Beyond staged retreat behind virtual ‘gender paradigm’ barricades: the rise and fall of the misrepresentation of partner‐violence, and its eclipse by an understanding of mate‐guarding
| Published date | 31 January 2011 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.5042/jacpr.2011.0021 |
| Date | 31 January 2011 |
| Pages | 45-54 |
| Author | Steve Moxon |
| Subject Matter | Health & social care,Sociology |
45Journal of Aggression, Conflict and Peace Research • Volume 3 Issue 1 • January 2011 © Pier Professional Ltd
10.5042/jacpr.2011.0021
How the house of cards was built
The falsity of the ‘gender paradigm’ (Dutton &
Nicholls, 2005) of intimate-partner (domestic)
violence (IPV) is comprehensively evidenced.
My purpose here is to examine how and
why it arose and persisted, and how it does
so as ever more implausible rationalisation;
but that it is unlikely to survive the scientific
analysis of ‘control’ in terms of mate-guarding,
especially when it is more fully grounded in
biology through a proper understanding of pair-
bonding.
The fiercely emotional attachment to the
‘gender paradigm’ needs to be understood.
It is noted that it is a product of ideological
Beyond staged retreat behind
virtual ‘gender paradigm’
barricades: the rise and fall of
the misrepresentation of partner-
violence, and its eclipse by an
understanding of mate-guarding
Steve Moxon
Independent Researcher, Sheffield UK
ABS TR ACT
The notion of partner-violence as a male-perpetrated phenomenon is not a scientific position
but an amelioration of cognitive-dissonance within a political mindset. Against all the data,
this ‘gender paradigm’ persists as a series of staged retreats as new research debunks each
in turn. Supposed highly sex-differential injury rates, male unilaterality of perpetration,
female self-defence, male ‘control’, and female especial fear are all discredited as reasons to
focus solely on men’s aggression. By contrast, scientific theorising regarding the root of the
great bulk of partner-violence is in terms of the biological phenomenon of mate-guarding.
However, the usual model of male proprietariness over female fertility itself is in part a
‘gender paradigm’ position. Recently revealed sex-symmetries necessitate a major overhaul
of this model. Drawing on new understanding of the basis of pair-bonding, outlined here is
a parsimonious account of mate-guarding as being by both sexes; notably women, owing to
sex-dichotomous mate-value trajectory. This framework heralds the complete abandonment
of the ‘gender paradigm’ and thus the end of a highly inappropriate intrusion of extreme
ideology into science.
KEY W OR DS
Partner-violence; mate-guarding; gender paradigm; pair-bond; mate-value; sex-dichotomous.
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