I saw on Tyler Cowen's blog that he was a little perplexed by the
fact that the Nordic countries are supposed to be the most sex-equal nation in the world (he says "gender-equal nations", but that's the wrong term), but yet alongside this, they also appear to have a
disproportionately high rate of domestic violence against women.
Tyler, who from what I've seen doesn't get perplexed about very much, is perplexed because "logically violence against women would be expected to drop as women gained equal status in a society". To me, that expectation is far from obvious - so much so, in fact, that I'd even be inclined to expect the opposite: that as women gain equal status the likelihood of violence against them increases.
Don't get me wrong, I'd really love it not to be the case, and as male attitudes towards women hopefully continue to improve, then that societal betterment may well offset some of the aforementioned increased likelihood of violence. But given that men have equal status with other men and fight all the time, I wouldn't have thought the 'equal status' factor is the thing that reduces incidents of male violence against women.
A study from a few years back explored this contradiction - the so-called Nordic paradox. Why, after all, should it be perplexing? If a boy grows up being told that men are stronger than women, and that a “real man” never hits a woman, he’s learned a kind of protective chivalry rooted in hierarchy. But if that same boy is instead taught that men and women are equal in jut about every way - and that chivalry is patronising or patriarchal - then why wouldn’t we expect some men to treat women as physical equals, including in moments of conflict? That's not a defence of violence, obviously - it’s simply a reminder of the age-old economic wisdom of unintended side effects. Equality changes not just laws and opportunities, but also the cultural scripts that once governed restraint.
There may be
other factors at play here, though - like, for example, perhaps people in the
Nordic countries are more likely to report abuse. Often a society with lower
reported rates have much lower reporting rates, and this may be true in reverse
here, especially as Nordic women’s high economic independence might also mean
they’re less financially trapped in abusive relationships, so abuse is more
likely to be reported or result in prosecution.
There are many unintended consequences in life, and this might be one such case.
