The number of women murdered by partners also went down
May 31, 2024 3:37 PM Subscribe
States that passed unilateral divorce laws saw total female suicide decline by around 20 percent in the long run. Study.
Meanwhile, an Oklahoma state senator proposes making divorce a whole lot harder.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:29 PM on May 31 [3 favorites]
posted by Thorzdad at 4:29 PM on May 31 [3 favorites]
About a decade ago my now-wife pointed out that for a guy in his early thirties I'd known an awful lot of people who had been murdered. In a sense she was correct; five people who have been murdered is an awful lot of people for one guy in his early thirties to know.
Except that was really only the broadest and least repellent version of things, because while it was true that I'd known five people who were murdered a much more precise and damning way of saying it was that I'd known five women who had been murdered by men who were their current or former intimate partners. I knew an awful lot of people who had been murdered and one hundred percent of them were women who had been killed by men with whom they had been in relationships.
It did not occur to me until much later that there might have been a reason why she chose to phrase things the way that she did to me, specifically, her boyfriend.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 4:41 PM on May 31 [66 favorites]
Except that was really only the broadest and least repellent version of things, because while it was true that I'd known five people who were murdered a much more precise and damning way of saying it was that I'd known five women who had been murdered by men who were their current or former intimate partners. I knew an awful lot of people who had been murdered and one hundred percent of them were women who had been killed by men with whom they had been in relationships.
It did not occur to me until much later that there might have been a reason why she chose to phrase things the way that she did to me, specifically, her boyfriend.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 4:41 PM on May 31 [66 favorites]
I wish that the ghouls out there who oppose no fault divorce would find this evidence compelling.
posted by angrynerd at 4:44 PM on May 31 [11 favorites]
posted by angrynerd at 4:44 PM on May 31 [11 favorites]
I wish that the ghouls out there who oppose no fault divorce would find this evidence compelling.
That's the thing. They do.
posted by tclark at 4:55 PM on May 31 [57 favorites]
That's the thing. They do.
posted by tclark at 4:55 PM on May 31 [57 favorites]
The sad reality is that everything needs to be viewed through the lens of male violence against women and with an understanding that the prevailing narratives will always push back against and stigmatising doing so.
posted by seraphine at 5:02 PM on May 31 [11 favorites]
posted by seraphine at 5:02 PM on May 31 [11 favorites]
The research cited is from the early '00s, and I wonder if those gains in women's safety were retained. Does anyone have resources for recent studies?
posted by Iris Gambol at 5:48 PM on May 31 [3 favorites]
posted by Iris Gambol at 5:48 PM on May 31 [3 favorites]
Recedent data shows it holding.
The incident rate of overall husband to wife domestic violence declined significantly after no fault divorce, and then again markedly after the passage of the violence against women act in 1994. However there was an uptick during the pandemic lockdown.
And there was also a continuing decline in women's suicide rates per Suicide Rates by Gender. Men's rates seems to have dropped and then risen back up to be slightly worse than before. There was also a small uptick in suicide rates for both genders during the pandemic lockdown.
posted by Chrysopoeia at 6:23 PM on May 31 [15 favorites]
The incident rate of overall husband to wife domestic violence declined significantly after no fault divorce, and then again markedly after the passage of the violence against women act in 1994. However there was an uptick during the pandemic lockdown.
And there was also a continuing decline in women's suicide rates per Suicide Rates by Gender. Men's rates seems to have dropped and then risen back up to be slightly worse than before. There was also a small uptick in suicide rates for both genders during the pandemic lockdown.
posted by Chrysopoeia at 6:23 PM on May 31 [15 favorites]
> Several comments observing that wicked men and their wicked social groupings understand what they're doing when they ban divorce and that note that those men and their communities view any reduction in suicides committed by and murders committed upon women trapped in viciously abusive relationships and viciously abusive communities as a negative.
screwfly solution.
i read that story when i was like twelve and it has been actively haunting me ever since, like, i don't think about it as often as i think about the roman empire but i think about it at least two or three times a week. the one issue i have with the story, aside from it being soul-shatteringly horrifying, is that it biologizes a certain connection between sex and violence that kind of lets patriarchal society off the hook for its crimes against humanity, for how it has held us all down — all of us, everyone of every gender — and it has systematically kept all of us — again, all of us — from achieving so much as one-fourth as much as we could have achieved if it weren't squatting on all of our heads. it robs us of what we could achieve individually and it robs us of what we could achieve collectively. it murders women and it murders trust and joy and cooperation and potential and thought and love.
we could have been to space by now.
screwfly solution. patriarchical violence is not just evil but moreover it is an attack surface. it's a fatal societal bug, it's an exploitable glitch, if aliens or angels wanted to wipe out humanity no-muss-no-fuss the patriarchy is the zero day through which they'd do it. screwfly solution.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 7:26 PM on May 31 [19 favorites]
screwfly solution.
i read that story when i was like twelve and it has been actively haunting me ever since, like, i don't think about it as often as i think about the roman empire but i think about it at least two or three times a week. the one issue i have with the story, aside from it being soul-shatteringly horrifying, is that it biologizes a certain connection between sex and violence that kind of lets patriarchal society off the hook for its crimes against humanity, for how it has held us all down — all of us, everyone of every gender — and it has systematically kept all of us — again, all of us — from achieving so much as one-fourth as much as we could have achieved if it weren't squatting on all of our heads. it robs us of what we could achieve individually and it robs us of what we could achieve collectively. it murders women and it murders trust and joy and cooperation and potential and thought and love.
we could have been to space by now.
screwfly solution. patriarchical violence is not just evil but moreover it is an attack surface. it's a fatal societal bug, it's an exploitable glitch, if aliens or angels wanted to wipe out humanity no-muss-no-fuss the patriarchy is the zero day through which they'd do it. screwfly solution.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 7:26 PM on May 31 [19 favorites]
a little while ago i read the essay this post linked to and i fell in love with the last paragraph and it's that, that precisely, that's the thing they don't want us to have, that's the thing they're afraid of, that's the thing they kill. and by "that" i don't mean the specific thing in the paragraph i mean the vast and lovely constellation of lovely sweet things that us people can do and lovely sweet ways that us people can live, they hate it and they fear it and they take it away and they make us too scared to ever have it and then too scared to even want it anymore because we'd be too scared to have it even if we had it and then we die, even if we don't die we die.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 7:40 PM on May 31 [6 favorites]
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 7:40 PM on May 31 [6 favorites]
Here is the working paper which is being discussed by The Digest in TFA. (PDF link)
"Bargaining in the Shadow of the Law: Divorce Laws and Family Distress" by Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers in the National Bureau of Economic Research.
posted by panhopticon at 9:23 PM on May 31 [2 favorites]
"Bargaining in the Shadow of the Law: Divorce Laws and Family Distress" by Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers in the National Bureau of Economic Research.
posted by panhopticon at 9:23 PM on May 31 [2 favorites]
If you feel very stable and able to deal with profound psychological horror, The Yellow Wallpaper is short, and the kind of story that will get in your bones.
Published in 1892.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Yellow_Wallpaper
posted by constraint at 11:09 PM on May 31 [5 favorites]
Published in 1892.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Yellow_Wallpaper
posted by constraint at 11:09 PM on May 31 [5 favorites]
One phrase I kept noticing in the article about the proposed law in Oklahoma to ban no-fault divorce was "extreme cruelty". Apparently just plain old normal cruelty is NOT ground for divorce in Oklahoma. Only "extreme" cruelty is.
What the actual fuck, Oklahoma?
posted by sotonohito at 8:54 AM on June 1 [5 favorites]
What the actual fuck, Oklahoma?
posted by sotonohito at 8:54 AM on June 1 [5 favorites]
One statistic that will never be known is the number of male deaths due to patriarchy. Because abused women can be very creative exacting revenge.
posted by nofundy at 1:46 PM on June 1 [2 favorites]
posted by nofundy at 1:46 PM on June 1 [2 favorites]
WTAF. Criminalization of survivors far more common than real-life Goodbye Earl scenarios.
Here's a comprehensive report on the criminalization of survivors, and the many ways they are punished for being victimized.
posted by crush at 3:23 PM on June 1 [3 favorites]
Here's a comprehensive report on the criminalization of survivors, and the many ways they are punished for being victimized.
posted by crush at 3:23 PM on June 1 [3 favorites]
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Wow.
For all of those desperate women:
. ❤️
posted by Silvery Fish at 4:13 PM on May 31 [6 favorites]