When it comes to violence against women, “Australia Says No”. But what happens when women are the ones committing these crimes against other women?
Tuesday night’s armed assault against a 35-year-old woman at Glenroy Railway Station in Melbourne by two young females highlights the rapid growth of crimes in Australia committed by women against women.
This incident occurred only months after a woman pleaded guilty to charges around encouraging her daughter and three friends to violently attack a 16-year-old mentally disabled girl at St Albans and posted footage of the violence on YouTube. Other female crimes committed against women during the preceding year include the alleged murder of a legally blind 65-year-old woman by 25-year-old Amber Cooper in Bairnsdale.
A survey conducted by the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research in 2008 showed the number of girls aged 10-17 allegedly involved in criminal offenses soared from 3622 in 1998 to 5724 that year. The figures have caused speculation over why more young women are becoming violent, particularly against other women.
Professor Kerry Carrington, head of the School of Justice at Queensland University of Technology, wrote in her recently released book Offending Youth, Sex and Crime that cyber bullying accounted for the alarming increase in female youth violence. Professor Carrington draws her observations from more than 45 years of adolescent crime statistics, which suggest that young female delinquency is on the rise.
Yet Dr Michael Carr-Gregg, expert in adolescent psychology, points the finger at the media and today’s role models projected at young women. Dr Carr-Gregg believes that dysfunctional or substance abusive celebrities such as Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears are to blame for the surge in young women’s unruly behaviour.
Dr Carr-Gregg also suggests parents are responsible for their daughters turning to violence. He says many parents are suffering from “surrender parent syndrome”, where parents take the back seat and allow television to teach their children about appropriate behaviour and morality.
The question over whether physical violence committed by women starts in the family home is supported by a similar trend in the rise of family violence cases where teenage girls are the perpetrators. Police statistics show that such cases have increased by 30% from 2003 to 2007. These statistics also profile perpetrators who are not necessarily stereotypically aggressive girls, but rather girls who come from dysfunctional families and who have experienced abuse or neglect at home.
However, unsurprisingly, these family violence cases committed by women are usually directed at other women. Family psychologist Eddie Gallagher’s research concludes that, in most cases of domestic violence conducted by young girls, the mother is the victim.
It might be time for the government’s National Plan to Reduce Violence Against Women to be directly aimed at the same s-x.
It’s not news that violence – and other forms of aggression – tend to be perpetrated against members of one’s own sex. In addition, people see members of their own sex as ‘the competition’ and thus ambitious women tend to target other women in their attempts to get ahead, rather than men.
Most male violence is most commonly aimed at other men (and to a lesser extent, intimate partners). Girl bullies bully girls/women, not boys, which at least shows that aggressive girls have more sense than to take on someone who could cream them in a fight.
It was always thus, even way way back, when the she-thugs with whom I shared my downmarket home suburb were routinely beating up other girls.
Might be due to:
womens’ hormones getting messed with by plastics, etc. (Happens to men too. )… Long-term depletion of soil nutrients… increased intake of artificial food products… increased stress from unbalanced news reporting… general breakup of the family unit…. frustratingly irrelevant educational content… denudation in social skills & literacy via the twitfacenet… political ‘leaders’ who are just pathetic charlatans… low social standing of womankind… no social standing of youth… um… the fact that herion users are better catered for that youth in most places…
“It all adds up to a funky situation.”
scottyea:
You’re bang-on the money there. This blame-the-media, blame-the-parents mentality of Dr Michael Carr-Gregg is simplistic to the point of stupidity. Surely someone supposed to be with-it enough to have ‘DOCTOR’ as their title has the intellect to conceive of a more nuanced argument than that.
If he doesn’t already work for the Ponds Institute, may I suggest he forward them his résumé.
In general, women are as violent as men as has been shown in a squillion different research efforts all over the world.
Catherine Scott, you mentioned in your post: “Girl bullies bully girls/women, not boys, which at least shows that aggressive girls have more sense than to take on someone who could cream them in a fight.”
Female aggressors tend to use weapons (frying pans, knives etc) to enhance the force of the blows when attacking males who would otherwise have the advantage due to their superior size and strength. The fact that females are also attacking other females simply shows that these individuals have a violent nature and don’t discriminate when it comes to the chosen victim.
Here are a few statistics taken from various Australian Government sources:
In Queensland, 39.9% of domestic violence orders are issued to protect men. (Qld Dept of Communities 2009)
In NSW, 28.9% of domestic assault victims are men. (NSW Bureau of Statistics and Research 2005)
In SA, 32.3%a of victims who reported domestic violence by a current or ex-partner were male. (SA Interpersonal Violence and Abuse Survey 1999)
Nationally, 29.8% of victims of current partner violence since the age of 15 were found to be male. (ABS Personal Safety 2006)
Lacqueredstudio is correct when he says that when it comes to demonstrated female violence, everyone and everything else gets blamed. Personal responsibility for their actions never seems to be mentioned.
touché