TIL: The majority of child abuse perpetrators are women.
via reddit.com
By âmajorityâ they mean â53.5%â which is an interesting number because more than 80% of abuse is carried out by a parent and if you check the proportions of families where women are involved v. families where men are involved itâs apparent that men are disproportionately likely to inflict abuse despite technically making up a smaller percentage of total abusers. Households with both a man and woman make up 69% of total parent arrangements, then 23% are single mother households, while single father households make up just 4%. So despite women being present in 92% of parenting arrangements while men are present in just 73% men still manage to commit almost half of child abuse, plus the data doesnât analyse gender v. type of abuse and the figures cover everything from neglect to physical and sexual abuse and I think we can agree that these are not in any way equivalent forms of abuse (not that neglect is excusable but sexual abuse is clearly a worse offense). Yeah tho, this is why statistics matters, these numbers are meaningless without context.
And thatâs how you lie with numbers, kids.
This is a kink blog but Iâm going to take a little time out here to put on my social-theorist and parenting hats. Folks looking for a giggle in their pants can scroll up or down but wonât find them here.
—
MRAs and incels, as usual, can all go fuck themselves to therapy. So be careful around âstatisticsâ of any kind if theyâre waiving it around.
However, it doesnât seem that controversial that human beings in power-imbalance situations would manifest both positive and negative behaviors in roughly equal proportions. Â
If you really want to bring the gender social construct into discussions of human behavior you should be sure to factor in that itâs… well… a social construct. But if itâs the case that abuse is typically a punching-down phenomenon, and if itâs the case that gendered adult women are more likely to be subject to abuse, and if itâs the case that children are more likely to be attended to by women, then it shouldnât be surprising that slightly more women would be observed abusing children than men.
But oppressor olympics is about as unproductive as oppression olympics. A gendered man reading âperpetrators are womenâ will feel as unjustly absolve as a gendered woman reading ânuh uh, perpetrators are men.â But really, since abuse is typically a punching-down phenomenon, the common factor is that abuse is perpetrated on children.Â
Children, Iâm let to understand, come in all sexes, genders, identities, orientations. Also in roughly equal proportions. 40+ years of serious research into physical, psychological, and sexual abuse of children (and others in power-imbalance contexts) reveal virtually no preference for victims by designated sex.
Children grow up.
When they grow up children tend to reflect the behavior that was modeled for them.
Children for whom abusive behavior was modeled will have greater difficulty recognizing and overcoming impulses to perform the same behaviors.
Look. Playing the oppressor olympic is an asshole, gaslighting game because…
What if we made the fucking MRAs happy and announced that not roughly half but 90 percent of abuse against children was perpetrated by women. Or conversely what if we made the shit-assed Quiverful trad-fems happy and declared that not roughly half but ninety percent of abuse against children was instead perpetuated by men.
Either way that would still leave a neglected reservoir of 10% of overlooked and therefore unchecked abusers modeling behavior to the next generation of… future potential perpetrators!
But itâs not a 90/10 ratio, is it? No, itâs a rounding error away from 50/50. Only an absolute floating turd would crow that a 3% difference on one side vindicates the other. And only a festering rectal tear would fluff around confounding factors to conversely try to explain a 3% difference.
Human beings are profoundly capable of punching down. If you think itâs important to dwell on whether more men or more women perpetrate then congratulations, youâve internalized gender stereotypes! Pick up your participation trophy at nearest Patriarchy will-call window.
Now I donât mean to say that gender has nothing to do with abuse. Itâs got plenty! Case in point? Progressive educators and school administrators only began acknowledging and addressing âemotional bullyingâ in the 1990s… as a âfemaleâ form of abuse. Thatâs certainly better than ignoring it altogether, and itâs certainly the case that once people started looking it was hard not to recognize that âmean girlâ bullying was pervasive. Thatâs certainly a start! But, um, kind of gonna put it out there that, you know, boys commit emotional abuse too. Failing to recognize and take that seriously is kind of like failing to recognize and take seriously girls beating the shit out of other girls in the back of school busses.
And where do all these boys and girls children learn emotional, physical, and sexual-assault behaviors in power-imbalance situations? Oh, well, it couldnât be from their custodial adults could it? Not from men. Not from women. From adults. Donât be one of those adults. Raise your children so that instead of becoming âmenâ or âwomen they become adults. The kind that doesnât model punching down to their children.
