I’ll start with a very common misunderstanding that I very rarely see discussed, due to its delicate nature: Aggression and violence.

I find that women almost never have a good understanding of men’s relationship with aggression and violence. When women associate it with us, it’s almost always strongly negative. And while the concept of abuse exists, that’s not what I’m talking about.

Let me put a caveat that this is something that, as a man, I have an innate understanding of - but have never needed to discuss, so I’m struggling to describe it and will probably fumble a bit at accurately getting this out.

Men and women are wired differently with respect to our place in the world, how we have evolved, our natural abilities, etc… Evolutionarily, men have typically been the hunters and warriers, and women have typically been gatherers and caretakers. This has led to having different traits and attributes that allow us to contribute better to our respective roles.

For example, early women spent much time around camp gathering needed supplies such as fruit, nuts, wood, water, as well as tending to fires and cooking, as well as cleaning animal skins. While performing all of these tasks, they also needed to keep an eye on children to make sure they stayed safe. It was critical that they develop the ability to multitask well in order to be able to switch their attention across all of these tasks. And that ability and tendency to multitask has carried through evolution to be one of their strengths today.

By contrast, for men, being able to concentrate on a single task was essential for hunting, fishing, and fighting. Tracking prey, waiting in a secluded spot for prey to show up, or ambushing enemy warriers requires hours of concentration and focus. These things had to be done quietly, without making noise or talking, and with a high degree of concentration in order to not miss the opportunity to strike. Failure to do this would mean the loss of food, or death as a result of your enemy detecting your presence. Take that lifestyle over millions of years, and that results in a sharpened ability to quietly focus on a single subject for long periods of time, not to mention solitary behavior - both traits which are observable in men across the world. This ability is one of men’s typical strengths today.

Well, that evolutionary relationship with being a hunter and warrier coupled with the genetic predisposition of higher strength also translates to having a different relationship with aggression and violence. For example, boys learn early on how easily we can hurt others if we are not careful. So most men learn to control that side of us and to avoid fights when possible. But at the same time, when there is a heightened confrontation, there is often an implied threat of the violence they are capable of. This is not necessarily overt - it can be subtle and very importantly, it can exist even when there is very little chance or intention of things going that far.

It’s very hard to describe the subtle ways this can exist in our lives. If we’re in public with our young kids, and a group of strange teenage boys are roughhousing without paying attention or caring about who they are near and they get too close to our kids, a woman might call out to them “Hey! Settle down!” or “Take it somewhere else!”. By contrast, a man might not say a word and simply stand up while glaring at those teens. The unspoken and primal body language is “You are starting to become a threat to my children. If you threaten my children, I will beat all of you into the ground.” Often, the teenage boys will immediately notice and, conciously or subconciously, recognize that they have gone too far, and back off - even if they pretend to not notice in order to save face.

But part of what that translates to is women often misinterpreting men’s relationship with aggression and violence with being an abuser, which is NOT EVEN REMOTELY the same thing.

A lot of men may take out an extreme amount of frustration and anger on an inanimate object. If they have a home gym, they might take it out on a heavy-bag, but some of them will simply punch a table, etc… There are many cases where men have learned to do this as a habit to release heavy tension as a way of safely letting it go. But women will often misunderstand and say “if they’ll punch a table when they’re angry, it’s only a matter of time before they punch you”.

This is a very strong leap to a conclusion that is often highly incorrect. I’ve known many men throughout my life that will punch a wall, but would never lay a hand on another person in anger. However, this distinction is lost for most women.

Since women are wired differently, they lack that first-person understanding of men’s relationship with aggression, so I absolutely understand why they do this. But it doesn’t change the fact that they are often mis-judging men due to that lack of understanding.

I will also put in a caveat that some men do lack legitimate control and are abusers. I am not, in any way, trying to excuse their behavior. What I am saying is that many women lack the understanding to tell the difference between abusers versus men who are less reserved about letting their tension out but who would never lay a finger on them.