Philosophical ramblings on gender

[remnil]

All right, so I know I haven't posted in, well, forever. But for the time being, I'm not going to update on what I've actually been doing and instead comment on a great book I've just read.

This weekend, I finished Sheri S. Tepper's The gate to Women's Country, a post-apocalyptic sci-fi novel about a society run by women

Comments

Re: on topic

[remnil]

Your question is definitely one about which I wondered, too. Exactly how does one define violence? I like your suggestion that it has to do with release of energy, although again the question arises, what do you mean by that. For instance, would psychological violence, e.g. verbal abuse, county as dispensing energy. The case I'm thinking is not so much overt yelling as the snide comments I often saw high schoolers trade with one another, the sort of comments that one discusses in therapy later.

I use physical activity as a release of sorts, too, although I can't really say that I build up enough negative energy to necessarily need release. In a way, that's dangerous for my general health as it means that I could be perfectly happy in a sedentary lifestyle. But that's neither here nor there. Biking allows me to use energy I would otherwise simply absorb into myself which, as you say, tends to have unfortunate results.

The gate to women's country does also raise an interesting question regarding evolution. Early hominids depended heavily on "violence" for simple survival, although one could question whether killing for food is "violence" in a negative sense. Perhaps we are a step in an evolutionary path of development toward nonviolence. But, as with all steps, it's (very) imperfect: our violence has become self-directed (read: inter-species).