Gender differences in crime and pondering the reasons

[MyKindHiker]

This is a bit of a random thought experiment / ramble on something I have been pondering recently. Not to be taken too seriously.

I’ll also say the reason for my interest in this subject is down to a genuine curiosity about the interplay of social vs biological differences between the sexes and nature vs nurture when it comes to issues around crime.

The thought is this. Statistics show that overwhelmingly crime is carried out by men. Is it possible that this actually understates the amount of crime being carried out by women because the women just don’t get caught?

Bear with me here…

So we know testosterone does make men more prone to rash decision making. So if we think about murder rates, lots of those are fights, muggings etc. It makes logical sense this group would mostly exclude women. Crimes of circumstance (like needing money to feed an addiction) men might do robbery where women can sadly turn to other, less criminalised ways of making money. I am not making a moral judgement. Just thinking through the gap in the data.

But when we think about pre-meditated acts of murder or cruelty, again the stats are these crimes are overwhelmingly men. And this is where I have pause for thought. As I don’t really understand how men are just more evil than women to such a statistical degree. (Note: i differentiate ‘evil’ from ‘violence’. By evil I mean pre-meditated harm). I look at my sweet little sons and I wonder how can it be that some men are just evil? If no one is born evil, perhaps many evil people have become that way because of how they have been treated. But of course many girls and women are abused… do some of them also become evil?

I’ll say upfront this may well be the case that evil women just don’t exist other than the vanishingly small numbers who are convicted and we are aware of.

But what if it wasn’t and there were in fact, more ‘evil’ women than is recognised?

I say with a high degree of certainty that if my aunty mildred got sick of her husband (she is not a real person btw) she could put a pillow over his face whilst he was sleeping, call the police in the morning and say he died in his sleep and he would just be another statistic of a bloke who had a heart attack. Autopsies are only done where there is suspicion… surely no one would suspect sweet Mildred who bakes cakes for church? She could get away with it easily. How many people who die of natural causes could actually have been offed by the women around them thereby never featuring in murder statistics?

Another thought. If we still keep to the track that there may be a higher number of evil women out there. We know that in times gone by, bad men were attracted to certain lines of work, like boarding schools or young offenders institutions where they could have unchecked power and access to people to abuse.

If we had evil women amongst us, what professions would attract them? My guess is probably care homes working with dementia patients? Harold Shipman went undetected for years because he was seen as naturally above suspicion because he was a doctor. In the end he was discovered as the numbers were irrefutable. But what if instead of a man he’d been a sweet lady? What if he’d have been more careful? I think it’s entirely possible that a woman with a proclivity for evil could exist undiscovered in various care roles in perpetuity. Especially in certain parts of elder care where controls are lax.

I’m not saying they do. Just that it’s possible.

Or maybe we will literally discover one day that there is a real biological reason why women don’t seem to be as prone to evil?

Love this chat. The Power by Naomi Alderman explores some of these themes in a fictional setting, and from what I can remember (read it with my bookgroup years ago) the conclusion is more or less that if women had some kind of power advantage over men, we'd become just as bad. Not exactly a new idea; we've all read Animal Farm. However, I would love to read some kind of murder mystery book where the premise is that women are just as bad as men, we're just much better at getting away with it. Older women often talk about feeling invisible so that could be part of it; an older lady goes on a Dexter-style rampage, murdering all the most offensive and awful men on the planet and they're all just put down to natural causes. She gradually admits her crimes to her nearest and dearest who all assume she is developing dementia. In the end she confesses in a sky-written message and still nobody believes her so she just continues with her vengeful public service in peace. Cannot wait to read that.

I’m not sure how much of a sales pitch drugs need either. I thought they sold themselves.

I think it’s the risks and rewards associated with drug dealing are higher than Avon sales. Less likely to get stabbed delivering Skin So Soft.
And the tribalism of being in a gang heirarchy, that might be the same with Avon though lol.

I don't think women in general are nearly as sexually motivated as men.
They won't be sexually abusing the children. They may be verbally or emotionally cruel though.
I have seen female care workers in residential homes for adults with disabilities be unbelievably neglectful and cruel, then brush it off with the comment that the resident was just "attention seeking", which is a catch-all phrase to justify not doing your job as a carer.

I think all humans have the capability for violence and cruelty but we don't remove 'bad' men from society so there's no real incentive for them to change their behaviour. They are enabled and become entitled to express themselves and act however they wish. There are offences that have been committed by men in vast, vast numbers and they were presented as a laugh or banter all through society.

Women though generally fear a different kind of removal from society ie being ostracised, and that socialisation is strong. The crimes woman do commit in more numbers have very specific drivers.

A random thought, but this made me think of how some studies have found a (weak) inverse correlation between murder and suicide. Regions with high murder rates often tend towards lower suicide rates, and vice versa, as if some regions internalise their unhappiness and disenfranchisement, and some externalise it.

This makes me wonder if, thanks to socialisation, men generally externalise their disenfranchisement and unhappiness by inflicting it on others, and women internalise it through inflicting it on themselves.

Ultimately though, I think that the effect of testosterone on the development of the brain as a foetus and baby probably has an immense impact - for instance, men are overwhelmingly the sex to have paraphilias, and not women. Women aren't just hiding their paraphilias, they just don't have them to the same extent.

Yeah that is true but the dealer does also generally have to network and talk to a lot of people they are running a business after all. Not that women aren't capable of these things but I do think men tend to be more business- minded. Or used to be anyway. I am aware that the genders are becoming more similar to a large extent.

I did use to do sales. I never sold a thing I was terrible at it, but they kept me on anyway for someone reason. There was one woman in the office who was really good at it, but most of the high achievers making all the money were men

If Aunty Mildred suffocates her husband, that has to be seen within the context of patriarchy - why does she not just divorce him? Because she has been abused and controlled for decades? Because she has spent a lifetime leaving the 'money side of things' up to him and doesn't think she can get a fair divorce settlement? Because being an innocent widow is so much more socially acceptable than being a divorcee?

Yes. Drug dealing (it seems to me, I have no first-hand experience) comes with a high risk not just from addicts but from other drug dealers - you may well face violence from others who want to take your territory or enforce theirs. Men have an obvious advantage here.

It's highly unlikely though. Safeguarding isn't just about picking up the kind of thing you mentioned, there are indicators of abuse that are picked up when the parents are abusive that would be picked up if it was nursery staff.

Yes, women are famously bad at networking and talking to people.

Partly but there is a massive socioeconomic aspect. I've known a few women in my life who have been in prison for violent crimes. And they were often repeat offenders

No I'm not saying that precisely just that I think when it involves business and selling things there's a difference between the sexes (in general)

Attitude to risk. Men tend to drive faster. They tend to do more dangerous activities/hobbies. This will cross over into crime.

Women are apparently also more loss-adverse - so are more cautious.

Men are more confident in their abilities (a man will apply for a job when he has very few of the stated requirements, women won’t apply even if they have 90% as they feel under qualified). So they take more risk. You see this even when learning a new skill or sport - the techniques are different even from age 7/8. A boy goes for goal even if someone else is in a better position. A girl will pass even if she’s in a prime spot to score. (No not all girls/boys - but my kids do 6 sports and it’s a very common theme - see the same when learning a new musical score - girls cautious / boys get stuck in and make numerous mistakes away until they get it)

I do think some women struggle to even recognise men are happy to take risks that they wouldn’t contemplate doing. Base jumping, free climbing, etc

Most sales people are women, personal shoppers, beauty counters, pharmacies, jewellery, clothes shops, estate agents. They just sell different things.

Ok, you've made a good point actually

This isn’t a moral discussion about why Mildred killed her fictional husband. But if it helps for her to have a motive, the scenario I have in mind is that Mildred is evil and wants Bernard dead because she’s sick of him. Maybe she met a younger fella and wants him out of the way without having the hassle of a divorce and wants to keep the house.

What is interesting to me in this scenario is I do think it’s entirely plausible Mildred would be effectively above suspicion. No one would suspect foul play so no investigation would ever be done. No autopsy. No checking of her salacious messages with Pablo her bit on the side.

But if Mildred died in her sleep I wonder if Bernard would be investigated? Maybe? Maybe our social bias is to assume foul play more with men? Which we should based on the stats but what if its a self fulfilling prophecy?

But is that inherent or is it socialization that people seem to trust men more, will believe what a man says, will listen to men more, are less likely to say no to a pushy man. More likely to think a pushy woman is just uppity. In other words does it come down to how men and women are viewed under patriarchy.

Interesting!

In this context though do you think that women would be less likely to get caught for a (big, premeditated) crime? Because they’d plan it to death first?

I would never commit a crime. But if I did, I am so sure I would use my skills hones from years of planning out worst case scenarios with my kids to game every element of the crime so it was planned to a tee.

Valid argument

Interesting I never saw that research. What I find curious though is that men do more murders (statistically, unless there are loooooads of untraced female killers) AND commit more suicide.

Why are they so angry?!

Unless Aunt Mildred's husband died in hospital or was under very recent medical care then he's absolutely having a post mortem. Doctors (1 for burial, 2 for cremation) need to sign a death certificate with the cause of death and they don't just guess.

I'm also not sure a pathologist is going to confuse suffocation with a heart attack, so while Aunt Mildred might not be automatically arrested and the whole place taken as a crime scene, I think she's going to have some questions to answer. Especially if it's a sudden death that she's going to benefit from and she has a fancy man waiting in the wings.

The question is whether Aunt Mildred is aware of this and whether that is what's stopping her from reaching for the pillow or the poison.

Women I believe attempt suicide more however there is even a difference in methods between the sexes and the methods men choose tend to again be more violent and therefore more likely to succeed.

Also, aunt Mildred may or may not have people relying on her for care. The responsibility of care falls largely on women, for better or worse, and going to prison would be more likely to be balanced with wether she wants to let down her children who rely on her for her grandchildren’s childcare, and her sister who she takes to hospital appointments, while she is banged up for 15 years.

It’s because men are more psychopathic than women.

‘Men are generally found to have higher rates of psychopathy than women, with traditional studies estimating a male-to-female ratio as high as 6:1. However, recent research suggests female psychopathy is undercounted due to diagnostic tools being modeled on male criminal behavior, with some estimates proposing the real ratio could be closer to 1.2:1.’

A real life example of male psychopathic behaviour is when a partner gets cancer:
6-to-1 Ratio: A notable 2009 study published in Cancer found that a husband is six times more likely to leave his wife if she is diagnosed with a serious illness compared to a wife leaving her husband.
Separation Rates: The same study (and subsequent research) found that when the woman is the patient, the separation rate is approximately 20.8%, while it is only 2.9% when the man is the patient.

We are not wired the same.

Socialisation is huge and so unconscious for so many people. If you've ever tried to bring up a little boy to be ok with crying when he needs to, you'll be aware that regressive stereotypes about boy's behaviour still pervade wider culture. And if you go to a playground and observe what small children are wearing on the climbing frame - hair, shoes and clothes - you can see where socialisation to put up with discomfort begins for many girls.