Statistics bear out that males commit most violent crimes, with males committing 87% of all homicides. Males are almost 4 times more likely than females to be murder victims. Significantly, males commit 91.3% of all homicides involving a gun, suggesting that lethality increases because of the weapons Males choose. New data from the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey detailed the extent and effects of male violence against females. That survey demonstrated that across all types of violence, Males commit most crimes most often.
Statistics demonstrate that males commit violent crimes at greater rates than females, and are more likely to use a weapon that will cause death. Legislation promoted by male-dominated organizations further buttresses the ability of males to commit violent acts and escape punishment.
Given these grim statistics, why have we as a society failed to address the problem of male violence? When a lesbian points out these statistics, she is usually greeted with accusations of “man hater.” When a female points out these statistics, she is sometimes greeted with accusations of “lesbian.” If statistics bear out that males are more violent as a class and more lethal as a class of perpetrators (and they do), why isn’t this the subject of substantial inquiry?
We are averse to acknowledging male violence because we do not want to make the males in our lives uncomfortable. In addition, just as it is uncomfortable for males to acknowledge that they benefit from sexism and male privilege, it is equally uncomfortable for males to take responsibility for the disproportionate violence they commit. Try having this conversation with the significant males and Nigels in your lives and see what happens. Try pointing this out to male (or “formerly” male) GLBT Community members and watch the defensiveness fly!
Of course, it doesn’t help the conversation around violence that males are viewed as the default Human. This phenomenon makes “violence” a human problem rather than a male problem, thus placing the burden on males and females equally to address such violence.
So what do females do? We shoulder the blame. We accept individual responsibility for violence that we don’t commit and haven’t committed. We participate in the obfuscation of male violence. We fail to confront what is so glaringly obvious that it has become invisible – males as a class are violent.
Your son, dad, brother or boyfriend may not be violent, but males as a class are more violent than females.
Humans – males and females – need to stop debating whether males are more violent. Males are by far the principal perpetrators of murder (and let’s not get started on rape, war, torture, incest, sexual abuse, and genocide). So what is it about males and “masculinity” that leads males as a class to such violent behavior? Is this something males learn? What can we do as a society to help males unlearn these “masculine” lessons? Or is male violence innate? What if certain “behaviors” (i.e., violence) that we understand as “masculine” can be biologically traced to neurological structures? How do we solve that problem?
Whether male violence is due to masculine gender socialization or male biology, we cannot answer these questions if we continue to avoid this discussion. We cannot fix a problem that we refuse to name. Name it. Say it with me: Male violence.
Male violence against women occurs because men know it is the most effective method of maintaining male domination and male oppression of all women and girls.
If men don’t want to be named as the perpetrators then on rare occasions when women commit violence the sex of these female perpetrators must also not be named or mentioned. Instead let’s claim it is ‘an individual’ or ‘people’ or even ‘martians’ are the ones committing violence against other individuals/people/martians. There problem solved for Male Supremacist System and men because they do not want to be held accountable for condoning/excusing/justifying/committing male violence against women and girls.
But of course men and their male supremacist system have to find scapegoats in order focus is never on men and why there are innumerable males each and every day continuing to commit male violence against women and girls, and that is why men constantly claim ‘you’re a man-hater whenever we feminists hold men accountable for committing/condoning/justifying/excusing male violence against women and girls. It’s a man’s world because we women don’t exist as autonomous human beings apparently.
Not relevant, exactly, to the discussion or the topic of the post. But each and every single day, women and children, especially girl children, are in close proximity to danger and “never realize” it, they “never know” it. Close proximity to males is a close proximity to danger. This danger is embodied in the male stranger, the male friend or family friend, and the male family member. I am not going to let on how,exactly, I have come to know this. Or what it is like to live with this knowledge, while so many of my fellow women are oblivious to it. The women around me, how can we be living in the same city, the same family, the same world, and only I know what I know? Even women who are the mothers of daughters. Up there, on the right-hand side, upper corner, you all can probably see the Dru Sjodin National Sex Offender Public Website link? Well, since I am so lucky to be burdened with a little bit of knowledge about the evil we are always in close proximity to, I might as well share that I know a person listed there. As a young child I had regular contact with that person, and was even babysat by him. My mother was married to his brother.
Online, my persona is such that other women have felt safe in my presence and willing to share some of the things that have happened to them. I am honored that these women, strangers, have this level of trust in me. What they have told me about their lives, their experiences, usually causes a flood of emotion. The first feeling is sadness and grief for them, for what was done to them. Then comes the most narrow sense of relief, for myself, that “I was spared. It could have happened to me but it didn’t”. And then it’s flashback time. Specific incidents that have been blocked out. Scenes from childhood that aren’t quite right somehow, and the full memory of being a child, in that remembered scene, and knowing with my child-sense that something was not right. Realizing, as an adult, that I knew then, and cannot help but know now, that I was in danger every day of my life, and that there were several occasions that ‘something almost happened’. That something wanted to happen. That something would have eventually happened, if my mother had not moved heaven and earth to get the men out of our lives and away from me.
Lol ..you’re pretty sure that this is a fake reprot? if this issue was brought before a jury, I’m pretty sure that they would find The Onion not guilty due to reasonable doubt.Any idiot, including you, should be able to understand that it’s totally real. Are you so heartless that you have no compassion and empathy for the victims with their poor, light little bodies?
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http://bugbrennan.com/2012/12/17/its-the-same-male-violence/
Thanks for this blog. I hope to contribute soon, but let me just say it right now: Male Violence.