The world over, the majority of homicide offenders and victims tend to be reproductive-age males, between their late teens and early 40s. Yet even in Hong Kong, males commit 78 percent of reported homicides. Hong Kong, with a low homicide rate overall, has a comparatively smaller sex difference in homicide offending, and women make up a majority of homicide victims at 52 percent. These societies generally seem to have low rates of homicide overall, as the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime mentions in their 2013 study on global homicide:Īvailable data suggest that in countries with very low (and decreasing) homicide rates (less than 1 per 100,000 population), female victims constitute an increasing share of total victims and, in some of those countries, the share of male and female victims appears to be reaching parity.
While I can find no well-studied population where women are known to commit more lethal violence than men, there are some societies where women make up an equal number, or even the majority, of homicide victims.
To be sure, there is some cross-cultural variation. 4 To illustrate the consistency of this relationship even further: we see the same pattern among chimpanzees, where males make up 92 percent of killers and 73 percent of victims. 3 In her study on violence in non-state societies, criminologist Amy Nivette shows that, across a number of small-scale pastoralist and agriculturalist societies, males make up 91-98 percent of killers. In their 2013 study on lethal violence among hunter-gatherers, Douglas Fry and Patrik Söderberg’s data showed that males committed about 96 percent of homicides and were victims 84 percent of the time. 2 Sex differences in lethal violence tend to be remarkably consistent, on every continent, across every type of society, from hunter-gatherers to large-scale nation states. Globally, men are 95 percent of homicide offenders and 79 percent of victims. Understanding patterns of lethal violence among humans requires understanding some important sex differences between males and females. From ‘Lethal Interpersonal Violence in the Middle Pleistocene’ by Sala et al. Here are nine signs of emotional abuse to look out for.Cranial remains of an individual likely killed through interpersonal violence 430,000 years ago. It's important to be aware of the signs of emotional manipulation and abuse so you'll know if your relationship is taking an unhealthy and potentially dangerous turn. A 2011 CDC survey found that 47.1% of women and 46.5% of men have experienced psychological aggression in a relationship. This can result in unhealthy codependent patterns, minimizing feelings, difficulty enforcing boundaries, and trust issues.Ī 2013 study found that emotional abuse may be equally as harmful as physical abuse, as both can contribute to low self-esteem and "Emotional manipulation occurs when an abusive or manipulative person employs specific tactics and strategies in order to control, have power over, or victimize another person," says Janika Veasley, LMFT, founder of Amavi Therapy Center. It's normal and expected that every couple will face conflict and have arguments, but what happens when this conflict takes a darker turn? Emotional manipulation is a form of emotional abuse, which can have serious consequences.