Male Social Perception

Abstract

The above is one type of perceptual—behavioral response a few men make to increased participation of women in a world that has been the exclusive domain of men. Many more males make less-physically-threatening responses to women, but ones which are psychologically lethal to women. Many of you reading this will probably ask, “What does this have to do with perception?” The answer is that it has a great deal to do with male perception, because theLady Killer can be seen as a logical, albeit extreme extension or result of many males’ perceptions of sex-roles in the United States. It is precisely because of the rigid manner in which the “Lady Killer” views the woman’s role in our society as one excluding her from holding power, competing with men, advancing in society and the like, that he makes the criminal political statement of killing “successful” women. I do not mean to justify these heinous crimes; rather, the intent is to show that the ways men conceptualize and form perceptual hypotheses about sex-roles and sex-role-related behaviors are dysfunctional for themselves, others, and society. I hope this chapter will aid in understanding the social-perception process experienced by males in the United States.

In developing the psychological portrait of the Lady Killer, psychiatrists like Seidenberg and homicide investigators like Detective Michael Chitwood of the Philadelphia Police Department agree that the attacker can’t hope to relate to his victim on their level—or on any level other than a pornographic one. “You walk up and down the street in this or any city” Chitwood says, “and you see it in their eyes. They look for these women. They wait for them. They only go after the ones they think have it made…. that woman who’s carrying a briefcase may be in more trouble than she could ever imagine”

(Mallowe, 1982, p. 39).