Violence against wives and girlfriends in the US...
...has decreased to a quarter of the rate in 1995
While we’re on the subject of violence, domestic violence has decreased massively in the US in the last 20 years. As always, the current rate is still too high, but it is just a fraction (400 cases per year per 100,000 women vs 1600 in 1995) of what it was in the 90s, just 30 years ago. Rape and sexual assault numbers are down as well, by a similar fraction (800 to 200 cases per 100,000 women per year).
I’ve never seen these statistics in a newspaper, and I wouldn’t have been aware of this situation at all if I wasn’t researching for this blog. I suspect you’re the same - please share this post if so!
Similar ‘progressive’ developments persist elsewhere - despite the current discourse around online hatred (of course, still a real problem which needs to be worked on), searches for sexist, racist and homophobic jokes are all down to a fraction of their search volume in 2005:
Would you have guessed this from the way the media portray social media? I certainly wouldn’t.
Abuse and victimisation of children is also down since the 1990s, in particular, violent victimisation is down by 70%:
Hate crimes are also down, particularly against black people:
And the decriminalisation of homosexuality has seen amazing growth in recent decades:
In fact, throughout the whole world, ‘emancipative values’ have increased steadily over time:
Of course, as always there is still much more to be done, but the direction of progress is positive, and there is no reason to suspect that won’t continue.
Just another thing that the media does a very good job of hiding, and another thing to be cheerful about.
Source: Enlightenment Now, Stephen Pinker