Evidence Based Activism @evidence-based-activism - Tumblr Blog

Masterlist of Misogyny

This list categorizes posts about feminism that I have created, added onto, or reblogged. It is mainly composed of data sources and reference posts, but they do take clear stances on the subjects at hand.

This list will be updated periodically (current as of 12/2025).

I tag feminism for posts related to feminism.

I tag social welfare for political posts unrelated to feminism.

Please check the masterlists prior to sending an ask!

#feminism #masterlist

Are women SA by strangers more likely to be believed than ones done by people they know? Ive looked into most SA is done by known people but media and people make it seem like its by stranger in the alley ways when most of the time that is not the case. This is not to invalidate SA by strangers Im just curious. As maybe part of the reason why SA doesn’t get as reported or prosecuted as much is also because the victim knows the person is taken less seriously.

Hello!

This is an interesting question, and I’ve found some tangentially related research! I didn’t find a lot of work discussing the difference in belief specifically, but I did find more work concerning victim blame and social reactions to victims of different offender types.

So, first to confirm, the CDC indicates that about 22% of female rape victims and 9% of female sexual coercion victims are victimized by a stranger or someone they met in a “brief encounter”, with current or former intimate partners, family members, persons of authority, and acquaintances making up the perpetrator in the remainder. As such, the majority of female victims are raped by someone they know. (The figures for male rape victims are slightly larger.) [1] In addition, some work also suggests that you are correct in thinking that women are more likely to report stranger rapes [7].

Now, concerning victim blame (which was one of the tangentially related concepts I found work on), this 2019 review [2] describes the inconsistencies and methodological issues in research on acquaintance rape. That being said, they do suggest that “the sexual assault literature appears to offer only one clear conclusion” and that is that victims are blamed more with increasing familiarity with the perpetrator (i.e., stranger < acquaintance < intimate partner).

An additional 2020 meta-analysis and review also supports these findings [3]. Specifically, they found “higher levels of blame in acquaintance as compared to stranger rape, with a medium effect size” and that “methodological limitations can account for some of the past mixed findings in this area, particularly in a lack of consistency in vignette details”. (A medium effect size indicates that there is a moderate difference in blame between the two groups.)

That said, an additional study [4] found similar levels of both victim and perpetrator culpability between scenarios where the victim knew or did not know the offender, with the exception of one scenario in which the victim was raped by a stranger while in her home. They also found that men reported a greater “rape proclivity” (i.e., likelihood of engaging in sexual aggression) in the scenarios where the victim knew the perpetrator.

Further, a large population study conducted in Central and Eastern Europe [5] found participants “granted greater leniency to partner rape than to stranger rape”, in a study where participants were asked to recommend a penalty for perpetrators convicted of a crime. This study describes real-world effects of differential victim blame between perpetrator types.

That said, these findings may not correlate perfectly with social reactions in real-world scenarios. There is limited work on this topic, but this review [6] found some work indicates no difference in social reactions to disclosures by victim-offender relationship and other work finding victims of stranger rape reported more negative social reactions. That said, there were very few studies addressing this topic and they are all relatively dated, suggesting they may suffer from the methodological issues described in the reviews above.

In addition to this general work, I also found a few studies concerning groups more likely to be involved in the prosecution of rape cases (i.e., police, lawyers).

First, this 2017 review [8] investigated police officers’ rape myth beliefs and found that police officers tended to blame acquaintance rape offenders less than stranger rape perpetrators, particularly when untrained. They also indicated that acquaintance rape victims were blamed more by officers. Another study [9] found that police officers were more likely to believe a rape accusation when the offender was a stranger, although it’s possible that the degree of force used is a confounding factor (i.e., officers are more likely to believe victims of forcible rape, which is more common in stranger rapes). That said, there was still a general level of insensitivity concerning stranger rape cases (e.g., an officer described such cases as “fun” because it involved “finding the bad guy”).

In reference to prosecutors, the earlier results concerning victim blame and offender culpability have been replicated in undergraduate law school students [14]. That being said, a somewhat older study [10] investigated prosecutors’ charging decisions and found that the victim-offender relationship itself (i.e., stranger, acquaintance, intimate partner) did not impact charging decisions, but the effect of victim and incident characteristics varied by relationship type. That said, more recent studies have found mixed results, with some indicating strangers are more likely to be charged [11] and others indicating no effect [12]. Indeed, this recent study [13] references a number of studies highlighting this divide and ultimately concluded that there was “less consistency in the charging behavior of prosecutors based on relationship characteristics”.

Ultimately, all of this suggests that people tend to blame rape victims of non-strangers more than rape victims of strangers, although the effect of this on real-world outcomes is mixed. I don’t think this is exactly what you were looking for (I found very little research on belief by victim-offender relationship), but victim blaming is related to belief in the victim, as well as other rape myths [15, 16].

I hope this helps!

References under the cut:

#feminism #patriarchal culture

"Also ... to be fair to all these unnamed "radfems", I'm guessing that you would consider my posts (like this response) to be an example of someone "saying this", which is very much not the case. I am acknowledging social trends and making reasonable generalizations to allow for communication about a complex topic (you know, the way people do for any and every topic ever), but I'm not claiming that no women is ever abusive or that no man has ever been abused. I'm guessing that these other posts are pretty similar (if less verbose)."

I think you're undercutting your own point about feelings-based vs evidence-based by saying things like this (based on your own feelings about the reliability radfems vs victims).

I can send you probably some dozen+ "radfem" posts disparaging rape victims, some with many dozens of people engaging in the affirmative.

It may or may not be representative, so that point still stands; but it's also not uncommon. So it also undercuts yout message about something not needing to be common to deserve sympathy and appropriate seriousness if you say things like "I'm guessing what you perceive as direct rape apologism is actually someone making a reasonable point".

Based on other things I've seen you say I don't think your goal is to be dismissive of victims or protect rape apologists, so I'm not sure why mar a message otherwise really good response to a misogynist like that anon to protect the image of an online group that does often spew racism and rape apologism (towards both sexes). It doesn't mar radical feminism as an ideology to admit some members misuse it to justify their own biases against rape victims. Every advocacy group struggles with this sort of PR issue but denying the issue is probably the worst response.

Cheers.

So, I’ve stated that I won’t be answering anymore Anon asks on this topic, but this is sufficiently peripheral to the topic that I’ve decided I want to answer it. (Also, it touches on a couple of issues I wanted to address anyway.) That being said, my general policy still applies.

This in reference to this post.

I think you're undercutting your own point about feelings-based vs evidence-based by saying things like this

First, my posts and opinions are evidence-based because I use empirical evidence to formulate them. It does not mean that I have no emotions on these topics. (On the contrary, I feel deeply about these topics, which is why I’ve devoted my time to creating such detailed posts on them.)

Now, while I don’t actually agree with your assertion that I’m referencing “feelings” here, it’s important to note that my posts and opinions would not become “feelings-based” if I referenced or expressed emotion. The vital component in this distinction is how an opinion is formed, not how it is expressed.

Furthermore, your implication here is that such expression would “undercut” my points, which is patently untrue. Even if I were to write every post with explicit and excessive appeals to emotion or filled with (non-bigoted) insults and criticisms, the underlying research and factual information would remain the same and be every bit as valid as in my current posts. (And for your reference, claiming otherwise or using such characteristics to dismiss arguments is a nearly textbook example of tone policing.)

(based on your own feelings about the reliability radfems vs victims).

That is not an accurate characterization of that ask or my response. That is not even in the vicinity of what I said in that post.

I’d like to be extremely clear here, Anon. My response was to an explicitly misogynistic Anon claiming women are the primary abusers in society. There is no room for interpretation here; every sentence in their ask is riddled with misogyny.

So, first, an accurate characterization here would be “based on your own feelings about the reliability of feminists vs explicit misogynists”, which is a completely different set up with completely different implications. And, to be clear, if you are asking me to rate the reliability of “feminists in general” vs “specific, explicit, and unabashed misogynist”, then I will, in fact, choose feminists. (And, to be clear, anyone who chooses the misogynist is also a misogynist.)

I can send you probably some dozen+ "radfem" posts disparaging rape victims, some with many dozens of people engaging in the affirmative.

Okay. I have – at no point – claimed that all women, all feminists, or all “radfems” are not sexist or don’t blame victims. I have discussed general trends, relative frequencies, and estimated prevalences, none of which negates the existence of individuals who buck the trend.

I have made it extremely clear that I do not support such sentiments or actions. I have no way of being more clear about this.

It may or may not be representative, so that point still stands;

It isn’t representative. I’ve provided extensive empirical and historical evidence showing that women in general report greater victim support and less victim blaming than men. Feminists have been involved in nearly every victim’s right advancement we’ve seen.

And more importantly, feminist (and radical feminist) ideology does not support victim blaming.

but it's also not uncommon. So it also undercuts yout message about something not needing to be common to deserve sympathy and appropriate seriousness

This statement is logically inconsistent. My message – as you’ve stated – is that something does not need to be common to deserve sympathy. An example in support of this statement would necessarily need to be uncommon; otherwise, the statement would not apply.

You are saying this behavior is “not uncommon”, which – in a best-case scenario – means you are arguing that my message does not apply in this case. I’d say this assertion depends on what your threshold for “common” is in this context. At worst, you are implying that I (or others) should care about this problem because it is “not uncommon”, which does contradict my message and is – in my opinion – unethical. (Because I do not believe something must be common to deserve sympathy.)

if you say things like "I'm guessing what you perceive as direct rape apologism is actually someone making a reasonable point".

Allow me to be extremely clear once again, Anon, the person you are attempting to defend is a blatant misogynist. You are arguing that I should trust a misogynist to accurately interpret and convey feminist statements. You are arguing that I should trust this misogynist after they have already proven themselves to be scientifically and politically illiterate by advancing the idea that women “initiate 70% of domestic violence” and men are “still portrayed as the villains”. You are arguing that I should trust this misogynist after they illustrated they do not know how to accurately identify a radical feminist by saying they are “very gender essentialist themselves”, which is roughly equivalent to saying “liberals are very conservative themselves”.

I am not going to trust this misogynist. And I most certainly am not going to trust their opinions of feminists.

Furthermore, deciding not to trust any individual who has already proven themselves untrustworthy is the rational choice. If you have direct evidence that someone is drastically misinformed and/or lying about a particular topic (e.g., women’s abuse rates, feminism), you should not trust any further statements they make on that topic.

Based on other things I've seen you say I don't think your goal is to be dismissive of victims or protect rape apologists,

Great. Glad we’re on the same page.

so I'm not sure why mar a message otherwise really good response to a misogynist like that anon

Pointing out that a misogynist is not a reliable source of information about feminists does not mar a post about how inaccurate and unreliable said misogynist is.

to protect the image of an online group that does often spew racism and rape apologism (towards both sexes)

I’m not attempting to protect the “image” of any group.

I’d like you to imagine for a moment that I received an Anon ask from an obvious racist making claims about what negative and hateful statements a group of racial equality activists has said. Would you consider that Anon to be a reliable source on the opinions of that activist group? (Hopefully, the answer is no.) If I pointed out how the Anon is not a reliable source of information in this case, would you deride this as “protecting the image” of the activist group? Or acknowledge it as a reasonable detail to point out to the audience of the post? (Hopefully, the latter.)

It doesn't mar radical feminism as an ideology to admit some members misuse it to justify their own biases against rape victims.

Great, I agree. I’m glad you’re differentiating between the ideology, the movement as a whole, and “some members”.

Every advocacy group struggles with this sort of PR issue but denying the issue is probably the worst response.

I haven’t denied anything. Even in that post, I specifically acknowledged that Anon could be seeing the views they claim to have seen. My argument was about the representativeness of these views and the relative frequency of these views in comparison to men.

And as a side note, I personally think describing this (and similar problems) as a "PR issue" is disrespectful to those impacted by the problem. The existence of people who claim to support an ideology (e.g., radical feminism) while espousing views (e.g., victim blaming) that directly contradict the main components of that ideology (e.g., opposition to patriarchal system of violence) is not a matter of "public relations" it is a manifestation of the same postmodernist thinking that spread to and disrupted so many political movements and social institutions.

Cheers.

If you intend to respond to this, do so off of Anon. Have a nice day.

#feminism #patriarchal culture

evidence-based-activism

What do you think of the studies and data related to the difference in intelligence and IQ between the sexes, which show that men are more differentiated at both ends of the curve, with men being overrepresented in the “higher intelligent” and “less intelligent” categories? Many use this to justify the underrepresentation of women in science, STEM ,chess inventions and discoveries.

So, this has taken me a very long time to get to, but I hope you still see this Anon (and/or this helps other people)!

This question is a bit difficult because it’s actually getting at three related questions: (1) Is there evidence for greater male variability in intelligence? (2) If so, is this a biological difference?, and (3) If so, does this account for the overrepresentation of men in STEM?

So, I want to start by pointing out that even if both (1) and (2) are true, this would not provide evidence for (3). In particular, while people in STEM are generally of above-average intelligence, “above average” does not equate to “extreme tail of distribution” which is what this question considers. For example, performance on an academic or intelligence assessment does not intrinsically equate performance within a STEM field (e.g., genius level intellects who cannot work collaboratively, “merely” above-average individuals who dedicate their lives to specific problems). Furthermore, the simple presence of ability also does not equate to the opportunity to excel (e.g., women who have been forced into domestic roles rather than pursuing education and careers). I talk about this a lot more in this post, where I challenge the idea that women’s underrepresentation is a result of inability.

Furthermore, since I now intend to talk about various measures of intelligence, I’d also like to point out that treating intelligence as a fixed quantity (as IQ scores do) rather than as a dynamic characteristic that can be developed over time may actually contribute to lower achievement and participation by minorities in STEM fields [1, 2]. In particular, we know that environment has a large effect on IQ scores, and we also have strong evidence that education – in childhood but also possibly beyond – can increase someone’s IQ score [3-6].

So, with that in mind, for first two questions:

The first important issue to note here is that the majority of this research has some major flaws that draw conclusions into question [7]. While this paper highlights these methodological issues in respect to a paper arguing against greater male variability, in truth the same issues (e.g., reliance on the variance ratio, possibly erroneous assumptions about underlying distributions) are present in almost the entire literature base for this question. That being said, the existence of these criticisms doesn’t necessarily invalidate the field as a whole, but they do suggest that we must be cautious in drawing conclusions and making generalizations based on the existing research.

The second issue is that – based on my research – this question is not yet settled. There are many articles claiming to have found evidence of greater male variability in various domains, and there are many articles claiming to have no such evidence. That being said, none of the articles claiming to have found a gender difference in variability (question 1) provide support for the idea that this difference is innate (question 2). Indeed, there is evidence that suggests the opposite: that whatever small gender differences in variability exist, it is because of differences in socialization and culture.

For specific studies, it was sometimes difficult to draw a line between what studies support the greater male variability (GMV) hypothesis and what studies challenge it, as the same results can be interpreted in different ways based on the author. As such, I’ve combined most of the work below:

A 1994 cross-cultural review [15] of verbal, math, and spatial abilities found no consistent GMV across nations. Instead, males were more variable in some countries and females in other countries. They suggest this means that average variance ratios are not meaningful as they vary by cultural context.

This textbook chapter from 1997 [8] discusses a lot of the older research that supports the GMV hypothesis, noting that many tests find a small gender difference in variance ratio. However, they caution against over-interpretation of these findings given that: methodological issues tip interpretation towards a conclusion of GMV; GMV was not found for all traits or tests; and GMV varied as a function of ethnicity, age, and year of testing such that GMV appears to have decreased over time. They also explicitly note that cultural differences could be the reason for such findings, with the earlier caveats supporting such a conclusion. Ultimately, they conclude: “Within the practical realm, the meta-analyses that we have reviewed here provide no evidence that deficits in abilities are responsible for the underrepresentation of women in the fields of mathematics, science, and engineering.” and “The greater male variability hypothesis has become important at the very times in history when women have challenged the limitations imposed on them by society. This pattern should sound a warning to be careful of arguments that there is a generalized greater male variability or that any gender difference is explained by the finding of greater male variability.”

This 2008 article [9] looked at gender gaps in math and reading tests around the world and found boys were more variable than girls on both math and reading tests. However, this did not equate to having more boys in both tails of each distribution. In particular, there were more boys at the top of the math distribution and the bottom of the reading distributions. However, these results were not replicated in every country examined. Once again, this implicates cultural differences in gender socialization as a probable cause of these differences.

A Scotland population study in 2008 [10] found GMV in an IQ-equivalent test. However, they also found that the variability differences were smaller at the high end than the low end of the distribution. Furthermore, they compared their ratios to the male:female ratios in STEM fields and found that the GMV was substantially lower than the ratios found in STEM fields, suggesting GMV cannot account for these differences.

This 2010 meta-analysis [16] of gender differences in mathematics took a unique approach to the question, using the idea that if the GMV hypothesis is true, then gender differences in performance would be greater for more difficult items. Their results did not show this pattern, suggesting the GMV hypothesis is not accurate.

A 2011 study on mathematics performance [17] completed a meta-analysis and found a trivial variance ratio in favor of men. However, they also analyzed large random samples and found variance ratios ranged from 0.88 (which favors females) and 1.34 (which favors males). Ultimately, these results indicate that GMV is either not present or trivial.

A 2012 international meta-analysis [18] found a trivial variance ratio in favor of GMV, but indicated the results varied substantially between nations. They argue that this is evidence against the GMV hypothesis, as it indicates that males do not inherently display greater variance.

A 2016 study on various measures of intelligence in a nationally representative sample in Romania [19] found very few sex differences were replicated across measures. When sex differences were found, they were very small. They suggest this means that “any sex … variance differences are likely spurious and the result of sampling or measurement errors rather than substantive and stable effects.”

This 2018 meta-analysis [11] found GMV in boys’ grades than girls’ grades; however, they found the gender difference in variance was lower in STEM than in non-STEM subjects. This once again suggests that “greater variability is insufficient to explain male over-representation in STEM.”

Another 2018 meta-analysis of differences in verbal performance [20] found a trivial variance ratio in favor of males.

A 2019 meta-analysis [12] looking at international exam scores broadly confirmed GMV from a global standpoint but found significant heterogeneity between countries. Furthermore, they found that the Global Gender Gap Index has a large impact on variance ratios, such that increasing women’s equality in various fields (i.e., political, economic, educational) increases their variance and decreases the gender difference in variance. Again, this suggests that gendered socialization plays a major role in GMV.

A 2023 meta-analysis on creativity [21] found that “gender differences in the … variability of creative ability scores are minimal and inconsistent across different contexts, suggesting that the GMVH may not provide much explanatory power for the gender gap in creative achievement.” This article also digs into a lot of the methodological and interpretative problems of studies advancing the GMV hypothesis.

Another meta-analysis from 2024 [13] looks at versions of another intelligence scale for children. They found that males were more variable on some domains, females on other domains, and no difference on other domains. The differences were often small.

A 2025 meta-analysis about Italian children [14] also found that gender differences in variability varied by the trait examined.

Finally, this 2009 study [22] addresses many of the arguments I touch on above and is written (I think) in a way laymen can understand. This is the text of their abstract (emphasis mine):

Using contemporary data from the U.S. and other nations, we address 3 questions: Do gender differences in mathematics performance exist in the general population? Do gender differences exist among the mathematically talented? Do females exist who possess profound mathematical talent? In regard to the first question, contemporary data indicate that girls in the U.S. have reached parity with boys in mathematics performance, a pattern that is found in some other nations as well. Focusing on the second question, studies find more males than females scoring above the 95th or 99th percentile, but this gender gap has significantly narrowed over time in the U.S. and is not found among some ethnic groups and in some nations. Furthermore, data from several studies indicate that greater male variability with respect to mathematics is not ubiquitous. Rather, its presence correlates with several measures of gender inequality. Thus, it is largely an artifact of changeable sociocultural factors, not immutable, innate biological differences between the sexes. Responding to the third question, we document the existence of females who possess profound mathematical talent. Finally, we review mounting evidence that both the magnitude of mean math gender differences and the frequency of identification of gifted and profoundly gifted females significantly correlate with sociocultural factors, including measures of gender equality across nations.

If you’d like additional detail on this topic, I’d recommend starting with that article.

So, in conclusion:

Do men show greater variability in intelligence? Possibly. If they do, then this difference is most likely trivial in size and dependent on other factors. However, there is still substantial debate in the field on this topic, and a recent paper calls into question much of the existing literature.

If they do, is this difference innate or biological? Most likely no. Differences in GMV across cultures, a reduction in GMV over time, the correlation between GMV and social factors – particularly gender equality and economic indexes – all suggest that any degree of GMV that does exist is most likely a product of differing gender socialization.

If they do, does this account for the overrepresentation of men in STEM fields? Definitely not. The degree of GMV is trivial in comparison to the level of men’s overrepresentation, indicating that the GMV – if it does exist – cannot explain this representation difference.

I hope this helps!

References under the cut:

male-class-treason

Great post as usual. I wasn't the original anon but reading this made me think of a follow-up question, if you have the time or interest to answer. (I tried searching your blog for the term "chess" because that's the best example of this angle that I could think of.)

Leaving aside "intelligence" or "IQ" for a minute, I've heard the hypothesis that at least part of the gap in chess performance between men and women is due to differences in personality and temperament that may have something to do with nature, and not nurture; i.e. men and boys are more likely than women and girls to have the type of unusual personality that motivates someone to sit for hours every day studying a chess board to memorize patterns and work out problems that ultimately have no practical or social value whatsoever, which is the only way for a person of either sex to fully realize whatever chess-playing ability their natural gifts allow for.

Of course, I'm not bringing this up to discount all the other factors at work here (e.g. sexist fathers encouraging their sons but not their daughters to play chess, boys refusing to play against girls) just wondering if you think that innate differences in personality have any effect, or if it is entirely socially constructed?

evidence-based-activism

Hello! Thank you!

So, much like the original question, this can be broken down into a few sub-questions, specifically: (1) Are there personality differences between men and women – particularly ones related to chess? (2) If so, are these differences innate or biological? (3) If so, do these differences explain the gender gap in chess performance?

This 2023 systematic review of the gender gap in chess [1] does a good job describing and analyzing the various theories for the gender gap. They end up concluding that none of the current theories – or at least the evidence we currently have for them – fully explain the gender gap. I’m going to talk about the personality section in particular and then highlight a few particular studies I found noteworthy.

First, they describe research that shows men and women have different personality traits that may be related to chess performance. In particular, male chess players are more likely to be assertive and aggressive, less agreeable, more likely to take risks, and less anxious than female chess players. This provides tentative support for the first question; however, they do not suggest that these differences are innate. Nor would a biological explanation for differences in personality be necessary; gendered socialization starts from (or even before) birth with the above differences in personality aligning with gendered expectations for men and women. Furthermore, these differences in personality are small and unlikely to account for the larger gap in chess performance.

That being said, even personality measurements are subject to stereotype bias, as they are often self-reported. And indeed, some literature suggests that the commonly found gender differences in personality traits are a result of people self-reporting in accordance with stereotypes [2, 3]. Furthermore, the fact that gender differences in personality traits vary by culture [4, 5] supports the hypothesis that such personality differences are socially constructed instead of innate.

I found two other theories discussed in this paper particularly compelling. First is the theory that there are more men than women in the top ranks of chess simply because there are more men who start out playing chess (which can be attributed to differing gender socialization). The various papers discussed suggest this factor can account for 53-96% of the gender gap.

Second, is the theory that female chess players’ performance is reduced as a result of the stereotype threat. In other words, the common social expectation that men are better chess players actually reduces women’s performance. A study concerning this theory was actually the only experimental study identified [6]. They found that “When players were unaware of the sex of the opponent (control condition), females played approximately as well as males. When the gender stereotype was activated (experimental condition), women showed a drastic performance drop, but only when they were aware that they were playing against a male opponent.” They also indicate that women “show lower chess-specific self-esteem” which corresponds to another article [7] that found men are more likely to be overconfident than women in general.

Lastly, a recent paper [8] challenges the idea that male players are superior to female players by examining players at peak performance, and found “females tend to equal males in both average rating and proportion of experts when both genders reach peak performance.” They attribute differences in the population of male and female players to the significant age differences between the groups.

So, for our questions:

Are there personality differences between men and women? Possibly. Research does describe some average differences in personality traits; however, the size and direction of these differences depend on the society studied as well as the instrument and methodology used. This suggests these differences may be an artifact rather than a true difference.

If so, are these differences innate or biological? Probably not. The fact that gender differences in personality can be eliminated or reduced by using implicit measurements, vary by culture, and correspond with cultural expectations of men and women suggests they are a result of the gender socialization that starts from (or even before) birth.

If so, do these differences explain the gender gap in chess performance? They may play a small role but cannot possibly explain the documented gender gap. It’s more likely that purely statistical differences (e.g., participation rates, average age by gender, etc.) or sociocultural explanations (e.g., stereotype threat) explain the majority of this difference. That being said, it’s most likely that the gender difference in chess performance is a result of a complex interaction of multiple factors including all the above and many more.

I hope that helps!

References under the cut:

#feminism #patriarchal culture

So, this has taken me a very long time to get to, but I hope you still see this Anon (and/or this helps other people)!

So, with that in mind, for first two questions:

Another 2018 meta-analysis of differences in verbal performance [20] found a trivial variance ratio in favor of males.

A 2025 meta-analysis about Italian children [14] also found that gender differences in variability varied by the trait examined.

Finally, this 2009 study [22] addresses many of the arguments I touch on above and is written (I think) in a way laymen can understand. This is the text of their abstract (emphasis mine):

If you’d like additional detail on this topic, I’d recommend starting with that article.

So, in conclusion:

I hope this helps!

References under the cut:

#feminism #patriarchal culture

i was the anon who sent a question about intersex variations and biological sex a while ago, and i know your posts take a while to make so this is NOT a “hey can you do this” but i noticed you added a “no ai generated asks” into your as policy so just wanna let you know i am in fact a real person who’s curious about defining biological sex and shit

You're okay, Anon! Your ask didn't read as AI-generated at all, and it is definitely on my list! (It's a very interesting question, and I hope my answer does it justice!)

(For anyone else who may be concerned, that new rule was prompted by a series of very long – and nearly nonsensical – spam asks sent in close proximity to each other.)

#not political

evidence-based-activism

https://www.tumblr.com/evidence-based-activism/779911340011732992/some-liberals-really-seem-to-think-bigotry?source=share

same with misandry

Misandry (i.e., discrimination against/oppression of men specifically because they are male) does not exist.

What people call "misandry" can, in reality, be divided into:

Discrimination on some other characteristic (e.g., race, sexuality, etc.)

Factually inaccurate myths (usually based in misogyny)

The result of actions and policies created and enforced by men (i.e., a negative side effect of misogynistic social structures)

People making mean jokes on the internet

My response to these:

This is not discrimination against men, but discrimination against some other disadvantaged group.

These are simply lies and much of this blog is devoted to debunking them.

This is also not misandry; it is the side effects of a misogynistic social structure designed to benefit men. Moreover, women are not responsible for the problems men create for themselves. (Speaking metaphorically: the recoil of the gun you shoot at us is not our concern. If you don't want a dislocated shoulder, then put down the weapon.)

This is still not misandry any more than jokes about straight people are "heterophobia". It does not reflect personal or societal power dynamics and has little to no effects on men’s personal circumstances. If you really find it so distressing, then log off the internet.

(For a different Anon who sent a post with a list of "men's problems": those issues are all one or more of the above. Also for another anon who sent a link to a discussion about "misandry.")

evidence-based-activism

For the recent "misandry" Anons.

#feminism #patriarchal culture

evidence-based-activism

you’re still ignoring WHY the rates for men are so high, because women get underreported and don’t get taken seriously at all when they commit crimes. Women abuse children more and initiate 70% of domestic violence, yet men are still portrayed as the villains. You should read the comments or some of the reblogs under that post. Full of people who have been abused by women and have been safer when around only men,and never been taken seriously. You say it’s a strawman fallacy but no it’s not, radfems say this shit all the timesee. and are very gender essentialist themselves. Maybe you’re not saying it but a lot of popular radfems are, to mostly agreement from other radfems,so you can’t really blame people for seeing that and understanding it to be a popular TERF take.

Hi -

So, I'm going to answer this ask and the one that includes the bustle link that I expect was also sent by you? However, I'm not going to continue putting in this degree of effort (i.e., reading and researching the information you send) unless you start matching that effort. It will be difficult for you to do so in an ask (although I suppose you could try), so I suggest you reblog this post to further discuss.

So, on to the response:

---

No, there is not a significant reporting gap (at least, not one caused by sex).

You said "women get underreported and don’t get taken seriously at all when they commit crimes", but there is no evidence that is the case. Let's take the crime data from two sources: the criminal victimization survey by the BJS [1] and the FBI crime data explorer [2]. These two sources are helpful for this discussion because the BJS attempts to determine total offenses including those not reported, while the FBI only looks at reported offenses.

For 2022 (rounding numbers) and looking at violent offenses (excluding homicide as the BJS report is interview based):

Male violent crime: 4,750,000 estimated by the BJS and 1,990,000 reported by the FBI for an overall 42% reporting rate

Female violent crime: 1,220,000 estimated by the BJS and 777,000 reported by the FBI for an overall 64% reporting rate

These numbers would suggest that more female offenders than male offenders are reported (i.e., a greater percent of female offenders, even though in absolute terms there are far fewer female offenders). However, there are some caveats to this data that makes me reluctant to state this conclusion:

The crime definitions between the BJS and FBI differ slightly. For example, I had to search through the "other crimes" for the FBI to find simple assault and several additional sexual assault categories to try and match the overall BJS "violent crime" statistic.

These stats are incident based not offender based. So, for example, if John commits 10 aggravated assaults and 5 of his victims report the assault to the police, 5 incidents are recorded in the system. Therefore, recidivism may or may not play a role in reporting rates.

I calculated the rate using the offender stats for individual offenders and "both male and female offender". Proportionally speaking a greater percent of female offenders are in the "both" category (23% vs 6%). Other statistics suggest more severe crimes are more likely to be reported to the police (e.g., 50% of aggravated assault is reported vs 37% of simple assault). If we make the assumption that violent crimes involving multiple offenders are more likely to be severe, then this could partially explain the disparity.

However, this point is essentially irrelevant, as the statistics previously discussed in the CDC report don't rely on reported crimes, they specifically interview representative samples in order to determine prevalence rates. (The difference between this data (and data in the BJS report) and the number of reported cases is how we know these crimes are under-reported.)

Just to drive the point home: the BJS study, which again, looks at both reported and unreported crime indicates:

Men take part in 84% of violent crimes and the only offender(s) in 79% of violent crimes (the stats for women are 21% and 17% respectively)

The offender-to-population ratio is 1.6 for men and 0.3 for women. That means the share of men in the "offender population" is 60% more than the share of men in the US population. The share of women offenders is 70% less than their share of the US population.

And before you send me another debunked myth: no men are not victimized more: the victim-to-offender population ratio for all violent crimes is 1.0 for both men and women.

I've also talked about how men don't under-report abuse (at least, not anymore than women do) in the past, so see this post for a couple more sources.

There's also no evidence that crimes committed by women get taken less seriously. However, it is true that when women do commit crimes, they tend to be less severe than the crimes committed by men (i.e., women commit more simple assault and aggravated assault). Given this, women's crimes may be taken "less seriously", but that's because the crimes are less serious, going by the accepted definitions of the crime. (And this is not my personal opinion! There is an actual "crime hierarchy" used in the American justice system that ranks crimes by degree of severity.)

In terms of legal consequences, women and men receive similar sentence lengths with one major caveat [3]. Caretakers of children, especially, young children, routinely received shorter sentences. Since women are more likely to be the primary caretaker of children, they'd be more likely to see this sentence reduction. However, this gap has been closing since the introduction of mandatory minimum sentencing. Some research suggests women may receive harsher sentences than men for "traditionally male crimes" [4].

Either way, crimes by women are clearly taken at least as "seriously" as crimes by men.

---

No women do not abuse children more.

You said "Women abuse children more", but this is an oft-repeated statement from terribly misinterpreted data.

The misconception comes from data from the child maltreatment report from the HHS [5]. This report looks at reports of child abuse and neglect. In it they found that 52% of victims had a female perpetrator and 47% had a male perpetrator. At first glance, this looks like women abuse more children (hence the wide-spread misinterpretation), however this neglects to take several things into consideration.

First, since about 51% of the population is female, even if we considered nothing else, these values would suggest parity in maltreatment (abuse + neglect) rates. Of course, even this interpretation is deeply flawed, but I thought it merited pointing out.

Second, and perhaps most important, these stats are not looking at incidence or even prevalence rates. This isn't a rate at all. For example, you may be tempted to interpret these as "52% of children in a women's care are abused" or "52% of women abuse children". These are, and I must stress this, completely incorrect interpretations. These stats say only that of child maltreatment (abuse+neglect) victims identified by CPS, 52% of them were maltreated by a women.

Next, these stats fail to take into account the fact that many more women are the primary caretaker of children. According to the American Time Use Survey (ATUS), mothers spend 80% more time caring for children than fathers. This disparity widens even further when you exclude the "entertainment" categories like playing or reading to children (130% increase, or more than double) [6]. This matters because it provides some insight into how rates of abuse would be different. You need to adjust for time spent with children to get a meaningful rate. Another way to look at this is that despite mothers spending almost twice the amount of time around children as fathers, they account for the same number of perpetrators. This alone should tell you that a child is more likely to be safe in the company of a randomly selected woman than a randomly selected man.

In case you still aren't convinced however, the report also clarifies that the perpetrator sex varied widely by maltreatment type. Women were the perpetrator in 58.5% of neglect cases (vs 41%) and 70.5% of medical neglect cases (vs 29%). But men were the perpetrator in 49.5% of physical abuse cases (vs 49%), 89% of sexual abuse cases (vs 8%), and 59% of emotional abuse cases (vs 41%). While no form of child maltreatment is ever acceptable, I hope I don't need to explain how abuse (which "requires an action") is different from neglect (which "occurs from an inaction") and requires different responses.

Speaking of neglect: there is much discourse on how much of the neglect (and medical neglect) registered by CPS is "true neglect" and how much is a result of poverty. This is particularly relevant considering single mothers are much more likely to live in poverty than married couples or single fathers. Examples of this may include: a mother doesn't have enough money to buy food and pay for rent so she and her child eat very little until her next paycheck, a single mother can't miss work without being fired so she sends her sick child to school, a single mother can't pay for child care so she has to choose between leaving her child home alone or having an unfit adult (her own abusive parent? an unsuitable boyfriend?) watch her child. In all of these situations, something absolutely needs to be done to help the child, but it likely isn't the same something as a child who's being beaten or sexually abused by his father.

Other notes on neglect: even the relatively higher proportion of female perpetrators for neglect and medical neglect in this sample are well below parity when adjusted for time spent with the child. It’s also likely that men’s rates of neglect are likely severely under-reported here. Why? Because a neglect case is rarely (if ever) opened for absentee ("deadbeat") dads; it's also unclear how many men with non-primary custody are listed as perpetrators of neglect. (I ask you: if mothers are considered neglectful for failing to intervene on behalf of their child in abusive/neglectful situations, why aren't fathers?)

Other studies on child abuse perpetration (sadly no national reports) show:

Evaluations of child fatalities in Missouri over a 8-year period showed men inflicted 71% of fatal injuries on young children [8]

Evaluations of fatal and nonfatal abusive head trauma over a 12-year period at the Children's Hospital of Denver found 69% of the perpetrators were male (including 74% of the perpetrators of fatal head traumas) [9]

Data from conviction rates and victimization surveys suggest that 4-5% of adult, child sex offenders (as in child sex offenders who are adults) are female, meaning that 95-96% are male [10]

Altogether, this indicates that men are more likely to abuse a child in their care than women. Unsurprisingly, it’s safer for children to be around women than around men.

---

No, women do not initiate more domestic violence/commit the same amount of abuse.

You said "women ... initiate 70% of domestic violence". It took me a while to find a source for this statistic, but I eventually found out it comes from a poorly done study that unfortunately finds company with a number of other poorly done studies touted by MRAs and anti-feminists.

Before we address that study specifically: a brief history of the nonsense plaguing domestic violence research.

To be clear, this is not a new discussion, we (the general we) have been having this same discussion about whether there's gender parity in domestic violence for, oh, 50 years or so. It is, possibly not entirely, but certainly mostly the result of the "Conflict Tactics Scale" (CTS). Intended for use in family violence research, it has several methodological flaws which make its results ... let's go with unreliable.

I really thought I'd discussed the CTS before now ... but can't find anything on my blog. But there is this post which is a nice pictograph about this next topic, which I will loop into our discussion of the CTS.

So ... why is the CTS so unreliable? Because "domestic violence" is not a homogeneous phenomenon. If I asked someone to picture an abusive relationship they are almost certainly going to imagine an abusive man controlling his partner through intimidation, likely restricting her behavior, and possibly hitting or otherwise physically harming her. This "typical" dynamic is what we think of when we hear "domestic abuse/violence". (I'd argue that it's what we should think of when discussing domestic violence, but I'm open to being convinced otherwise.)

Notably, what this doesn't include is the -- far more common -- case of situational violence. A "typical" example of situational violence is arguments that "gets out of hand" and end with one partner slapping/shoving/etc. the other (switching between perpetrator for different incidents) or two people who routinely get "nasty" (name calling, personal insults) to each other during arguments. There's no intimidation or controlling behavior and it doesn't escalate. It also is generally not associated with significant victim hardship (i.e., no/little increase in depression, anxiety, or PTSD; little fear or feeling unable to escape the relationship; no or few physical injuries; little or no economic hardship; etc.). It's also what's predominately being measured by the CTS.

This isn't to say that situational violence is "okay". It clearly isn't, no more than a bar fight or slapping a co-worker is okay. It is, however, far more comparable to these examples (bar fight, slapping a coworker, etc.) than it is to the standard conception of domestic violence (which itself is more comparable to being a prisoner of war [11]). Some people have tried to resolve this by renaming the standard conception to "intimate partner terrorism" or "domestic abuse with coercive control". I have ... mixed thoughts on this, so I'm going to leave it at this for now.

If you'd like to read more about this, Michael P. Johnson at PSU (who originally proposed this division back in the 1990s!) has written a book and also has numerous articles about the topic.

I have a lot of sources about the CTS/differences in violence perpetration rates, but this post is already very long and I plan to make a whole separate post about this at some point. So, I'm going to briefly summarize the points and give some references that would be particularly helpful.

So, the issues with CTS include:

Failure to include a full range of possible violent behaviors, including many that are almost always perpetrated by men, including: rape, murder, choking, and suffocation.

Failure to examine post-breakup/divorce time periods, despite post-separation being one of the most dangerous time periods for abused women (but, notably, not men).

Failure to examine context. This gets back at the paradigm I mentioned above: studies that do examine context have shown that the vast majority of coercive controlling violence (i.e., traditional abuse) is perpetrated by men and the vast majority of responsive violence (i.e., self-defense) is perpetrated by women.

Failure to examine the severity of the violence and/or violence impacts. Studies have also shown that women routinely receive the more severe injuries than men. That applies to both the injuries received from coercive controlling violence and from situational violence. Notably, men are rarely ever injured from responsive violence. Women also routinely report more severe psychological and social problems as a result of abuse.

Extremely poor phrasing of the questions. The CTS is unique in its false positive rate, as has been established by several other measures of violence. For example, simply adding the stem "Not including horseplay or joking around..." reduced the number of violent incidents reported and also showed higher rates of female victimization than male victimization.

Inconsistency with every other scale/measure used for determining prevalence rates of abuse! Hopefully it is obvious why this is an issue, but as an example: if I created a new measure for "depressive symptoms" and I found that it correlated very poorly with every other accepted measure of depressive symptoms then my new measure would be considered to have very poor "convergent validity". In non-politicized situations, my measure would likely never make it to the publishing stage, and would certainly fall out of use once this poor validity demonstrated by another study. Unfortunately, science is not immune to politics any more than the people conducting it are, as we can see with the survival of the CTS.

I gathered this information from a bunch of sources, but I've selected a few reviews (i.e., papers that "review" or condense many other papers into one) that would be helpful to you [12-16]. I recommend [12] in particular, although [13] touches on much of the same information and is much shorter. Ultimately, the CTS can, at most, be considered a measure of situational violence (and it's not even very good at that!).

---

So, finally, why is the 70% study [17] particularly bad?

All of the above problems with CTS apply, but in addition to all of that, they didn't just use the already flawed measure as it was ... no they, narrowed it down into 6 total questions. In total it asked about the respondent's perpetration of victimization of the following forms of violence: threatening with violence, pushing/shoving, throwing something, slapped, hit, kicked. They then "assessed" severity by asking a single question about injuries ("How often has partner had an injury, such as a sprain, bruise, or cut because of a fight with you?" and the corresponding victimization version.)

So, let's see ... failure to include predominately male forms of violence? Check. Further exclusion of even the existing items on the CTS that do examine this? Check! Failure to examine time past the relationship? Check. Failure to examine context? Check! Failure to examine severity of violence? Check. (Asking about a sprain or a bruise but not hospitalizations? broken bones? concussions?) Inconsistency with all other measures? Definitely!

Other problems with the study: they asked individuals to rate their perpetration and victimization, they did not examine their partners responses to such questions. This is a problem for a study like this, given that men tend to over-estimate their partners violence towards them and under-estimate their own violence towards their partner, and women do the opposite over-estimating their own violence and under-estimating their partners [12]. A note that a related problem has also shown up for the original CTS (i.e., if you asked both partners to complete the scale, their responses may agree on the "explaining a disagreement" item pair, but there was little if any agreement on the severe items like the "beating up" item pair).

To make a bad problem even worse: they condensed their multi-item (8-point) scales into binary (yes/no) categories and 3-item (low/medium/high) categories. This reduction in variance likely created artificially high rates for women and artificially low rates for men.

Hilariously (infuriatingly), they make it all the way through this data and then acknowledge that their study may not actually have examined domestic abuse at all! Instead it describes "common couple violence or situational violence", which, again, goes back to what the paradigm I introduced earlier. Of course, they don't revise their title or abstract to be less misleading ... that wouldn't be sensational enough.

Also, just to point this out: even this poorly designed, misleading study still showed "men were more likely to inflict an injury on a partner than ... women". So ... there you go. Even tipping the scales/design as far in favor of a "gender symmetry" result as they can possibly go, women still end up injured more than men.

---

So, for the rest of your ask:

"yet men are still portrayed as the villains"

well when 1 in 3 men around the world openly admit to abusing women, and they are the perpetrator of 90+% of homicides, and 10-67% of men openly admit to believing non-defensive physical and sexual violence against women is at least sometimes okay it's pretty easy to see why women can see them as the villain/enemy.

"You should read the comments or some of the reblogs under that post. Full of people who have been abused by women and have been safer when around only men,and never been taken seriously."

This is one of those cases where critical thinking skills are pretty important! Let me start you off:

Do I think that a social media post will garner a representative sample from which to draw conclusions? Or is more likely that people who agree with the post will comment on and re-blog it, spreading it more people who are more likely to agree with it?

Can I see the re-blog I'm making comments about (i.e., evidence-based-activism's re-blog?). If not, (hint: it's not in the re-blog viewer :)) is it possible that there are other hidden replies that are disagreeing with this post?

Maybe most importantly: do I need female-on-male or female-on-female violence to be as common as male-on-female and male-on-male violence in order to show compassion to those who do experience it? (Hint: you shouldn't!! Something doesn't need to be common to deserve sympathy and rare =/= excusable.)

In addition, this is touching on a pretty common issue with discourse these days -- the prioritization of "feeling" over "being". Someone (male or female) may feel safer around men, but statistically speaking they are safer around women. It's reasonable to respond to and accommodate people's feelings on an individual basis, it's not reasonable to base an ideology or policy around them.

"You say it’s a strawman fallacy but no it’s not, radfems say this shit all the timesee. ... Maybe you’re not saying it but a lot of popular radfems are, to mostly agreement from other radfems,so you can’t really blame people for seeing that and understanding it to be a popular TERF take."

Similar to the last point ... views on social media are not representative of a population. Views that you, specifically, are seeing are not representative! If they were, then "well, I see more posts preemptively criticizing people for not including men than I see posts excluding men" (which is true, almost every post I read now-a-days includes caveats like "but men are abused too!! and women can be abusers!!") would have been a valid counter-argument to your ask. But see, I know that my experience on social media is not universal, and I should hope you can acknowledge the same of your own!

Also ... to be fair to all these unnamed "radfems", I'm guessing that you would consider my posts (like this response) to be an example of someone "saying this", which is very much not the case. I am acknowledging social trends and making reasonable generalizations to allow for communication about a complex topic (you know, the way people do for any and every topic ever), but I'm not claiming that no women is ever abusive or that no man has ever been abused. I'm guessing that these other posts are pretty similar (if less verbose).

side note, you also said: "radfems ... are very gender essentialist themselves".

Either you don't know what "gender essentialist" means or the people you are talking to/about are not radfems. I acknowledge that there are a number of people going around and saying they're radfems, but the nice thing about a political group like this is they have (at least some) defined beliefs.

So, for example, if someone went around saying they are a communist, but then when asked to describe their desired economic system, describes an economy based around the free market and decentralized production ... then they aren't a communist no matter what they call themselves. A command economy is a central tenant to communism, so much so that a desire to implement one/have one is intrinsic to being a communist.

In the same way, if someone is calling themselves a radfem, but supports the preservation of gender/gender roles or believes that femininity/masculinity is biologically innate ... then they aren't a radfem.

---

TL;DR:

Violent crimes for women and men are reported at similar rates.

Women and men are punished similarly for violent crimes (i.e., people do take crimes by women seriously).

Children are safer in the company of women than men. There is insufficient research to accurately describe perpetrator demographics of "minor" child abuse/neglect, but there is significant research indicating that men are the perpetrator of the the vast majority of severe injuries, fatal injuries, and sexual abuse.

Men commit the vast majority controlling domestic violence (the type of violence people think of when thinking about domestic violence); women's violence is predominately responsive. Women are also the recipients of the vast majority of injuries (minor and severe) and are the victim of almost all fatalities.

Social media posts are not representative studies.

Critical thinking skills are important!

And, everyone -- regardless of sex or any other demographic characteristic -- deserves compassion when harmed. It is still appropriate talk about trends and create policies that assist the majority of those harmed.

A reminder that I will expect a reasonable degree of engagement with this information if you plan to engage in further discussion! I'll answer the bustle link ask, but after that I'll simply delete asks that don't make a genuine attempt to think critically about this information. (Clarifying questions are okay to ask though :)).

---

References below the cut:

evidence-based-activism

For Anon: yes, domestic violence is a gendered issue. Also, see the rest of the domestic violence section of my male violence masterlist.

#feminism #male violence

evidence-based-activism

Ask Policy

I didn't think I'd need to define rules for this, but I don't intend to answer asks that:

Are clearly meant to be your own post. (Articulating the difference is somewhat difficult, because I will respond to involved questions or even anonymous commentary on my posts, but if an ask "reads like" something you would post on your own blog then ... please post it on your own blog.)

Are promotions/requests for promotions of your/another's content.

Are about identifying personal information.

Are explicitly abusive (e.g., death threats, rape threats, etc.).

Are just a link. Sending a link in addition to a question – that can stand on its own – is fine, but don't just send me a link. (Note: I do not consider copy-pasting text from the link you are sending to be your own question.)

Are extremely obvious bait. If it reads like a "copypasta" I am not going to respond. (Particularly if it's on a topic I have already addressed.)

Are a response to another person’s anon. (If you want to address someone else, please just reply or reblog the relevant post. Don’t use my inbox as a messenger.)

Are obviously AI-generated.

If you aren't sure if your ask fits into these categories/it's borderline then feel free to send it ... but if I don't answer it, be aware that this may be why.

Finally, please check my masterlists before sending an ask! There's a pretty good chance I've answered your question before!

Thanks!

evidence-based-activism

Unfortunately, it's become necessary for me to add a rule on AI generated asks.

#not political

Sexual Violence is a Gendered Issue (2023/24 CDC Data)

The CDC has recently published a preliminary data brief for sexual violence victimization from their 2023/2024 national survey [1]. Unfortunately, we still have to wait longer for their more detailed report, but this data brief already includes some important information.

So, for context, I am still annoyed by the misrepresentation of earlier CDC data described in this post.

So, what's changed?

First, they have improved their sampling methodology to reduce nonresponse and noncoverage bias. Ultimately, they more than doubled their response rate compared to their 2016/2017 survey, and also increased their cooperation rate by more than 20%. These changes – among others – mean these new estimates are likely to be closer to the true population prevalence of sexual violence victimization. [2, vocabulary in references section]

So, what are the new estimates?

Notes:

Contact sexual violence refers to rape, made to penetrate, sexual coercion, or unwanted sexual contact. Made to penetrate victimization was not asked of women. Black bars indicate confidence interval for prevalence estimates.

Their new estimates indicate 45% of women and 17% of men in the USA have ever experienced any form of contact sexual violence. (Both of these estimates are reduced from their 2016/2017 estimates. This does not indicate that sexual violence rates have decreased; the true population prevalence of sexual violence has most likely remained the same. These estimates simply better reflect the true prevalence due to methodological improvements.)

Notably, the linked post above references an article where someone was misrepresenting CDC data to suggest that rape is not a gendered issue (i.e., that men and women are victims and perpetrators of sexual violence at the same rate). I debunked those claims in that post, but I'd like to highlight the same estimates here. Based on this data, if we assume there is absolutely no overlap between male rape, made to penetrate, and sexual coercion victims, we can create an upper limit estimate for male rape (i.e., using a colloquial and inclusive definition of rape) victimization of 13%.

This upper limit estimate for men is 40% less than the lower limit estimate for female rape victimization (i.e., assuming complete overlap between female rape and sexual coercion victims, where every female sexual coercion victim is also a rape victim).

To be clear, neither of these assumptions is actually likely. Previous data indicates a partial overlap between all of these categories for both male and female victims. In other words, this difference is most likely even larger.

Further, as indicated, both the lifetime and last-year estimates for any contact sexual violence are over 2.5 times larger for women than men.

Hopefully, this data can lay to rest the MRA myth that sexual violence is not a gendered issue.

References under the cut:

#feminism #male violence

Hello! First of all, I’d like to thank you for all the time and effort you’ve put into your posts. The data you’ve shared is invaluable, and I appreciate having evidence that has backed up my views and challenged my erroneous assumptions. I also want to thank you for your compassionate tone when discussing difficult subjects, as well as your steadfastness to feminist principles.

Second, could I ask you to elaborate on this claim? I’m having trouble understanding it.

However, this is not the case for all – or, I think, even most – sexual violence. Instead, in many cases, the perpetrator is specifically seeking sexual gratification through a sexual act. In these cases, the sexual act itself is the goal, and the perpetrator simply disregards the impact it has on his victim.

Wouldn’t power still be involved in any violent act that is sexual? If sexual gratification is the sole goal, why would it be enacted violently when the perpetrator is free from a desire to feel powerful? What is the appeal of a violent sex act if a non-violent sex act could also gratify?

As you said, and I agree, most perpetrators fall somewhere on the spectrum between these two extremes, but I don’t believe this pole—a perpetrator motivated by sexual gratification and not power—exists, especially not in societies where gender functions to oppress one sex class into service of the other. When sexual intercourse is still too commonly framed by society as an act of submission or dominance, not mutual dependence, how can we exclude power from any perpetrator’s motivations? It seems impossible to divorce from the mixture. Aren’t acts of domination implicitly, if not explicitly, related to power—and consequently, shouldn’t the common refrain still hold true?

I might be reading your claim too literally or just incorrectly, for which I do apologise.

Hello! I’m glad my blog has been helpful!! This is one of the kindest compliments I’ve received, and I very much appreciate it!

(For context, this ask is in reference this post.)

First, I am so sorry this response has taken so long! I really hope you still see this because this is a great follow-up question!

So, I think it’s possible our disconnect on the quoted statement may be a result of a difference in the spectrum of violent acts we are considering.

So, from my perspective: I am considering both acts that are recognizably violent (e.g., a forcible rape) and acts that are – from some people’s perspectives – not obviously violent (e.g., low-intensity sexual coercion). The latter type of acts are not violent in that the perpetrator uses physical force, but they are violent in that they physically infringe on the victim’s bodily autonomy. (This is what I meant by: “I believe that sexual violence is inherently violent because it physically infringes upon the bodily autonomy of an individual. As a result, coercing sexual activity is an act of violence, even when no explicit force is used.”)

So, on one end of this sexual violence spectrum, you have acts that are specifically intended to control or humiliate the victim. For example, cases have been described where a group of heterosexual men gang-rape another man. Because they are heterosexual (i.e., do not feel sexual attraction or want to engage in consensual sexual acts with other men), they experience no inherent sexual gratification in the male sexual acts. However, they still experience sexual gratification during their offense via their domination and humiliation of another man. (This is an example of what I was referring to by: “The perpetrator may still be obtaining sexual gratification, but it is secondary to and/or a result of the victim's pain and humiliation rather than the sex act itself.”)

On the other end of the spectrum, you have perpetrators who would have been “satisfied” (i.e., achieved his goal of sexual gratification) by a consensual encounter. In these cases, the goal is not domination of the victim for a sense of power; the goal is “obtaining” the sexual act itself. The problem emerges because he is willing to disregard the personhood and autonomy of his victim in pursuit of that goal. An example of this would be an intimate partner who uses some forms of verbal coercion to induce his partner into sex. (This is what I meant by: “In these cases, the sexual act itself is the goal, and the perpetrator simply disregards the impact it has on his victim.”)

I think this may answer your initial questions? Primarily, I am considering coerced sex acts to be violent acts even if they do not involve overt expressions of physical force.

—

With that being said, you bring up a very good point about how “sexual intercourse is still too commonly framed by society as an act of submission or dominance” especially in “in societies where gender functions to oppress one sex class into service of the other.” If I apply this to my above perspective, then yes, I would say that an expression of power is inherent to all acts of sexual violence, including the latter end of the spectrum I described above. In particular, I suspect that anyone willing to disregard the autonomy of his victim is also more likely to consider sexual intercourse in terms of domination and submission. In this case, even though he would have theoretically been satisfied with consensual sex, his perspective is so interwoven with patriarchal sexual politics that an expression of power is still a primary component of his actions.

However, I’d point out that this would then also apply to consensual sexual acts. I could easily say that, given the dominant social narrative around sex, how can we separate power and consensual sex? In a society where certain sexual behaviors are considered the norm (i.e., expected or even mandatory in a romantic relationship), how genuine is consent to these acts? I think this is particularly true in reference to penetrative sex acts, which I’ve briefly discussed before.

In short, men often frame acts of penetration as an act of dominance, and therefore these acts are still tied up with concepts of power and violence. The fact that these narratives are so ubiquitous in society makes it hard to determine to what degree a desire for or expression of power is involved in any particular man’s sexual desires and behaviors.

But again, I believe this is true even for consensual sex. (To whatever degree you believe society currently allows for consensual sexual activity, which is another long and nuanced discussion.) As such, I think it would still be useful to analyze a spectrum of sexually violent behaviors as ranging from expressing power as a primary goal to a generally ignored side effect of the act.

I hope this makes sense! Thank you for writing, as you definitely brought up some important nuance I hadn’t explicitly considered!

#feminism #patriarchal culture

Sorry if this is stupid, but is the world really a 50/50 split of men and women? I feel like the abortions+killing of baby girls must make an impact?

And for the follow-up question:

I don’t know if you would have gotten it since I think I sent it before you went on hiatus, but I was wondering if men and women are truly equal in population like people say, when femicide is so common.

I did get your question, I just have a pretty full inbox! And it's not stupid!

The United Nations estimates the global gender ratio to be ~49.7% female in 2024 [1]. So, there is – roughly – a 50/50 split worldwide. This single figure does, however, obscure some important differences by country and age [2]. For example, the estimated percentage of women by country ranges from 29% (in countries with very high male-immigration rates) to 55%. Men also tend to outnumber women up until age 50, at which point the percentage of men drops dramatically.

That being said, there is still a substantial amount of femicide occurring. But given the very large world population (about 2,000 times larger than my annual femicide estimate), the femicide is not shifting the worldwide sex ratios. (It does shift the sex ratios in certain countries such as in China and India.)

I hope this helps!

References under the cut:

#feminism #patriarchal culture

Thank you so much for all of your hard work (please never delete your blog)!!

Do you post and/or save your posts and writings somewhere else btw? I hope you do so that nothing gets lost 🥹

Anyways, I hope that the rest of your year will be peaceful and nice and that you're doing well! 🧸

Thank you!! Don't worry, I won't delete this blog! Thank you for the kind words!

I export my blog using the built-in function on tumblr to save all the posts.

I hope you are also well!

#not political

Patriarchal Culture Sublist: Sex and Relationships

Limits on post content necessitated the division of my original patriarchal culture masterlist into sublists. This sublist covers misogyny in social relationships including consent, kink, and friendships.

Most of these posts are mine, but I will include the occasional resource from others.

Please refer to my main patriarchal culture masterlist for further topics.

This post will be edited to include further resources, so check back on the original post link for updates. (Last update: 12/2025)

#feminism #patriarchal culture #masterlist

Patriarchal Culture Sublist: Medical Misogyny and Mental Health

Limits on post content necessitated the division of my original patriarchal culture masterlist into sublists. This sublist covers misogyny in medical contexts including abortion and mental health.

Most of these posts are mine, but I will include the occasional resource from others.

Please refer to my main patriarchal culture masterlist for further topics.

This post will be edited to include further resources, so check back on the original post link for updates. (Last update: 12/2025)

#feminism #patriarchal culture #masterlist

Patriarchal Culture Sublist: Social and Legal Institutions

Limits on post content necessitated the division of my original patriarchal culture masterlist into sublists. This sublist covers misogyny in social and legal institutions such as political representation, marriage, or educational systems.

Most of these posts are mine, but I will include the occasional resource from others.

Please refer to my main patriarchal culture masterlist for further topics.

This post will be edited to include further resources, so check back on the original post link for updates. (Last update: 12/2025)

#feminism #patriarchal culture #masterlist

evidence-based-activism

I love what you do! Have you made any posts about this claim I've seen come up a few times, that women's physical/mental "femininity" is partly influenced by males selecting mates for misogynistic standards? "Not true, that would also affect males" is the answer I've heard to that, and it makes sense, but I don't understand enough to be certain. Is there anything more to it?

Also for this Anon:

hi. there was this post going around that talked about how men have 'selectively bred us into frail neotenous creatures over centuries' and 'made sexual dimorphism worse though centuries old diet culture' and that really kind of pissed me off cuz I think its straight up pseudoscience. is there any truth to these statements?

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I think the argument you're referencing here is the idea that male mate choice (i.e., men choosing among a group of potential female mates) has increased sexual dimorphism between men and women.

I should start out by saying that I'm fairly skeptical of most arguments centered around evolutionary biology/psychology, since I think they usually fall into the "Just So Fallacy", particularly if they fall into pop culture's hands. I discuss this a bit in this post and this post.

(To preempt possible confusion: I do not mean that I think evolution/natural selection hasn't played a role in sexual dimorphism/biology/psychology. Rather, I fully expect it has played a vital role. However, I find almost every argument that attempts to explain human behavior/biology from a purely evolutionary standpoint to be reductive and poorly structured.)

With all of that in mind, I have looked into the research on this topic and found some relevant information.

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First, this argument is essentially about human sexual selection, which is similar to natural selection but emphasizes the traits needed to acquire a mate for reproductive success. The general understanding of human sexual selection is that, "men probably competed for mates mainly by excluding competitors by force or threat, and women probably competed primarily by attracting mates" [1, 2]. In other words, this theory suggests that men's secondary sex characteristics were beneficial for competing with other men, while women's secondary sex characteristics were beneficial for attracting male mates. Some work does suggest that this includes things like "gracile facial features, reduced body hair, and high voices."

However, to emphasize the issues with the current literature, these conclusions were drawn based on modern men's ratings of attractiveness to various female sex characteristics. These studies fail to consider the effect of socialization (e.g., pop culture beauty standards, porn exposure, etc.). The assumption here is that ancient men must have been attracted to the same things modern men are attracted to, but we do not have confirmatory evidence of this.

Some other work [2] discusses how men's larger size and greater aggression – while often discussed in reference to male-male competition – also afforded them an ability to sexually coerce women, going as far as to suggest "male mate choice was probably central in women's mating competition because ancestral females could not constrain the choices of larger and more aggressive males through force".

But this is not the only theory in this field. Another study [3] suggests that sexual selection instigated male sexual dimorphism, and natural selection instigated female sexual dimorphism. In particular, they suggest many of women's sexually dimorphic traits are related to increasing their and their children's survival during pregnancy/childbirth. In other words, intrasexual competition among men contributed to their secondary sex characteristics (e.g., body size, facial hair, etc.), whereas the dangers of pregnancy and childbirth contributed to women's secondary sex characteristics (e.g., fat distribution, relative fat mass, etc.). They specifically indicate "a large literature seems to have overemphasized the role of mate choice and underestimated the role of male contest competition for mates", indicating a possibility that "male mate choice" didn't truly drive women's secondary sex characteristics.

---

Still, other work discusses the impact of culture [4]. For example, one "analysis indicates that biological effects of sex-specific inequities can be linked to cultural influences at least as early as 7,000 yr ago, and culture, more than environment or genetics, drove height disparities in Early Neolithic Europe." This suggests that misogynistic culture has contributed – to some degree – in what we usually consider a biologically dimorphic trait.

Multiple analyses [5-7] have suggested ancient dietary differences between men and women supporting the possibility that misogynistic standards have restricted women's diet for millennia. This isn't really the same as modern-day diet culture – which specifically refers to the restriction of food despite availability and access and definitely disproportionately affects women and girls – but it does highlight how food has been central to the patriarchy for a very long time.

Still, this work is, at most, describing one contributing factor among many others. It also isn't really suggesting an evolutionary mechanism; these studies are all looking at dietary effects on stature at specific time points, not the additive effects (if there are any) across generations.

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Finally, while some work [1, 2] does suggest that neoteny (appearing more infantile) in women is related to male mate choice, it is far from the only theory for this phenomenon. For example, a Scientific American article [8] suggests the possibility that "Being More Infantile May Have Led to Bigger Brains".

Work specifically on neoteny in the nervous system proposes the same [9], and other work suggests the many ways it may have conferred an adaptive advantage [10].

And importantly, in this field, men are also considered to display neoteny; the researchers are making comparisons between humans and other animals.

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I hope this helps you both!

References under the cut:

evidence-based-activism

For the Anon who asked about the impact of men's oppression on women and bioessentialism: I think the above post should answer your questions. You can also reference the other posts on my Patriarchal Culture Masterlist, particularly the Gender Stereotypes, Biology vs Culture, and History sections.

Please review my ask policy if you send any follow-up questions.

#feminism #patriarchal culture

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