Gender and Aggression
Gender and Aggression Despite all the variation across cultures, one thing is universal: Men are more violent than women. This has been found in virtually all cultures studied around the world. Almost 90% of identified murderers in the United States in 2018 were male, and about 80% of murder victims were male. Despite the significant varia- tion in total violence from one country to another, the gender difference remains remarkably stable over time and place: Men commit the very large majority of homicides, and men constitute the very large majority of murder victims. In the spate of mass shootings in the United States in recent years, virtually all of the perpetrators were young men. On the other hand, around the world, the vast majority of people killed by an intimate partner—such as a family member or current or former romantic partner—are women.
What about aggression in general as opposed to violence? In meta-analyses involving hundreds of samples from numerous countries, John Archer (2004) and Noel Card and his colleagues (2008) found that males were consistently more physically aggressive than females. This was true across all ages and cultures sampled. Females were as likely to feel anger as males, but they were much less likely to act on their anger in aggressive ways. Even among children between one and six years old, boys show higher rates of physical aggression than girls.
