The Relationship Between Male Dominance and Militarism: Quantitative Tests of Several Theories

This paper asserts that an understudied question in war research is the possibility of a relationship between militarism and male dominance. Several hypotheses proposed to explain a possible connection were tested using cross-cultural research methodology and a sample of non-industrialized societies (n=186). The hypothesis that war leads to increased male political participation because of their increased “importance” to a society was only weakly supported, but appeared to have more validity than the notion that male dominance and militarism are related because both flow from a society’s level of authoritarianism. The tests for the hypothesis that male participation in warfare leads to their glorification were shown to produce varying results dependent on the aims of the warfare engaged in. No support was found for the hypothesis that aggression against the “enemy” and women vary inversely according to a Freudian “drive-discharge” model, although some support was found for the hypothesis that male absence due to war can sometimes improve women’s status. Finally two scenarios of male dominated militarist cultures suggested by the results are presented and discussed.