Crime's gender agenda

Unless we acknowledge that women also commit violent offences, we will never find useful solutions


There was a common assumption linking at least three of these articles that, superficially at least, addressed three very different types of crime. The assumption appeared to be that there is a qualitative difference between the crimes that are committed by men and those committed by women.

It was Cath Elliott's piece on so-called "family annihilators" that set the tone. The article acknowledged that women also committed these offences but stated "what sets these [male] family annihilators apart is the sheer spitefulness of the act." This seemed a little strange, not least because in the same paragraph Cath linked to the case of Susan Smith. This woman wanted to begin a new relationship without the baggage of a family and, rather than surrender custody to their father, she drowned her own two children. Maybe it's just me, but that seems about as spiteful an act as it is possible to imagine.

by refusing to recognise the evil that women can do, we devalue the suffering and loss of their victims.

The same author followed up that piece with her thoughts on the Josef Fritzl case in which, long before the investigations and court cases are complete, she declared that she believed Rosemarie Fritzl to be completely innocent of any complicity in this affair. She concluded that: "Rosemarie Fritzl is a classic example of a victim, cowed by Fritzl's domineering and controlling behaviour, completely subjugated by the power he exercised over her. Josef Fritzl might seem a monster by comparison to most people, but he is in fact just another violent abusive man, albeit one at the most extreme edge of the spectrum."

The triptych was completed by Kia Abdullah in a heartfelt piece about so-called "honour" killings. The author pointed out that "on occasion, women too partake in these crimes" but then went on to lay the blame squarely at the hands of men: "In much of Asian society, there is a distinct demarcation between men, who apparently understand the true meaning of honour, and women who cannot be trusted to protect their own."

All these arguments place the power relationship between men and women at the heart of violent crime. Whatever wicked acts a woman may have planned, committed or condoned, she is either assumed to be mentally ill, marked down as another victim, or seen as an exception that somehow proves the rule.

There's no argument that female offenders are exceptions - the people who perpetrate violence in this world are overwhelmingly male. Whether it's the frequency and severity of violent crime and sexual offences or involvement in the horrors of warfare, men are responsible for most of it. The majority of victims of male violence are in fact other men, but of course the victims also include many women and children.

There is also little doubt in my mind that we live in a patriarchal world where, despite considerable progress in developed countries, our structures of government, commerce, economics, social norms and availability of opportunities still serve to empower men over women. Societies evolve in large part to protect vested interests, and our societies have evolved in part to protect male privilege.

However, one can assert that we live in a patriarchal world, and observe that we live in a world where violence by men is commonplace, without assuming that the latter is caused by the former. The two beliefs are entirely independent, and indeed there are some very strong practical reasons why we should be wary of assuming a causal relationship.
The disproportionate prevalence of male violence might be explained by socialisation or by genes, chromosomes and hormones, but to answer the bigger questions of what causes violent behaviour, we need theories that explain female violence too. If male violence is a product of patriarchal values, what explains female violence?

It has been argued that female violence is so exceptional and rare as to be unworthy of consideration. This really doesn't hold up to scrutiny. The US department of justice estimates that around 11% of homicides are committed by women (there are no equivalent figures published by the Home Office in the UK). On domestic violence, the British Crime Survey consistently shows surprisingly little difference in rates of victimisation between men and women. Many men are the victims of violent female partners, and not in all cases are the offenders acting in self-defence or out of severe provocation. There are also sufficient female sex criminals, child abusers, murderers of all varieties and run-of-the-mill bullies, happy-slappers and muggers to oblige us to consider female perpetrators as a consistent, persistent minority of violent offenders. Any theory of criminality that fails to recognise this truth has to be inadequate.

The other explanation proffered by some feminist thinkers is the theory of internalised patriarchal values. The idea is that in order to survive and thrive in an oppressive society, victims come to accept and believe in the moral values and judgments that cause their own oppression. This is a broadly psychoanalytic theory, assuming unconscious motivations and false consciousness, concepts drawn down from Freud through Melanie Klein. The process of internalisation has been widely disputed by psychologists over the past 50 years, not least by the influential moral development theorist Lawrence Kohlberg. Such theories are also rejected by most modern applied psychologists as they are fundamentally untestable and therefore beyond scientific investigation.

Contrary to popular belief, exceptions do not prove a rule - they require us to rewrite the rule. If we wish to explain and understand a phenomenon - any phenomenon - it is not a healthy scientific approach to begin with a theory and then disregard any evidence that does not fit. It is in fact those exceptions that allow us to refine and improve our theories. If we were to assume that the roots of sadistic sexual abuse are in patriarchal values, then where does the case of Lynndie England lead us? We could conclude that she has adopted male values, that although her sex is female, her crimes were still essentially male. But does this actually tell us anything useful? Can we apply that knowledge to the real world in any constructive manner? I don't see how. On the other hand, if we look beyond patriarchy to the theories of social cognition proposed by Philip Zimbardo and others, Lynndie England becomes less of an awkward exception and more of a living case study in the corrupting influence of power and untrammelled authority. What's more, such theories can actually feed into public policy in ways that might eventually reduce the incidence of abuse.

To draw a distinction between male and female violence is often, I believe, simply bad science. But there are also political reasons to resist the temptation. It does feminism or the cause of equality no favours to portray women as perpetual victims. By showing reluctance to cast women in the role of the aggressor or the offender, we actually deny the female sex the dignity of free will and agency. It denies women's individuality and even their (imperfect) humanity.

What may be worse, however, is that by refusing to recognise the evil that women can do, we devalue the suffering and loss of their victims. As soon as we claim that the crimes of Susan Smith, Karla Homolka or Bachan Athwal are less noteworthy than those of their male equivalents, we inevitably imply that the experience of their victims is similarly insignificant. They deserve better.

There has been something of a crimewave on Cif lately. From knifings and delinquent girls on the streets to family murders and the horrors of an Austrian basement, the search is on for explanations, understanding and, if possible, solutions.

It has done well so far.

Fits well, too. Toysoldier (awesome blog CHECK IT OUT!) compares a canibal case to Fritzl:

http://toysoldier.wordpress.com/2008...ate-boy-alive/