The last few years have been littered with instances of barbaric Islamic extremism, vicious Hindu nationalism, maniacal White supremacy, cold-blooded gang violence, fierce clashes between rival tribes and ethnic groups, and deadly confrontations between different language-speaking groups. The ensuing reaction always results in finger-pointing at the religion, race, ethnicity, or tribe that the perpetrators belong to. Even outside of the realm of these vitriolic and knee-jerk reactions, more self-proclaimed ‘nuanced’ analyses of and rationales for these acts of violence are centred around socioeconomic status, cyclical poverty, capitalistic greed, colonial and neo-colonial practices, systemic racism and discrimination, the military-industrial complex, exclusionary policies, and general government mismanagement, to name but a few examples. However, what is perpetually ignored is the one common factor in all these acts of violence—that they are predominantly and overwhelmingly committed by males.
Male violence is a pandemic of untold proportions that has plagued humankind for eons, yet patriarchy is so ingrained in society that it is virtually invisible. Through the tacit acceptance of male violence as an immovable feature of human society, the correlation between sex and violence has escaped the gaze of criticism that is reserved for less influential factors such as race or religion. A feature of humanity that is taken as a given is unlikely to bear scrutiny or even acknowledgement. Moreover, the patriarchal norms and systems of governance, cultures, and traditions that facilitate this conscious oversight were built by men to benefit themselves. Therefore, it is unlikely that these same men will acknowledge this correlation between their sex and violence, as they benefit from the practice of male violence, or at the very least benefit or escape persecution from deflecting the blame for it onto other weaker correlational factors.
A global study by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in 2013 found that 95% of homicides are perpetrated by males. Similarly, 2014 data from a National Crime Victimization Study by the US Department of Justice revealed that males accounted for 80% of those arrested for violent crimes in the country. Moreover, both of these damning statistics only represent the acts of violence perpetrated by civilians, and not personnel belonging to organized entities like the police or the military.
Outside of the violence committed by individual—and groups of—ordinary people, much of the political discourse about acts of violence is centred around police brutality, state-sponsored terrorism, military interventions, and colonialism. Yet, it is conveniently overlooked that the majority of police officers and military personnel are male. For instance, there is much written about the previous colonial escapades of European powers, the neocolonial practices of the United States (US), and the hyper-volatility of states like Turkey, Syria, North Korea, Pakistan, and Iran (and a number of others across the Middle East, North Africa, and sub-Saharan Africa). However, although there are certain countries like France, Canada, and the United States (US) whose militaries are made up of around 15% women, the share of female employees in the vast majority of countries’ militaries is 10% or lower. Moreover, many countries don’t allow women in their militaries, or do not employ them in combat roles. Similar disparities are observed in the police force.
Furthermore, even in the countries where there is a more discernible separation between the military and the government (democratically elected or otherwise), the leadership directing these acts of violence are predominantly male. In fact, there are currently only 15 female heads of state. A study of 146 nations by the World Economic Forum in 2014 and 2016 revealed that only 56 countries, or 38%, have had a female head of state for at least one year in the past 50 years. Therefore, it is evident that violently oppressive systems of policing, militarism, and governance have been both created by and reinforced by men.
In addition, as we move further into the 21st century and gender norms become more fluid, certain countries are now beginning to conflate gender, which is a social construction, with sex, which is an unchangeable biological trait. Countries like Canada, Ireland, Denmark, Malta Norway, Portugal, and Belgium, for example, are now allowing citizens to self-identify their sex, which means that crimes committed by males who identify as women are now recorded as crimes committed by females instead. This inadvertently further ‘invisibilises’ the issue of male violence by falsely portraying such violent acts as universal across both sexes. Some women are voicing their frustration with this contrived inflation of and increase in female violence figures through the hashtag #notourcrimes, which highlights violent and sexual crimes committed by males who identify as women that are reported as being committed by females.
The UK’s Ministry of Justice confirmed a report by women’s group Fair Play for Women that reveals that 48% of ‘transgendered inmates’ are “serving sentences for sexual offenses”, compared to the 19% average for this crime across all demographics. Representing such offences as female crimes is misleading, as evidenced by examples such as an incident at the Leicester Square Tube station in 2018, when it was reported that four women ‘repeatedly’ “punched and kicked a man to the floor”; it was later revealed that three of the four offenders were males who identified as women.
In fact, a research study in Sweden by academics Cecilia Dhejne, Paul Lichtenstein, Marcus Boman, Anna L. V. Johansson, Niklas Långström, and Mikael Landén shows that males who now identify as women have a “significantly increased risk” and are 18 times more likely to commit a violent crime than women who are born and identify as female. Whether this predisposition to violence is naturally linked to one’s sex or whether it is nurtured through their social conditioning as men (prior to their re-identification)—that excuses and even rewards such behavior—is largely irrelevant, as the problem of male violence still exists regardless of which of these two things is true.
The irony of all this, of course, is that men stand to lose the most from the continued practice of male violence. Data from the US Bureau of Justice Statistics, for instance, indicates that instances where both the offender and the victim are male account for 65.3% of homicides in the country. The same disparities hold true—to this degree or greater—in other countries as well. However, religious leaders, tribal chiefs, gang leaders, police chiefs, military strategists, politicians, and others of their ilk continue to take advantage of men’s predisposition for violence—be it genetically-inherited or socially-engineered— to peddle divisive rhetoric that fosters instability and hatred. This, in turn, allows them to gain and solidify power at the expense of others, particularly women and children, who lack the agency to institute change on this front. In the end, this serves to invisibilise male violence and engenders a new and unending cycle of impunity for men.
The ‘Invisibilisation’ of Male Violence: An Unending Cycle of Impunity
Violence is predominantly and overwhelmingly committed by males; yet, due to entrenched patriarchy, criticism is conveniently deflected towards weaker correlational factors such as race and religion.
December 1, 2020
IMAGE SOURCE: PTI