The Gender Dynamics of Assault
It’s not hard to discern that the vast majority of reported Assault cases within the Perth Amboy Evening News were male on male violence. If we were to look at the distribution in percentages, approximately 53% of reported crimes would be considered male on male violence. Following male - male, the next most prevalent type of violence would be male on female, which made up 35% of the reported crimes. The remaining percentage of the crimes can be attributed to instances in which either the offender or the victim is not identified by gender. There is only one instance in which a female offender was identified. In this story, titled “Battle at County Seat Leads to Two Arrests” in which a “colored” female along with her son assaulted several men during a dispute at a party. In regards to the male-male violence, the vast majority of the cases stem from some sort of “altercation”, which for the sake of this project can be defined as a fight between two or more individuals. Following altercations the next most common catalyst for a male on male assault were robberies. In instances in which the catalyst for the assault was shared, every male-male assault case can be categorized with either one of the aforementioned catalysts.
Oddly enough, there was only a single instance in which an assault involving a female could be categorized as a robbery. Rather, male - female assault cases tended to skew closer towards domestic violence and random attacks. Of the featured fourteen male on female assault cases five can be attributed to domestic violence, one can be attributed to robbery, and the rest can be attributed to random attacks, usually by someone the victim doesn’t know. The motive behind the random attacks could be implied, but is never outright stated to readers. This could be because the writers simply don’t know, or rather because the writers don’t want to report on that sort of thing. However, this would be hard to believe, as there were no shortage of rape cases within the paper. Finally, there were no instances of female - female assault featured within the allotted forty cases. In regards to gender, it seems that the data found in this project coincides with what the historical literature would say regarding assault. For instance, in regards to the distribution of who was doing the assaulting in assault cases, the information gathered within this study coincides directly with Graves’s article titled “We’ll Fight It Out Fair Right Now Homicide, Felony Assault, and Gender in Kansas City, Kansas, 1890 - 1920”. According to Graves 85% of Assaults committed are by men (Donna Graves, “‘We’ll Fight It Out Fair Right Now’: Homicide, Felony Assault, and Gender in Kansas City, Kansas, 1890-1920,” Kansas History, 26, 1 (2003), the study conducted for this project over represents this data, however one must take the sample size into account. With the sample size in mind, this study at the least shows that men are overwhelmingly more likely to commit assault.
As a bit of an aside, within Graves’s research, they discuss a sort of crime that is never displayed within this research. While domestic violence is seen in the allotted forty cases, this domestic violence is always instances in which men attack their wives, however there is a lack of women attacking their husbands within the case distribution. This stands in contrast to Graves’s claim that women were indeed attacking their husbands (Donna Graves, “‘We’ll Fight It Out Fair Right Now’: Homicide, Felony Assault, and Gender in Kansas City, Kansas, 1890-1920,” Kansas History, 26, 1 (2003)
Below are a few cases which embody the above text.
