife to work could be concern for her safety. And, if that is the motivation for subscribing to non-egalitarian views, then, perhaps it makes sense (as my study suggests) that they are less likely to perpetrate violence against their wives (when compared to men with egalitarian views). This raises the question: is this a question of patriarchy, at all, or is this about safety? And, a counter question: would there be a need for women's safety if the social order were not structured around patriarchy that maintains subjugation and oppression of women? And, a counter-counter question: can we have this conversation at all without talking about intersectionality (particularly, gender and patriarchy, as already discussed, as well as class and other systems of oppression)? 

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Scholars have produced a large body of work to understand rape. Some have studied "forced copulation" among other species (Lalumiere, Harris, Quinsey, & Rice, 2005) to conclude that Homo sapiens have characteristics that overlap with other members of the animal kingdom as a tactic to increase reproduction.  Similarly, it has been argued that rape is "the behavioral expression of a mechanism which has evolved to enable men of low mate value to circumvent female choice" (Apostolou, 2013, pg. 1). This is because women are seen as a scarce reproductive resource over which men (attempt to) gain sexual access (Trivers, 1972); which in turn provides women with the ability to choose.  Women, argues Buss (2003), do not choose randomly; instead they choose men with high(er) social status, "good" genes, and ability to obtain and control resources, which leave out men who do not have these desirable characteristics.  These men, as such, suffer reproductive costs because they are left out of the "market" and choose rape as a mechanism through which they produce their offspring. However, a new body of literature contends with this idea given that women's mate selection was (and in many cases still is) controlled by their parents during human evolution which means women's choice had little to do with the selection process. As such, it is unclear as to what exactly led to the evolutionary adaptation of rape, if at all – women's choice, parental choice, or something else (Apostolou, 2012)?  And to learn what constitutes "something else" we can look at the body of work that focuses more on the individual perpetrators of rape, where rape is seen as a byproduct of characteristics such as high libido, desire for novelty in sexual partners, and willingness for causal sex (Thornhill& Palmer, 2000).

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Evolutionarily derived or not, violence against women in general, and rape in particular, is a problem. It is arguably the most dehumanising problem we have today, one that has become commonplace, normalised, one that continues to be a weapon of war. Indeed, it is one of the cruelest weapons of oppression and dominance used by a wide variety of offenders and enabled by associated enablers. However, the shame, taboo, and (perhaps) limited understanding about rape has rendered it a problem that receives various levels of empathy ranging from "there can be no rape within a marriage" to "she provoked her rape by wearing the kinds of clothes she was wearing" to "let's hang all rapists" and anything in between. 

Recently, several men were sentenced to death in Bangladesh for various cases of rape (specifically, stranger rape) with the intent to instill the fear of death into people as a way to prevent them from committing such crimes in the future. But I do wonder: if men have to fear death in order to stop themselves from raping women, is it good enough? Don't we want them to not want to rape women? If so, how should we teach men not to rape? How can they cognitively understand that it's not okay to rape women? And based on my own study, I have to ask: is cognition really a predictor of behaviour? 

And, I am left at a loss, because, my own study shows that it may not be so. 

The writer is Assistant Professor at the School of Social Work, University at Buffalo, State University of New York.