Over on the Men’s Rights subreddit, mgriff2k4 is angry that the picture to the right here showed up on his computer screen. Sorry, make that fucking angry. “Did this really just fucking pop up on my news feed?” he asks in the title of his post, adding in a comment: “sorry about the word “fucking” but im really pissed off about this.”
Why is he angry? Presumably, he assumes the statistic is untrue, and that it unfairly paints men as evil murderers.
Luckily, in this Age of the Internet it is trivially easy to find out whether statistics like this are true. It involves something called “Google.” mgriff2k4 did not bother to avail himself of this easy-to-use research tool.
But I did. In less than 5 minutes, I confirmed that this factoid is indeed true, at least according to the most recent figures on gender and homicide found on the Department of Justice’s web site, drawn from FBI data covering the years from 1976-2005. According to the FBI, 30% of women who are murdered are murdered by “intimates.” Roughly 20% are killed by husbands or ex-husbands; 10% by boyfriends or girlfriends. (In the overwhelming majority of cases the murderers are boyfriends, not girlfriends; men are ten times more likely to commit murder than women.)
While four times as many men are murdered than women, only 5% of murdered men are killed by “intimates.” Men kill women more than twice as often as women kill men. Women suffer far more serious injuries from domestic violence than men do; so it is not altogether unexpected that they are also far more likely to be murdered by intimates.
If you want to see what this means on a human level, I suggest you take a look at the excellent if depressing web site Domestic Violence Crime Watch, which links to stories in which men are the perpetrators, and in which men are the victims. There are far more of those in the former category than in the latter.
I should note that (as of this writing) one commenter in the thread also found his way to the DOJ site, and noted that men were more likely to be killed by strangers or acquaintances. But he didn’t bother to tell mkgriff2k4 that the sign in the picture was in fact accurate.
The FBI does not classify it as an intimate partner related homicide when a woman asks her new male lover to kill her former male lover.
Which totally happens all the time.
So all the straight feminist women…do the safe thing. If 30% of women will die by their “intimates”, dump your oppressor. You never know. Better safe then sorry.
“Darling… will you marry me?”
“No. Not until you waste my ex.”
“But, Snookums, we’ve been over that. I spoke to my lawyer. He says that it’s murder.”
“He’s in the ground before the ring goes on my finger.”
“Come on! What are we, Klingons?”
“He forgot our second anniversary. He must pay!”
“But Sugar…”
“HE MUST PAY!”
“Fine. [unsheaths sword cane] But your Uncle Larry isn’t coming to the wedding, and that’s final.”
“Oh, Darling! You’ve made me the happiest woman alive!”
@Guy Noir
“. . .the vast majority of violence against women is done by men. That’s just a flat out fact, and it’s not a debatable point. . . .”
–Jackson Katz
Well if old doc katz says it, it must be true. Having been first man at the University of Massachusetts to earn a minor in women’s studies. Books like The Macho Paradox: Why Some Men Hurt Women and How All Men Can Help, School Video propanganda like Tough Guise Violence, Media, and the Crisis in Masculinity, Wrestling With Manhood, and Spin the Bottle,Sex, Lies, and Alcohol.
Why everything about him just screams unbiased. When citing a source try to find someone a bit more legit than some schmuk who probably proof-read SCUM manifesto the play for the gals in Sweden.
At this point I’m leaning towards the view that Ruby is trolling and doesn’t believe any of the shit she says. She’s just too perfect an illustration of all the things that misogynists think feminists believe to be real, given that she’s posting here, on a blog that mocks misogynists.
@Shaenon
“The FBI does not classify it as an intimate partner related homicide when a woman asks her new male lover to kill her former male lover.
Which totally happens all the time.”
Women using state violence or getting other men to commit violence on their behalf using lies and manipulation? It totally never happens. Empathy, love and altruism. It’s all women know. It’s in the book o’ larnin.
Oh, great, Roscoe’s here. He and Ruby can make shit up now.
Guys don’t forget that being allowed to take a gun with you everywhere you go is masculine; and that Canadians can’t is the reason they are being wussified and the country is bound for ruin.
Ruby: What assumptions? I’m going on what you said, i.e. people in prison deserve to be raped, if you think the crime was bad enough.
You support institutional torture. You admitted it.
@CassandraSays
The woman who said this…
“Also, the fuss over the word creepy is such a perfect encapsulation of the broader point about how male privilege works, and it’s too important to back down on. The reason some guys lose their shit whenever a woman calls a man creepy is that by calling a man creepy a woman is asserting her boundaries and stating that she finds the man’s crossing of them unacceptable. Backing off on that point is basically saying that it’s OK for men to ignore women’s boundaries, and that women have no right to ever object to any way that men behave towards them. There’s a reason this became such a flashpoint, and it’s much too big a deal to back down on, because if women aren’t allowed to assert even the most basic boundaries, or object when men cross them, then what has feminism actually achieved? The pushback against “creepy” is a pushback against the idea that women are people with rights.”
…is going to tell another feminist she’s a bad feminist? Kinda like the pot calling the kettle black. Ain’t it? I don’t see any difference in any of ya. Ya’ll wanna dictate mens actions and resources. Women’s as well, but their station in society is kinda like trustee’s over men. Prisoners with perks I guess ya’d call it. Workin for the warden.
Roscoe: To be accurate, this 5% figure applies only to those women who kill their male partner directly. The FBI does not classify it as an intimate partner related homicide when a woman asks her new male lover to kill her former male lover.
They also don’t call it initmate partner related homicide when a man hires someone to kill his ex-wife.
I knew someone who was kiled that way. I don’t know anyone who was killed your way.
(It was odd, opening the LA Times and seeing that a woman I’d interviewed for a story about a contested lease of land for a synagogue [this was when I was still doing journalism, in the late 1980s] had been killed by someone walking up as she got home and putting .22 into her head. He was, pretty quickly, arrested and rolled on her ex, who didn’t want to make a community property split; as per Calif. law).
@pecunium:
So the male killer was the gay lover of the female victim’s ex? Or was the killer in the example that you cited just an acquaintance of the victim? I’m trying to figure out how your example is related to intimate partner violence, as you claimed.
You think that if someone hires a person to kill their ex that’s not in any way related to partner violence? Certainly it shouldn’t be counted in the stats because that would be confusing, but it’s not exactly unrelated. It’s also the same situation as the one you attempted to suggest should be counted, just with money involved.
The killer was a hired gun. As such the FBI doesn’t treat it as, “intimate partner violence”. The same way your example doesn’t.
The point is that under the status quo, the FBI does not connect love triangle related homicides to intimate partner homicides. I personally think that the FBI should collect this data, since it would provide a more complete view of the gender breakdown of IPV-related homicide victims. Without this data, it is not very illuminating for David to claim that only 5 percent of IPV homicides are women killing their male partners. The stats on male victims of female-initiated homicide are absent because of a policy decision, yet seem entirely relevant to this discussion.
And, if you were paying attention that’s what I said above. Let me quote it for you in case looking up one post above the reply you made is too much work:
They also don’t call it initmate partner related homicide when a man hires someone to kill his ex-wife.
is that a trifle more clear now? The ex-husband paid someone to kill his former wife.
Roscoe: Are you trying to make your namesake look smart?
You seemed to be making a counterpoint. If you’re going to offer a counterpoint, then let it counter my point.
Roscoe — you do get that most people will not just suddenly turn into killers for
hirelove…right? Killed by a former partner’s new partner would, I think, be counted as either murder by hire, if money is involved (or other such goods/services), or simple murder, if the new partner is the jealous sort or whatever. The latter is way more likely than the former btw.Everyone else — is it just me, or does the entirety of the MRM like to spout bad TV/movie plots like they’re reality? (I wonder what it’s classified as if a weeping angel sends you back in time…born 20~ years ago died at 80~ = HUH?!)
I really doubt that either scenario (someone persuades a new lover to kill their ex, someone hires a person to kill their ex) happens often enough to be statistically significant. If you think it might be, though, then it’s your job to lobby the FBI and persuade them to start collecting stats on that for both genders, so that some sort of comparison should be made. It shouldn’t be counted under the category of “people who kill their partners”, but there’s no reason why it couldn’t exist as a related statistic. If you think it’s important, work on making it happen.
Oh, Roscoe and Pecunium were typing while I was. So then…
Roscoe — your point was — if a woman has her new boyfriend kill her ex-boyfriend it should be counted as IPV not murder for hire? yes?
Pecunium — you knew a woman who’s husband hired someone to kill her and it was counted as murder for hire? (I have some choice words for him, but I’ll refrain in open fora)
Roscoe — seeing how those are kind of the same thing with genders mixed up?
Better to collect the data than to make a conscious decision to suppress it, as the FBI does. In any case, under these conditions a claim that only 5% of IPV homicide victims are male amounts to speculation.
The FBI statistic also doesn’t include people who didn’t kill anyone and went out for grilled-cheese sandwiches instead.
WHY IS THE FBI SUPPRESSING THE EXISTENCE OF GRILLED CHEESE?
It is delicious.
@Argenti Aertheri:
If a woman’s new lover kills the woman’s former lover and isn’t paid for it, under current conditions this homicide is treated as completely unrelated to IPV. Most murder victims are male. Seems to me that we could really get a much clearer picture of IPV simply by classifying this situation IPV. But the FBI doesn’t. (For whatever reason.)
This is suppressed eh?