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

Quite a lot probably, considering that women rarely commit murder and even more rarely kill strangers.
I think the public outrage would be just about the same if it was boys, girls, or a combination thereof, even though some talk shows probably would bring up shrinks that would analyze what issues she had with the male gender.

Really if a man decide to molest children, do you find it weirder that he target girls then boys?

I think you are confusing what people find acceptable to what they expect.
People expects murderers to be men because they overwhelmingly are, so the male sex of a perpetrator gets little attention, which is completly different from finding the act itself acceptable.

On this one, you might be right, Ann, but not for the reason you're arguing. I agree with Arawn: it's because women are not seen as being killers - and, statistically, they're far less likely to be than men.

As I said many, many posts up this thread, this scenario would gain attention because of the gender of the killer - because when women are revealed to be guilty of this sort of crime they're reviled far more than men are.

I mentioned before people like Myra Hindley , Rosemary West and Karla Homolka . Other notorious women killers include Kristin Gilbert , Carol Bundy , Beverley Allitt , a nurse suffering from Munchausen's Syndrome by Proxy, and Mary Bell , who as a child killed children younger than she was - and, though she's now in middle age and was given a new identity, was exposed a few years ago and her daughter hounded by the press. It will be interesting to see if the then-children who murdered James Bulger face similar treatment in later years - they have also now been released and given new identities.

Many of these women - not all, of course - worked with male partners. Most of the time, while the women's names are easy to remember, their fellow killers are less so. Yes, there's more interest paid in women who kill - and more vitriol directed at them - because society doesn't expect killers to be women. Society expects women to be nurturers and providers - whether or not that's either a fair or accurate representation, or whether it's actually true that women are naturally less violent than men. Is that nature or nurture, in any case?

So that's why, Ann, people would be more shocked by your scenario - not because the victims are boys but because the killer is a woman. That's what's different.


Wendy

Wendy, you and the others who have had issues with me have had many good points. I concede many of them. Yes, more adult males than adult females are killed in the U.S.A., in Sweden and in the West in general. Many more adult males than adult females are killed here, in fact. And yes, most murderers are males, though there are certainly female murderers, too. And yes, there are female mass murderers as well as male mass murderers. And yes, some mass murderers "specialize" in killing men, and some mass murderers specialize in killing women. I concede all of this. But this is not what I wanted to discuss.

I was trying to discuss the following questions:

1) When children are murdered, even in the West, more girls than boys are killed. Should we acknowledge this fact in the first place? And should we consider it a problem?

In my opinion, it is definitely a problem. In my opinion, there is something particularly insidious about killing the very youngest. When you kill children, you rob them of all of their lives. You are not giving them a chance to be part of society at all, or to experience any sort of adulthood, and everything that goes with that.

Killing children is always a specific problem. But if you specifically kill girl children, I think the problem becomes infinitely worse. Because if you specifically kill children because of their gender, then their gender becomes the reason - the only reason - for why they are robbed of all of their lives. Do you agree with me that this is a problem?

First of all, though, do you believe me when I say that more girl children than boy children are killed? That would be interesting to know. Second, if you believe me, do you think that such a steady surplus of girls among murdered children is a problem? Or is the gender of the murdered children unimportant? Is it only the age of the murdered children that matters - the fact that they are children in the first place?

2) I'm also saying that there is a worldwide shortage of women, because more women than men are murdered in the world. The gender balance in certain countries, particularly India and China, is already shifting to an ever-increasing shortage of women and an ever-increasing surplus of men. The most important reason why we see such a gender imbalance in these countries is that female fetuses are selectively aborted on a very large (and possibly growing) scale. Is this a problem for us in the West? Perhaps it is, perhaps it isn't. However, could the problem come to us? People, remember that the ever-improving medical technology is giving us ever-improving methods of finding out the gender of the fetus very early in the mother's pregnancy. Also, we are undoubtedly going to see ever-improving and ever safer ways of having your own abortion at home. It will become easy and tempting to have an abortion if the child you are carrying turns out to have the "wrong" gender.

Not only that. Personally, I believe that within ten or twenty years, it may be possible to "choose" your baby's gender right from the start, provided it is a planned pregnancy and you take the necessary steps. You can decide if you want to have a boy or a girl, and then you can see to it that you get what you wanted. Are we going to have boys and girls in equal numbers when the parents can choose the gender of their children? And will it matter if we don't?

About ten years ago, I heard about a fertility clinic which claimed it could help parents have children with a preferred gender. (It was probably a case of in vitro fertilization, where it might have been possible to know the gender of the fertilized eggs.) Anyway, a representative of this clinic said that when people who were not from the West visited the clinic, all of them wanted a son. Perhaps more interestingly, he also said that when people from the West came to the clinic, about 70% of them wanted a son.

So what do you think? When it becomes possible to choose the sex of your baby, are people going to have as many daughters as they have sons? Or is there going to be a worldwide shortage of women that is going to create international tension, civil wars and various conflicts? Is the rest of the world going to suffer from a shortage of women, while we in the West are going to be unaffected? Or can our Western society handle a noticable gender imbalance? What do you think?

3) I have also tried to discuss the existence of a specific hatred against women and girls, leading to a surplus of women and girls as victims of rampages. To me, this question is particularly interesting when seen in the context of girl killings in general. It was, of course, the Amish girl killings that prompted me to start this discussion in the first place. Perhaps it is not a good thing to be stuck on this particular incident, as I would like to discuss this question as a broader topic.

These are the questions I wanted to discuss. I guess I myself veered off-topic when I concentrated too much on the Amish girl killings, though I still find them extremely interesting. Similarly, I got completely off topic when I challenged a few of you personally about your personal views. Since I'm trying to discuss what entire populations tend to think about these questions, it doesn't matter what a few individuals think - not to mention the obvious fact that I have no way whatsoever to know what any of you are thinking.

Anyway, I have no reason at all to think that the members of these boards have anything against girl children. Rodstewfan posted a poll some time ago, where she asked the members here if they want Lois and Clark to have a son or a daughter. As of today, 59 people have taken the poll. 31 of them want Lois and Clark to have a daughter and 28 want them to have a son.

Even so, I still think that many of those who have commented here have avoided the question. Is there a surplus of girls among murdered children, and if so, is it a problem? And does it suggest that we could be facing worse problems in the future, where the killing of girls on a large scale (gender-selective abortions) is going to totally change the makeup of our populations?

Ann

Ann, could you link to a source that claim this? Before you listed ten cases of killed children in Sweden over a thirty years period, even if your statistics are correct, that is a rather small sample to extrapolate to the entire Western world. In fact I doubt you could get statistic significance for Sweden.

AFAIK males have a higher risk of death throughout all age category’s. Whether they are murdered less often in the industrial world I don’t know, but I doubt it.

I don’t think you will find anyone that believe the killing of children is not a problem.

Everyone I know would find that bizarre. Most seem to prefer a mix of children. There is always more men born then women, even without manipulation. Personally I think that it should adjust itself automatically, if there is a shortage of women in India or China shouldn’t it be more interesting to have daughters?

Actually, this is not a fact, at least in the US. First glance at the FBI statistics for 2005, more boys are killed than girls . The only age range that this is not true is 9-12, and then the numbers are only 2 different. While wives/girlfriends are killed more t...hters, brothers more often than sisters. In 2004 , the age group where more girls than boys were killed was 5-8. 2003 (xls file), 5-8 were 41 for each gender, but again, more boys than girls killed.

Canada: Hopefully I found the right statistics. 0-11, girls outnumbered the boys in 2001 and 2003 by 7 and 5, respectively. 12-17, it's always more boys than girls.

I can't find the UK's very easily, but someone else can take a crack at it.

That is an interesting point, I'll admit. Demography is hugely important in the long run but it's hard to see the forest for the trees. I think that China and India are setting themselves up for a *major* problem, with potentially disasterous consequences. China's "one child" policy really doesn't help, though I suppose in the long run it will decrease the population, if everyone chooses a son over a daughter -- and it's my understanding that a *lot* of them are doing so.

In the longer run -- a generation or two out -- I think sanity would return. But in the meantime, there's a lot of guys who can't get laid and that does tend to bother them.

I do believe that in Muslim/Arab culture, a son is expected to serve the older generation of his family -- I worked with a guy from Iraq and he was explaining it to me. When the uncle needs a car, Raad bought it for him. When dad's depressed, he calls Raad, who then sets up the doctor's appointment. There's a lot admirable about this; don't get me wrong. But I suspect there's a perception that daughters get married and leave -- so if you want someone to boss around when you're old, you'd better have a few sons.

Speaking of which, I do know that "Muslim" culture varies to some degree from population to population -- even family to family. I consider myself a full part of Western culture, and I think of you guys the same way, but obviously there's a variation in our beliefs. So what's in the Koran is important but not the whole story. I mean, Christianity is hardly monolithic, why should Islam be?

Part of the trouble, of course, is that the peaceful decent Muslims don't get into the papers; the excitable ones who kill people do. I suppose I'll leave that argument there

I'll have to re-read Ecclesiastes It was a very cynical book, but I didn't specifically notice anti-woman venom.

Okay, I need to go to bed now.

PJ
ps. speaking for just a second as an admin -- this is a fairly explosive topic, and on some boards it would long since have devolved into flames. I think y'all are doing a great job of keeping things civil.

Karen, it wouldn't surprise me too much if more boys than girls are killed in the United States. I distinctly remember a bit of statistics that cause a sensation several years ago, probably in the late eighties or the early nineties. It was found that black males in Harlem had a shorter life expectancy than men in Bangladesh. As far as I can remember the figures, a man in Bangladesh could look forward to an average life span of, perhaps, 53 years. A woman in Bangladesh would on average live for a somewhat shorter time, perhaps 51 years. A black man in Harlem would live for about as long as a woman in Bangladesh, and not as long as a man in Bangladesh. A black woman in Harlem, however, would live for about 69 years, fifteen to twenty years longer than a black man in Harlem. That is a huge difference.

It could be than young men, including boys, still fall victim to a prevalent gang culture in certain parts of the U.S.A., which causes more boys than girls to be murdered in the U.S.A.

Ann

That could be true, but that wouldn't be true for the Canada statistics. I'll have to look up other countries tomorrow. I'm not sure I'll be able to find the UK's; I can find other statistics, but not the exact ones I'm looking for. I'll have to try other countries while I'm at it.

If anyone knows exactly what sites to go to (for instance, I knew the FBI would have the pertinent US statistics), can you point me in the right direction? Thanks.

Life expectancy, though, is far from the same thing as 'homicide expectancy'. Many things affect life expectancy - and 'average' is a very misleading concept when it comes to age, since it generally refers to the mean as opposed to mode and doesn't represent a 'typical' life expectancy.

For example, in the UK in the eighteenth century average life expectancy for women was, I think, late thirties or early forties. Does that mean that most women died around that age? No. It means that there was a high infant mortality rate, which dragged down 'average' life expectancy. (Similar causes dragged down average life expectancy for men).

It's extremely difficult to obtain international murder statistics of any kind, let alone with a breakdown by gender. If you were able to obtain reliable international statistics to prove your assertion that more women are killed internationally annually than men, or more girls killed than boys, Ann, I would be astounded. I'm used to this kind of research; I was a university professor for 16 years. I routinely looked up statistical information and assessed its reliability. There is no reliable international data on this subject. The United Nations, the CIA, the top international university criminology and statistics departments and national government statistics wings all say the same thing.

It's possible to look up individual countries, though there in some cases data are lacking. The country with the highest murder rate per capita is Colombia. Try finding a breakdown by gender there. I couldn't. There, murder and other violent crime is largely associated with the cocaine industry and gang violence. They don't care whether the victims are male or female, believe me - I've talked with Colombian refugees, and with people who've worked with trade unions in the education sector in Colombia.

The country with the second-highest murder rate per capita is South Africa. The closest I can get to official statistics for that country is a report for the Medical Research Council of South Africa.

It's clear from this report - and you have to read it carefully, because death by homicide is considered as a proportion of all deaths by unnatural causes - that many more men than women per annum are murdered in South Africa.

I've already cited statistics for the UK. Without quoting them here, I'll add that statistics for Australia pretty much match what we've already seen for the US, UK and Canada.

China may well be a special case, given the one-child policy. Again, I'd like to see statistics there - but I bet you can't get them, because killings of newborn children, where they occur, will be covered up wherever possible.

Overall, Ann, I can't see that you can actually prove your assertion that internationally more women/girls are murdered than men/boys. No-one's saying that the killing of women is not a serious issue. What we are saying is that we can't find hard, compelling evidence for your argument that there is systematic selection of women or girls for murder and that it's happening worldwide.


Wendy

Just thought I'd quote this from Nwe York Times, October 16, 2006:

Ann

Ann, you're quoting someone's personal opinion to back up your assertion. This is not proof. I quite agree that violence against anyone is wrong, that violence against women is wrong and specifically worse, and that violence against children is evil and heinous in the most specific sense. Children are, by nature, defenseless against adults or older children, so we as adults must do our best to protect them from it.

But that still doesn't add up to a world-wide conspiracy to kill females. I think you've allowed a just cause (opposing violence against women) to overcome your logical thinking and take over your emotional centers, not to mention your writing.

I agree that violence directed against women is wrong, period. I do not agree that women all over the world are somehow targets for the other gender. If we're talking about violence against children, let's not forget Susan Smith, who drowned her two pre-school children by running her car into a lake with them strapped in their car seats. Or the woman in Houston who drowned her four children in the bathtub one by one. And they're not the only examples we could choose.

Violence is not an exclusively male domain. All people are inherently evil, and unless we control our violent impulses, we are all capable of committing horribly violent acts. I don't think we can stop the hate, but I think we can significantly reduce the violence in our cultures. Maybe we should focus on that instead.

Terry, the only thing I was trying to prove is that more people than just me think that violence against women is a specific problem and that we ought to be more shocked at this problem than we are. That's all I was saying.

Ann

I've always been taught that people are inherently good, and that those who are bad choose to be so. It's all a matter of opinion, I guess.

I need to repeat, for the record, that I believe that there can never be a world-wide conspiracy to kill females. The way I interpret the word, a conspiracy to do something is a hidden plan to do something to reach a certain goal. Moreover, many people must be in on this plan and work together to reach its goal. In Nazi Germany, there was certainly a plan, hidden or not, to kill as many Jews as possible, preferably all Jews, and much or most of Nazi German society cooperated to make the mass murdering of Jews possible. But there can never be a world-wide plan to kill all females. Never. That is a ridiculous idea. If all women were killed, all men would have to go without a female sex partner. Would all men want that? Would most men want that? The answer is too obvious.

Moreover, if all women were killed, humanity would quickly become extinct. Would most people want that? Again, the answer is simply too obvious.

So I repeat, there is no general conspiracy to kill as many women as possible. There never can be. Every time a female is killed because of her gender, she is killed because her killer, whether male or female, has an individual, personal wish to kill her. She can be killed because her killer gets a sexual kick out of killing her, like the Amish girl killer probably did. She can be killed because her killer needs to establish his own, rightful(?) superiority over her, which may be a variation of the sexual theme. Or she can be killed because her gender makes her a less valuable member of her killer's family, which is the reason why huge numbers of girls are killed in countries like China and India. I think that every time a female is killed because of her gender, she is killed because she is considered less valuable as an individual than a male. But in each and every case, we are talking about the killer's own, personal need to kill the female, not a world-wide conspiracy that could conceivably lead to the building of extermination centers all over the world where humanity's females are to be mass-murdered on a grand scale.

Ann

I always thought people were inherently neutral. Their actions determine which way they go.. lawful or unlawful, good or chaotic.