The culture of masculinity costs all too much to ignore
Today is the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. The phrase “violence against women” calls for comment. It names the victims but not the perpetrators . The fact that men are mainly responsible for violent and health-harming behaviours, not only against women and children but also against each other, is so taken for granted that it slips beneath the radar of commentators and policymakers.
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In 1959 the social scientist and policy activist Barbara Wootton looked at the crime statistics and remarked that “if men behaved like women, the courts would be idle and the prisons empty”. Half a century later the British Crime Survey and police crime figures bear her out. In 2009-10, men were perpetrators in 91% of all violent incidents in England and Wales. The figures vary by type of incident: 81% for domestic violence, 86% for assault, 94% for wounding, 96% for mugging, 98% for robbery. MoJ figures for 2009 show men to be responsible for 98%, 92% and 89% of sexual offences, drug offences and criminal damage respectively. Of child sex offenders, 99% are male. The highest percentages of female offences concern fraud and forgery (30%), and theft and handling stolen goods (21% female).
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On the road, men commit 87% of all traffic offences and 81% of speeding offences. More people are killed and injured in road accidents than anywhere else, and Home Office data reveal the bearing of masculinity here too: men are responsible for 97% of dangerous driving offences and 94% of motoring offences causing death or bodily harm. A World Health Organisation report in 2002 on gender and road traffic injuries cautiously broke the code of silence by remarking that masculinity “may be” hazardous to health.
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Take prison costs alone – an estimated £45,000 per prisoner a year, 95% of whom are male. If men committed crimes leading to custodial sentences at the rate women do, the exchequer would save about £3.4bn a year.
►http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/25/dangerous-masculinty-everyone-risk