# 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:** 4
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2016, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-seem-like-women-do-less-bad-things-than-men/773443/61 "2016-12-01T06:48:01Z")
You know what, my original post here was too much of a hijack. I assume Ahunter3 saw what I wrote via subscription. If not, let me know and I’ll PM it. ---
**Author:** ![tapu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@tapu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tapu)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2016, 7:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-seem-like-women-do-less-bad-things-than-men/773443/62 "2016-12-01T07:19:39Z")
If we put all men in prison, we’d get rid of 90% of the crime and there wouldn’t be any spit on the streets. (jus’ locker room talk) ---
**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:** [December 1, 2016, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-seem-like-women-do-less-bad-things-than-men/773443/63 "2016-12-01T11:18:35Z")
> [@tapu](#): > > If we put all men in prison, we’d get rid of 90% of the crime and there wouldn’t be any spit on the streets. (jus’ locker room talk) Sure, but who do you hire as guards? ---
**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:** [December 1, 2016, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-seem-like-women-do-less-bad-things-than-men/773443/64 "2016-12-01T15:22:48Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Now, slow down there a moment! I didn’t say anything about “should”. That’s the way we are, and we are that way because of how we evolved, and we evolved as we did because of the conditions we’ve lived under. You can maybe say that, under the conditions we did most of our evolving under, that that’s the way we “should have” been (at least, it’s something that worked). > > But conditions nowadays are not the same as they were for most of our evolution. There are very, very few truly risky jobs any more, and those that are don’t need very many people filling them. We have the luxury now of considering _neither_ gender expendable, and once you put the genders on equal footing in terms of value in that way, there are a lot of other gender distinctions that become irrelevant. So, yes, there _are_ more men driven to be senators and stars and Nobel laureates, but maybe there _should_ be equal numbers of women. Well that gets into a separate argument as to whether you should hire the most qualified people or make sure that equal numbers of all types are represented. In order to sidestep that question for this thread, I’ll rephrase what I said. How about this? _The suggestion that women [are] 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._ Better? ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2016, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-seem-like-women-do-less-bad-things-than-men/773443/65 "2016-12-01T16:10:07Z")
The argument as others have said is that sperm is cheap and eggs are expensive. A man increases his mating success by doing risky dangerous thing or trying to obtain status and resources, a woman does not. This is also why men are larger, stronger and better athletes than women. A woman’s mating success improved by being fertile and attractive. Having said that mental illness doesn’t all fall on men. Men have higher rates of antisocial disorder, narcissism, substance abuse, etc but women have more anxiety disorders and depression,not to mention borderline personality disorder, histrionic personality disorder, etc. Also rates of domestic violence are about equal. In fact, lesbian women are more likely to suffer domestic violence than gay men. Women do bad stuff too, but they are less likely to act out in ways to gain status and wealth as men, which explains a lot of the crime difference. ---
**Author:** ![RPTPatriot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ce7236/32.png) [@RPTPatriot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RPTPatriot)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2016, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-seem-like-women-do-less-bad-things-than-men/773443/66 "2016-12-01T16:16:47Z")
Yes. Testosterone. Watch little boys play vs. little girls. It’s not really societal or cultural norms as many would like to suggest. It’s basic biogenetic norms. These differences show up within genders, also. There is a flip side to your question, though you may not like it… ---
**Author:** ![femmejean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/0ea827/32.png) [@femmejean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/femmejean)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2016, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-seem-like-women-do-less-bad-things-than-men/773443/67 "2016-12-01T17:58:17Z")
> [@RPTPatriot](#): > > Yes. Testosterone. Watch little boys play vs. little girls. It’s not really societal or cultural norms as many would like to suggest. It’s basic biogenetic norms. These differences show up within genders, also. There is a flip side to your question, though you may not like it… So then why is it when I advocate to people that perhaps testosterone reduction(castration) should be offered to violent minority men in order to reduce their anger…I’m accused of an extreme solution to a simple problem? Testosterone doesn’t make men violent, but it does increase aggression. In stressful situations where men live in abject poverty with no hope and societal pressure to ‘be the man’, Testosterone doesn’t help and having cheap sperm to impregnate women who don’t know much about contraception isn’t too great as well. So if I was a black man in the ghetto in a single mother’s household, I would take up a voluntary program for a doctor to perform an orchiectomy pre pubescent and try to avoid the destructive physical, biological and social aspects of ‘masculinity’. It may make my muscle mass weak, I may be sterile, and no woman would want me, but \*\*at least I won’t be joining gangs to stab or shot anybody. \*\* Plus sex without problems 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2016, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-seem-like-women-do-less-bad-things-than-men/773443/68 "2016-12-01T20:08:12Z")
Some of the problem is in the definitions of ‘bad things’. For example, women raping men is often considered a joke and not a real problem, and in some cases isn’t even technically a crime. The FBI’s crime statistics defined ‘rape’ in such a way that female on rape didn’t exist for them until 2012, for example. But after the redefinition and with some modern investigation, it turns out that a significant number of men have been raped by women. Same thing with physical violence; in a lot of states if there’s a mixed-gender physical fight (domestic or not), the default is to prosecute the man for assault or DV, and a man calling the police to report a woman attacking at him is likely to get laughed at. Setting up that, by definition, women can’t commit certain kinds of ‘bad thing’ really skews perception of whether women do that bad thin. > **[The Understudied Female Sexual Predator](https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/11/the-understudied-female-sexual-predator/503492/)** > > According to a new study, sexual victimization by women is more common than gender stereotypes would suggest. ---
**Author:** ![Atomic\_Alex](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atomic_alex/32/175_2.png) [@Atomic\_Alex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atomic_Alex)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2016, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-seem-like-women-do-less-bad-things-than-men/773443/69 "2016-12-01T20:17:07Z")
> [@RPTPatriot](#): > > There is a flip side to your question, though you may not like it… Which is? ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2016, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-seem-like-women-do-less-bad-things-than-men/773443/70 "2016-12-01T20:58:55Z")
> [@RPTPatriot](#): > > Yes. Testosterone. Watch little boys play vs. little girls. It’s not really societal or cultural norms as many would like to suggest. It’s basic biogenetic norms. I am sure that our social notions of the genders is, at its root, a set of generalizations about the biological sexes. Hence, biogenetic norms. I am also sure that the way those generalizations are socially shaped is different from the way science approaches generalizations. Scientists go on to make additional generalizations about the exceptions and examine the original generalization and attempt to refine it until it is an exactly nuanced description of what actually IS. Societal generalizations about gender, on the other hand, take the descriptive generalization and turn it into a prescriptive imperative, then they formulate negative caricaturish generalizations about the exceptions (to the extent they’re willing to acknowledge their existence at all) and usually utilize that second set of generalizations as Example A of why you better not be that way. And in light of both of those certainties, I am sure that most arguments about how much of observed gender behavior is due to the base-level biogenetic norms and how much is due to socialization (both on the part of the observed and on the part of the observer, by the way) are _silly arguments_. They’re about as meaningful as asking how many gallons of water in the swimming pool are due to its length and how many are due to its width. And they’re about as resolvable as the medieval questions about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. We will never observe human [del]gendered[/del] sexed behavior with social gender bracketed off so that it doesn’t interfere. Because there do exist biological built-in differences (even if we can’t pinpoint with precision what they are except in a socially affected context), the process of making and continuing to make those generalizations is not going to stop in order for us to do so. It is, however, cognitively useful to be aware that both biological propensities and socially prescriptive gendering do exist and play a role in what we observe. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2016, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-seem-like-women-do-less-bad-things-than-men/773443/71 "2016-12-01T22:34:41Z")
> [@femmejean](#): > > So then why is it when I advocate to people that perhaps testosterone reduction(castration) should be offered to violent minority men in order to reduce their anger…I’m accused of an extreme solution to a simple problem? > > Testosterone doesn’t make men violent, but it does increase aggression. In stressful situations where men live in abject poverty with no hope and societal pressure to ‘be the man’, Testosterone doesn’t help and having cheap sperm to impregnate women who don’t know much about contraception isn’t too great as well. So if I was a black man in the ghetto in a single mother’s household, I would take up a voluntary program for a doctor to perform an orchiectomy pre pubescent and try to avoid the destructive physical, biological and social aspects of ‘masculinity’. > > It may make my muscle mass weak, I may be sterile, and no woman would want me, but \*\*at least I won’t be joining gangs to stab or shot anybody. \*\* Plus sex without problems 😃 There are better solutions is why. ---
**Author:** ![protoboard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/fbc32d/32.png) [@protoboard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/protoboard)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2017, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-seem-like-women-do-less-bad-things-than-men/773443/72 "2017-01-17T00:19:53Z")
I’ve often heard that the reason men commit more crime is because it gives them more potential access to sex. However, how come most of the crime towards the defenseless (children, animals, old people) is also committed by men? ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2017, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-seem-like-women-do-less-bad-things-than-men/773443/73 "2017-01-17T00:27:39Z")
There are a lot of crimes that men commit that wouldn’t, on their face, appear to give them any additional “potential access to sex” (perhaps excluding prison rape, which is probably not the type of sex most men are seeking). As for crimes against the defenseless, I don’t know the answer (this thread has had a lot of good discussion along the traditional nature vs nurture arguments), but I suspect it runs along the same lines as crimes against the non-defenseless. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2017, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-seem-like-women-do-less-bad-things-than-men/773443/74 "2017-01-18T04:25:08Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > I tried, but I have a very limited tolerance for Camille Paglia and I couldn’t get through it. I can’t even read her name without twitching. ---
**Author:** ![Icerigger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icerigger/32/432_2.png) [@Icerigger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icerigger)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2017, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-seem-like-women-do-less-bad-things-than-men/773443/75 "2017-01-19T00:16:22Z")
Indeed, if there was ever a woman who wished she was a man it’s Paglia. ---
**Author:** ![igor\_frankensteen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/839c29/32.png) [@igor\_frankensteen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/igor_frankensteen)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2017, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-seem-like-women-do-less-bad-things-than-men/773443/76 "2017-01-21T14:59:23Z")
Everyone seems to have raced right past the most critical aspects and details of the title question, eager to burrow into justifications or complaints. **The most important thing in the opening question, is to be found in observing the basic meanings of the words, and who it is who assigned them those meanings.** In particular, notice that “bad” is always a philosophical/judgmental term, and has no functional meaning independent of an observer. In this case, “bad” is defined _by the majority of other males._ So while it is obviously true that males have behavioral tendencies that are different from female tendencies, “bad behavior” is NOT defined by how much like one gender or the other tends to behave. ``` Another way to say this, and not ask the error-based title question: ``` More males _disapprove_ of many common male behaviors, than _approve_ of them. ---
**Author:** ![protoboard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/fbc32d/32.png) [@protoboard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/protoboard)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2017, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-seem-like-women-do-less-bad-things-than-men/773443/77 "2017-07-20T22:57:28Z")
Does anyone else have any thoughts? ---
**Author:** ![igor\_frankensteen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/839c29/32.png) [@igor\_frankensteen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/igor_frankensteen)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2017, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-seem-like-women-do-less-bad-things-than-men/773443/78 "2017-07-21T01:10:23Z")
Point of view: all crime is artificially designated. So is sanity. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2017, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-seem-like-women-do-less-bad-things-than-men/773443/79 "2017-07-21T02:31:25Z")
> [@protoboard](#): > > Does anyone else have any thoughts? Sure, I’ll throw this observation in. Men are more likely to be violent. They’re also bigger and stronger, so when they become violent, the result is worse. So maybe women have had the violence “bred out” of them, as they’re less likely to be successful at it. On the other hand, I’d be interested in seeing statistics about non violent crimes like fraud, embezzlement, and other bad things that don’t depend on physical strength or domination to perform. Anecdote (but not argument.) My aunt abused her daughter for years. When her husband divorced her, that fact was kept confidential by the father and the court. It wasn’t until the daughter spoke up decades later that anyone except her father (and the lawyers and the judge) knew what had happened. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2017, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-seem-like-women-do-less-bad-things-than-men/773443/80 "2017-07-21T03:52:13Z")
> [@protoboard](#): > > Karla Homolka was just as bad if not worse than your typical male serial killer. I dunno, I could imagine that if she hadn’t met Paul Bernardo, she would not have become a murderer. He’d still have been a serial rapist, of course. Aileen Wuornos is a better example of a female serial killer. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-seem-like-women-do-less-bad-things-than-men/773443.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-seem-like-women-do-less-bad-things-than-men/773443.md?page=5)