Mean, Mean Women Not as Violent as Men

Bonnie, the statistics you brought to light in your piece on women and violence are fascinating and so compelling that I couldn't get them out of my mind. Those videos are good evidence that women can be mean and meaner. Lots of women are mean. Very mean. Scary mean. Off the top of my head, I can name more women I'd consider mean than men.

But I'm disturbed by books like Patricia Pearson's When She was Bad and by the tone of the Justice Department's summary of its report on women killing their babies within 24 hours after birth. Meanness is one thing. Actual physical violence is quite another. As you note, women don't commit violent acts nearly as often as men. Testosterone does matter.

Certain advocacy groups want to advance the idea that men are being physically victimized by women as often as women are being victimized by men. Their first step is to allege that women are as violent as men. And that simply isn't true.

I'd like to keep talking about the topics you raised.

• FEMALE VIOLENCE AGAINST MEN

If Pearson says women commit half the domestic violence in this country, she's being horrifically disingenuous. Many women do hit, pinch, slap, shove and claw men. But stories of women truly injuring men are "man bites dog stories." So rare that they're big news, while stories of men injuring women are too common to make the news unless the woman is killed.

The violence committed by men and the violence committed by women are not even close to equal. The damage done to women is horrific, while the damage done to men is more often scratches, rarely even bruises. Did Rihanna slap Chris Brown first? I don't know. But take a look at Chris Brown's face after the argument and then look at her face.

My uncles, who could be violent men themselves, offered me a guideline long before I was old enough to date. They said, "Don't ever hit a man. But if you do, make sure you hit him hard enough that he can't get up." They weren't advising me to kill men. They were telling me that a physical contest between women and men isn't a contest between equal humans.

Women who fight men are fighting monsters.

• THE SUBTEXT

I grew up in a time and place where it wasn't uncommon for people to say aloud what many people still think: If a woman's stupid enough to hit a man, she deserves what she gets.

That attitude hasn't gone away. It offers an old excuse for male behavior that hasn't done any of us any good: the idea that men should be excused for violence against women because they can't control themselves. That lie is one of many lies we tell ourselves about male behavior, lies that keep many men from becoming true adults.

Men can control themselves. How do we know that? At least 15 states now have laws that require men under restraining orders to wear ankle monitors, according to the New York Times. None of the men wearing ankle monitors have killed their estranged partners. Why? Because they know they will get caught.

• WORDS ARE NOT STICKS AND STONES

Pearson also echoes an unfortunate new tendency to equate the verbal abuse inflicted by females with the physical abuse inflicted by men. Hardly anyone is stupid enough to pretend those types of violence are equal. So nobody says that outright. They merely smush everything together as though the fact that women are mean makes them as violent as men.

Is there anyone who truly believes that breaking someone's nose and insulting the size of someone's nose are equal degrees of violence? No. That's why we have a right to free speech that is often defined as "your right of free speech stops where your fist ends and my nose begins."

Words can scar people emotionally. But breaking a heart and breaking a head are not equally violent acts in the usual sense of the word violent.

• ELDER AND CHILD ABUSE

Now let's look at Patricia Pearson's contention that women commit most of the elder abuse and child abuse. Of course they do. With few exceptions, they are in charge of the elder care and the child care. So if there is abuse it is most likely going to be from those who've been giving care.

If the point here is that women are human, it's a point well taken. Women hold grudges. They lose their tempers. They throw things and hit. They take advantage of those weaker than themselves. They cheat. They lie. They withhold food. They lock people in closets. They let them lie in their own waste. They ignore bed sores. They steal pension checks.

They do all manner of evil. But they are not as violent as men.

• WOMEN KILLING THEIR NEWBORN BABIES

While it's true, as the Justice Department report states, that this extremely rare crime has been committed by older women and women who are married, it is most often unmarried school girls who kill their babies shortly after they are born. They "often completely deny their pregnancy to the extent that they are not aware or do not acknowledge that they are pregnant," according to the report.

These killers are some really screwed up children who have just undergone one of the most painful and unstoppable ordeals humans ever face. Their minds are so messed up that until the baby appears, they don't even know why they're in pain.

Many are middle or upper class, but as the study also makes clear they are motivated by shame and the desire to hide what has happened. Middle and upper class kids may feel that pressure much more strongly than kids at different socio-economic levels where it is not so unusual for teenagers to give birth.

Most of the research on teenage brains has focused on violence by boys (because boys are more violent). But girls' brains aren't developed either. Yes, as the study notes, those girls can figure out that they need to hide what they've done and bury the baby. Teenagers can think logically and rationally. Where they get into trouble is in highly emotional situations where peer pressure or fear is intense. In those situations, they are not responsible in the way that an adult would be. They may have the wit to hide what they've done but they don't have the mental development to inhibit their impulses.

Women are humans. Not angels. Not goddesses. They are also unlike men in many ways. One of those ways is that as a whole they are less violent. Far less violent.