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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Why is it always men?

207 replies

bobcat2424 · 17/10/2023 12:37

I think IABU, I hope so but it seems as though every single news story, every horrible brutality; wars, murders, rape, abuse... in the very large part of it seems to be caused by men. Am I wrong to think this?

OP posts:
WanderingWitches · 17/10/2023 12:40

YANBU

Catza · 17/10/2023 13:01

It's not always men. There a re a lot of domestic abuse cases where the perpetrator is a woman. Men are typically reluctant to come forward in these situations which skews the stats.
Plenty of female murderers as well - see recent news story about Lucy Letby, for example. Beverly Allit, Aileen Wournos, Juana Barraza...
Plenty of terror acts in which women were active participants as well as women being perpetrators of sexual assault.
The news don't always show the full picture. If you can get a hold of official crime statistics, you may find that it is not quite so clear cut.

Pollyputhekettleon · 17/10/2023 13:04

I suspect people believe this about wars because when they see pictures of armies and terrorist groups they're mostly men. So they assume that the women of that group have nothing to do with it or presumably oppose it. Such a bizarre belief. And people slag off the Victorians for viewing women as innocent angels. We're not any saner.

OneTC · 17/10/2023 13:05

The stats check out

SpacePotato · 17/10/2023 13:07

It's not always men

No. But it's mostly men though isn't it.

AccountCreateUsername · 17/10/2023 13:10

It’s always men starting wars, unless we want to go back to Elizabethan times. And outside of the west it’s always men who perpetuate abuse on whatever scale … obviously there are violent and abusive women out there, but I agree, always men.

men have designed all recent genocides…

ComtesseDeSpair · 17/10/2023 13:11

Testosterone is a powerful drug. Plus there are relatively few societies which don’t socialise boys to grow up thinking that physical strength and some level of aggression are desirable masculine traits.

Malariahilaria · 17/10/2023 13:13

It is, always mostly men indeed. Not 'most men' as there are plenty of reasonably mannered men but the people doing the raiding, raping. Rampaging are men.

Someone on here posted once about a group of monkeys that used to fight over the food resources of a local rubbish tip, then all the aggressive males got poisoned somehow and once that gene was bred out of the troop the mild males and females lived peacefully.

Fififafa · 17/10/2023 13:18

Catza · 17/10/2023 13:01

It's not always men. There a re a lot of domestic abuse cases where the perpetrator is a woman. Men are typically reluctant to come forward in these situations which skews the stats.
Plenty of female murderers as well - see recent news story about Lucy Letby, for example. Beverly Allit, Aileen Wournos, Juana Barraza...
Plenty of terror acts in which women were active participants as well as women being perpetrators of sexual assault.
The news don't always show the full picture. If you can get a hold of official crime statistics, you may find that it is not quite so clear cut.

It’s not always men, however take sexual assaults as an example. It’s not always men committing them, however in the UK 99% are committed by men, so yeah, the stats do back up OP’s claim.

Onlywedressbetter · 17/10/2023 13:19

Yawn

FloofCloud · 17/10/2023 13:21

I'm a scientist tidy and I feel testosterone would be a hefty part of this. Not only, but it will be partly due to this. Some people are just bad, men or women, and sone are psycho or sociopaths... and sometimes women's hormones are a cause I'm sure ...

I do remember having a chat with our vet about 25 years ago about our cat who hadn't been castrated (rescue) until he was probably 3-4 years and getting the microchip in his skin around his neck was hilarious because he literally looked like his eyes would pop out as the needle wouldn't go in! The vet said it was the testosterone that causes thickening of the skin around the neck because the tendency for male cats to fight - damage limitation!

AirGapped · 17/10/2023 13:26

I am not aware of any research implicating testosterone levels in violent crime, studies don’t indicate that there is any relationship at all between higher levels and violence. Yet it’s overwhelmingly a male problem that women and children pay the highest price for.

What on earth is the point of looking for rare female offenders to create a false equivalence? Nobody is fooled by that.

Unabletomitigate · 17/10/2023 13:29

Er... not quite sure why you are suprised. It is a fact based on evolutionary biology and more or less mitigated by socialisation. When men (and women) act in a civilised manner, civilisation and socialisation is working. When they don't, it isn't.

ChickHenLittle · 17/10/2023 13:29

in the very large part of it seems to be caused by men. Am I wrong to think this?

You're not wrong to think it because it's true. The majority of these acts ARE committed by men, that's a fact.

Syrupyslop · 17/10/2023 13:30

Catza · 17/10/2023 13:01

It's not always men. There a re a lot of domestic abuse cases where the perpetrator is a woman. Men are typically reluctant to come forward in these situations which skews the stats.
Plenty of female murderers as well - see recent news story about Lucy Letby, for example. Beverly Allit, Aileen Wournos, Juana Barraza...
Plenty of terror acts in which women were active participants as well as women being perpetrators of sexual assault.
The news don't always show the full picture. If you can get a hold of official crime statistics, you may find that it is not quite so clear cut.

Its not always men but it is very nearly always men.

There are not plenty of female murderers, there are very few. The ones you can name are pretty much all of them as they always get reported in the media as they are so rare. I mean, its a sub-genre isn't it? Women who kill! There is no sub-genre of Men Who Kill! because we just expect it to be a man as it nearly always is. You won't be able to name very many of the men who murder as most murders by males go unreported as they are so common they are unnewsworthy.

As for domestic violence, most men who are killed in this are killed by other men in same-sex relationships. When a man kills a women he has nearly always been abusing her for years. When a women kills a man, in 77% of cases he has been abusing her for years. That's the difference.

Syrupyslop · 17/10/2023 13:31

And yes, the crime stats will absolutely show its nearly always a man.

Catza · 17/10/2023 13:33

SpacePotato · 17/10/2023 13:07

It's not always men

No. But it's mostly men though isn't it.

Is it though?
Peer reviewed research shows that incidents of domestic violence are almost equally split between rates of male and female perpetrators (actually slightly higher incidents of female-perpetrated abuse)
There are more males in the criminal justice system than females but this doesn't mean men commit more or fewer crimes, just that they may be more frequently charged and persecuted.
Here is a link to meta-analysis reporting that over 11% of sexual offences are perpetrated by women The Proportion of Sexual Offenders Who Are Female Is Higher Than Thought: A Meta-Analysis - Franca Cortoni, Kelly M. Babchishin, Clémence Rat, 2017 (sagepub.com)
A question of who starts wars is a question of who is typically in power. If fewer women are holding positions of power, then it would be expected that statistics of war crime and genocide are skewed to look like it is "mostly men" who are perpetrators.
It's neither "always men" nor "always women" but I think we highly underestimate the role women play in perpetrating crime.

MatthewsMumFromTikTok · 17/10/2023 13:35

Yes

Any one of your DH or Dp could commit a crime like those mentioned
Your Dads/uncles/brothers too

Or sons

AirGapped · 17/10/2023 13:37

Women must be very good at hiding the bodies if they are killing their current or former partners as frequently as men.

UncleOrinocosFlow · 17/10/2023 13:38

Catza · 17/10/2023 13:33

Is it though?
Peer reviewed research shows that incidents of domestic violence are almost equally split between rates of male and female perpetrators (actually slightly higher incidents of female-perpetrated abuse)
There are more males in the criminal justice system than females but this doesn't mean men commit more or fewer crimes, just that they may be more frequently charged and persecuted.
Here is a link to meta-analysis reporting that over 11% of sexual offences are perpetrated by women The Proportion of Sexual Offenders Who Are Female Is Higher Than Thought: A Meta-Analysis - Franca Cortoni, Kelly M. Babchishin, Clémence Rat, 2017 (sagepub.com)
A question of who starts wars is a question of who is typically in power. If fewer women are holding positions of power, then it would be expected that statistics of war crime and genocide are skewed to look like it is "mostly men" who are perpetrators.
It's neither "always men" nor "always women" but I think we highly underestimate the role women play in perpetrating crime.

Show quote history

Oh give over. Eleven per cent is still a minority. Yes it's considerably greater than 2% but it's hardly the earth-shattering statistical 'gotcha' you're making it out to be.

Syrupyslop · 17/10/2023 13:39

Your own figure of nine out of ten sex offenders being male is still mostly men committing these crimes, isn’t it?

Why do you think men have not created refuges all over the country for men fleeing women who want to kill them? It’s because there is not a demand for this.

UncleOrinocosFlow · 17/10/2023 13:39

AirGapped · 17/10/2023 13:37

Women must be very good at hiding the bodies if they are killing their current or former partners as frequently as men.

I know right!

wombat1a · 17/10/2023 13:39

Strangly enough, my experience is that where I live the majority of domestic abuse is performed by the women in the relationship - very little is done by the men.

Bar far more men petition for divorce here for DA reasons than women as well.

TheOutlaws · 17/10/2023 13:41

@Catza

The fact that you can name those women, and that they span a 40 year timescale, kinda proves OP’s point.

AlexaM86 · 17/10/2023 13:44

Ultimately, you’re not wrong. But I don’t think you can isolate things like this - most of our defence force, firefighters, doctors, police, etc. are all also men.