Question: why are men more likely to commit crimes?

Spikygrasspod · 2020-07-12T15:29:32+00:00

Personally, I think there could be an interaction between bodies, hormones, sexuality and socialisation that can't be untangled. I think it's implausible to say there are no physical differences that inform different behaviour and that everything is socialisation--otherwise men's violence wouldn't be such a constant across different cultures and eras. It would also be odd if we were the only mammal with no sexually dimorphic behaviours. But it's equally implausible to treat physiology and socialisation as separate. There's no clean nature/nurture divide. Bodies act on culture and culture acts on bodies. They're irreducibly entwined. Maybe men and women will change radically as gender becomes less restrictive and harmful. Maybe they'll only change somewhat. Our equal moral worth isn't predicated on our being exactly the same, and we shouldn't look for equality through sameness. Equality can only be achieved by noting our differences and designing societies that create a level playing field around them.

P.S. If I understand this correctly, synthetic testosterone is an anabolic androgenic steroid. Females who hormonally transition are put on steroids. This boosts energy and reduces depression and anxiety. Of course they help some people feel better. But they're a pretty invasive and dangerous way to achieve that end. When men have abnormally low levels of T, they feel pretty bad, too. They are given a dose that brings them to the normal range because being above or below the normal range can have bad side effects.

jkfinn · 2020-07-12T15:37:00+00:00

No, nuttin to do with hormones. It’s called male supremacy, which is totally dependent on female inferiority. Men fight it out among themselves for dividing up this power they gain through forced & socialized female subordination. In other words, since male superiority is based on violence, its weapons are always at hand, less they lose it--or the practice of violence against females (or substitutes for) is how male identity is established.

snub-nosedmonkey · 2020-07-12T16:12:02+00:00

"men and women have different brains, as that becomes a slippery slope. But... is it the hormones? The reason I'm asking is because we seem to all agree that men are more violent, which is why we don't want them in our spaces"

On average, males and females do differ in at least 30 morphological brain features. That's not a slippery slope, that's just empirical data about measurable differences. At the same time, there is a lot of variation within each sex; there isn't really such a thing as a 'typical' male or female brain.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228549134_Gender_Differences_in_Human_Brain_A_Review#:~:text=Male%20brains%20are%20about%2010,more%20neurons%20to%20control%20them.

On average, healthy males who have gone through puberty have much higher levels of testosterone compared to a healthy females. Testosterone "activates the subcortical areas of the brain to produce aggression" so it's perhaps not a surprise that men tend to be more aggressive than females.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3693622/#:~:text=Testosterone%20activates%20the%20subcortical%20areas,testosterone%20to%20reduce%20its%20effects.

There may be differences between brain structures that also account for differences in aggression, but I don't have any resources on that.

Please note: There are some horrible misinterpretations of the science to fit particular agendas. If you want to understand what science says about gender and sex, don't get it from a radfem source, as you'll most likely get a biased interpretation. I've even seen a lot of bias on blogs and articles that don't have an obvious agenda. If possible, read scientific reviews for a good overview and avoid science from popular sources.

Edit: There are differences, on average between male and female behaviour that have biological roots. Of course the environment also has an effect on behaviour and society can reinforce and enhance preexisting differences. The ideology about sex differences in behaviour being entirely down to socialisation is completely refuted by science. Sex differences in behaviour exist in other primates too, despite a comparative lack of sex-biased parental care and socialisation:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jnr.23862

Review of toy preferences in human infants: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-019-01624-7#Sec56

womenopausal · 2020-07-13T07:14:51+00:00

Personally, I think hormones do have a role to play, although I am not sure how. It is absolutely true that men commit more crimes, throughout history, for all societies, for all groups, and for nearly every crime category. And particularly when it comes violent crime. The reason I suspect hormones are involved because of the age of criminals: they tend to be young as well as males. A huge amount of crime is committed by male teenagers. It's not necessarily severe crime, often more of a nuisance. It's not always the type that even makes headlines in your local paper unless it's a really slow newsday. But it is often the bulk of crime that goes into making up the statistics.

I would say that after sex (meaning maleness), age (meaning youth) is the greatest predictor of criminality. It would be easy to say young men & male teenagers have the most testosterone (true) but I'm not clear that this takes us to a simple reason why young men commit the most crime. Young women and female teenagers are also more likely to be involved in crime than older women. About 20% youth crime is by girls (UK stats: I am British and there's a lot I don't like about my country but I'm very proud of the way we collate crime stats.) And although in every category more boys commit more crimes than girls, girls are far more likely to commit a violent crime than they are to commit a burglary.

So testosterone might play a role, but I think we would also want to think about the reasons that those girls are involved in crime too. We'd want to look big picture. Chances are, they are likely to have similar profiles to the boys. So testosterone may well be a factor around the fact that boys/male teenagers commit 80% of youth crime and girls/female teenagers 20%, but it can only be one factor amongst many, and it might have complicated relationships with stuff like socialisation and other variables.

mikipika · 2020-07-12T16:58:17+00:00

Recognize that there is a distinction between aggression and crime. Is testosterone associated with aggressive behavior? Anecdotally yes. Hormones affect people in vastly different proportions. So how about crime? Women are far more likely to avoid jail or punishment compared to men. So the idea that men commit more crime than women is, IMHO, not proven. Of the men who commit crime, what percentage of them were driven to it by a woman?

onemoredaydream · 2020-07-13T04:06:52+00:00

I personally believe that most crime and abuse starts as crime of opportunity, and then if that person gets away with it, they gain the taste of the feeling of power, and they also believe they deserve to act how they wish.

Therefore I dont think crime and abuse is exclusive to men, I think it is unfortunately deep within humans. We counteract it by raising our kids to feel disgust with morally wrong actions, through the stories we tell them and also the behavior we reward/punish.

I think the reason men commit more crimes is because they get more slack in our culture to fuck up. They are raised to be assertive and take what they want. I also think testosterone increases sex drive and decreases their sense of empathy.

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