Female criminality is one of the few things in which women benefited from privilege in times past. When I was a teenager I did all sorts of things which would have got male friends arrested, and I got a mere ticking off for, because I am small and female, and therefore it was impossible to imagine me as a threat.

This is my theory: it’s not that women are committing any more crimes, it’s that they are less likely to get away with it nowadays. I don’t mourn this, I think it’s a good thing. It shows we are taking steps towards equality in all directions.

Err, you know that women are responsible for *nearly all* the genital mutilations on this planet, right?

John B, I don’t think you’ll find a lot of female rabbis… or are you only talking about FEMALE Genital mutilation?

Hmm. I’d originally bracketed “apart from male circumcision, which is rather different” on my post, but decided to take it out on the grounds that it was glib to equate a harmless medical procedure with ripping someone’s vagina apart and preventing them from ever experiencing sexual pleasure.

But yes, you’re right – men are responsible for nearly all male genital mutilation; women are responsible for nearly all female genital mutilation.

Ah well, I think you’d find a fair number of people who would argue with the idea that circumcision is a “harmless medical procedure”, along with many who would support it, and then the religious folks would weigh in, and then the anti-religious folks…

But, from personal experience, I can say that male circumcision absolutely does affect the way penises behave during coitus, and I have two male friends who had it done as adults for medical reasons, and they report that it absolutely does affect sexual pleasure in men.

I view male circumcision as less extreme, but on the same continuum as, female circumcision. I recognise, though, that this is a controversial opinion, and all things considered, I suspect I’d better not take this thread any further off topic than it’s already gone.

#1 Jennie

Fair point, though the way we punish female criminality doesn’t necessarily reflect that when we read some of the gruesome consequences when women are imprisoned.

But yeah, there’s enough evidence to pour cold water on the idea that women are becoming feral, out-of-control, crime-committing maniacs. As someone in this report argues (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/may/15/ukcrime.youthjustice1), when “Police are under pressure to hit certain targets and kids are low-hanging fruits,” you’re going to see a spike in levels of recorded crime. Doesn’t really diminish the problems of youth crime, but it’s still well worth bearing in mind.

#4 john b

On female genital mutilation, are we talking about responsibility for carrying out the procudure itself or responsibility for the fact that such a practice still goes on?

If we’re talking about carrying out the actual procedure, I’m sure it’s mostly performed by women (though men still get to ‘join in’, as depicted in this gruesome account: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/06/world/europe/06spiegel.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin).

But as for why the practice still goes on in some quarters of the world, well, I’d always understood it as something attributable to old and obscure religious/cultural practices condoned by societies still dominated by an oppressive patriarchy. Still, I’m happy to be corrected.

“There is absolutely a need to distinguish between male and female violence, if only to account for the fact that it isn’t women who’re responsible for the vast majority of the rapings, the ‘honour’ killings and the genital mutilations on the planet. These are overwhelmingly male crimes and should be distinguished as such; failure to do so leads to the rather icky implication that capability & responsibility are somehow shared between the sexes.”

I’m not sure how a sex can bear responsibility for anything. Around the world, the vast majority of violent and property crime (except “white collar crime”) is committed by young men as opposed to older ones. Does this mean that youth bears responsibility for violence? Yes, in the sense that it seems to cause it, but not in the sense that a young person who doesn’t commit crime shares any of the responsibility for crime with other young people who do. Also not in the sense that youth, per se, is the root of crime, because if it were, all young people would be criminals.

We must take note of the overwhelming male nature of violence but then we must look beyond this, and ask why it is that not all men are violent. The true cause of violence must be something other than maleness (although this is certainly a factor) so to blame maleness for violence in a simplistic sense just misses the point.

I have a slightly odd question.

Since it is a given that most criminal law was drawn up by men on the basis of what men considered significant as crime, what might criminal law have looked like if women had held equal sway over writing laws over the centuries?

For example, given the relative high priority that women place on emotional matters compared to men, it seems fair to assume that criminality might then better reflect emotional hurt. In effect perhaps we see that in regards to punching some being a criminal matter but libel and slander being civil law.

If that is plausible then perhaps the difficulty with getting peoples’ heads around female crime is not simple paternalism – but is a result of women themselves tending to guage those actions differently to men.

all of which was just a (rather long) thought.

women are just as capable (though far less likely) of committing crime as men?

Depends on the crime: I am told that women are more likely to commit child abuse, for example.

I imagine that a lot of this is due to opportunities eg most muggers are men because that is a job in which it helps to be bigger than the other person.

And dealing with this is not really a big issue: it just seems that way because a lot of people who think that women must be assumed to be exactly as capable as men are unhappy with the implication that they should be assumed to be exactly as evil as men.

just a small point – while yes, it is true that women are more likely to be the victims of male aggression than vice versa, overall men are more more likely to the the victims of male aggression.