Do You Think Men Are Inherently Violent?
I’m real sick of reading news articles about more fucked up white men killing innocent people. I’m sick of the president saying it’s a ‘mental health’ issue.
Ok. So Brandon and I had a conversation the other day about the fact that MEN ARE THE PROBLEM.
We looked deep into the fact that men are more or less evil and tried to understand why. We debated wether it was hormones? Nature v Nurture. The fact that men are conditioned to be ‘tough’ and to not show emotion. Men are treated like shit from an early age for being anything that could be considered ‘feminine’.
Does this excuse the violent behavior? Of course not. I just want to understand why, and bring forth the point that maybe men are just inherently violent. Sure, women commit crimes. No one will disagree with that, however how many female serial killers do you know? I can think of like….two?
Our conversation got to the point that men tend to react badly in the moment. Women (and this is a generalization) tend to be able to tolerate shit falling apart around them and keep moving forward. So is it our coping skills that make women less violent, and less likely to shoot up churches or concerts of full of innocent people?
Women have guns too. I know many women who shoot the fuck out of AKs….but women don’t commit mass murder.
From Wikipedia:
In the United States, men are much more likely to be incarcerated than women. More than 9 times as many men (5,037,000) as women (581,000) had ever at one time been incarcerated in a State or Federal prison at year end 2001.[40]
In 2014, more than 73% of those arrested in the US were males.[41] Men accounted for 80.4 percent of persons arrested for violent crime and 62.9 percent of those arrested for property crime.[41]
2011 arrest data from the FBI:[43]
Males constituted 98.9% of those arrested for forcible rape[43]
Males constituted 87.9% of those arrested for robbery[43]
Males constituted 85.0% of those arrested for burglary[43]
Males constituted 83.0% of those arrested for arson.[43]
Males constituted 81.7% of those arrested for vandalism.[43]
Males constituted 81.5% of those arrested for motor-vehicle theft.[43]
Males constituted 79.7% of those arrested for offenses against family and children.[43]
Males constituted 77.8% of those arrested for aggravated assault[43]
Males constituted 58.7% of those arrested for fraud.[43]
Males constituted 57.3% of those arrested for larceny-theft.[43]
Males constituted 51.3% of those arrested for embezzlement.[43]
From 2003 to 2012, there was a decrease in the rate of crimeoverall, but an increase in crimes committed by women.[44]There was an increase in arrest rate for women of 2.9% but a decrease in arrest rate for men of 12.7%.[44] This demonstrates an increase in arrests for women which only slightly offsets the decrease in arrest for men resulting in a decrease overall in arrest rate in the United States. Notably, arrests rates for women had a sizable increase in the following crimes: robbery (+20.2%), larceny-theft (+29.6%), and arson – property crime (+24.7%).[44] The trend results from 2003-2012 showed the vast majority of crimes were still committed by men with around 88% of homicides and 75% of all legal felonies.[44] According to government statistics from the US Department of Justice, male perpetrators constituted 96% of federal prosecution on domestic violence.[45] Another report by the US department of Justice on non-fatal domestic violence from 2003-2012 found that 76 percent of domestic violence was committed against women and 24 percent were committed against men.[46]
So why is this?
Is it biological? Is it mental? Should we prohibit men from owning weapons?
There has to be a reason here.
It feels wrong to say that women are more level headed and think shit through, because sometimes I don’t…..but in general, we tend to be more logical. We tend to think further ahead than men(generally). Do we have better coping skills? Do we see a bad moment, as just that? Do we move on faster than men?
I always argued the point that I don’t think men and women are very different, but I can’t help but think maybe there is something extremely different in the brains of men.
On the other hand, I have issue with this because there are more than two genders, and trans and nonbinary folks experience more violence than almost any other group. Some trans women, at some point in their lives have as much testosterone in their bodies as cis men do. I haven't heard anything about trans women killing innocent people...
So in short, I’m not sure what I think, but I we need to figure some shit out quick, before we’re all fucking dead.
Feel free to leave your thoughts.