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Alpha males challenge eath other and establish dominance through talk. When alpha males are involved in adversarial negotiations, their personal agendas are likely to trump the best interests of the people they represent. Alpha males may be forced by politics to take part in a peace process in which they face each other across a table, but since peace accords require the ability to compromise, agreement is unlikely if each man defines this as a concession that puts him one down to the man he desires to humiliate.
Humiliating the enemy is a motivation that perpetuates conflict into the next generation. Ariel Sharon in effect put Yasser Arafat under house arrest in his headquarters in Ramallah by surrounding the building with Israeli tanks and troops. This was humiliating enough, but to also cut off utilities so that there would be no air conditioning or plumbing added further insult and real discomfort. Arafat's status was reduced and his humilitation was shared by males in the Arab world who identified with him. It can also be surmised that testosterone levels were affected. Joshua Goldstein in War and Gender notes that it is not just the perception of status that fluctuates but also the level of testosterone. In the male competitive world, testosterone levels begin to rise in anticipation of the competition; then they continue to go up in the winners, but fall in the losers.






In a women's workshop at the United Nations, I heard about the peace process in Sierra Leone, which finally was settled in 1999 after women were included in the talks. Their presence was initially objected to by one of the male leaders who complained contemptuously about the presence of women, saying, "We don't want the women, they would just make compromises!"
We all laughed. It was, after all, precisely why women need to be present.
Peace negotiations are stressful: it would be beneficial to have more oxytocin and estrogen to dilute the adrenaline and testosterone in the room. Or, in the case of the peace process that led to the end of "the troubles" in Northern Ireland, to have women go-betweens, when representatives of the Protestants and Catholics were initially not even willing to sit down together in the same room. Four Northern Irish women who did not take sides were involved in the peace process. They could go betweens the rooms and carry messages back and forth, while former U.S. Senator George Mitchell could hold discussions with each group. A peace plan was agreed upon and signed on April 10, 1998, which is known as the Good Friday or Belfast Agreement. This Agreement provided for a transition period to disarm and form an interim representative government.






The women who were involved in the successful peace negotiations were members of the Northern Ireland Women's Coalition. The NIWC was founded in 1996 to work for "reconciliation through dialogue" and to increase the role of women in politics. It is nonreligious, against terrorism, and did not take sides. They had two seats in the interim assembly and have to seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly. They saved the peace plan when a vote of no confidence that would have dissolved the interim government was defeated by their votes.
Peace accords that finally ended the conflict were worked out once women became involved. Terrorist acts of aggression and retalition in Belfast and other cities had been carried out for over thirty years from 1988 to 2001. If peace could come to Northern Ireland after decades of fraticidal conflict, peace in the Holy Land between Israelis and Palestinians might also be possible with women as peacemakers.















Why Men Don't Ask Directions

Women laugh about how men would rather drive around for hours than ask someone for directions. It is a small inconvenience when a man doesn't ask directions and takes longer getting somewhere, but as an example of avoidance behavior and mistrust, it can also be appreciated as a tip of a patriarchal iceberg. It reflects experience, that has become ingrained.
It is important to understand why this is typically male, and what it says about men that something as straightforward as asking directions is actuallly an emotionally loaded situation going back to childhood and reinforced thereafter. Hierarchy is part of the playground and after-school culture of little boys.
Men learn in childhood how painful it is to be made fun of when they don't know something that the other boys do. They learn that asking a question can reveal their ignorance and innocence, and are shamed. They also learn that when they ask a question, they can be deliberately misled. The other male might know the answer and yet acts as if he does. He makes up an answer rather than reveal his ignorance. Or he may have fun at the younger boy's expense and give him a wrong answer on purpose. To be upset and angry at learning he was misled then sets a boy up for further humiliation. He is likely to be teased for his anger or made fun of for being gullible.





Playground Lessons

Boys can be goaded into fighting when unequally matched. It is a double-bind situation when he is picked on and goaded. If he doesn't put up a fight when taunted by another boy, he is humiliated further; if he fights, he'll be beaten. When a boy is in a physical fight, there are usually onlookers who shun him if he looses and cries. He is shamed. Fights can be avoided by boys who learn to use talk to diffuse tension. The fine art of negotiation is most developed by those who need to deflect hostility rather than by alpha male boys or men.
Boys learn that the male world is made up of winners and losers, or predators and prey, on the playground and streets. A boy with imagination, access to feelings, and intuition often understands that he cannot afford to express sympathy for a kid who is picked on, because the two of them would then be lumped together, and he would be excluded from the group or gang and be in a vulnerable outcast position himself. Boys who have been treated sadistically and humiliated unconsciously "identify with the aggressor". They do unto others as was done to them. A humiliated boy will take his pent-up, impotent rage out on others; or he plots and plans getting even, which helps him to feel powerful; or he turns it against himself, becomes depressed and potentially suicidal. Guns and explosives becomes an equalizer in fantasy or reality.





Jean Shinoda Bolen, Urgent Message from Mother. Gather the Women, Save the World, Conari Press 2005

Gut informierte Journalisten bleiben gut informierte Journalisten, auch wenn sie Blogger spielen sind. Ein wenig mehr Ehrlichkeit im Spiel würde sicher nicht schaden. Es sei denn, jemand äußert sich an den richtigen Stellen über die Methoden, mit denen gespielt wird. Sugar, my dear?