Gender & Assault
In The Evening Journal, assault crimes that were reported in both the years of 1900 and 1920 saw a majority of them being a male offender assaulting a male victim. When looking at the selected time range in 1900 there was no article found that had a female offender assaulting a male victim. There was an article found in the time range in 1920 that had a female assaulting a male victim but that was a case of a mother slapping a child of another family.
When looking at male offenders assaulting a female victim the pattern appears to be a domestic assault with a husband assaulting his wife when looking at the year 1900. When looking at the story “Assaulted His Wife” another pattern that can be found is the involvement of alcohol in many of the cases of the husband assaulting their wife. Another pattern seen was the presence of witnesses but their lack of involvement when seeing the assault take place. The incidents needed a police officer to arrive to finally break up the assault.
In the year 1920 articles about a male assaulting a female were not exclusively a domestic issue like they were in 1900. Many articles being reported were seemingly random crimes that would stem from a small interaction. In the article “Woman Run Down, Driver Under Arrest” the article reports that a woman is hit by an automobile while boarding a trolley. The driver was intoxicated so the use of alcohol is still present in assault cases. This article is significant because the offender and victim did not have any relation. This seemed to be a pattern in 1920, the reporting of wives being assaulted seemed to disappear.
