Violence against women

Today is International Women's Day. Accordingly, Amnesty International, the respected human rights organization, has launched a campaign to end violence against women. In alerting people to such issues as spousal abuse, rape, forced prostitution, and civilian casualties in wartime, AI has done us a service. However, there are two problems with this campaign.

First, it is based on the dubious assumption that somehow women are being singled out for acts of violence. Here is Jean Bethke Elshtain on the subject:

Eight years ago, I researched the issue of women as victims of crime. I learned that, on the best available evidence, the assertion that women are the principal victims of violent crime is false: The most vulnerable body to inhabit in America today, as it was when I conducted my research, is that of a young black male. As well, on the best available evidence, violence against women is not on a precipitous upsurge compared with other crimes. Yet popular perception, fueled by the victimization narrative, holds otherwise. As a result, women are more likely to think of themselves as crime victims. They have assumed an ideology of victimization that is startlingly out of proportion to the actual threat. The perception of "women as victims" goes beyond a deeply rooted belief that violence against women is skyrocketing; it holds that women are special targets of crime in general and of violent crime in particular. Yet the figures on this score have been remarkably consistent over the past decade: Most perpetrators of violent crimes are young males; most victims of violent crimes are young males similar in age and race to the perpetrators (Democracy on Trial, pp. 51-52).

Although Elshtain wrote this a decade ago, I would be very much surprised if things had changed in the meantime. Violent acts against women are to be deplored wherever and whenever they occur. But such violence is almost certainly part of a larger, longstanding pattern in which human beings prey on each other. It is but one more manifestation of the human condition after the fall into sin.

This brings us to the second problem, which is with the notion of ending violence outright. A campaign to end any social ill, whether it be alcoholism, prostitution, corporate greed, insider trading, shoplifting, racism, poverty, &c., is certain to meet with disappointment, because it does not take into account the reality of human sinfulness. To be sure, laws can be enacted to address such issues. If the social ill is caused by criminal acts, then those acts must be punished under the law when they occur. If the ills are deep-seated and are not related to criminal acts as such, e.g., racism and poverty, then they must be approached from several different angles, including, but not limited to, the political. Yet whichever category they fall into, it is utopian to expect that they will be elminated altogether. The most we can do is to work to moderate or weaken the effects of social ills, and to punish those who actually break the law, including those who abuse women. To expect any more is to expect too much.