Violence,Masculinity and Evolution:

Abstract

While considerable research exists demonstrating that forms of violence such as homicide are fundamentally masculine in character, few satisfactory explanations have emerged in criminology regarding why it is that males account for so much violence. Wilson and Daly are an exception to this observation, and their theoretical work is focused precisely on the issue of the masculinity of violence. Their explanation is grounded in evolutionary psychology which argues that aggressive and violent masculinity evolved as a feature of reproductive success in ancestral environments. The present article argues that the concepts developed by these writers are rich in their potential for use in empirical research, much more so than the concepts and ideas that are part of either traditional methods of studying violence (such as the use of concepts like `relational distance'), or current theories of violence such as those proposed by Gottfredson and Hirschi (1990), or by Katz (1988). At the same time, we have just begun to explore the nature of evolutionary arguments about violence, especially in terms of how these might account for variations between different cultures, and cultural variations over time.