Men, Women, and Aggression

Why are men more aggressive than women? To find out, psychologist and criminologist Anne Campbell listened to the voices of ordinary men and women, as well as people for whom aggression is a central fact of life—robbers and gang members. The answer, she argues, lies not only in biology or in child rearing but in how men and women form opinions about their own aggression. Women believe their aggression results from a loss of self-control, while men see their behavior as a means of gaining control over others. Daughters are deeply ashamed when they get angry, but sons learn to associate aggression with integrity, courage, and triumph. Campbell shows how men’s and women’s different views of anger and restraint profoundly affect their actions—from rage in marriage to violence in the streets—and what this means for us all. The misreading of the meaning of aggression drives a wedge between the sexes, affecting everything from their ability to communicate with each other to the way that traditionally male-dominated spheres such as law or medicine pathologize and punish women’s aggression. The book draws together two research areas that have had little dialogue with one another—aggression and gender differences—to present for the first time a theory of their interrelationship. The book also reveals the links between criminal violence and psychological processes common to all of us. A major contribution in the tradition of You Just Don’t Understand and In a Different Voice, this book offers a new understanding of a vital issue.

A look at gender differences employs candid interviews with ordinary men and women to offer a new understanding of aggression, asking why men are more aggressive than women.

Publishers Weekly

In her concise exploration of male and female attitudes toward anger and aggression, Campbell ( Girls in Gangs ), a British psychologist and criminologist, claims that women view aggression as a ``temporary loss of control caused by overwhelming pressure and resulting in guilt,'' while men regard it as a means of imposing control over others. Campbell argues that patriarchal society considers women's aggression ``evil or irrational,'' and that women are obliged to conceal, deny or redefine their anger. The notion of ``premenstrual syndrome,'' she suggests, is just such a redefinition. Discussing battered women, she states that those who strike back at their attackers are treated unjustly because they have supposedly violated natural as well as criminal law. With compelling, sometimes chilling examples, Campbell also explores the impact of male and female styles of aggression on the nuclear family as well as on criminal behavior. (Apr.)

Anne Campbell is senior lecturer in the Department of Psychology at the University of Durham, England, and is the author of The Girls in the Gang (1984) and Girl Delinquents (1981). Formerly an associate professor in the School of Criminal Justice at Rutgers University, she has spent nearly twenty years investigating aggression and violent behavior.