Insights- Aggression

There's a bit of a debate about whether the human male or the human female is more aggressive. Why the debate? Well, the females are well known for using passive-aggressiveness, for hanging on to a grudge, and for seeking the worst sorts of revenge. The human males are known for having their altercation, fighting it out, and moving on (unless the wrong involves hurting someone they actually care about, then it gets ugly). But, the males are more about physical aggression, while the females are more about emotional aggression. The males will settle by punching, but the females settle by ridicule, shunning, and other such tricks. The male's aggression looks worse, but, barring actual death, the female's aggression takes longer and is more damaging to the target in the long run (it takes longer to fix a broken spirit than a broken arm, after all). Thus the debate.

But I think it's more than that.

Consider in the wild. The species which are aggressive are those which eat meat. The species which aren't aggressive don't eat meat. (I won't say eat plants, because omnivores fall under eat meat category). Non-aggressive species tend to hide, run if they can't hide, and only fight if they are forced to. The only way to force them is to attack another member of their group, or to corner them. However, during mating season, a male becomes dangerous, because he will attack. So, we could say that the males are more aggressive among the more peaceful species.

In the aggressive species, the whole species will attack to defend their territory, not just their people. They also attack for food, but I won't count that as aggression, not because it's not aggressive behavior, but because the motivation is hunger, which isn't necessarily aggressive. Among these species, the only reason a male will attack another of the same species is dominance/possession issues, as well as the familiar quick revenge match we see in human males. (Don't take my mate/territory, or I am higher than you are, or That hurt!) But the females will nip and bother, attacking for any and all reasons. When defending their young, the females are always accepted as being more aggressive. So in meat eaters, in aggressive species, the female is the more aggressive one.

Now look at humans. Not the in-group aggression, but the out of group aggression. We are evolved to be omnivores, eating both meat and plants. But how many people try to live off of just plants? We tend to attack to defend our territory, but our ideals are to only defend our persons. In short, we are an aggressive species, but we want to believe we are not. Since we are, in fact, aggressive, then we can say with confidence that the females are actually the more aggressive half, but since we want to believe we are not, we try to prove over and over again that the males are the more aggressive half. It also results in us socializing our boys to be more aggressive, but it only really gets directed against the out-group. Girls and women are still very aggressive towards even peers within their group.

So there you have it. The fight is not just about who is more aggressive within the species, but about the nature of our species as a whole. I hate to say it guys, but we are an aggressive species.