There's an extremely pervasive notion in our culture that women are much more prone to be the victims of violent crime (especially by strangers) than men. You know, the notion that women have to constantly fear for their safety when walking alone on the street, especially at night, while men have no such reason to fear. A notion promoted by feminists. Such feminists just love to spout how this is a "male privilege" (ie. that men do not have to fear walking alone at night, while women have to constantly fear.)
Yet, when you look at the actual statistics, they depict a rather different picture. For example, a report by the U.S. Department of Justice named "Violent Victimization Committed by Strangers, 1993-2010" tells a rather opposite story. For instance, this graph in the report is quite telling:
It depicts the rate of violent crimes per 1000 persons age 12 or older, by sex of the victim. There are two quite striking features to the graph:
This got me thinking: Why does this notion exist? Why do we think that the opposite of what's actually happening is true? While feminists promote the notion, and might have aggravated it somewhat, I don't think it exists because of them.
I have a hypothesis: It's because as a society we consider crimes against women more serious than against men. As a society we find it more horrible when women are the victims of violence than when men are. Because we more or less subconsciously consider it more horrible, we also pay more attention to it, which gives violence against women more prominence, which in turn gives us the false notion that violence against women is also more prevalent.
(Ultimately this difference in attitude, the fact that we react more strongly to women being the victims of violence than men, may stem from our evolutionary past, where we "learned" as a species to be more protective of women than men.)
In other words, as a society we are more protective of women than men, and consider violence against women more horrible than violence against men. Which is something that goes completely against the feminist narrative, which claims the opposite.
Feminists will happily ignore these statistics, and the reasons why we have these false notions, and the fact that as a society we tend to be more protective of women than men. They ignore it because they have an ideological and political agenda. They can't accept it because it goes against their beloved feminist narrative.
Yet, when you look at the actual statistics, they depict a rather different picture. For example, a report by the U.S. Department of Justice named "Violent Victimization Committed by Strangers, 1993-2010" tells a rather opposite story. For instance, this graph in the report is quite telling:
It depicts the rate of violent crimes per 1000 persons age 12 or older, by sex of the victim. There are two quite striking features to the graph:
- Violent crime has decreased quite significantly in the United States since 1993.
- Men have always been much more likely to be victims of violent crime by strangers than women.
This got me thinking: Why does this notion exist? Why do we think that the opposite of what's actually happening is true? While feminists promote the notion, and might have aggravated it somewhat, I don't think it exists because of them.
I have a hypothesis: It's because as a society we consider crimes against women more serious than against men. As a society we find it more horrible when women are the victims of violence than when men are. Because we more or less subconsciously consider it more horrible, we also pay more attention to it, which gives violence against women more prominence, which in turn gives us the false notion that violence against women is also more prevalent.
(Ultimately this difference in attitude, the fact that we react more strongly to women being the victims of violence than men, may stem from our evolutionary past, where we "learned" as a species to be more protective of women than men.)
In other words, as a society we are more protective of women than men, and consider violence against women more horrible than violence against men. Which is something that goes completely against the feminist narrative, which claims the opposite.
Feminists will happily ignore these statistics, and the reasons why we have these false notions, and the fact that as a society we tend to be more protective of women than men. They ignore it because they have an ideological and political agenda. They can't accept it because it goes against their beloved feminist narrative.
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