Prevailing Perceptions of Masculine and Feminine Aggression

The article describes a number of tendencies related to understanding masculine and feminine aggression and its level. In particular, review of literature shows the following: 1) identification of masculine aggression as direct, often taking form of physical acts, and the feminine - as verbal or indirect, which can manifest, for example, in form of exclusion from a social group; 2) definition of the aggressiveness level among men as the highest in comparison with women. The aim of the research presented in the article was to examine to what extent such identification prevails in perceptions of aggression and aggressiveness among citizens of Russia and neighboring countries, for which purpose a corresponding questionnaire was developed. 541 persons aged from 12 to 81 took part in the survey carried out by the authors. Its results showed that 86,5% of all respondents agreed that there is a difference between masculine and feminine aggression. It is noted that while describing the mentioned difference, 66% of respondents used the criterion of physical aggressive acts for men and indirect and/or verbal aggression for women. 3,9% of respondents mentioned only the former, 9.8% – only the latter. It is also shown that more than 58,4% of men consider themselves more aggressive than women, and 48,5% of women share their opinion. The contrary point of view is shared by 27,7% of women and 16,2% of men. About a quarter of respondents consider masculine and feminine aggressiveness equal (23,8% of women – 25.3% of men). Based on the received data conclusions are made that the respondents recognize a difference between masculine and feminine aggression and existence of gender specifics in description and evaluation of its particular qualities.

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