Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic Had To Get This Off My Chest: or More Girls Killed

First, I need to make a few points clear. Obviously I would never suggest that men are not victims of violence, too. Also, I would never say that all men are violent, or that the world would get so much more peaceful if only women got to rule it. After all, Margaret Thatcher "ruled" Great Britain for a number of years, and that didn't make Britain more "peaceful" as far as I could see.

I will say that globally, more females than males are murdered. The only person who has ever tried to seriously address this question, Indian professor and Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen, wrote a paper in 1990 claiming that more than 100 million women are missing from the world, because they have been murdered or otherwise fallen victim to deadly gender discrimination. According to Professor Sen, however, in the Western world women are not killed more often than men.

I will say, too, that I strongly believe that even in the Western world, girl children are killed more often than boy children. In the late 1990s, I tried to find out about the murder rates for young boys and young girls in Sweden. I wrote to the Public Swedish Center for collecting and compiling national statistics, and I asked them to send me whatever facts they had about child murders in Sweden, broken down by age and gender. They sent me ten years of statistics about murders of Swedish boys and girls aged 0-18 years.

This is what I found, when I compiled the figures they sent me. From the age of 0 years to the age of eleven, more girls than boys are killed in Sweden. This is true for all age categories: it is true for 8-year-olds as well as for 2-year-olds, for 11-year-olds, 5-year-olds and for little babies who never got to live thorugh their first birthday. For all children up to the age of eleven, more girls than boys are killed in Sweden. Or at least this was so during the mid-eighties to the mid-nineties, and I don't believe those figures have changed at all.

So how many more girls than boys are killed, then? The difference is not huge. Typically, for every two boys that are murdered, three girls meet with a similar fate.

Please remember that we are talking about the youngest, the most helpless and the most innocent victims, those who are least likely to have brought their deaths on on their own.

When it comes to the very, very youngest victims, the newborn ones, the difference in murder rates grows large. I know of about ten newborn babies who have been determined to have been murdered in Sweden. Of these ten, one was definitely a boy. (His mother testified that she had concealed her pregnancy and had decided to kill her baby as soon as it was born. She had strangled her newborn without even looking at him, and she had never known that her baby was a boy.)

Of the remaining nine murdered newborns, one was a baby whose gender was never disclosed. All the other eight ones were girls.

I put it to you that a newborn baby can be considered a human being without any characteristics at all, apart from its gender. If a mother kills her newborn, she kills a baby she doesn't know as a person at all. All she really, truly knows about her baby is its gender, provided she bothers to take a look. If eight out of ten murdered newborns are female, and the only confirmed murdered male newborn was killed by a woman who wouldn't even find out about her baby's gender, then I say that new mothers are five to ten times more likely to kill their baby girl than their baby boy. Indeed, I'd say that new mothers are extremely unlikely to kill their newborn sons at all. There seems to be an absolute taboo against killing a newborn son. But such a taboo does not exist against killing a newborn daughter. In other words, during the first few days of her existence, the simple fact that a newborn baby is female makes her a potential murder victim. If she had been a boy, and her mother had been aware of her baby's gender, the baby would not be at risk.

I might add that during the 1990s, a study showed that a hospital in India had aborted more than 5,000 female fetuses and one - one! - male one.

Let me return to the murder statistics for young people in Sweden. When the children are twelve and thirteen years old, the probability of being murdered becomes the same for boys and girls. Later, the boys overhaul the girls, and the male murder victims begin to outnumber the female ones.

As for the school killings, the overwhelming majority of the perpetrators have been male. I stongly believe that at least half, and most probably more than half, of the victims have been female. I'm sure that the only times that the perpetrators have ordered one group of students to leave and ordered another group to line up against a wall, whereupon he shot them, execution-style - well, the only two times when that has happened the students that were ordered to leave were male and the students that were lined up against the wall and shot were female.

I want to quote one of the reasons that Carol brought up for why men's violence against women continues:

Yes, Carol, that is exactly my point. I do think women play along and even quietly encourage male violence. We turn a blind eye and refuse to see a pattern. We won't raise a ruckus and demand that society and the law protect women. Why don't we?

Of course, men don't speak up against male violence either. But sometimes it happens. Last year there was a man who murdered his wife here in Sweden and who was sentenced to the minimum penalty for first degree murder, namely ten years in prison, with the prospect of being let out after six or seven years. The court ruled that the man had committed a "normal" sort of murder, not "exaggerated" or unusually cruel in any way. Well, as soon as some of the details of the murder were released, the murder actually seemed extremely cruel. A rather large group of Swedish men protested. They wouldn't accept that the law would let off a man so lightly after he had deliberately and most thoroughly murdered his wife. These men insisted that it was absolutely unacceptable that the law should consider it in any way "normal" for a man to act like that. "We men are better than that!" these men said. "We demand that society expects all men to be better than that!"

So how about it, people? Why not speak up against male violence?

Finally, Arawn. You are absolutely right about this:

No, Arawn, male victims are not less important than female ones. So why not speak up against violence in the first place, all violence, whether it is committed by men or by women?

But I'll still insist that it gets to me in a special way that girl children are killed more often than boy children - which they are, I insist - and when the lives of girls and women are seen as cheaper and less valuable than the lives of boys and men.

Ann

Further on the funerals... this sickens me.

Hold whatever views you like, but do not use the funerals of little girls to promote your cause. If any of these kids was even aware of what homosexuality is, I'd be amazed.

I'm not surprised Phelps got his slot on the local radio - I'm sure people would do anything to keep him and his nutjobs away from those funerals. But that's disgusting tactics.


Wendy

I agree Wendy. I'm speechless. But what really hit me about the article was this:

How dare they? What do they know about the Amish and their beliefs? And no one deserves what happened in that schoolhouse, regardless of who they are! I just don't understand who would EVER want to disrupt a funeral for their own agenda. If anything, they are hurting their cause. Whatever they have to say will be overshadowed by how they got on the radio in the first place. But seriously, is nothing sacred anymore?

~Kristen
(can't even begin to describe the anger!)

Yes, all of it gets you steamed up in different ways, doesn't it? The comments against the Amish and the 'they've brought it on themselves' offensive slander, the attempt to use the funerals as a political football, the blackmail, or that they're now getting an hour's free airtime to vent their hate?

As a Norwegian journalist friend of mine reminded me, this Fred Phelps is the same person who pronounced that the Swedish tsunami was God's punishment for Sweden's tolerance of homosexuality.

I know and respect the fact that some members of these MBs have strong anti-gay views; that's their business and they're entitled to their opinions and I'm not criticising that. But this guy... he makes me sick.


Wendy

To boil this down to "men kill women because their lives are seen as less valuable in society" seems to me to be really simplistic. I don't argue that there is a value judgement involved, as much as there is against races within the fabric of American society at least (I don't feel comfortable generalizing further than this), but the issue is much, much deeper than that.

Saying such a thing and accepting it unconditionally obscures the complex processes through which people are socialized and can suffer from mental illness and instability, a process that is a mix of the environmental factors (both immeadiate and otherwise) and biological predisposition. No, that doesn't excuse violence, but it complicates the "root" of it because not every ******* who thinks he's better than women takes a gun and blows away little girls. The line has to be drawn somewhere, because, at least to me, the two are not the same.

Not to mention that the A=B formula assumes that hate crimes against women will stop if we manage to change society's views on women as less. So then erasing all difference we can hope for the same deaths from violence that men suffer. I'm not sure if that pleases me all that much.

Not sure I'm interpreting this point as you intended it, Aria, (those missing words and that A=B formula reference:) ), but I'm going to comment anyway.

I'm more optimistic about the long term possibilites of changing attitudes towards violence against women (and towards men too.) at least here in Canada. Just as attitudes to smoking have changed and driving after drinking have, so too will the tolerance of violence.

For example, spanking of children is no longer condoned, bullying is taken far more seriously by parents and by schools, It's no longer legal to beat your wife, the death penalty has been abolished, not to mention that there hasn't been a public execution in well over a century. As well, it's not just women now who are speaking against the violence that is still so prevalent in pop culture.

Nevertheless, changes of these sorts are slow to happen, and these days it can seem like we've plateaued in our climb toward that goal. But it does begin with a culture which demonstrates that is does value men and women equally.

Nor do I believe that this will mean female violence will reach the same level as male violence. (although I can't support that belief with logic:)

(btw I've focused my comments on the issue of violence against women which is the issue that Ann orginally raised. This doesn't mean I'm not concerned with man/man violence.)

There's a small flaw with speaking out against specific violence. Sure, the world will react, people will be apalled and attempt to stop it, people will make protests such as these posts.

But all the spotlights in the world won't minimize it. The people doing this are still sick, insane, psychopaths, or just mental. They have issues, imagined (or even real) issues with the type of people that they commit the violence against. It's a mental wall between what's right and their own perceptions. It's not something you can deal with rationally.

Each of the people were brought up in the same society we were. Most grew up with the same moral code. We know there's no excuse for their behavior, but they create excuses. Excuses that we cannot understand, nor could we sway their minds without heavy drugs and counselling. Which, because of their particular psychoses, may be hard to detect until the short fuse is lit. In many cases, the words heard from the people who knew them are "(S)He seemed so nice. Wouldn't hurt a fly. I can't believe that (s)he did it."

Am I making excuses? No. Do I understand? Not fully. But sometimes loud noise is not the right fix.

I don't think there's been an explosion of violence lately. There's probably less than before. The difference between now and 50, 100, 400 years ago is collection methods, the media, and how fast news can spread across the globe. It's a small world after all.

This Westboro Baptist Church, is it for real?
It says in the article that it has 70 members, but aren't they really in it for the attention or money or something?

It's seem rather strange that they would believe that disrupting funerals for fallen soldiers or murdered schoolgirls would make anyone inclined to oppose homosexuality.

My point went along with Karen's in that violence is not rational. Pedophiles, domestic abusers, murderers, etc. are not just people who value their victims less, they are fundamentally damaged people at a much, much deeper level.

Sure we can condone violence all day, but that won't change that the person next door to you might have a bad day and decide to get a gun at wallmart and use it on some unsuspecting innocents. And nothing can stop it, not even an egalitarian society where those innocents are worth as much as their killer.

I really don't understand how people accept simple explanations of violence or why people think they can possibly understand what lies at bottom. Human beings just aren't that simple. For most of us the reasons behind these horrible things are inaccessible and maybe it's better that way.

On the other hand, I'm sure that pretending that there's a clear cut answer--something concrete and simple helps a lot of people sleep better at night. When you blame society and dream of utopia being achievable it becomes a lot easier to trust your neighbors.

TOC,
Then why do you make a bigger thing out men’s violence against women(I really hate that term) then violence in general? In Sweden, violent crime targets men in about 70 percent of the cases. The more severe the abuse, the likelier it is that the victim is male.

If you are referring to violent crime, why should I need to? No one I know would say assault or murder is a acceptable and I certainly don’t think so. I see no reason why anyone would think otherwise. But if you like, I hereby declare that killing or assaulting men or women is a bad thing. Satisfied?
Actually I think it’s far worse when people who can’t defend themselves, like women and children are abused but that is most probably the social conditioning I received as a man. Intellectually I know that all life have equal value.

Concerning violence in general it’s a little more complicated, as someone who has practiced martial art for a large part of my life, I enjoy fighting, the bruises and the pain. It’s exhilarating and good exercise too. But I think this as even less to do with violent crime then video games.

That you strongly believe something doesn’t make it so. But even if it was so, it doesn’t necessarily mean that misogyny is the reason. Men are physically and psychologically better equipped to deal with extreme situations. See boats that sinks for example, men tends to survive in a far greater degree.

Depends. They believe in what they say. The church is mostly all from one family, with a few outsiders. Most of the people who used to be outsiders have married into the family. Some information on who they are and what they do can be found here (yay, wiki) (Warning: contains foul language, crudity, and general stupidity -- quotes from WBC).

Frankly, I think they're an idiotic bunch of extremist kooks who needs a 2x4 of reality knocked up against their heads.

I'm not sure that's where I was going exactly.

It's a very complex issue, and certainly we're not able to either identify or control the behaviour of violent psychopaths, whichever gender.

Nevertheless, social values do change, have changed over the centuries. In Canada, it's easier, safer to be a woman in 2006 than what it was for my mother and my grandmother. But I suspect that's less true in those places where "honour killings" still occur, for example. Nevertheless, I know enough history to be aware that violent control of women was once part of our culture too.

So, yes, I do believe that social conditioning can influence behviour. But, yes, also, i have no clue how you predict or control for the random violence of the very small percentage of psychopaths out there or those tragic individuals whose brain chemistry suddenly turns them to irrational acts of violence .

c.
edit: btw, for people in Ontario, TVO is looking at this topic on "The Agenda" right now.

perhaps I shouldn't have laughed reading that article, but seriously were do this kind of people come from?

They are apperantly allowed to raise children. America most be a scary place.

Arawn, I do admit I may be wrong here, but I get the impression that men kill women because they want to kill them, but they kill other men more accidentally, because they wanted to "beat the crap out of the other guy" and show off. I do believe that most men who fall victim to violence are brought to the hospital and survive, because it was not the perpetrator's intention to necessarily kill them. I do believe that when men severely attack women they fully intend to really kill them, and most of the severely attacked women die, too, because the killers made sure that they did. I see a hatred here that is different from the "showing off" that leads men to attack other men. Let me return to the school killings. Has anyone heard of a case where a man on a rampage ordered all the women - better yet, all the young girls - to leave, whereupon he lined up all the men against a wall and shot them, execution-style? Has anyone heard of something like that?

I'll keep insisting that some men feel a special hatred against women that makes them put a very special effort into killing women, such as lining them up against a wall and shooting them, execution-style. Sweden's worst rampaging mass murderer ever, Mattias Flink, was motivated by his need to kill women. His girlfriend had just left him, and Flink, a military man, got his military rifle and climbed up a tree. He then waited until a group of six young women came by. He shot them, killing five and wounding the sixth one. Everybody in the vicinity fled, but after a while, a male cyclist dared to approach. Flink shot and killed him, and later, a passing male pedestrian met with the same fate. But I'll insist that if either of these two men had passed before Flink had shot the women, the men would not have been attacked. Afterwards, relatively little was made of the fact that Flink had been motivated by his need to kill women.

Tommy Möller, a researcher from the University of Gothenburg in Sweden who has studied the effects of steroids, the favorite drug of so many athletes, was invited to our school to lecture on the effects of steroids on the human body and mind. In his lecture, Möller specifically highlighted the lack of control and explosive rage that male steroid users can experience. According to Möller, many of the most gruesome attacks on women in Sweden in later years have been committed by men on steroid highs. More girlfriends have been killed by men on steroids, more deliberate stalkings of women leading up to murders are taking place, and there are more random attacks on females. According to Möller, steroid use among men has increased the deadly attacks on females more than it has increased the deadly attacks on other men. Personally I conclude that this is because the steroids allow some men to give a free rein to their hatred of women. But their feelings towards other men don't change much, since these men don't normally hate other men in the first place. Mattias Flink, the man who wouldn't shoot at anyone until he got the chance to kill a whole group of young women, was on steroids.

So I'll insist that there is a special male rage directed against women, and even though I'm sure that it is only a small group of men who feel such a rage, it worries me that the rest of society doesn't do more to try to stop them. Why do we encourage boys to be strong, assertive, excessively male and, if need be, violent? Because I think we do. I'm old enough to remember the seventies very well, and I do think boys were raised to be much less "macho" back then. And six-year-old girls were not dressed up to try to be Paris Hilton.

Also, I firmly believe that we all, collectively, accept the idea that men are simply a bit more valuable than women. Men deserve more money and better service. A study here in Sweden found that doctors tend to prescribe more effecient and more expensive drugs to their male patients than to their female ones.

And really, to me the heart of the matter of my feminism is this: It's the idea that women and girls are not worth as much as men, so that their lives are cheaper. So that it's more okay to, well, squander them. There is a worldwide shortage of women, because more women than men have been murdered worldwide, and that means just this: that women's lives are worth less than men's. If girl children are killed more often than boy children even in the West, then that must reflect an idea even in the West that girl children are worth less than boy children. If even a handful of new mothers will kill their newborn baby because she is a girl, but possibly not a single new mother will kill her newborn son if she is aware of his gender, then girls are worth less than boys even in the West. And if even a relatively small number of men are burning with hatred against women and girls just because women and girls are female, and if they murder females because of their hatred and society won't do its utmost to stop these men's murderous misogyny, then that, too, reflects the idea that women aren't really that valuable. We don't need each and every woman, we can do well without some of them.

You know what I'm actually afraid of? I fear that with the new technology that makes it ever easier to learn about the gender of the fetus, and with the ever simpler and safer ways to have your own home abortion, we are going to see an epidemic of girl killings like never before. No, it's not going to happen from one day to another, of course. It is going to be a slow thing, something everybody will get used to ever so slowly. But I fear that we are going to get ever more used to the idea that it is kind of unnecessary to have a daughter when you can have a son instead. I fear, therefore, that the world's population of female humans will dwindle, while at the same time the world's population of human males will grow, perhaps rapidly. It goes without saying, of course, that the really severe shortages of women will be found in countries like China and India (where girl killings on a large scale are already happening) long before it starts really happen in the West.

What will such a shortage of women lead to? In my opinion, it will lead to more global unrest, more wars, as men fight for the right to have no daughters but nevertheless have wives - or female sex slaves, rather - for themselves and for their sons. And women will be turned into slaves, into livestock, into cattle, into being utterly devoid of any human rights. Women will be bought and sold, kidnapped and traded, used as sex slaves and as the producers of male offspring for their owners until they outlive their usefulness and their owners have them put down like cattle.

Okay, Arawn, that is what I ultimately fear will happen. This is what I can see happening in the future, when I find that even today, girl children are killed more often than boy children and this is neither recognized nor considered a problem. And I see these future horrors happening when gynecide and misogyny are thought of as individual idiosyncracies rather than as a problem that concerns us all.

Ann

Wow - is there a law against kooks being allowed to procreate in other countries? Who gets to decide if they're "fit for parenthood"? If we tried that here the ACLU would really freak out.

That's the drawback of an open society, I suppose. If I'm allowed to have my own beliefs, then so are all the nutjobs. I don't think that particular problem (extremists allowed to walk the streets with impunity) applies only to America. If it did, Theo van Gogh and countless others would still be alive.

Sue (having a kneejerk reaction to generalizations - sorry if I offended anyone)

You'd be surprised at the whack jobs all over the world even in "safe" countries.

I remember for instance, hearing about the Japanese dude that went to France (was it?) and got a crush on some lady and then killed and ate her. Not to mention that German dude who struck a deal with another for the same thing.

Sick people are everywhere. I just think the American media is more overzealous in covering that stuff.

Be scared of what you DON'T know about.

Sue, I said raise, not procreate, I suppose that was harsh, but it just angers me when children are raised on a steady diet of hate, chances are that this will be what their lives centre on, though no fault of theirs, and I think they deserve better.

Did you read the Wiki article? This community is a couple of intermarried families that lives in a little world of their own behind concrete walls. The social security did threaten to take the children from them if they took them to any more rallies.

And no it’s not so much that there are cooks it’s when you let them organize sects, and separate themselves from the real world it starting to get dangerous. This is the stuff Waco was made of.

Alcyone,
It depends on what you mean by sick. Violent crime is worse in the US then in any other industrialized country by far. Both absolutely and proportionally. I assure you the European press doesn’t pass up opportunities to write about cannibals or school massacres given the opportunity. In fact some tabloid press, like in say England would most likely run a series exposing all the dirty Amish secrets just about now if it happened there.

Well first I was refering to specific crime we're talking about, which is different from the "violent crimes" that most often occur and inflate the US crime rate. Most of those occur in underpriviledged areas and these crimes are part of larger issues more blatantly related to US history and context. So while it's also "violent crime," it's not the same thing.

That said, the American media machine I believe has more to gain from the widespread panic for a variety of political reasons. I don't think it's the same abroad (although media machines are similar, I'll concede that), but media studies is not my field. While I lived abroad, I remember a case of some woman going out and stabbing people randomly and that got nowhere near the same attention there as some other random crimes have gotten here.

*shrug*

TOC, you mentioned that infant girls are killed far more often than boys. While I can't speak to why that is in Sweden, in most of the third world it is the boy that carries on the family name. So boys are more valued than girls. In China with the one child policy, almost all adoptees are girls while murdered infants tend to be girls. It's rare to find a family with only a girl child. If girls carried on the family name, I'm sure the statistics would reverse.

In many parts of the world, women are considered subhuman, such as in the Middle East. Only recently have women successfully fought for things like the right to vote or to have the right of education.

Much of the violence against men also goes unreported. Also there is a significant lack of support programs for men in case of violence against them. I read an interesting book written by a former male member of the National Organization for Women board of directors, Warren Farrell, called "The Myth of Male Power: Why Men are the Disposable Sex". It's quite a fascinating read. And he writes in a way that doesn't discount feminism at all seeing that he was a member of NOW. His emphasis is that the media's and government's focus is on women victims, almost ignoring the victimization of men.

Here's a link to it on Amazon:
The Myth of Male Power

There has been a lot said, and I don't know that I can really add anything esle, but I do have a couple of things to say.

Yes, Ann, I have to agree. When an man is selectively killing women and only women, it can be considered a hate crime. If it's random then I don't believe that's necessarily true.
~~

Unfortunately men tend to be much more angry than women - all that testosterone. But crimes committed because of race, ethnicity, or religion are also crimes of anger - also mostly committed (as most crimes are) by men. There aren't very many women serial killers are there? It's also a crime of anger. And rape, the violent kind, is also a crime of anger and is also usually committed by men. That having been said, that doesn't mean all those crimes are against women. There are also many crimes against men. And women do commit some of those crimes.

I like what Wendy said:

But I think I understand where Ann is coming from. She is concerned about the specific instances of violence by men against women.
~~

Well said, Wendy
~~~

Arawn said...
Arawn, as a nurse, I've got to say that this isn't completely true. Men may be able to endure physical activity longer, probably don't get hurt as easily which is what you may mean by them being able to take more 'punishment', and can deal with 'extreme' situations better, but I can you tell that they don't endure physical pain better. Just ain't true. I've just seen too many instances of men in pain and women in pain. Women endure it better. I think most medical folks would agree. There was one study that disagreed with what I say, but I'm going by personal experience, and I've been a nurse for a long time.
~~~

Yes, and since the funerals involve the Amish, and they don't believe in homosexuality, it really makes no sense, does it? And I'd like to know how those radicals can even call themselves Christians. As a Christian, I have to say that isn't very Christian-like at all. They are loony and there's a place waiting for them in, well, you know...
~~

Yes, Ann, it seems I have. But I can't remember the specific instance.
~~

I'm not so sure about this. Many hispanic cultures give their children a double last name - of course the father's name goes first.

~~~

Very interesting discussion.


Did I really say I was just going to say a couple of things? Nah... not possible...