# Why does it seem like women do less bad things than men? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 30, 2016, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-seem-like-women-do-less-bad-things-than-men/773443 "2016-11-30T03:51:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Jane\_Smythe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f04885/32.png) [@Jane\_Smythe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jane_Smythe)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2016, 10:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-seem-like-women-do-less-bad-things-than-men/773443/21 "2016-11-30T10:40:58Z")
> [@protoboard](#): > > According to the stats, nearly 90 percent of murderers are men, more men abuse animals, more men kill their spouses, the majority of (and the vast majority of convicted) sex offenders are men, and men also commit more minor crimes like theft, albeit at less extreme ratios. > > Are women genetically less prone to criminal acts, perhaps due to suffering less mental illness? Perhaps there’s simply fewer female “bad seeds” because of the more stable XX chromosome. > > Do men feel entitled to commit crime because of their position in society? > > Does it simply have to do with men being larger, stronger and hornier? > > I wonder if it’s possible that a lot of female-perpetrated violence is swept under the rug because people view women as being innocent. After all it’s known that women are treated more lightly by the justice system and abuse perpetrated by women is taken less seriously than abuse perpetrated by men. > > I doubt it would explain why 90 percent of murderers are men, but it might explain _some_ of the discrepancy. A lot of it is testosterone. It is a hormone that makes people aggressive. Also, it is cultural. Intentionally and unintentionally, we expect men to be more aggressive, more hot tempered, more take control, more powerful. Gentle, soft, easy going men are not as favored in our society as forceful men. Even women like ‘bad boys.’ ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2016, 11:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-seem-like-women-do-less-bad-things-than-men/773443/22 "2016-11-30T11:38:08Z")
“Seem to” is interesting phrasing, OP. Do you _really_ mean to imply that there’s 40% more murders, animal abuse, spouse killing, sex offences, and minor crimes like theft, occurring than we ever notice and even attempt to prosecute? Because if you don’t mean to suggest that women secretly commit crimes at the same rate as men but just don’t get in trouble for it because society is willing to turn a blind eye to it, it should be obvious that men commit all of these offenses at a much greater rate. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2016, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-seem-like-women-do-less-bad-things-than-men/773443/23 "2016-11-30T11:54:57Z")
I don’t think it’s precisely aggression, but risk-taking: Men are more prone than women to taking risks. Sometimes, those risks pay off, and so the majority of politicians, businesspeople, Nobel Prize winners, and so on are men. Often, they don’t, and so the majority of failures are also men. This of course makes sense from an evolutionary psychology perspective, because for most of our species’ history, we’ve been better able to afford the loss of men than of women. So, yes, testosterone, but there’s more detail to it than that. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2016, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-seem-like-women-do-less-bad-things-than-men/773443/24 "2016-11-30T12:37:58Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I don’t think it’s precisely aggression, but risk-taking: Men are more prone than women to taking risks. Sometimes, those risks pay off, and so the majority of politicians, businesspeople, Nobel Prize winners, and so on are men. Often, they don’t, and so the majority of failures are also men. This of course makes sense from an evolutionary psychology perspective, because for most of our species’ history, we’ve been better able to afford the loss of men than of women. > > So, yes, testosterone, but there’s more detail to it than that. Ye beat me to the punch: risk-taking it is. In evolutionary terms, women have typically been the gender responsible for taking care of the family, and throughout prehistory, the females were the ones who had to do the real calculating. Women managed and monitored resources. Women had to screen mates to determine which males could actually bring home a few bison pelts once in a while, and which ones might be threats to the group. Males, by contrast, were engaged in the riskier activities of hunting animals and fighting off intruders, activities which also necessitate aggressive behavior. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2016, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-seem-like-women-do-less-bad-things-than-men/773443/25 "2016-11-30T12:42:09Z")
We have a small flock of female chickens. When the old hens stop laying, their estrogen levels drop and testosterone manifests itself. The post menopausal birds become belligerent for the first time in their lives. ---
**Author:** ![ZonexandScout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zonexandscout/32/544_2.png) [@ZonexandScout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZonexandScout)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2016, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-seem-like-women-do-less-bad-things-than-men/773443/26 "2016-11-30T12:57:28Z")
> [@marshmallow](#): > > The usual explanations revolve around evolutionary just so stories or game theory. Sperm are abundant, cheap, and motile. Eggs are rare, expensive, and mostly stationary. Males can impregnate as many females as they can have sex with. Increased sex for women has marginal rewards. This leads to different mating strategies. Males seek risk because it can result in a huge genetic payoff. Women avoid risk because they’re more likely to have a sure bet if they just sit pat. The payoff matrix for a female vs. male Genghis Khan is way different. If you follow that logic out you can get plausible sounding explanations for most sex differentiated behavior. Second. This is a very well-understood and widely accepted part of natural selection theory. (Darwin even wrote an entire book about it.) Reproductive strategies of this sort have been studied in many, many non-human species. Variation in reproductive success within a species is huge. As long as some or all of the behaviors that lead to increased RS are genotypical, we can expect those genotypes to be represented in greater numbers in succeeding generations. E. O. Wilson and Robert Trivers (along with many others) have written extensively about this subject. ---
**Author:** ![doubleminus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5daacb/32.png) [@doubleminus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doubleminus)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2016, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-seem-like-women-do-less-bad-things-than-men/773443/27 "2016-11-30T13:37:46Z")
As **Chronos** said it well, the characteristics the OP decries are also the ones that make mankind great, and they have been selected in men by _no other than women_ who may decry male behaviour but mostly choose Mr. Big to mate with. Society tries to temper extreme behaviours or redirect them to what it considers non-disrupting displays of peacockiness like climbing the Everest. This has been discussed from times immemorable, and one of the beautiful models is [Plato’s Chariot Allegory](http://www.john-uebersax.com/plato/plato3.htm) BTW - assholishness of males is manifested much stronger in most other mammals. So, Let’s make Menkind great againsup[/sup] ---
**Author:** ![doubleminus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5daacb/32.png) [@doubleminus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doubleminus)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2016, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-seem-like-women-do-less-bad-things-than-men/773443/28 "2016-11-30T14:12:23Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > What I remember quite clearly from 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade was that for girls, being good was considered an active state, holding one’s self up to a standard of social expectations; being bad, for girls, was a weak and passive state, a sad and pathetic failure to monitor one’s own behavior and display the maturity to control it. But for boys, being good was a passive state, a state of being intimidated into not expressing one’s natural bad-boy self and instead, due to fear of authoritarian consequences, being cowed into submission; being bad was active, affirmative, being rebellious and true to one’s bad-boy self. > > Gender is a thing. Seriously. It’s not just the plumbing you got between your legs and some hormonal differences. It’s a social institution. It shapes stuff, it colors things. You may like [the discussion between Camille Paglia and Christina Hoff Sommers](https://youtu.be/iv7LvRhvgNI?t=689) ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2016, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-seem-like-women-do-less-bad-things-than-men/773443/29 "2016-11-30T14:12:55Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > I’m not denying anything. However, shift some nouns around and see how well the thread would be received. Well, if you want to do the reverse of this thread, sort of, men accomplish more great things because of the same traits that cause men to do more bad things. Men are more likely to take initiative, take risks, and question the way things are. I don’t know how much of this is physiological and how much is societal evolution. Testosterone does seem to make one more daring and aggressive, but not all risk taking is just for the hell of it, sometimes it’s quite intellectual. That half of it is probably society. As an earlier poster said, women strive to be good, whereas with men being good is a passive state. If women strived to just be who they wanted to be rather than what society expected of them, there’d be more females single-handedly changing the world. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2016, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-seem-like-women-do-less-bad-things-than-men/773443/30 "2016-11-30T14:52:34Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I don’t think it’s precisely aggression, but risk-taking: Men are more prone than women to taking risks. Sometimes, those risks pay off, and so the majority of politicians, businesspeople, Nobel Prize winners, and so on are men. Often, they don’t, and so the majority of failures are also men. This of course makes sense from an evolutionary psychology perspective, because for most of our species’ history, we’ve been better able to afford the loss of men than of women. I think this is probably true, along with the different distribution curve noted by Novelty Bobble in post #20. Also, testosterone. Also, society rewards men who defy convention more than women - in the form of the appeal of “Bad Boys”. My only added point here relates to the point made by octopus in post #8 but with broader application than just this thread. As you note, some of these same traits also account for men being disproportionately represented at the extreme outliers of success and accomplishment. But that notion is considered unacceptable by contemporary PC society. The suggestion that women should be underrepresented as legislators, judges, BoD members and the like because they are less represented at the talent levels that these positions require is not an acceptable one, and all such discrepancies are presumed to be due to direct or societal discrimination. So IMO, when postulating theories such as are being bandied here, it’s worth considering the other implications of these same theories. ---
**Author:** ![femmejean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/0ea827/32.png) [@femmejean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/femmejean)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2016, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-seem-like-women-do-less-bad-things-than-men/773443/31 "2016-11-30T15:09:47Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Certainly. And did you now read my response to **octopus** , which is that factual reality is of no matter when it comes to the politics of things like this? > > I will state for the record though that men are far more likely to engage in the type of behavior described in the OP, and much of it is stupid and detrimental to society…especially when it comes to war. > > But men throughout history are also the ones who’ve developed agriculture and farming and aquaducts and plumbing and architecture and the construction of homes and magnificent buildings and factories and products which make our lives more comfortable, pleasant and entertaining, and medicine, which is allowing us to live longer and often in much less pain than before. > > **On the whole I’d say the world is far better off for having had men in it, despite the bad and/or silly things men on occasion are prone to do.** > > Plus we love to help women make babies. 🙂 No offense but this seems to me like self justification bias. The fact is, male aggression due to mostly biological factors and social factors causes problems in society. Most mass shooters are male, Most wife beaters are men, the 19 hijacker’s on 9/11 were men, most homophobic. transphobic violence is caused by men. I know someone will say ‘Oh but think of all the firefighters on 9/11, they were all men!’ True but the point is, reducing male violence would reduce the need for male saviors. IMO, If today’s world was still in the middle ages people with no technological developments, people would still be trying to justify the need for ‘masculinity’ forced on men. I’m not saying men are useless but the idea that we need men to invent is just BS. An interesting question about mass shooters specifically Elliot Rodger; would he have gone on a mass shooting if he was female? His sister hasn’t done anything criminal. What about Kip Krinkel? He had a sister who’s not in jail and didn’t murder anyone? If their parents both had two daughters, a few people would probably be alive. ---
**Author:** ![doubleminus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5daacb/32.png) [@doubleminus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doubleminus)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2016, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-seem-like-women-do-less-bad-things-than-men/773443/32 "2016-11-30T15:16:17Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > The suggestion that women should be underrepresented as legislators, judges, BoD members and the like because they are less represented at the talent levels that these positions require is not an acceptable one, and all such discrepancies are presumed to be due to direct or societal discrimination. > > So IMO, when postulating theories such as are being bandied here, it’s worth considering the other implications of these same theories. I would be extremely happy if the classes of people you mentioned would be at least average in their talent levels. Unfortunately many seem to be outliers mostly in their pathologies, and very much less in their brain power or morality. ---
**Author:** ![doubleminus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5daacb/32.png) [@doubleminus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doubleminus)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2016, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-seem-like-women-do-less-bad-things-than-men/773443/33 "2016-11-30T15:20:56Z")
> [@femmejean](#): > > …Most wife beaters are men… Hear, hear… ---
**Author:** ![Kimera757](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kimera757/32/3765_2.png) [@Kimera757](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimera757)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2016, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-seem-like-women-do-less-bad-things-than-men/773443/34 "2016-11-30T15:27:31Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > [Male brains are more likely to be negatively impacted by genetic mutations than female brains.](http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/women-s-brains-more-resilient-to-higher-levels-of-genetic-defects-study-1.2555058) Interestingly, the linked study found that women tend to carry more genetic defects, but they don’t suffer from neurodevelopmental diseases nearly as much as guys do. > > (I’m guessing a lot of “normal” people have a fair share of defects, but they have genes that mitigate their effects. My hunch is that perhaps some of these “mitigating” genes are on the X chromosome. Or maybe they are activated by genes that are on the X chromosome. It could also be that testosterone exacerbates the harmful effects of defective genes.) Not quite to the part in parentheses. Because men have only one X chromosome, if there’s something wrong with an allele on it (and it’s usually a recessive allele) there’s no counter to it. A woman might have a “bad allele” on one X chromosome but a normal one on her other X chromosome. Many genes are “haplosufficient” (you only need one working copy) so she’ll be fine. There’s a lot of easily observable physical effects (eg some forms of color blindness) where this is obvious. Women can be red/green colorblind, it’s just rarer because the likelihood of her having two recessive alleles is pretty slim. I have a hard time believing a lot of crime is “caused” by genetics, however. It’s choices. Testosterone can provoke more aggression but you can still (usually) choose not to act that way. (I guess there’s “roid rage” but you need to be actively abusing anabolic steroids to suffer from that. I would hold someone responsible for a crime committed during a “roid rage” as the criminal willingly chose to inject themselves with the steroids.) ---
**Author:** ![Doubticus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e56c9b/32.png) [@Doubticus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doubticus)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2016, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-seem-like-women-do-less-bad-things-than-men/773443/35 "2016-11-30T15:39:09Z")
Testosterone is the main reason. Also given males generally larger physical stature they are more likely to exploit their advantage when angry. In cases where women have a physical advantage, like adult women verses children, you see that women kill more children than men. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2016, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-seem-like-women-do-less-bad-things-than-men/773443/36 "2016-11-30T16:00:50Z")
> [@doubleminus](#): > > I would be extremely happy if the classes of people you mentioned would be at least average in their talent levels. Unfortunately many seem to be outliers mostly in their pathologies, and very much less in their brain power or morality. This is not something to be taken seriously. > [@Doubticus](#): > > Also given males generally larger physical stature they are more likely to exploit their advantage when angry. In cases where women have a physical advantage, like adult women verses children, you see that women kill more children than men. If you compare male-male violence with female-female violence your theory does not hold up. (Women kill more children - if true - because they have access to a lot more.) ---
**Author:** ![Drunky\_Smurf](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drunky_smurf/32/449_2.png) [@Drunky\_Smurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drunky_Smurf)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2016, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-seem-like-women-do-less-bad-things-than-men/773443/37 "2016-11-30T16:09:40Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > I think you are confused. I wasn’t denying anything as I’ve already said. It’s just fascinating that some group differences are perfectly fine to discuss and others aren’t. That’s because men are from Mars who smell like candy bars while women are from Venus who smell like pretty flowers. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2016, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-seem-like-women-do-less-bad-things-than-men/773443/38 "2016-11-30T16:26:04Z")
I recall a saying - something to the effect of - _“Women don’t go bad as often as men, but when they do, they are worse than bad men.”_ Not in the sense of serial killers, but more in the sense of malice or emotional bullying or the desire to cause suffering and in ingenious ways. ---
**Author:** ![Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maggie_the_Ocelot)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2016, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-seem-like-women-do-less-bad-things-than-men/773443/39 "2016-11-30T16:31:52Z")
Testosterone is a huge part of it. When my friend transitioned F-M, he said it totally changed his outlook on almost everything. His sex drive shot through the roof, but he also found his temper becoming less controllable, rage coming to the forefront much more often. Eventually he talked with his doc and got on a slightly lower dose of T, and it eased the problem. That, and the fact that from babyhood on, boys are taught that expressing themselves through violence is, if not “okay”, at least to be expected. “Oh, he’s such a rough-and-tumble little dude”, “The reason he’s mean to you is because he likes you.” And they’re also taught _not_ to express their emotions any other way, that even _having_ emotions beyond lust and rage - the ones that are testosterone-influenced - is unmanly and therefore bad. So yeah. Some biology, some cultural, just like everything else. ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2016, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-seem-like-women-do-less-bad-things-than-men/773443/40 "2016-11-30T16:47:30Z")
> [@doubleminus](#): > > As **Chronos** said it well, the characteristics the OP decries are also the ones that make mankind great, and they have been selected in men by _no other than women_ who may decry male behaviour but mostly choose Mr. Big to mate with. I don’t know what percent of the animal kingdom’s copulations would pass the bar for Western ideas of consent. Certainly one of the advantages of being “Mr. Big” is getting others to do what you want. Moreover, assigning agency to evolutionary ingrained instincts doesn’t seem tenable. Peahens just really like big tails and they don’t know why. Men really like certain hip to waist ratios and they don’t know why. If women are attracted to the dark triad, well, they don’t know why either. [Good for their genes,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexy_son_hypothesis) possibly bad for the human race as a whole. That’s a bit of a philosophical rabbit hole though, free will and all that. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-seem-like-women-do-less-bad-things-than-men/773443.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-seem-like-women-do-less-bad-things-than-men/773443.md?page=3)