Essay On Female Masculinity

Why are females more fearful of crime than men? In general, the fear of crime is a global and social issue. People are most likely to fear violent crimes like robberies, murders, and kidnappings. However, the question remains of what factors and rationalities lead to the thought that women are more fearful of criminalization than men. Research reveals that young men are more likely to be victimized, and as a result should have higher levels of fear. However, scholars in the field of sociology continue to claim that most men are affected by the desire of social acceptance and as a consequence behave with hegemonic masculinity. The term hegemonic masculinity is defined as the practices of promoting men as the most dominant sex (Connell). Thus, hegemonic masculinity has led to the documentation of lower levels of fear, which may not be completely factual.

The researchers/authors of this article delve deep into this critical question by examining three college campuses across the United States. The two main issues that are being investigated in this literature are the perceived vulnerability to crime and the fear of rape. (Dobbs, et.al 106) According to Dobbs, perceived vulnerability is defined as the lack of ability of women to successfully defend themselves against perpetrators because of the

In the southeast campus, breaking into the home was the dependent on the sex of the individual. Men had a significantly higher fear of victimization of property. There were no sex differences for fear of being approached by a beggar. (114) “The findings presented here indicate that there are differences across campuses in regards to gender and fear of crime. In the southwestern sample, women were more fearful of all nine types of crime in the initial models, whereas women were more fearful in six of the nine initial models on each of the other two campuses.”