In recent years we have heard a lot about so-called gender-based violence, which means in practice men assaulting women – sexually or otherwise. The rad-fems and their fellow travellers interpret this as unbridled misogyny and nothing else, that old men-are-the-root-of-all-evil routine – with special emphasis on white ones, of course. There are though some rather obvious flaws in the argument, but first a couple of trick questions.
Why didn’t Ted Bundy murder black women?
The answer: Because he was a racist.
And why did Jeffrey Dahmer murder blacks?
The answer: Because he wasn’t a racist.
If you don’t follow that, let’s try one more. Why didn’t Dennis Nilsen murder women?
The answer: Because he was homosexual.
Now do you get the idea?
We would not normally expect a male homosexual serial killer to target women anymore than we would expect a heterosexual serial killer to target men, unless his crimes had a non-sexual motive. There have for example been some serial killers who have murdered for money or simply for the thrill of it.
Let us take a specific example. Between New Year’s Eve 1974 and March 1976, Trevor Hardy murdered three teenage girls in shocking acts of depravity. It might be tempting to interpret this as yet another example of misogyny and gender-based violence, but that notion can soon be dispelled with a little homework. Hardy’s criminal career began when he was a teenager with anti-social crimes like burglary. Then he graduated to violence, and the first known victim of Hardy’s violence with a capital V was a man. Hardy stabbed him in the leg, narrowly missing an artery. His next victim was also a man, who was attacked with a pickaxe. There may have been some rational motive for either or both these attacks, but not for the three murders. Did Hardy kill these girls because he hated the opposite sex, or was he simply a dangerous psychopath who killed opportunistically?
It may have been that he would also have murdered young boys or vulnerable men if he’d had the chance, but it is quite likely he chose his victims partly because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time and partly because though he may have been a coward as well as a psychopath he wasn’t so stupid as to attack someone who may have given him more trouble than he could handle.
Peter Sutcliffe, the psychopath known as the Yorkshire Ripper, was likewise said to have been motivated by a hatred of women. At the time, the loony feminist element in especially Leeds, made enormous capital out of his crimes. Most of Sutcliffe’s victims were whores, a traditional target of serial killers, not necessarily because they harbour an intense hatred for women who hire out their bodies to be abused by men, but because whores are easy targets. Although he has never been charged, there is good evidence that Sutcliffe’s first murder victim was a man. What does all this suggest?
How about that real acts of gender-based violence are few and far between, and that most of the nonsense we hear about it has been tailored to suit a particular narative rather than to identify a real problem we may be able to ameliorate if not solve entirely?
