NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #3/NN_1993_3.iso/spool/soc/women/23057

Text File | 1993-01-25 | 2.3 KB | 47 lines

Newsgroups: soc.women
Path: sparky!uunet!panther!mothost!lmpsbbs!areaplg2.corp.mot.com!bhv
From: [e-mail] (Bronis Vidugiris)
Subject: Re: What does "Male-dominated society" mean?
Organization: Motorola, CCR&D, CORP, Schaumburg, IL
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 22:38:20 GMT
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In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Kelley Smith) writes:
)I write:
)> Regardless, an American female is probably still more likely to commit
)> a violent crime, according to the statistics, than a Japaneese male.
)> [I can probably dig up the data for murder, at least, if anyone is
)> interested - the generalization to all violent crime is slighltly more
)> suspect.]
)
)
)I would also think an American male would qualify also.  It's probably
)not a good idea to compare Americans with Japanese but Ameicans males
)with American females and Japanese males with Japanese females as society
)largely dictates behavior.  I would venture to say that Japanese males
)commit more violent crimes than Japanese females.  Also, American society
)is one of the most violent societies around.

One of the points I was trying to make was to demonstrate the importance
of culture to violence.  One hears a lot of 'male-bashing' and naive
Evil Testosterone theories about violence on the net.  I think it is worth
pointing out that cultural differences (eg between America and Japan) can
be more important than biology - as demonstrated by the homicide rates of
American women vs. Japaneese men.

To whit, the F/M ratio for single-offender single victim homicides in the
US was about .16 in 1989.  The ratio from Japan to US homicides (actual
killings, excluding attempts) is .8 / 7.9  = .10 from 1984 interpol data.

In short, the American woman in America is *at least* 1.6 or so times as
likely to kill you than a Japaneese man in Japan - assuming all murders
in Japan are carried out by men - in a generic statistical sense.

Given that there may be things one can do about culture, and that there is
very little that one can do about biology, to focus on the naive 'Evil Male'
theory of violence is mostly an exercise in sexism, IMO.