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

[PinkOwlReading]

I've just watched the highly recommended and heartbreaking Netflix documentary "The Girl in the Picture" spoiler alert the perpetrator is now on death row. So it got me Googling how many people are on death row in the US. Clearly not all states have the death penalty and the burden of proof for someone to receive that harshest sentence is very high plus appeals all the time etc... so it's a pretty strong indication that these people truly are the worst of humanity. As of 1 Jan 2022 (according to Wikipedia) there are circa 2,500 people on death row in the USA. Guess how may of those are women?

50

Not 500, 50! Less than 1% when obviously women make up 50% of the population. And of those women the majority were convicted of killing their own babies and children or husbands (obviously inexcusable) but in contrast to the men who's lists of victims are often multiple murders, bombings, mass shootings affecting unconnected innocent strangers. I was really shocked by the disparity. Two things strike me about this:-

1. Men are much more randomly violent and evil than women and what a different world we would like in if we were all women or if we could teach (or the Patriarchy would allow) our boys to be more like women; and

1. This is why we must preserve the integrity of crime data with true sex data and not blur the lines with "identifying gender" etc...

Anyone else agree this is the starkest comparison of all?

I honestly think it's difficult to know what the world would be like. There would DEFINITELY be less crime. However, maybe not as much less as you'd think. Part of the reason many women don't act like arseholes is fear of the consequences (often male violence). Remove that fear, would there be a bit more female violence. I think there would, a bit.

But yes, as a data nerd and someone who understands statistics, changing what you collect is very foolish. You don't get comparable data. By all means collect MORE data. But don't change the meaning of the data set.

Great response, thank you. You're right about the possible effect of male authority or fear of violence just being there may be a deterrent to many women and we can never know what a world without that would be like. I hadn't thought of that. I suspect though that women would be better at empathy, collaboration, negotiation and just generally trying all other means to resolve any issues before resorting to violent crime that it just would be bloody marvellous
In the absence of that Utopia though I do feel very strongly about preserving the integrity of sex based data in many areas and I'm glad you agree (from an experienced background) that it's important

Also we’re socialised to be subservient. If there were no men about, social expectations would be different and we’d be different. There’s anger in us, no doubt.

I am no better at empathy, collaboration or negotiation than my partner - I am just better at pretending that I am. Pretending probably isn’t the right word but I hope you know what I mean. Manipulating even but that’s not right really either.

Perhaps more of an awareness of social situations - but I don’t think it’s because I am more adept at this naturally; perhaps it is female conditioning or more caution to not evoking untoward reaction, or just that I have put more effort into it because as a female we have to work that bit harder sometimes.

I do believe men are more violent and dangerous naturally. I don’t think that’s learned - if anything I think those men who are not violent or dangerous is a learned behaviour. If you think how we have evolved it makes sense. It’s division of labour. They hunt, they build and they fight. We gathered, cooked, cleaned and kept the children and the home.

I often joke the quickest way to weaken a man would be to not provide him with breakfast or lunch. Us women are slow and steady and are built to survive longer on less - hell we can even grow a whole human barely keeping water or food down for 9 months. I know my DP would be quivering in a low blood sugar induced ball by dinner time. That might not seem relevant but I think it is. They are designed to be do high power activities for short periods. This probably explains why they can be quite reactive - with adrenaline/ testosterone etc. We are more considered for want of a better word.

We are just different and I am not saying it’s right - these people on death row are clearly uncivilised. But it’s just that in my eyes - most men are civilised and function in modern society, some just can’t get their brain to override primate wiring and so we have to lock them in a box.

YY absolutely should not mess with the data.

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....

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.

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.

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.

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)

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.

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.

effect even :)

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)

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.

We'd have sperm banks, obviously!

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

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).

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.

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.

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".

Very true.

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.

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.

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.

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.