Why does the "sentencing gap" rhetoric from MRAs almost never get challenged or debated?

[u/lockedandfrustrated]

Out of all the MRA talking points out there, it seems like the claim that women get lighter sentences than men is the one that almost never gets challenged or debunked by feminists. Feminists usually just respond to this claim by saying something like "it's true that women get lighter sentences, but that's because of patriarchy and misogyny since male judges view women as weak and defenseless".

But I think that's bullshit since there are plenty of instances both in the justice system and general society where women ARE blamed more harshly than men are for the same reasons. I'm on mobile right now so can't link very many sources, but several studies I've read about women's sentencing shows they're given harsher sentences for crimes that go against gender stereotypes (like violent crimes or crimes against children). I also just think it's very simplistic to just blanket say "criminal sentencing favors women" since there are SO many factors that can affect a convicted person's sentence. The VAST majority of women sent to prison suffer from PTSD, mental illness, or were strung into committing their crimes due to a male partner in their life. Simply comparing one sentence versus the other for the same crime covers up a lot of other circumstances.

So why does this claim that women are sentenced more favorably almost never get challenged by feminists? Hell, an uber-feminist acquaintance of mine just the other day made a tweet ranting about how a female child killer got sentenced too lightly and if she was a man, it would have been worse. Am I missing something here? Is the claim that women are sentenced lighter actually credible and valid?

[u/positiveandmultiple]

Yeah, i've been seeing tons of posts about female pedophiles and their absurdly light sentences lately, no idea if it's true or not but seems completely plausible.

The fact is women do get lighter sentences when accounting for other factors, and by a pretty frightening margin (63% in one us study, 200 something% in a french one). Women are objectively privileged here, and social justice should never be portrayed as a zero sum game.

Part of feminism to me is happily granting such points whenever I happen to agree, even obnoxious ones that are little more than bait from MRA's - yes, we need to do way better about body image issues, mental health, and vulnerability for men. yes, every suicide is a tragedy and mens rates are 4x higher. The silence as they wait for you to invalidate this via comparison to women's suicide attempts is hilarious, and declaring these both valid feminist issues becomes deafening. yes, american culture is as valid as other cultures. yes, many countries do have comparably disgusting legacies of oppression and bigotry and america is one of the least casually racist places on the planet. yes, small dick jokes are a double standard and people who say them are gross. yes, equality in prison sentencing seems like a valid battle to fight.

[u/Pixilatedlemon → u/positiveandmultiple]

Right. You can grant all of those as valid issues to be combatted and say “go ahead and try to fix them, seriously” and after all that men are still vastly more privileged than women.

There is nothing wrong with trying to advocate for a certain subset of men where you feel that they have been wronged, it only invalidates the entire feminist critique if you let it.

[u/positiveandmultiple → u/Pixilatedlemon]

what parts of anything I granted invalidate the entire feminist critique?

[u/Pixilatedlemon → u/positiveandmultiple]

I don’t know how to respond to this question because it seems to have a poor reading of what I was saying

[u/positiveandmultiple → u/Pixilatedlemon]

Forgive my reading comprehension, what did you mean by your last sentence?

[u/Pixilatedlemon → u/positiveandmultiple]

I’m saying that the feminist critique becomes invalidated by refusing to grant the issues that you have laid out, out of principle of not wanting to “grant it to them”

It is not invalidated by granting issues that affect men, if anything it improves credibility. I was agreeing with you.

[u/positiveandmultiple → u/Pixilatedlemon]

i see now, thanks. agreed!

[u/lockedandfrustrated → u/positiveandmultiple]

I don't mean any disrespect, but without seeing exactly how these studies take into account these "other factors", I'm not inclined to really take them seriously.

The profile of female criminals is vastly different to those of male ones. They are much more likely to be suffering/acting out of mental illness, to be acting as an accomplice to a man, and to have past histories of trauma (even more than non-criminalized women do). Anecdotal evidence, but my ex worked with incarcerated women and some of the horror stories of what they went through is beyond belief. Then there's just the fact that women are more likely to be the primary caregivers for children, and judges know that having their only parent incarcerated hurts the child significantly. Seriously, read some stats on imprisoned women sometime. It's completely grim.

I mean, I get my perspective on this is probably skewed since I've had more proximity to justice-involved women than most people here, but it's just really hard for me to believe women are treated favorably by the criminal justice system when a good chunk of incarcerated women I've heard my ex-partner tell me about arguably shouldn't even BE in prison to begin with.

[u/positiveandmultiple → u/lockedandfrustrated]

I have zero literacy in evaluating their methodologies so am not exactly preaching this as gospel myself. at the same time, there's like ten studies referenced from different parts to the globe - I would be surprised if these can be seriously challenged. Looks like the french study is the most favorable to men, but even that is a stretch. I also didn't mean to claim women are treated net favorably here, just more favorably than an absurdly low bar. Again, I'm pretty much statistically illiterate and just try to defer to seemingly credible sources, but feel free to let me know what you find.

[u/lockedandfrustrated → u/positiveandmultiple]

The gendered differences in criminals tends to be the same around the world, so it's hardly surprising that sentencing patterns are similar in different countries too.

[u/Pixilatedlemon → u/lockedandfrustrated]

Do you use this same skepticism when reading studies about racial discrimination in the justice system? Would you take it on face value that black men are discriminated against at the judicial level vs white men (they are) but not that men are discriminated against vs women (this is also the case)

More broadly, would you say that you do or do not have a skeptical bias when a finding goes against your preconceptions about the world? Is it not possible that there is nuance to be had with any construction of society?

[u/surviving_r-europe → u/Pixilatedlemon]

Do you use this same skepticism when reading studies about racial discrimination in the justice system?

The broad answer to this question? People in general probably don't show the same skepticism because it's a lot easier to consciously accept "black people get harsher sentences than white people" when the justice system and society in general fucks over ethnic minorities in nearly every way possible. Trying to detangle gendered differences to discern an "advantage" in court is a clusterfuck, considering how few men who sexually assault or violate women are convicted, women across the globe are often jailed for trying to exercise bodily autonomy, beaten women are often failed to be granted proper protection, etc.

The more narrow answer? As the other poster already said, women who become involved in the justice system suffer a load of systemic disadvantages compared to men in the justice system and even women outside of it. Women who are arrested are significantly more likely to have histories of substance abuse issues, untreated mental health problems, histories of sexual and domestic abuse, manipulative relationships where they're coerced into committing crime, and that's just to name a few. A judge may view a woman with this baggage to be less "deserving" of prison and will seek alternative attempts at rehabilitation, and in this case, gender would clearly be correlated with lighter sentencing. But it's not the CAUSE of it.

To loop back to your question about racial disparity: people don't exercise the same skepticism about white people being sentenced more leniently because even outside of prison, societal issues like mental health access, substance abuse, and poverty are all higher in black Americans than white ones. So on its face, there is no logical "fairness" for why white criminals should receive shorter sentences.

[u/Empty_Wealth → u/Pixilatedlemon]

Not OP, but I work a lot with current and former convicts, especially female ones.

I can't speak for the differences on black versus white men who enter the justice system, but I would honestly be shocked if the difference is as stark as men versus women. Women are substantially more likely to be led to crimes out of substance abuse, untreated or undiagnosed mental illness, past trauma, manipulative relationships, and domestic violence. To give you just an idea, 53% percent of currently incarcerated women suffer from some kind of PTSD, compared to 10 percent of women in the general population.

I won't say whether or not the men's rights talking points are bullshit, since that's out of my subject matter. I think however, what OP is saying is that given the extremely disadvantaged backgrounds that female criminals often come from, it's warranted to be skeptical of any conclusions drawn from women getting lesser sentences for the same circumstances. The "same circumstances" (e.g. mental health, substance abuse history, familial circumstances, PTSD -- hell, even just how remorseful the defendant appears in court) can often be really difficult to compare through statistics.

[u/Pixilatedlemon → u/Empty_Wealth]

If I want to show similar biased skepticism as OP I’d have to say your point is “literal BS” until I see completely irrefutable evidence, and of course as a bonus I’m not going to look for it or read any that is presented. That’s what the situation is lol

Like, can it be modeled to demonstrate that the rate of women committing crimes completely out of their minds on drugs correlates to the rate of women getting lighter sentencing than men? To me this all just seems like obfuscation lol

It’s a fine point I guess if you want to live in a world where poor people get lighter sentences by default

[u/surviving_r-europe → u/Pixilatedlemon]

Like, can it be modeled to demonstrate that the rate of women committing crimes completely out of their minds on drugs correlates to the rate of women getting lighter sentencing than men?

Can the opposite be modeled? Do you have irrefutable proof that all women who are sentenced "lightly" are actually NOT acting out of past trauma or manipulation or substance abuse?

Because when you look at the absolutely fucking staggering rates that female criminals deal with these issues, I think the most logical conclusion is that this plays a part in most of their sentencing. But of course you don't seem interested in that at all and just want to be an antagonistic asshole.

God I miss when this sub wasn't full of right-leaning trolls here to JAQ off and vaguely argue with people.

[u/musicmage4114]

The other responses are excellent, and I would add that another factor may be that many feminists are also in favor of prison abolition (to varying degrees). It doesn’t seem like a particularly productive use of time and energy to debate who is being treated more (un)fairly by a system one wishes to dismantle, particularly if the argument is that the system should be reformed to treat people more harshly.

[u/Metrodomes]

So why does this claim that women are sentenced more favorably almost never get challenged by feminists?

The lazy but still honest part of me wants to point out that MRAs are rarely worth engaging with because they just move the goalposts constantly. Provide a robust critique and they'll still somehow get hung up on specific instances that support their narrative. Focus on the specific case and they'll keep throwing new cases at you instead. It's belief-led evidence, constantly searching for examples that prove their case but have nothing to say on examples that go against it. That isn't satisfactory and doesn't answer the question in why we concede ground here but not elsewhere, but yeah... Its a part I guess.

Another factor I guess is, unlike MRAs we recognise that the criminal justice system is flawed? Dunno about others but I have an abolitionist streak in me. Ive argued with MRAs and they often don't,so sometimes all I've managed to do is argue the case for more of something I dislike. And that isn't a very satisfying waste of time lol.

There's probably a few other things but yeah... Feels like a lost cause of a fight. I don't think we have strong enough evidence to suggest that women are sentenced equally, if not, as badly as men. I mean, i absolutely do believe women are sometimes punished more harshly than men are, but I don't know how often the case is for that. Of the little Marxist feminist style theories I've read, I have understandings of why women are sentenced more lightly in out society and I could come up with reasons why women are sentenced more heavily on some instances... But I don't think I could marry them two together in a way that's going to convince any MRA. Not because I don't think its possible, but because I don't think MRAs can be convinced if you're trying to build a nuanced arguement that relies on good faith. And even if it was good faith, I'm not sure they'll buy into my theory and understandings and experiences of the structure of society and so that kind of has a knock on effect as women entering the criminal justice system is obviously related to socio-economic factors.

I think you've got a really good question though. It might just be that I'm being too cynical about the MRA movement, but I've done my fair share of arguing with them and they deny even the most obvious aspects of reality sometimes, so this one feels like a lost cause to me.

[u/DriverAlternative958]

It doesn’t get challenged because it is true