Bad Girls

Violence by women has skyrocketed in the latter part of this century. Have they taken "women's liberation" one step too far--or are they just showing their natural killer instinct?

By Barry Yeoman, published on November 01, 1999 - last reviewed on September 28, 2009

When Frieze brought up her findings in her classes, the students weren't surprised. "One woman said, 'Well, it makes me feel strong and powerful when I hit my boyfriend.' They feel safe--that they can get away with this behavior--because the men have this moral code and they'll never strike back." The men, Frieze adds, don't take the violence seriously, because little of it causes serious injuries.

Straus admits that when it comes to the most brutal domestic assaults, the domain is still men's--they commit six times the number women do. "If by violence, you mean 'who's injured?', then it's an overwhelmingly male crime," he says. That's why there's no great demand for battered men's shelters, and why a disproportionate number of wife beatings get reported to the police.

"You can't just equate numbers," says Ruth Brandwein, Ph.D., a social policy professor at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. "Women who engage in violence are often already in violent relationships. They are living under such unbearable tension that it gives them some control over when they're going to be abused."

Violence on the Street

Except for high profile lawbreakers like Aileen Wuornos, the Florida prostitute who robbed and killed at least seven of her johns, most of the crime news involves male perpetrators. If a woman is involved, she's generally considered an accomplice to a man. When Bonnie and Clyde were killed in the 1930s, the New York Times headline read, "Barrow and woman slain in Louisiana trap!" Even Karla Faye Tucker, executed in Texas last year for a pickax slaying, was working in concert with her boyfriend.

According to the FBI's Uniform Crime Report, women made up only 15% of all those arrested for violent crimes in 1996, but the gap is closing. The statistics show that arrests of women for violent crimes increased 90% between 1985 and 1994, compared to 43% for men. The numbers hold up across many specific crimes: aggravated assault, other assault, and sex offenses other than rape and prostitution. Only in the case of murder did men widen their lead: a 13% rise for men compared to a 4% drop for women.

Indiana University's Mann believes that crime statistics are only now starting to catch up with reality. "Women are just as violent as men, and were often just getting away with the violence," she says.

"Now, with equal rights, the justice system is looking at females differently," explains Mann. "Whereas before they were excused or overlooked, now they are being apprehended."

A criminal defense lawyer admitted, "If she hasn't committed murder and she has children at home, she walks." A judge confided, "It's difficult to send a mature woman to prison. I keep thinking, 'Hey! She is somebody's mother!'"

Frank Julian, J.D., a professor of legal studies at Murray State University in Kentucky, cites a Florida-based study showing that men were 23% more likely to be imprisoned than women who committed the same crime, partly because of the sentencing recommendations of the probation officers. "Women offenders were often viewed as suffering from psychological or emotional problems, or as victims of family problems, bad marriages or dependent relationships," Julian writes. "Men were more likely to have their cases judged in view of the seriousness of the offense committed, employment history and prior record."

Is Violence in the Genes?

In the 1960s, famed psychologist Albert Bandura conducted a series of experiments in which children watched adult models hitting inflatable Bobo dolls. The children were then offered the opportunity to imitate the behavior. Under normal circumstances, the boys knocked down the dolls far more often than the girls did. But when the models got rewarded for knocking down the Bobos, the children's behavior changed--the boys and girls became almost equally aggressive.

That seems to suggest that males are innately more violent than females--but that women will resort to aggression when given an incentive. Which makes sense to Brenda Shook, Ph.D., a biological psychologist at Union Institute in Sacramento. "Females of all species will go to great lengths, including violence, to protect the young," says Shook. But among humans, the primary responsibility for defending the family--and thus preserving the family genes--went to the male.

But both biological and cultural theories of women's innate capacity for violence hinge on one major trigger. Says Freda Adler: "We're talking about socialization." And for time immemorial, males have been conditioned to be aggressive. Boys got G.I. Joes; girls got Barbies. Men were sent off to war; women bandaged their wounds.

But American girls have always gotten mixed messages. Our culture rewards a certain type of violence in women. "It is the height of femininity to slap a man's face," says Murray Straus. "It's drilled into them."

The groundwork for female violence, it seems, has been there all along. But what may have been a subtler message in a more genteel society has become a clearer directive. The media increasingly promote female violence: Weapon-wielding women are becoming commonplace in everything from Hollywood movies to Saturday morning cartoons.

Women also absorb the cultural norms aimed at everyone, and "this is a violent country," says Coramae Ritchey Mann. "There's no reason this wouldn't have rubbed off on them."

Really Bad Girls The violence that made headlines

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