What’s Totalitarianism Got To Do With Violence Against Women?
I argue here that, in the origins of authoritarian thinking, can be traced the root of the epidemic of violence against women. Fear of “chaos” is at the root of Right Wing Authoritarian Followers’ abhorrence of the idea of “equality” in many social dimensions. I offer this reinterpretation of work done in the aftermath of the Second World War by Hannah Arendt and many psychologists since in support of this year’s 16 Days of Activism campaign in support of the elimination of violence against women.
As part of the UN’s campaign of 16 days of activism to eliminate Violence Against Women, I want to share with you how research into the origins of totalitarianism has yielded some unlikely insights into the origins of Violence Against Women.
After the Second World War, researchers tried to understand what had just happened in Europe.
Instead of choosing — as we often do — authoritarian leaders as their units of analysis, these researchers focussed instead on authoritarian leaders’ followers: those who march in step behind their leaders.
What some of these researchers came up with was reported in a 1950 book entitled “The Authoritarian Personality.”
To date, according to Google Scholar (www.scholar.google.co.uk<http://www.scholar.google.co.uk> “Authoritarian Personality”), there have been over 17,000 citations in further papers inspired by this work, including in a recent paper that found a correlation between those intending to vote for Brexit and the psychological traits of those with Right-Wing Authoritarian attitudes.
Despite some valid criticisms of “The Authoritarian Personality,” it did provide valuable groundwork for the idea that you could predict, using surveys, who amongst us was more likely than the average person to be susceptible to being mobilised into practising the hateful ideology of violence against the other that led to the Second World War.
Bob Altemeyer’s research, in particular, led to the isolation of the three propensities of those most likely to become authoritarian followers.
Mr Altemeyer’s research findings have been replicated in societies as diverse as Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the Russian Federation.
In the context of understanding the epidemic of violence against women and violence against minorities, the results of this research are quite interesting:
Altemeyer’s survey work makes it possible to identify “High Right-Wing Authoritarian Followers (RWAs)” in any general population.
To understand the idea of “Right-Wing Authoritarian Followers (RWAs),” it helps to start with the old English word of “Writ”.
“Right-Wing” in this context doesn’t refer to supporters of conservative political ideologies. Nor are we talking about people who are economically conservative or people who believe in small government.
According to the outcome of this empirical research what distinguishes “High Right-Wing Authoritarian Followers (RHAs)” from average RHAs are three propensities:
First, an unquestioning obedience to what authority figures decide is “right” or “normal”.
Second, High RWAs tend to get self-righteously aggressive in protecting, as they see it, that “writ”.
Leaders in every civilisation since time immemorial have noticed patterns in how to mobilise followers. They were able to motivate them using certain linguistic patterns and tics (repeating certain phrases or ideas ad infinitum is a favourite of those trying to activate High RWAs to whatever cause such leaders are themselves promoting).
But what happened in Europe in the 1930s was so historically unprecedented that it inspired the work that has led to us being able to accurately identify High RWA Followers in any population.
Third, High RWA Followers have a higher than normal desire to be seen as conventional. They just want to “fit-in”. They don’t want to stand outside of the crowd.
That’s why, for instance, you will very seldom get people who are High RWA Followers who will say “sorry” or admit that they were wrong.
Those who voted in favour of the Iraq war for example, seldom admit the gravity of the consequences of their mistake.
Even, as Bob Altemeyer has noted, if you get ten of them in a room addressing an issue that each in their own minds feels is wrong, they don’t admit it. This is because they don’t want to stand out of the crowd.
Where this fits in to the 16 Days Campaign to Eliminate Violence Against Women is that certain ideas of “normal” continue to mobilise High RWA Followers against others whom their leaders ordain are not “normal”.
For many millennia in many societies women were excluded from positions of power. It was not “normal” for women to lead.
For many millennia, people denied that LGBT+ community members even existed.
So when High RWA Followers either of their own volition or because they are being manipulated by those whom they look up to as leaders notice that a narrow and confined idea of “normal” is being transgressed, they become fearful that this is “the thin end of the wedge.”
They’re scared that the “world is being turned upside down” and that unless they act, soon the chaos which they most fear will prevail.
In High RWA Followers’ minds, there are “laws” which say “women must stay at home”, “women must look after the children”, or “women should not be in authority.”
When such “norms” are transgressed, that’s why we see this aggressive piling-in in all of its various forms: online or gender-based violence (whether psychological, economic, physical or sexual).
When we see self-righteous aggressive violence against LGBT+ activists often it’s not even the immediate “trigger” the High RWAs are really responding to.
It’s what that trigger event symbolises in their minds. The world is turning upside down.
This is why we often see such disproportionately violent responses to breaches of what they consider to be “norms” by High RWA Followers.
In their minds they are defending western civilisation, whereas in ours, they are breaking it apart.
I’ll finish with some good news. Because “normal” often expands to include, as it has in Ireland, for instance since Mary Robinson was elected president, what was previously considered to be unorthodox, such as equal marriage, High RWA Followers march in step behind this new normal.
On the other hand, if authoritarian leaders promote a narrowing of what is “normal” for example the idea that it is okay to fight against equality or that global warming is a hoax, then, that’s what brings us to the most worrying aspect of today’s world: High RWA Followers in every population begin acting up.
Unless we recognise the impact authoritarian rhetoric has on the 30% of our population who are responsive to High RWA tropes, it’s difficult for those of us who care about it, to find the tools to work towards moving our societies further towards the aspiration of equality of opportunity for all.
Stephen Douglas is a diplomat. He is a graduate of Dublin, Cambridge and Oxford Universities.
