How much less crime there would be a world of all women

The idea that utopia is a place where we've overcome human nature seems at best a pointless exercise and at worse a road to genocide.

"Men who are prepared to use violence are only necessary because of the existence of other men who are prepared to use violence though."

Nope. There are times when violence is required not necessarily just in response to violence. See my example above of oppression which might only be overturned by the threat or use of violence.

People (mainly men) have used violence to gain rights & ensure freedom.
Violence is not the only tool of tyranny, (although it's always underpinned by it) but the idea that without violence we'd have no tyranny is just not true.

We'd have tyranny imposed by other tools and no way to overcome it.

Violence is not evil in itself. It is used in evil ways. It is necessary to balance all the other elements within human nature, but it's dangerous and has to be controlled through social expectation and law.

Men can use violence for evil and they fill up the prisons, but men who are prepared to use violence are necessary.

Men who are prepared to use violence are only necessary because of the existence of other men who are prepared to use violence though.

I think women would be more prepared to use violence in a world where men didn't exist, because the existence of a stronger sex class makes violent conflict extremely dangerous for women.

There would be hardly any violent crime as most is committed by men.

So yes the prisons would be empty.

But the idea that it would be a cooperative utopia is laughable.

Women engage in conflict, just rarely physical conflict.

They use in group and out group hierarchies to devastating effect, they engage in reputational destruction, utilise shame, and ostracisation brilliantly to control individual and group behaviour.

Of course none of these are crimes at an individual level, but that doesn't mean the impact cannot be devastating.

I think we'd probably have a totalitarian state of control through the means above, to ensure conformity, with those who didn't comply shunned from participation.

But yes probably not much murder.

We actually require the threat of violence, or the utilisation occasionally of violence, to prevent real evils happening, the removal of the option of violence from society would not mean utopia it would mean evil in all other forms could not ultimately be halted.

Men can use violence for evil and they fill up the prisons, but men who are prepared to use violence are necessary.

It's a fascinating question and the answer is that we don't know. We don't know what women are capable of and we don't know how a female-only society would organise and govern itself. It feels quite sexist to say 'women are the good guys' - men are rewarded by patriarchy for their violence and I genuinely don't believe if we took everything back to year zero and reset every decision, creating a non partriarchal society, that we'd recognise the male/female binary that we currently have.

Certainly women get angry. Why wouldn't they? What would happen if women could express that emotion fully? I don't know.

Secondly, the US death row stats aren't really the stats I'd use for this argument, given they are inherently racist...

Thirdly, The Men by Sandra Newman explores this in fiction, it's a good read.

Women are not generally more 'peaceful'. They are less likely to act out their anger or displeasure in physically violent ways towards others, but that's because men have evolved to fulfill that role.
Women tend to enforce their rules via psychologically coercive methods, rather than physically coercive methods. Social ostracism, ruining reputation etc is very prevalent within female social groups as a way of punishing those women who do not follow leaders or rules.
Women's methods are more subtle and behind-the-back compared to men who tend to favour the in-your-face approach.

Whether men exist or not, scarcity of resources is a fact of life in the natural world. Women are equally capable of being vicious and vengeful towards others especially if a scarcity of resources can significantly impact on their offspring.
Because ultimately, the greatest motivation for any species is the survival and propagation of its own offspring. Sometimes you have to eliminate the competition and sometimes you have to cooperate with the competition. Humans have evolved to intelligently use both strategies depending on the circumstances and tradeoffs. Both men and women engage in these two strategies. It's just that men have evolved to take on the more physical in-your-face role because their bodies aren't involved in the gestating and nurturing of children, so can build more muscle etc.

Violent crime and crimes of anger would drop massively. Other crimes less so.

I'm skeptical that the world become a utopia of empathy and collaboration though. Women still have plenty of reason to come into conflict with each other even when men are taken out of the equation.

Have you read a work of fiction called The Power by Naomi Alderman? The premise is that women evolve to generate electricity from their bodies and so this dramatically shifts the power balance between the sexes. I thought when reading it how much it answers the question as to whether there would be no wars if women were in charge. I enjoyed it so worth checking out the book or audio book if interested.

Very true.

50 out of 2,500 is 2%, not less than 1%. It's more than I expected actually.

Women definitely commit less crime than men in the current world, but I don't think it's possible to know how it would be in a women-only world.

I also think we need to be careful about the conclusions we draw from that sort of data. I imagine a disproportionate number of those on death row are black, which will be driven in no small part by the systemic racism of the US justice system. So i don't think it's a given that those on death row are "the worst of humanity".

I agree with PacketOfPolos. It's poor thinking to say that men are fundamentally more bad than women and to use death row stats to illustrate your point.

It is much more down to society than to sex per se.

Other issues aside, I wish there were a 'data nerds' corner of MN. I would be so grateful to pick up some ambient knowledge by hanging around discussions.

I agree that more women would plausibly become violent because otherwise the option would have to be a world in which none of us had been raised with the oppressive force of a stronger sex class.

put any group of women together and before long the bitchiness sets in.

I think the same for this. We don't know if in an alternate world where women hadn't adapted their form of control to creating inner circles and outgroups, women would not do this.

And, again for this. We created these with what we have. We can't know if we would have done in a very different set-up.

There are hierarchies in every society based on power, control and the possible threat of violence. Just filling the vacuum with women will still present to those now in power the same opportunities for corruption, oppression and greed.

85% - in that 85% of crime is committed by males (this is a generalised, and widely accepted, worldwide figure - or was when I did my masters in the subject!).

It should be noted some ‘crimes’ (such as prostitution) have a female conviction rate closer to 99%. I would assume sex biased criminal offences would disappear in your scenario - so probably closer to 98% (and definitely for ‘serious’ offences).

It would be a damn sight more bitchy in return.

put any group of women together and before long the bitchiness sets in.

I much prefer working with teams of men than women - if they have an issue with you they normally tell you to your face rather than bitch behind your back

We'd have sperm banks, obviously!

Part of the discrepancy will be down to men having an established near monopoly on many of the causes of violent crime. Remove the men, and you create a business opportunity.

If only femals existed there would be zero crime

As there would be zero population

Now can everyone sit down and I will explain the birds and bees to you.....

(In a lighthearted way)

effect even :)

Are there any stats about crime and the population immediately after WW1 and WW2, when the numbers of young men had been "reduced"? I wonder whether there was a drop in crime? Surely that would have had an affect.

There are hierarchies in every society based on power, control and the possible threat of violence. Just filling the vacuum with women will still present to those now in power the same opportunities for corruption, oppression and greed. There may be less violent crime but I think it is naïve to think that a women only society will just revert to some happy equal utopia with all differences being solved amicably and people all being nice to one another.

Off topic but SPOILER ALERTS are better in caps or bold or set further away from the

spolier so that people have a better chance of avoiding the spoiler (I've just accidentally seen this one)

I absolutely do believe an all female world would be a much more peaceful and cooperative place.

I think women would probably commit even less violent crime than they do now.

And we could bring about this utopia, we are the means of production after all!

I think males will always be hidebound by their testosterone, but there’s so much we could do to socialise them into better ways. If only being ‘feminine’ wasn’t seen as one of the worst crimes a boy can commit.

I know it's not v important, but if you were going to share this argument anywhere you should re-do the math. 50 of 2,500 is 2%, not less than 1%. Many a good argument has been sidelined by such a minor point.

I do wonder if it would be a little bit "Animal Farm" with some women moving into the roles (good and bad) that would then be open to them, in terms of power.

I guess it would depend on whether bit happened overnight, so currently socialised women, or in parallel with similar pressures on society. I don't think women would necessarily share food that they could give to their own children, if food was scarce for example.

Pretending probably isn’t the right word but I hope you know what I mean.

Performing femininity. I know I do.

And yes there are skews for age (young), race (black and Hispanic), socioeconomic (poor) and health (head injury, addiction and ADHD). I don't think any skew as much as sex and none skew towards incarcerating the dominant group. All the rest are about discriminating against the same groups discriminated against everywhere in US society.

The USA criminal justice system is IMO not a system to look at as a reference for anything to do with anything apart from.... The massive problems in the whole justice system in the USA

The idea that men are fundamentally more 'evil' than women is questionable in lots of ways. Using the numbers awaiting execution to make the point is strange. The death penalty isn't a thing in loads of countries.... For many reasons.

The system in the USA around crime and punishment is horrifying.

Using USA stats to make a point that could be made easily by referencing any country, any population crime survey, any prison numbers, any national stats on violent crime. The fact the the vast majority, vast vast majority of violent crime globally it's committed by males. It's not exactly a surprise surely!

Are men and boys more EVIL?

No. More do evil things. Yes. Why? Why do the rates of male violence differ around the world? Could it be that SOCIETY plays a part? That it's complex?

Could it be that women can do awful shit too? And why it's so much less than men.... It would be good to understand. Rather than just. Men are evil...?

In this USA stat thingy out of interest. We got the sex spilt. What about ages, ethnicities, socio economic background etc etc etc....