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Citation |
Moxon S. J. Aggress. Confl. Peace Res. 2011; 3(1): 45-54. |
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Copyright |
(Copyright © 2011, Emerald Group Publishing) |
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DOI |
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PMID |
unavailable |
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Abstract |
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. |