• areyouevenreal@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    3
    arrow-down
    6
    ·
    1 year ago

    I hate to be that guy but women can kill people. There have even been women serial killers. It’s a stereotype that only men are dangerous. It leads to women not being prosecuted for violent crimes like rape and murder. In countries like mine women can’t technically even rape someone.

      • phx@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        As with many things, known can be a loaded word.

        First of all, the large amount of known serial killers are presumably those that were actually caught, but what about those that weren’t? What percentage of killers might be left uncaught simply because in other cases, the focus was on males as suspects?

        It’s kinda like saying “the vast number of cases where police found drugs during a search were of race X”… but if they’re searching “race X” at a 5-1 ratio then yeah that stat is skewed by bias.

        For every Dahmer we catch, a Lucy Letby might be running amok because we are biased towards believing that such killers belong to a particular demographic.

        • areyouevenreal@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          Yeah I think this is a much more likely explanation than the idea that there are 10x more male murderers than female ones. I can understand some differences due to socilisation, but not that much.

          • phx@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            1 year ago

            Historically too, physical capabilities and social circumstances may have tended to have female killers use methods such as poisons etc rather than more blatant physical attacks etc. Medical forensic technology was also less advanced, and food safety less rigorous.

            If a bunch of people died of a “bad batch” of food or a lover fell down the stairs, drowned etc after too much drink, what would the chances of an in depth-investigation in comparison to say somebody found beaten, strangled, or stabbed?

            It’s easy to not find something that you’re not looking for, and easy to not be looking for it if you start with a biased assumption.

            That said, this is a rather dark turn from the more wholesome content of the original post. I very much enjoyed the story as an example of checking one’s bias and not assuming the worst of people. One should be careful, but being too much so means missed opportunities for what may end up becoming a beautiful friendship like we’ve seen here. Both individuals sound like the types of friends I wish I’d had when younger, and the types of adults I’d love to sit and enjoy a meal with.