Cognitive bias

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_bias

The Cognitive Bias Codex

A cognitive bias is a systematic pattern of deviation from norm or rationality in judgment. Individuals create their own "subjective reality" from their perception of the input. An individual's construction of reality, not the objective input, may dictate their behavior in the world. Thus, cognitive biases may sometimes lead to perceptual distortion, inaccurate judgment, illogical interpretation, and irrationality.

While cognitive biases may initially appear to be negative, some are adaptive. They may lead to more effective actions in a given context. Furthermore, allowing cognitive biases enables faster decisions which can be desirable when timeliness is more valuable than accuracy, as illustrated in heuristics. Other cognitive biases are a "by-product" of human processing limitations, resulting from a lack of appropriate mental mechanisms (bounded rationality), the impact of an individual's constitution and biological state (see embodied cognition), or simply from a limited capacity for information processing. Research suggests that cognitive biases can make individuals more inclined to endorsing pseudoscientific beliefs by requiring less evidence for claims that confirm their preconceptions. This can potentially distort their perceptions and lead to inaccurate judgments.

A continually evolving list of cognitive biases has been identified over the last six decades of research on human judgment and decision-making in cognitive science, social psychology, and behavioral economics. The study of cognitive biases has practical implications for areas including clinical judgment, entrepreneurship, finance, and management.

Overview

The notion of cognitive biases was introduced by Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman in 1972 and grew out of their experience of people's innumeracy, or inability to reason intuitively with the greater orders of magnitude. Tversky, Kahneman, and colleagues demonstrated several replicable ways in which human judgments and decisions differ from rational choice theory. Tversky and Kahneman explained human differences in judgment and decision-making in terms of heuristics. Heuristics involve mental shortcuts which provide swift estimates about the possibility of uncertain occurrences. Heuristics are simple for the brain to compute but sometimes introduce "severe and systematic errors." For example, the representativeness heuristic is defined as "The tendency to judge the frequency or likelihood" of an occurrence by the extent of which the event "resembles the typical case."

The "Linda Problem" illustrates the representativeness heuristic (Tversky & Kahneman, 1983). Participants were given a description of "Linda" that suggests Linda might well be a feminist (e.g., she is said to be concerned about discrimination and social justice issues). They were then asked whether they thought Linda was more likely to be (a) a "bank teller" or (b) a "bank teller and active in the feminist movement." A majority chose answer (b). Independent of the information given about Linda, though, the more restrictive answer (b) is under any circumstance statistically less likely than answer (a). This is an example of the "conjunction fallacy". Tversky and Kahneman argued that respondents chose (b) because it seemed more "representative" or typical of persons who might fit the description of Linda. The representativeness heuristic may lead to errors such as activating stereotypes and inaccurate judgments of others (Haselton et al., 2005, p. 726).

Critics of Kahneman and Tversky, such as Gerd Gigerenzer, alternatively argued that heuristics should not lead us to conceive of human thinking as riddled with irrational cognitive biases. They should rather conceive rationality as an adaptive tool, not identical to the rules of formal logic or the probability calculus. Nevertheless, experiments such as the "Linda problem" grew into heuristics and biases research programs, which spread beyond academic psychology into other disciplines including medicine and political science.

Types

Biases can be distinguished on a number of dimensions. Examples of cognitive biases include -

• Biases specific to groups (such as the risky shift) versus biases at the individual level.
• Biases that affect decision-making, where the desirability of options has to be considered (e.g., sunk costs fallacy).
• Biases, such as illusory correlation, that affect judgment of how likely something is or whether one thing is the cause of another.
• Biases that affect memory, such as consistency bias (remembering one's past attitudes and behavior as more similar to one's present attitudes).
• Biases that reflect a subject's motivation, for example, the desire for a positive self-image leading to egocentric bias and the avoidance of unpleasant cognitive dissonance.

Other biases are due to the particular way the brain perceives, forms memories and makes judgments. This distinction is sometimes described as "hot cognition" versus "cold cognition", as motivated reasoning can involve a state of arousal. Among the "cold" biases,

• some are due to ignoring relevant information (e.g., neglect of probability),
• some involve a decision or judgment being affected by irrelevant information (for example the framing effect where the same problem receives different responses depending on how it is described; or the distinction bias where choices presented together have different outcomes than those presented separately), and
• others give excessive weight to an unimportant but salient feature of the problem (e.g., anchoring).

As some biases reflect motivation specifically the motivation to have positive attitudes to oneself. It accounts for the fact that many biases are self-motivated or self-directed (e.g., illusion of asymmetric insight, self-serving bias). There are also biases in how subjects evaluate in-groups or out-groups; evaluating in-groups as more diverse and "better" in many respects, even when those groups are arbitrarily defined (ingroup bias, outgroup homogeneity bias).

Some cognitive biases belong to the subgroup of attentional biases, which refers to paying increased attention to certain stimuli. It has been shown, for example, that people addicted to alcohol and other drugs pay more attention to drug-related stimuli. Common psychological tests to measure those biases are the Stroop task and the dot probe task.

Individuals' susceptibility to some types of cognitive biases can be measured by the Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT) developed by Shane Frederick (2005).

List of biases

Main article: List of cognitive biases

The following is a list of the more commonly studied cognitive biases:

Name	Description
Fundamental attribution error (FAE, aka correspondence bias)	Tendency to overemphasize personality-based explanations for behaviors observed in others. At the same time, individuals under-emphasize the role and power of situational influences on the same behavior. Edward E. Jones and Victor A. Harris' (1967) classic study illustrates the FAE. Despite being made aware that the target's speech direction (pro-Castro/anti-Castro) was assigned to the writer, participants ignored the situational pressures and attributed pro-Castro attitudes to the writer when the speech represented such attitudes.
Implicit bias (aka implicit stereotype, unconscious bias)	Tendency to attribute positive or negative qualities to a group of individuals. It can be fully non-factual or be an abusive generalization of a frequent trait in a group to all individuals of that group.
Priming bias	Tendency to be influenced by the first presentation of an issue to create our preconceived idea of it, which we then can adjust with later information.
Confirmation bias	Tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions, and discredit information that does not support the initial opinion. Related to the concept of cognitive dissonance, in that individuals may reduce inconsistency by searching for information which reconfirms their views (Jermias, 2001, p. 146).
Affinity bias	Tendency to be favorably biased toward people most like ourselves.
Self-serving bias	Tendency to claim more responsibility for successes than for failures. It may also manifest itself as a tendency for people to evaluate ambiguous information in a way beneficial to their interests.
Belief bias	Tendency to evaluate the logical strength of an argument based on current belief and perceived plausibility of the statement's conclusion.
Framing	Tendency to narrow the description of a situation in order to guide to a selected conclusion. The same primer can be framed differently and therefore lead to different conclusions.
Hindsight bias	Tendency to view past events as being predictable. Also called the "I-knew-it-all-along" effect.
Embodied cognition	Tendency to have selectivity in perception, attention, decision making, and motivation based on the biological state of the body.
Anchoring bias	The inability of people to make appropriate adjustments from a starting point in response to a final answer. It can lead people to make sub-optimal decisions. Anchoring affects decision making in negotiations, medical diagnoses, and judicial sentencing.
Status quo bias	Tendency to hold to the current situation rather than an alternative situation, to avoid risk and loss (loss aversion). In status quo bias, a decision-maker has the increased propensity to choose an option because it is the default option or status quo. Has been shown to affect various important economic decisions, for example, a choice of car insurance or electrical service.
Overconfidence effect	Tendency to overly trust one's own capability to make correct decisions. People tended to overrate their abilities and skills as decision makers. See also the Dunning–Kruger effect.
Physical attractiveness stereotype	The tendency to assume people who are physically attractive also possess other desirable personality traits.

Practical significance

Further information: Confirmation bias § Consequences

Many social institutions rely on individuals to make rational judgments.

The securities regulation regime largely assumes that all investors act as perfectly rational persons. In truth, actual investors face cognitive limitations from biases, heuristics, and framing effects.

A fair jury trial, for example, requires that the jury ignore irrelevant features of the case, weigh the relevant features appropriately, consider different possibilities open-mindedly and resist fallacies such as appeal to emotion. The various biases demonstrated in these psychological experiments suggest that people will frequently fail to do all these things. However, they fail to do so in systematic, directional ways that are predictable.

In some academic disciplines, the study of bias is very popular. For instance, bias is a wide spread and well studied phenomenon because most decisions that concern the minds and hearts of entrepreneurs are computationally intractable.

Cognitive biases can create other issues that arise in everyday life. One study showed the connection between cognitive bias, specifically approach bias, and inhibitory control on how much unhealthy snack food a person would eat. They found that the participants who ate more of the unhealthy snack food, tended to have less inhibitory control and more reliance on approach bias. Others have also hypothesized that cognitive biases could be linked to various eating disorders and how people view their bodies and their body image.

It has also been argued that cognitive biases can be used in destructive ways. Some believe that there are people in authority who use cognitive biases and heuristics in order to manipulate others so that they can reach their end goals. Some medications and other health care treatments rely on cognitive biases in order to persuade others who are susceptible to cognitive biases to use their products. Many see this as taking advantage of one's natural struggle of judgement and decision-making. They also believe that it is the government's responsibility to regulate these misleading ads.

Cognitive biases also seem to play a role in property sale price and value. Participants in the experiment were shown a residential property. Afterwards, they were shown another property that was completely unrelated to the first property. They were asked to say what they believed the value and the sale price of the second property would be. They found that showing the participants an unrelated property did have an effect on how they valued the second property.

Cognitive biases can be used in non-destructive ways. In team science and collective problem-solving, the superiority bias can be beneficial. It leads to a diversity of solutions within a group, especially in complex problems, by preventing premature consensus on suboptimal solutions. This example demonstrates how a cognitive bias, typically seen as a hindrance, can enhance collective decision-making by encouraging a wider exploration of possibilities.

Reducing

Main articles: Cognitive bias mitigation and Cognitive bias modification

Because they cause systematic errors, cognitive biases cannot be compensated for using a wisdom of the crowd technique of averaging answers from several people. Debiasing is the reduction of biases in judgment and decision-making through incentives, nudges, and training. Cognitive bias mitigation and cognitive bias modification are forms of debiasing specifically applicable to cognitive biases and their effects. Reference class forecasting is a method for systematically debiasing estimates and decisions, based on what Daniel Kahneman has dubbed the outside view.

Similar to Gigerenzer (1996), Haselton et al. (2005) state the content and direction of cognitive biases are not "arbitrary" (p. 730). Moreover, cognitive biases can be controlled. One debiasing technique aims to decrease biases by encouraging individuals to use controlled processing compared to automatic processing. In relation to reducing the FAE, monetary incentives and informing participants they will be held accountable for their attributions have been linked to the increase of accurate attributions. Training has also shown to reduce cognitive bias. Carey K. Morewedge and colleagues (2015) found that research participants exposed to one-shot training interventions, such as educational videos and debiasing games that taught mitigating strategies, exhibited significant reductions in their commission of six cognitive biases immediately and up to 3 months later.

Cognitive bias modification refers to the process of modifying cognitive biases in healthy people and also refers to a growing area of psychological (non-pharmaceutical) therapies for anxiety, depression and addiction called cognitive bias modification therapy (CBMT). CBMT is sub-group of therapies within a growing area of psychological therapies based on modifying cognitive processes with or without accompanying medication and talk therapy, sometimes referred to as applied cognitive processing therapies (ACPT). Although cognitive bias modification can refer to modifying cognitive processes in healthy individuals, CBMT is a growing area of evidence-based psychological therapy, in which cognitive processes are modified to relieve suffering from serious depression, anxiety, and addiction. CBMT techniques are technology-assisted therapies that are delivered via a computer with or without clinician support. CBM combines evidence and theory from the cognitive model of anxiety, cognitive neuroscience, and attentional models.

Cognitive bias modification has also been used to help those with obsessive-compulsive beliefs and obsessive-compulsive disorder. This therapy has shown that it decreases the obsessive-compulsive beliefs and behaviors.

Common theoretical causes of some cognitive biases

Bias arises from various processes that are sometimes difficult to distinguish. These include:

• Bounded rationality — limits on optimization and rationality
  • Prospect theory
• Evolutionary psychology — Remnants from evolutionary adaptive mental functions.
  • Mental accounting
  • Adaptive bias — basing decisions on limited information and biasing them based on the costs of being wrong
• Attribute substitution — making a complex, difficult judgment by unconsciously replacing it with an easier judgment
• Attribution theory
  • Salience
  • Naïve realism
• Cognitive dissonance, and related:
  • Impression management
  • Self-perception theory
• Information-processing shortcuts (heuristics), including:
  • Availability heuristic — estimating what is more likely by what is more available in memory, which is biased toward vivid, unusual, or emotionally charged examples
  • Representativeness heuristic — judging probabilities based on resemblance
  • Affect heuristic — basing a decision on an emotional reaction rather than a calculation of risks and benefits
• Emotional and moral motivations deriving, for example, from:
  • The two-factor theory of emotion
  • The somatic markers hypothesis
• Introspection illusion
• Misinterpretations or misuse of statistics; innumeracy.
• Social influence
• The brain's limited information processing capacity
• Noisy information processing (distortions during storage in and retrieval from memory). For example, a 2012 Psychological Bulletin article suggests that at least eight seemingly unrelated biases can be produced by the same information-theoretic generative mechanism. The article shows that noisy deviations in the memory-based information processes that convert objective evidence (observations) into subjective estimates (decisions) can produce regressive conservatism, the belief revision (Bayesian conservatism), illusory correlations, illusory superiority (better-than-average effect) and worse-than-average effect, subadditivity effect, exaggerated expectation, overconfidence, and the hard–easy effect.

Individual differences in cognitive biases

The relation between cognitive bias, habit and social convention is still an important issue.

People do appear to have stable individual differences in their susceptibility to decision biases such as overconfidence, temporal discounting, and bias blind spot. That said, these stable levels of bias within individuals are possible to change. Participants in experiments who watched training videos and played debiasing games showed medium to large reductions both immediately and up to three months later in the extent to which they exhibited susceptibility to six cognitive biases: anchoring, bias blind spot, confirmation bias, fundamental attribution error, projection bias, and representativeness.

Individual differences in cognitive bias have also been linked to varying levels of cognitive abilities and functions. The Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT) has been used to help understand the connection between cognitive biases and cognitive ability. There have been inconclusive results when using the Cognitive Reflection Test to understand ability. However, there does seem to be a correlation; those who gain a higher score on the Cognitive Reflection Test, have higher cognitive ability and rational-thinking skills. This in turn helps predict the performance on cognitive bias and heuristic tests. Those with higher CRT scores tend to be able to answer more correctly on different heuristic and cognitive bias tests and tasks.

Age is another individual difference that has an effect on one's ability to be susceptible to cognitive bias. Older individuals tend to be more susceptible to cognitive biases and have less cognitive flexibility. However, older individuals were able to decrease their susceptibility to cognitive biases throughout ongoing trials. These experiments had both young and older adults complete a framing task. Younger adults had more cognitive flexibility than older adults. Cognitive flexibility is linked to helping overcome pre-existing biases.

Criticism

Cognitive bias theory loses the sight of any distinction between reason and bias. If every bias can be seen as a reason, and every reason can be seen as a bias, then the distinction is lost.

Criticism against theories of cognitive biases is usually founded in the fact that both sides of a debate often claim the other's thoughts to be subject to human nature and the result of cognitive bias, while claiming their own point of view to be above the cognitive bias and the correct way to "overcome" the issue. This rift ties to a more fundamental issue that stems from a lack of consensus in the field, thereby creating arguments that can be non-falsifiably used to validate any contradicting viewpoint.

Gerd Gigerenzer is one of the main opponents to cognitive biases and heuristics. Gigerenzer believes that cognitive biases are not biases, but rules of thumb, or as he would put it "gut feelings" that can actually help us make accurate decisions in our lives. His view shines a much more positive light on cognitive biases than many other researchers. Many view cognitive biases and heuristics as irrational ways of making decisions and judgements.

Biotechnology risk

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biotechnology_risk 

Biotechnology risk is a form of existential risk from biological sources, such as genetically engineered biological agents. The release of such high-consequence pathogens could be

• deliberate (in the form of bioterrorism or biological weapons)
• accidental, or
• a naturally occurring event.

A chapter on biotechnology and biosecurity was included in Nick Bostrom's 2008 anthology Global Catastrophic Risks, which covered risks including viral agents. Since then, new technologies like CRISPR and gene drives have been introduced.

While the ability to deliberately engineer pathogens has been constrained to high-end labs run by top researchers, the technology to achieve this is rapidly becoming cheaper and more widespread. For example, the diminishing cost of sequencing the human genome (from $10 million to $1,000), the accumulation of large datasets of genetic information, the discovery of gene drives, and the discovery of CRISPR. Biotechnology risk is therefore a credible explanation for the Fermi paradox.

Genetically modified organisms (GMO)

There are several advantages and disadvantages of genetically modified organisms. The disadvantages include many risks, which have been classified into six classes: 1. Health risks, 2. Environmental risks, 3. Threat to biodiversity, 4. Increase in social differences, 5. Scientific concerns, 6. Potential threat to the autonomy and welfare of farmers who wish to produce non-GM products.

1. Health risks

The following are potential health risks related to the consumption of GMOs.

Unexpected gene interactions

The expected outcomes of the transferred gene construct may differ due to gene interactions. It has been hypothesized that genetic modification can potentially cause changes in metabolism, though results are conflicting in animal studies.

Cancer risks

GM crops require lower amounts of pesticide compared to non-GM crops. Because some pesticides' main component is glyphosate, the lower amounts of pesticides needed on GM crops may reduce the risk of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in workers who handle raw GM products.

Allergenic potential

Allergenic potential is the potential to elicit an allergic reaction in already sensitized consumers. A particular gene that has been added to a GM crop possibly can create new allergens, and constant exposure to a particular protein allergen may have resulted in developing new allergies. This is not related directly to the use of GM technology; but since no test can predict allergenicity, it is highly possible that the new proteins or their interactions with usual proteins could produce new allergies.

Horizontal gene transfer (HGT)

Horizontal gene transfer is any process by which an organism acquires genetic material from a second organism without descending from it. In contrast, the vertical transfer is when an organism acquires genetic material from its ancestors (i.e., its parents). HGT is the transfer of DNA between cells of the same generation. Humans and animals have been in contact with "foreign DNA". In humans, DNA has absorbed through food daily through fragments of plant and animal genes and bacterial DNA.

Antibiotic resistance

Theoretically, antibiotic resistance can occur by consuming genetically modified plants. Genes can be transferred to bacteria in the human gastrointestinal tract and develop resistance to that specific antibiotic. Considering this risk factor, more research is needed.

Gain-of-function mutations

Main article: Gain-of-function research

Research

See also: Genetically modified virus

Pathogens may be intentionally or unintentionally genetically modified to change their characteristics, including virulence or toxicity. When intentional, these mutations can serve to adapt the pathogen to a laboratory setting, understand the mechanism of transmission or pathogenesis, or in the development of therapeutics. Such mutations have also been used in the development of biological weapons, and dual-use risk continues to be a concern in the research of pathogens. The greatest concern is frequently associated with gain-of-function mutations, which confer novel or increased functionality, and the risk of their release. Gain-of-function research on viruses has been occurring since the 1970s, and came to notoriety after influenza vaccines were serially passed through animal hosts.

Mousepox

A group of Australian researchers unintentionally changed characteristics of the mousepox virus while trying to develop a virus to sterilize rodents as a means of biological pest control. The modified virus became highly lethal even in vaccinated and naturally resistant mice.

Influenza

In 2011, two laboratories published reports of mutational screens of avian influenza viruses, identifying variants which become transmissible through the air between ferrets. These viruses seem to overcome an obstacle which limits the global impact of natural H5N1. In 2012, scientists further screened point mutations of the H5N1 virus genome to identify mutations which allowed airborne spread. While the stated goal of this research was to improve surveillance and prepare for influenza viruses which are of particular risk in causing a pandemic, there was significant concern that the laboratory strains themselves could escape. Marc Lipsitch and Alison P. Galvani coauthored a paper in PLoS Medicine arguing that experiments in which scientists manipulate bird influenza viruses to make them transmissible in mammals deserve more intense scrutiny as to whether or not their risks outweigh their benefits. Lipsitch also described influenza as the most frightening "potential pandemic pathogen".

Regulation

In 2014, the United States instituted a moratorium on gain-of-function research into influenza, MERS, and SARS. This was in response to the particular risks these airborne pathogens pose. However, many scientists opposed the moratorium, arguing that this limited their ability to develop antiviral therapies. The scientists argued gain-of-function mutations were necessary, such as adapting MERS to laboratory mice so it could be studied.

The National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity also has instituted rules for research proposals using gain-of-function research of concern. The rules outline how experiments are to be evaluated for risks, safety measures, and potential benefits; prior to funding.

In order to limit access to minimize the risk of easy access to genetic material from pathogens, including viruses, the members of the International Gene Synthesis Consortium screen orders for regulated pathogen and other dangerous sequences. Orders for pathogenic or dangerous DNA are verified for customer identity, barring customers on governmental watch lists, and only to institutions "demonstrably engaged in legitimate research".

CRISPR

See also: CRISPR

Following surprisingly fast advances in CRISPR editing, an international summit proclaimed in December 2015 that it was "irresponsible" to proceed with human gene editing until issues in safety and efficacy were addressed. One way in which CRISPR editing can cause existential risk is through gene drives, which are said to have potential to "revolutionize" ecosystem management. Gene drives are a novel technology that have potential to make genes spread through wild populations extremely quickly. They have the potential to rapidly spread resistance genes against malaria in order to rebuff the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum. These gene drives were originally engineered in January 2015 by Ethan Bier and Valentino Gantz; this editing was spurred by the discovery of CRISPR-Cas9. In late 2015, DARPA started to study approaches that could halt gene drives if they went out of control and threatened biological species.

Dowry system in India

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dowry_system_in_India

The dowry system in India refers to the durable goods, cash, and real or movable property that the bride's family gives to the groom, his parents and his relatives as a condition of the marriage. Dowry is called "दहेज" in Hindi and as جہیز in Urdu.

The dowry system can put great financial burden on the bride's family. In some cases, the dowry system leads to crimes against women, ranging from emotional abuse and injury to even deaths. The payment of dowry has long been prohibited under specific Indian laws including the Dowry Prohibition Act 1961 approved by the Parliament of India and subsequently by Sections 304B and 498A of the Indian Penal Code. The Dowry Prohibition Act 1961 defines dowry: "Dowry means any property or valuable security given or agreed to be given either directly or indirectly - (a) by one party in marriage to the other party in marriage; or (b) by the parents of either party to a marriage or by any other person to either party to marriage or to any other persons;at or before or after the marriage as consideration for the marriage of the said parties, but does not include dower or mahr in the case of persons to whom the Muslim Personal law applies."

A court judgement clarifies the legal definition of dowry as

"Dowry" in the sense of the expression contemplated by Dowry Prohibition Act is a demand for property of valuable security having an inextricable nexus with the marriage, i.e., it is a consideration from the side of the bride's parents or relatives to the groom or his parents and/or guardian for the agreement to wed the bride-to-be.

Article 3 of the Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961 specifies that the penalty for giving or taking dowry does not apply to presents that are given at the time of a marriage to the bride or groom is when no demand for them has been made.

Although Indian laws against dowries have been in effect for decades, they have been largely criticised as being ineffective. The practice of dowry deaths and murders continues to take place unchecked in many parts of India, which has further added to the concerns of enforcement.

Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code required the groom and his family to be automatically arrested if a wife complains of dowry harassment. The law was widely abused, and in 2014, the Supreme Court ruled that arrests cannot be made without a magistrate's approval.

Historical context

Wedding Procession - Bride Under a Canopy with Gifts. Circa 1800.

The history of dowry in South Asia is not clear. Some scholars believe dowry was practised in antiquity, but some do not.

Michael Witzel claims the ancient Indian literature suggests dowry practices were not significant during the Vedic period. Witzel also notes that women in ancient India had property inheritance rights either by appointment or when they had no brothers.

The findings of MacDonell and Keith are similar to Witzel, and differ from Tambiah; they cite ancient Indian literature suggesting bridewealth was paid even in brahma and daeva marriages. Dowry was not infrequent when the girl suffered from some bodily defect. Property rights for women increased in ancient India, suggest MacDonell and Keith, over the Puranas.

Kane claims ancient literature suggests bridewealth was paid only in the asura-type of marriage that was considered reprehensible and forbidden by Manu and other ancient Indian scribes. Lochtefeld suggests that religious duties listed by Manu and others, such as 'the bride be richly adorned to celebrate marriage' were ceremonial dress and jewelry along with gifts that were her property, not property demanded by or meant for the groom; Lochtefeld further notes that bridal adornment is not currently considered as dowry in most people's mind.

One of these are the eyewitness records from Alexander the Great's conquest (ca. 300 BC) as recorded by Arrian and Megasthenes. Arrian's first book mentions a lack of dowry,

They (these ancient Indian people) make their marriages in accordance with this principle, for in selecting a bride they care nothing whether she has a dowry and a handsome fortune, but look only to her beauty and other advantages of the outward person.

Arrian, The Invasion of India by Alexander the Great, 3rd Century BC

Arrian's second book similarly notes,

They (Indians) marry without either giving or taking dowries, but the women as soon as they are marriageable are brought forward by their fathers in public, to be selected by the victor in wrestling or boxing or running or someone who excels in any other manly exercise.

~ Arrian, Indika in Megasthenes and Arrian, 3rd Century BC

The two sources suggest dowry was absent, or infrequent enough to be noticed by Arrian. About 1200 years after Arrian's visit, another scholar visited India, Abū Rayḥān al-Bīrūnī, also known as Al-Biruni, or Alberonius in Latin. Al-Biruni was a Muslim Persian scholar who lived in India for 16 years from 1017 CE. He translated many Indian texts into Arabic, as well as wrote a memoir on Indian culture and life he observed. Al-Biruni claimed,

The implements of the wedding rejoicings are brought forward. No gift (dower or dowry) is settled between them. The man gives only a present to the wife, as he thinks fit, and a marriage gift in advance, which he has no right to claim back, but the (proposed) wife may give it back to him of her own will (if she does not want to marry).

~ Al-Biruni, Chapter on Matrimony in India, about 1035 AD

Al-Biruni further claims that a daughter, in 11th century India, had legal right to inherit from her father, but only a fourth part of her brother. The daughter took this inheritance amount with her when she married, claimed Al-Biruni, and she had no rights to income from her parents after her marriage or to any additional inheritance after her father's death. If her father died before her marriage, her guardian would first pay off her father's debt, then allocate a fourth of the remaining wealth to her upkeep until she is ready to marry, and then give the rest to her to take with her into her married life.

Causes of the dowry

Various reasons have been suggested as cause of dowry practice in India. These include economic factors and social factors.

Economic factors

There are many economic factors that contribute towards the system of dowry. Some of these include inheritance systems and the bride's economic status.

Some suggestions point to economics and weak legal institutions on inheritance place women in disadvantage, with inheritances being left only to sons. This leaves women dependent upon their husbands and in-laws, who keep the dowry when she marries. Prior to 1956, including during the British Raj, daughters had no rights of inheritance to their family's wealth. In 1956, India gave equal legal status to daughters and sons among Hindu, Sikh and Jain families, under the Hindu Succession Act (India grants its Muslim population the Sharia derived personal status laws). Despite the new inheritance law, dowry has continued as a process whereby parental property is distributed to a daughter at her marriage by a social process, rather than after parents death by a slow court supervised process under Hindu Succession Act (1956).

Dowry gave, at least in theory, women economic and financial security in their marriage in the form of movable goods. This helped prevent family wealth break-up and provided security to the bride at the same time. This system can also be used as a premortem inheritance, as once a woman is presented with movable gifts, she may be cut off from the family estate.

For many, dowry has become a greater financial burden on the bride's family, and can leave families destitute based on the demands from the groom. The demand for dowry from groom's family and relatives has increased over time.

Social factors

The structure and kinship of marriage in parts of India contributes to dowry. In the north, marriage usually follows a patrilocal (lives with husband's family) system, where the bride is a non-related member of the family. This system encourages dowry perhaps due to the exclusion of the bride's family after marriage as a form of premortem inheritance for the bride. In the south, marriage is more often conducted within the bride's family, for example with close relatives or cross-cousins, and in a closer physical distance to her family. In addition, brides may have the ability to inherit land, which makes her more valuable in the marriage, decreasing the chance of dowry over the bride price system.

In addition to marriage customs that may influence dowry, social customs or rituals, and parents' expectations of dowry are important factors to consider. A 1995 study showed that while attitudes of people are changing about dowry, dowry prevails. In a 1980 study conducted by Rao, 75% of students responded that dowry was not important to marriage, but 40% of their parents likely expected dowry.

While India has been making progress for women's rights, women continue to be in a subordinate status in their family. Women's education, income, and health are some significant factors that play into the dowry system, and for how much control a woman has over her marriage.

Religious factors

Dowry in India is not limited to any specific religion. It is widespread among Hindus and people of other religions. For example, Indian Muslims call dowry as jahez and justify the practice in terms of jahez-e-fatimi. Islamists classify jahez into two categories: The first comprises some essential articles for the outfit of the bride as well as for conjugal life. The other is made up of valuable goods, clothes, jewelry, an amount of money for the groom's family, which is settled on after bargaining. The jahez often far exceeds the cost of the baraat and marriage parties. The jahez is separate from cash payment as Mahr or dower that Sharia religious law requires be gifted to the bride.

Dowry in the modern era

A social awareness campaign in India about dowries

Dowry had been a prevalent practice in India's modern era and in this context, it can be in the form of a payment of cash or gifts from the bride's family to the bridegroom's family upon marriage. There are variations on dowry prevalence based on geography and class. States in the north are more likely to participate in the dowry system among all classes, and dowry is more likely to be in the form of material and movable goods. In the south, the bride price system is more prevalent, and is more often in the form of land, or other inheritance goods. This system is tied to the social structure of marriage, which keeps marriage inside or close to family relations.

Dowry also varies by economic strata in India. Upper-class families are more likely to engage in the dowry system than the lower class. This could be in part due to women's economic exclusion from the labor market in upper classes.

When dowry evolved in the Vedic period, it was essentially followed by the upper castes to benefit the bride, who was unable to inherit property under Hindu law. To counter this, the bride's family provided the groom with dowry which would be registered in the bride's name. This dowry was seen as stridhan (Sanskrit: woman's property). Also, an important distinction is the fact that while the upper castes practised dowry, the lower castes practised bride price to compensate her family for the loss of income.

In the modern era, the concept of dowry has evolved and Indian families no longer practise bride price. This is because with the passage of time, bride price gradually disappeared and dowry became the prevalent form of transfer. In the modern era, the practice of dowry requires the bride's family to transfer goods to the groom's family in consideration for the marriage.

Since marriages in India are a time for big celebrations in each family, they tend to be very lavish. Accordingly, Indian weddings usually involve considerable expenditure and accompanying wedding presents from relatives in both sides of the family. This is normal expenditure which is done willingly and varies from one family to another depending on the wealth, status, etc.

Many times, as part of this mutual 'give-and-take', an attempt is made by the groom's family to dictate the quantum of each gift along with specific demands for dowry. In such circumstances, there is an element of exerting coercion on the bride's family and this is what has come to be recognized as the menace of dowry in today's times. Dowry does not refer to the voluntary presents which are made to the bride and the groom; rather it is what is extracted from the bride or her parents.

Types of dowry crimes

A newly married woman can be a target for dowry related violence because she is tied economically and socially to her new husband. In some cases, dowry is used as a threat or hostage type situation, in order to extract more property from the bride's family. This can be seen in new brides, who are most vulnerable in the situation. Dowry crimes can occur with the threat or occurrence of violence, so that the bride's family is left with no choice but to give more dowry to protect their daughter. The northern and eastern states of India show higher rates of dowry-related violence.

Dowry is considered a major contributor towards observed violence against women in India. Some of these offences include physical violence, emotional abuses, and even murder of brides and young girls prior to marriage. The predominant types of dowry crimes relate to cruelty (which includes torture and harassment), domestic violence (including physical, emotional and sexual assault), abetment to suicide and dowry death (including, issues of bride burning and murder).

Fraud

A 2005 Canadian documentary film, Runaway Grooms, exposed a phenomenon of Indo-Canadian men taking advantage of the dowry system. These men would travel to India ostensibly seeking a new bride, but then abandon the woman and return to Canada without her as soon as they had secured possession of her dowry.

Cruelty

Cruelty in the form of torture or harassment of a woman with the objective of forcing her to meet a demand for property or valuable security is a form of dowry crime. The cruelty could be in the form of verbal attacks or may be accompanied by beating or harassment in order to force the woman or her family to yield to dowry demands. In many instances, the cruelty may even force the woman to commit suicide and it has been specifically criminalized by the anti-dowry laws in India.

Domestic violence

Main article: Domestic violence in India

Domestic violence includes a broad spectrum of abusive and threatening behavior which includes physical, emotional, economic and sexual violence as well as intimidation, isolation and coercion. There are laws like the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 that help to reduce domestic violence and to protect women's rights.

Abetment to suicide

Continuing abuse by the husband and his family with threats of harm could lead to a woman committing suicide. In such situations, the dowry crime even extends to abetment of suicide, which includes all acts and attempts to intentionally advise, encourage, or assist in committing suicide. The impact of dowry can leave a woman helpless and desperate, which can cumulate in emotional trauma and abuse. Dowry related abuse causes emotional trauma, depression and suicide. The offence of abetment to suicide is significant because in many cases, the accused persons often bring up a defense that the victim committed suicide at her own volition, even though this may not be true in reality.

Dowry murder

Main article: Dowry death

Dowry deaths and dowry murder relate to a bride's suicide or killing committed by her husband and his family after the marriage because of their dissatisfaction with the dowry. It is typically the culmination of a series of prior domestic abuses by the husband's family. Most dowry deaths occur when the young woman, unable to bear the harassment and torture, commits suicide by hanging herself or consuming poison. Dowry deaths also include bride burning where brides are doused in kerosene and set ablaze by the husband or his family. Sometimes, due to their abetment to commit suicide, the bride may end up setting herself on fire.

Bride burnings are often disguised as accidents or suicide attempts. Bride burnings are the most common forms of dowry deaths for a wide range of reasons like kerosene being inexpensive, there being insufficient evidence after the murder and low chances of survival rate. Apart from bride burning, there are some instances of poisoning, strangulation, acid attacks, etc., as a means of which brides are murdered by the groom's family.

India, with its large population, reports the highest number of dowry related deaths in the world according to Indian National Crime Record Bureau. In 2012, 8,233 dowry death cases were reported across India, while in 2013, 8,083 dowry deaths were reported. This means a dowry-related crime causes the death of a woman every 90 minutes, or 1.4 deaths per year per 100,000 women in India.

Laws against dowry

The first all-India legislative enactment relating to dowry to be put on the statute book was The Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961 and this legislation came into force from 1 July 1961. It marked the beginning of a new legal framework of dowry harassment laws effectively prohibiting the demanding, giving and taking of dowry. Although providing dowry is illegal, it is still common in many parts of India for a husband to seek a dowry from the wife's family and in some cases, this results in a form of extortion and violence against the wife.

To further strengthen the anti-dowry law and to stop offences of cruelty by the husband or his relatives against the wife, new provisions were added to the Indian criminal law – section 498A to Indian Penal Code and section 198A to the Criminal Procedure Code in 1983. In 2005, the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act was passed, which added an additional layer of protection from dowry harassment. Although the changes in Indian criminal law reflect a serious effort by legislators to put an end to dowry-related crimes, and although they have been in effect for many years now, they have been largely criticised as being ineffective.

Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961

The Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961 consolidated the anti-dowry laws which had been passed on certain states. This legislation provides for a penalty in section 3 if any person gives, takes or abets giving or receiving of dowry. The punishment could be imprisonment for minimum 5 years and a fine more than ₹15,000 or the value of the dowry received, whichever is higher. Dowry in the Act is defined as any property or valuable security given or agreed to be given in connection with the marriage. The penalty for giving or taking dowry is not applicable in case of presents which are given at the time of marriage without any demand having been made.

The Act provides the penalty for directly or indirectly demanding dowry and provides for a penalty involving a prison term of not less than 6 months and extendable up to two years along with a fine of ₹10,000. Dowry agreements are void ab initio and if any dowry is received by anyone other than the woman, it should be transferred to the woman. The burden of proving that an offense was not committed is on the persons charged and not on the victim or her family. Under its powers to frame rules for carrying out its objectives under the Act, the government of India has framed the Maintenance of Lists of Presents to the Bride and the Bridegroom Rules, 1985. There are also several state level amendments to the Dowry Prohibition Act.

Criminal statutes – Indian Penal Code, Criminal Procedure Code and Evidence Act

The Indian criminal laws were comprehensively amended to include dowry as a punishable offence. Section 304B was added to the Indian Penal Code, 1860 ("IPC"), which made dowry death a specific offence punishable with a minimum sentence of imprisonment for 7 years and a maximum imprisonment for life. It provided that if the death of a woman is caused by burns or bodily injury or occurs in suspicious circumstances within 7 years of her marriage, and there's evidence to show that before her death, she was subjected to cruelty or harassment by her husband or his relative regarding the demand for dowry, then the husband or the relative shall be deemed to have caused her death.

Further, section 113B of the Evidence Act, 1872 ("Evidence Act"), creates an additional presumption of dowry death when it is shown that before her death, the woman had been subjected to cruelty on account of dowry demand. Section 304B IPC along with Section 113B of the Evidence Act have enabled the conviction of many who were not caught by the Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961. Section 113A of the Evidence Act provides a similar presumption of abetment of suicide (which is an offense under Section 306 IPC), in case of death of a married woman within a period of seven years of her marriage.

Additionally, the judiciary also includes a murder charge under Section 302 IPC as this allows courts to impose death penalty on perpetrators of the offence. Section 406 IPC, pertaining to offences for the criminal breach of trust, applies in cases of recovery of dowry as it is supposed to be for the benefit of the woman and her heirs.

Further, Section 498A IPC was specifically included in 1983 to protect women from cruelty and harassment. The constitutionality of Section 498A was challenged before the Supreme Court of India on grounds of abuse, that it gave arbitrary power to the police and the court. However, it was upheld in Sushil Kumar Sharma v. Union of India (2005). The Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 provides that for the prosecution of offences under Section 498A IPC, the courts can take cognizance only when it receives a report of the facts from the police or upon a complaint being made by the victim or her family.

Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005

Main article: Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005

The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 ("Domestic Violence Act") was passed in order to provide a civil law remedy for the protection of women from domestic violence in India. The Domestic Violence Act encompasses all forms of physical, verbal, emotional, economic and sexual abuse and forms a subset of the anti-dowry laws to the extent it is one of the reasons for domestic violence. Section 3 of the Domestic Violence Act specifically incorporates all forms of harassment, injury and harms inflicted to coerce a woman to meet an unlawful demand for dowry. Some of the common remedies under the Domestic Violence Act include:

• protection orders – prohibiting a person from committing domestic violence;
• residence orders – dispossessing such person from a shared household;
• custody orders – granting custody of a child; and
• compensation orders – directing payment of compensation.

International conventions

India is a party to several international human rights instruments which provide theoretical remedies to the dowry problems. These international conventions include the Universal Declaration of Human Rights ("UDHR"), International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights ("ICCPR"), the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights ("ICESCR"), the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women ("CEDAW"), and the Convention on the Rights of the Child ("CRC"). CEDAW codifies the rights most relevant to the discussion of dowry-related violence: the rights of women.

However, there are issues of non-intervention and cultural relativism which impede the use of international law to combat dowry deaths.

Criticisms of the Dowry Laws

Misuse

There is growing criticism that the dowry laws are often being misused, particularly the section 498A of the Indian Penal Code which is observed by many in India as being prone to misuse because of mechanical arrests by the police. According to the National Crime Records Bureau statistics, in 2012, nearly 200,000 people including 47,951 women, were arrested in regard to dowry offences. However, only 15% of the accused were convicted.

In many cases of 498A, huge amounts of dowry are claimed without any valid reasoning. A rickshaw puller's wife can allege that she gave crores of rupees as dowry and since it is a cognizable case, police are bound to register the case. In most cases, the financial capacity of the wife or her parents and the source of the funds are never tracked.

In 2005, Section 498A was upheld by the Supreme Court of India when it was challenged. In 2010, the Supreme Court spoke about the misuse of anti-dowry laws in Preeti Gupta & Another v. State of Jharkhand & Another and more detailed investigation was recommended. Following the observations of the Supreme Court Indian parliament set up a committee headed by Bhagat Singh Koshyari. In July 2014, in the case of Arnesh Kumar v. State of Bihar & Anr., a two-judge bench of the Supreme Court reviewed the enforcement of section 41(1)(A) of CrPC which instructs state of following certain procedure before arrest, and went on to observe that the 498A had become a powerful weapon in the hands of disgruntled wives where innocent people were arrested without any evidence due to non-bailable and cognizable nature of the law. The decision received criticism from feminists because it weakened the negotiating power of women. Others welcomed the decision as landmark judgment to uphold the human rights of innocent people. An organization called the Save Indian Family Foundation was founded to combat abuses of IPC 498a.

On 19 April 2015, the Indian government sought to introduce a bill to amend Section 498A IPC based on the suggestions of the Law Commission and Justice Malimath committee on reforms of criminal justice. News reports indicate that the proposed amendment will make the offence compoundable and this would facilitate couples to settle their disputes.

Nisha Sharma Lawsuit

Main article: Nisha Sharma dowry case

The Nisha Sharma dowry case was an anti-dowry lawsuit in India. It began in 2003 when Nisha Sharma accused her prospective groom, Munish Dalal, of demanding dowry. The case got much coverage from Indian and international media. Nisha was portrayed as a youth icon and a role model for other women. However, it was later found that Nisha had fabricated the charges in an effort to avoid marrying her fiancé, and in 2012 all accused were acquitted.

Ineffectiveness

Although Indian laws against dowry have been drafted decades ago, they have been largely criticised as being ineffective. Despite the Indian government's efforts, the practice of dowry deaths and murders continues unchecked in many parts of India and this has further added to the concerns of enforcement. There is criticism by women's groups that India's dowry harassment laws are ineffective because the statutes are too vague, the police and the courts do not enforce the laws and social mores keep women subservient and docile, giving them a subordinate status in the society. The law ignores the complexities of dowry-related violence and overlooks the element of coercion, and arbitrary compulsive demands. 

Further, many women are afraid to implicate their husbands in a dowry crime simply because the Indian society is viewed as having conditioned women to anticipate or expect abuse and in some sense eventually, endure it. While the laws give great powers, they are not effectively enforced by the police or by courts. It can take up to 10 years for a case to go to court and even once in court, husbands and in-laws end up getting away with extortion or even murder because the women and their families cannot prove 'beyond reasonable doubt' that they are the victims of such crimes, as there are rarely any outside witnesses.

In a recent landmark judgment on dowry death, Hon’ble Supreme Court of India held that “Mere death of the deceased being unnatural in the matrimonial home within seven years of marriage will not be sufficient to convict the accused under Section 304B and 498A IPC”.

Violence against men

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence_against_men

 

Violence against men are violent acts that are disproportionately or exclusively committed against men or boys. Men are over-represented as both victims and perpetrators of violence.

Perceptions and aspects

Studies of social attitudes show violence is perceived as more or less serious depending on the gender of victim and perpetrator. People are less likely to report a man hitting another man to the police than a man hitting a woman. A study in 2023 found that people—especially women—are less likely to accept violence against women than violence against men.

Male law enforcement officers show a greater reluctance to file charges or reports when a man is the victim of domestic violence. The use of stereotypes by law enforcement is a recognised issue, and international law scholar Solange Mouthaan argues that, in conflict scenarios, sexual violence against men has been ignored in favor of a focus on sexual violence against women and children.

Stigmatization and socially constructed gender stereotypes are barriers to men seeking help following violent victimization. Stereotypes can make it difficult for victims to conceptualize and verbalize what happened, and contribute significantly to underreporting and poor responses toward survivors by relevant authorities. Men often fear that they will be dismissed, accused of being the perpetrator, or ridiculed if they seek help following intimate partner violence. These fears are often confirmed by men who nonetheless seek help.

Due to perceptions of rape as a women's issue, services designed to help victims are often not equipped to help men.

Men are less fearful of violent crime than women despite the fact that men are at much higher risk of being victims of violent crime than women. This phenomenon appears to be a paradox and is termed by researchers as the "fear of crime gender paradox".

Violence against LGBT+ men

Main article: Violence against LGBT people

Male homosexuality has been persecuted, often violently, throughout history. Termed "sodomy" during the Middle Ages and the early modern period, men found guilty of "sodomy" were often subjected to capital punishment for homosexuality.

In its December 2020 report, the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA) found that homosexuality is criminalized in 67 of 193 UN member states and one non-independent jurisdiction, the Cook Islands, while two UN member states, Iraq and Egypt, criminalize it de facto but not in legislation. Afghanistan, Brunei, Iran, Iraq, Mauritania, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, United Arab of Emirates and Yemen still allow for the prescription of the death penalty if one engages in homosexual sexual activity.

According to the Human Rights Campaign, 26 percent of gay men and 37 percent of bisexual men experience rape, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner, compared to 29 percent of straight men. Additionally, 40 percent of gay men and 47 percent of bisexual men have experienced sexual violence other than rape, compared to 21 percent of straight men.

Research by Rebecca L. Stotzer and Margaret Shih found that masculinity is seen as fragile, needing constant reinforcement through displays of heterosexuality and rejection of femininity and homosexuality. This insecurity can cause men to react aggressively to anything challenging traditional gender roles and can significantly influence reactions to LGBT+ individuals.

Domestic violence

Main article: Domestic violence against men

Female and male perpetrators of domestic violence tend to commit different types of acts of violence. For example, women are more likely to throw or hit with objects, kick, bite, or punch, while men are more likely to choke or strangle. The CDC's National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey during 2016-2017 found that in the United States, 42.3% of men and 42.0% of women reported having experienced physical violence by an intimate partner in their lifetime. For severe violence, 24.6% of men and 32.5% of women reported lifetime exposure. Men are less likely to be murdered by an intimate partner than women. In the United States, in 2021, approximately 1079 men were killed by their intimate partners, compared to approximately 1690 women.

Men who are victims of domestic violence are often reluctant to report it or to seek help. Shamita Das Dasgupta and Erin Pizzey are among those who argue that, as with other forms of violence against men, intimate partner violence is generally less recognized in society when the victims are men.Domestic violence accusations by males against females are often trivialized or belittled by police. Research since the 1990s has identified issues of perceived and actual bias when police are involved, with the male victim being negated even while injured. Many people, both male and female, are hesitant to report domestic violence, for example, 1.9 million people aged 16–59 told the Crime Survey for England and Wales (year ending March 2017) that they were victims of domestic violence and 79% did not report their partner or ex-partner. Of the 1.9 million, approximately 713,000 were male, while 1.2 million were female.

Emmanuel Rowlands' research sheds light on domestic violence against men in intimate relationships. He found that cultural and masculine expectations often hide male victims' experiences. In Johannesburg, South Africa, male victims of domestic violence are often overlooked or dismissed in gender-based violence studies. He discusses how societal expectations and the lack of recognition or support for male victims contribute to a culture of silence around male domestic abuse.

Mass killings

Main article: Androcide

In situations of structural violence that include war and genocide, men and boys are frequently singled out and killed. The singling out of men and boys of military age occurs due the assumption that they are potential combatants and is a form of gender-based violence. These acts of violence come from the assumptions of the male role in combat situations. This practice goes back well into recorded history; Roman records point to the mass killing of a conquered settlement's men and the enslavement of its women. The murder of targets by sex during the Kosovo War, estimates of civilian male victims of mass killings suggest that they made up more than 90% of all civilian casualties.

Non-combatant men and boys have been targets of mass killings during war. Forced conscription can also be considered gender-based violence against men. Furthermore, examples may include the filtration camps set up by Russia in occupied areas during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Sexual violence

Sexual violence against men is often under-reported and de-emphasized. The CDC's National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey during 2010-2012 found that the number of women who were raped in the 12 months preceding the survey was 1,270,000 while the number of men who were made to penetrate was 1,267,000. The CDC exuded male victims from the fact sheet summary, noting only that "1.3 million women were raped during the year preceding the survey" without mentioning the similar finding for men.

According to the 2018 Family, domestic and sexual violence in Australia report, police forces in Australia recorded 4,100 male victims of sexual violence in 2016, as opposed to 18,900 female victims that year (thus, male victims constituted 17.8% of all victims). For male victims experiencing sexual violence since the age of 15, 55% reported a female perpetrator while 51% reported a male perpetrator (some who experienced sexual violence multiple times were victimised by men and women); by comparison, 98% of female victims since age 15 reported a male perpetrator, while 4.2% reported a female perpetrator (also some overlap here).

In 2012, The UN refugee agency issued guidelines for UNHCR staff and aid workers on how to support and treat male victims of sexual violence and rape in war and human rights situations. The guidelines "include tips on the challenging task of identifying victims of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV), given the stigma attached to rape".

Adult men have been forcefully circumcised, most notably in the compulsory conversion of non-Muslims to Islam and more recently especially in Kenya. In South Africa, custom allows uncircumcised Xhosa-speaking men past the age of circumcision (i.e., 25 years or older) to be overpowered by other men and forcibly circumcised. While some scholars view forced adult male circumcision as (gendered) sexual violence, the International Criminal Court ruled in 2011 that such acts were not "sexual violence," but rather fell under the label of "other inhumane acts".

Male sexual victimization is often minimized or dismissed. Causes include the stereotype of men being "sexually insatiable", the masculine expectation of "male invincibility" or that a "real man" can protect himself, that a gay victim "asked for it", and that a victim's arousal signifies that the event was consenual.

Sexual assault within military ranks is a significant yet under-discussed issue affecting male servicemembers. Despite longstanding "zero-tolerance" policies, sexual violence persists, with men both as perpetrators and victims. Studies and surveys within the U.S. military have revealed that sexual assault against men is characterized by distinct challenges, often exacerbated by the hierarchical and insular nature of military life. Men in the military face particular vulnerabilities to sexual violence, which is frequently perpetrated by fellow servicemembers and often involves multiple assailants. For example, a study published in the Journal of Peace Research in 2017 highlighted that nearly 1% of active-duty servicemen reported experiencing sexual assault over a one-year period, with perpetrators typically being military colleagues. The persistence of sexual assault against men in the military can be partially attributed to socialization processes within the ranks. Informal socialization practices, including sexualized hazing, often trivialize or even endorse sexual harassment and assault, establishing a culture where such acts are seen as permissible forms of punishment or means of enforcing conformity. Furthermore, official socialization of officers does not always effectively oppose these norms, since military training continues to promote a type of masculinity that undermines efforts to avoid sexual assault.

A comprehensive study by Gruber and Fineran compared the effects of sexual harassment and bullying on high school students' school engagement and academic outcomes. The findings suggest that while both sexual harassment and bullying adversely affect students, sexual harassment has a more significant impact on school attachment and academic performance for both male and female students. For men, the harassment is frequently linked with homophobic taunting, thereby not only targeting their gender but also questioning their sexuality, regardless of their actual sexual orientation.

War

Conscription

Main article: Conscription and sexism

Women protest conscription and war on World Peace Day March near the Hotel Australia, King William Street, North Adelaide, 1969.

Conscription, sometimes called "the draft", is the compulsory enlistment of people in a national service, most often a military service. Historically, only men have been subjected to military drafts, and currently only three countries conscript women and men on the same formal conditions: Norway, Sweden and the Netherlands.

Male-only conscription, or compulsory military service, has been criticized as sexist. Critics regard it as discriminatory to compel men, but not women, into military service. They say the conscription of men normalizes male violence, conscripts are indoctrinated into sexism and violence against men, and military training socializes conscripts into patriarchal gender roles. Despite that, some feminist organizations have resisted inclusion of women in conscription, most notably the Norwegian Association for Women's Rights.

Wartime sexual violence

Wartime sexual violence committed by men against men is used as psychological warfare in order to demoralize the enemy. The practice is ancient, and was recorded as taking place during the Crusades. During periods of armed conflict men may be raped, sexually mutilated, sexually humiliated, forced incest, or even enslaved. Castration in particular is used as a means of physical torture with strong psychological effects, namely the loss of the ability to procreate and the loss of the status of a full man. In recent conflicts such as the Bosnian war and a number of smaller conflicts across East Africa the most commonly reported act of sexual violence was genital violence. While sexual violence in all its forms is criminalized in international law, the culture of silence around sexual violence against men often leaves male victims with no support.

In one study, less than 3% of organizations that address rape as a weapon of war mention men or provide services to male victims. Works of Dorota Glowacka illuminates the under-researched issue of sexual violence against men and boys during the holocaust. In her study Glowacka explores a multitude of cases where male victims experienced sexual assault, coercion, and humiliation within Nazi concentration camps, a subject that has historically been overshadowed by the predominant focus on female victims of sexual violence.

Homicide

Homicide statistics according to the US Bureau of Justice Statistics

Male offender/Male victim	65.3%
Male offender/Female victim	22.7%
Female offender/Male victim	9.6%
Female offender/Female victim	2.4%

In the U.S., crime statistics from 1976 onwards show that men are over-represented as victims in homicide involving both male and female offenders (74.9% of victims are male). Men also make up the majority (88%) of homicide perpetrators regardless if the victim is female or male. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, women who kill men are most likely to kill acquaintances, spouses or boyfriends while men are more likely to kill strangers. One study looking at 97 women on death row showed that these people often experienced intimate partner violence by the people they murdered.

In Australia, men are also over-represented as victims, with the Australian Institute of Criminology finding that men are 11.5 times more likely than women to be killed by a stranger.

Data from the U.K. also shows a homicide rate for males to be twice that of females. While the proportion of homicide victims in the U.K. in the 1960s was fairly evenly split between men and women, the genders have since shown different trends: while female victim numbers remained static, male numbers increased.

Police killings

In the United States, police killings is one of the leading causes of death for young men. The likelihood of dying as a result of police use of force is 1 in 2,000 men and 1 in 33,000 women. Studies using recent data have found that Black, Hispanic, and Native American/Alaskan individuals are disproportionately stopped by police and killed in encounters. These inequalities in turn show higher rates of death by police for people of color, particularly black men having 1 in 1,000 chance of being killed by police use of force.

Data from Australia, the European Union, and the United Kingdom also demonstrates that death while in police custody is more frequent among men.

By country

India

A study of men in the rural area of Haryana, India found that 52.4% of men in this area experienced some form of gender-based violence.

Nigeria

In Nigeria, domestic violence against men is often overlooked and carries a cultural stigma. Adetutu Aragbuwa's research into online comments on Nigerian news articles shows mixed views: while some justify violence against men as self-defense by women, others outright condemn all forms of violence.

Sudan

In the context of the Darfur genocide, gender-based violence was not only prevalent against women but also systematically used against men and boys as a tool of war and genocide. This gender-based violence included acts that emasculated victims, such as sexual violence, humiliation, genital harm, and killings based on sex. These acts were deeply gendered, reflecting and reinforcing hegemonic gender norms within Sudanese society.