Gender is the first divide, the first subjugation of one type of human to another.

Others followed.

Control the mating, you control the “purity” of your tribe, whatever that is.

When you are displaced by violence from your social position and ergo your manhood, the best way to regain position is to enact violence on someone lower on the totem pole. Look around.

It’s like you’ve zeroed out on a video game. You start again with nothing (psychologically). The first divide is the best one to attempt to “reconquer”, which is why women are always scapegoated.

This scapegoating happens on both individual, community, and national levels. There is usually some kind of theft or removal of opposition included in higher levels.

It happens every time there’s an upheaval of some sort or lack of resources. It’s even been known to happen in other primate species.

After women, comes other “othering". Usually it goes homosexuals, race, religion depending upon availability. That availability factor may also be a reason why women are targeted first. Homosexuals can usually hide, race and religion may be homogenous where you are, but women are always available since they make up a slight majority of the population and cannot hide as easily.

This has been going on since antiquity. It’s not a natural state of things but a direct result of paternal hierarchy. It will happen again and again until we go another route in our organizational structures. Something more balanced that will not lead to such violence in men.

But then, all this violence suits the ones at the top, doesn’t it?