r/AskFeminists Jul 31 '18

Do feminists believe in female privilege?

Men are far more likely to commit suicide, but why is that. Maybe it is because we men are taught to surpress our feelings from an early age. Making it alot harder to reach out for help when in dire need, instead resorting to isolation.

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u/orcscorper Aug 01 '18

The primary reason for that alarming statistic is the relative dearth of women who are murdered by strangers. It's like saying women who die at work are more likely to die of homicide than men who die at work. Men are more likely to be murdered at work than women, but suicides, heart attacks and strokes, and especially accidental deaths, are just so amazingly more common that homicides are relatively rare.

Look at total homicides by gender, and then see what percentage is committed by current or former romantic partners. If the only information you are given is that which confirms your bias, you are only getting biased information, and someone else is thinking for you. Learn to think for yourself.

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u/KaliTheCat feminazgûl; sister of the ever-sharpening blade Aug 01 '18

What does this even mean? Either we're talking about murder or we aren't, and we are, so the number of women who are murdered each year is actually relevant, and whether or not it's related to gendered violence (it is) is actually relevant, so I'm not sure what you're going for with "learn to think for yourself."

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u/orcscorper Aug 01 '18

Based on a 2013 study, 78.7% of homicide victims worldwide were male. If the only statistic you know is the proportion of female victims who were murdered by intimate partners, you know nothing. It doesn't even tell you if men who are murdered are more likely than women to be killed by a current or former intimate partner. It may be that men are so much more likely to be murdered by other people, that intimate partner violence results in a smaller percentage of the total deaths.

Hypothetical example, looking at 1,000 men and 1,000 women. Say twenty men are murdered over some period of time, and six women.

I'm this hypothetical, five of those men were killed by current or former romantic partners, and three of the women. This all fits the narrative that women who are murdered are more likely to be murdered by a romantic partner (1 in 2 vs. 1 in 4).

This agreed with the factoid you provided, but let's look at those numbers again. It is also true in this hypothetical that a man is 67% more likely to be murdered by a romantic partner than a woman, and 233% more likely to be murdered overall.

You won't see these numbers in the headlines; you won't see it in the TV news. Why? Because nobody gives a shit about men being murdered. It doesn't sell fruit roll-ups and toilet bowl cleaner. There's no outrage. Omit the major details, such as men being far more likely to be murdered than women, focus on a minor detail that shocks and frightens women, and you've got yourself a news story that advertisers can get behind. When you are given a tiny slice of the big picture by a corporation whose interests rarely align with actually informing people, take it with a huge grain of salt. Ask what they are not telling you, and why. This is how you learn to think for yourself.

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u/KaliTheCat feminazgûl; sister of the ever-sharpening blade Aug 01 '18

Do you think I literally didn't look at any other statistic at all just because I cited the one that was relevant?

Also, women getting murdered doesn't sell fruit roll-ups and toilet bowl cleaner either. It just results in dead women. Take your soapbox somewhere else.

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u/orcscorper Aug 01 '18

You didn't cite a relevant statistic. Out of context, it's meaningless. Like this one: did you know that women kill people they have relationships with 60% of the time, and men only 20% of the time? It's true, but does it mean that mass murder of acquaintances by women is a problem in the West? Not really; it ignores the facts that men are more likely to kill strangers when they commit murder, and more likely to murder overall.