'Then you'd better not fight today' said Alice, thinking it a good opportunity to make peace.
The forever-battling twins, Tweedledum and Tweedledee, from Lewis Carroll's Alice Through the Looking Glass, illustrated by John Tenniel.

Men are by far the more violent sex. An unfair prejudice? No, a statement of fact. A glance through the statistics on aggression confirms that when it comes to a fight, men and women really are worlds apart.

Boys battle
Even as tiny tots the patterns are set. From two years old upward, males display aggression more often than females — and across all cultures. Continuing into adulthood, sex differences in aggression remain a human universal.

In 1989, Professor Rita Simon and colleagues from the Department of Justice, Law and Society at the American University in Washington DC, assessed the role of gender in violent crime. The study looked at homicide rates in 31 countries across a time span of 18 years and found no time or country in which female aggression exceeded that of male aggression. It seems the skew in our behaviour can even be traced back as far as the 13th century, according to other historical studies.

Professor Candace Kruttschnitt in the Department of Sociology, University of Minnesota analysed crime data in 1994. She found that in the USA, men commit 85.5% of simple assaults, 87.3% of aggravated assaults and 88.5% of murders. This tells us that the more violent the act, the fewer women engage in it.

Recent media reports have focused on increasing levels of violence in girls, especially girl gangs and the 'ladette' culture. To some extent this is true. In some cases, girls are getting more violent, but where aggression is on an upward trend in girls, the same is true of boys. Conditions that drive crime in one sex, also drive it in the other and the major driving force for crime is, of course, poverty. Male and female crime rates rise and fall together and the sex difference tends to remain the same.

Safer sex
Psychologist Dr Anne Campbell has been studying sex differences in aggression for nearly 30 years. In her quest, she has interviewed women inmates, hung out with girl gangs in New York City, observed some of the most troublesome pubs in inner city areas, run experiments, and measured testosterone, attitudes and gender roles. In her recent book, Anne lays out the possibility that women have evolved a tendency to avoid aggressive or risky situations. In a nutshell, this is how it goes …

When humans were hunter-gatherers on the savannahs of Africa, women who put high value on staying safe would have done best on the reproductive stakes. This is because infant survival depended more on the mum's rather than the dad's care and protection. Wary women would then have left more offspring, who would have inherited their wary character and so on. The cycle continues, until all women become the safer sex.

Anne suggests the mechanism that keeps women out of trouble is fear. Today, women are indeed more fearful of situations that could pose potential physical danger. The modern woman also shows a greater concern for her health than her male counterpart. In fact, the strongest predictor of preventative health care is gender.

Of course, evolved biology is not the only factor that influences us, and Anne would be the first to admit it. Cultural influences have enhanced sex differences in aggression as well. Historically speaking, men have ruled the roost in almost every society since the dawn of civilisation. From their position of power they have been able to spread ideas that are likely to keep them in control. And women's aggression has indeed been ridiculed as an abnormality, an illness or madness. Even today there is a stigma attached to fighting talk in the powder room. All you girls should now have one question on your lips — what happened to women's liberation? Hang in there girls, and just remember, a revolution always starts with a whisper.