The Gender Triangle of Violence——How Females Become Invisible Criminals in Male Violence

On November 11, 2024, in Zhuhai, China, a 62-year-old man drove into a fitness plaza, killing 35 and injuring 43, one of China’s deadliest attacks since 2014. This is not isolated—five similar incidents occurred in a month. Post-pandemic pressures and depression, especially in Eastern countries, are increasingly manifesting as social violence. Not only triggered a discussion about social stress, but also sparked debates on male violence and its impact on women, because of a police report.

Interestingly, the official police reported two versions of the news, it’s slightly different from the narrative. Beyond describing the incident itself, the one that sparked widespread public dissatisfaction notably delved into the perpetrator’s private life, stating:

“Investigations revealed that in recent years, the man had filed multiple civil lawsuits at both the grassroots and intermediate courts over disputes concerning the division of assets following his divorce…Authorities have preliminarily concluded that the case was triggered by the man’s dissatisfaction with the property division outcome.”

It’s widely acknowledged that the news framing and narratives could influence people’s focus on one thing. The Zhuhai car-ramming incident offers a chilling example of how societal narratives subtly deflect male accountability. This framing, while ostensibly factual, effectively shifts part of the blame onto his ex-wife, painting her as a contributing factor to his violent actions. This rhetorical sleight of hand exemplifies a broader global phenomenon: the tendency to question women’s morality in incidents of male violence.

The Triangle of Violence is originally from John Galtung, who classified violence into three types: Direct Violence, Structural Violence and Cultural Violence. Using the powerful frame, the violence towards females is obvious:

The direct Violence. It’s human instinct to attribute causes to events. This news report cleverly taps into the human instinct for attribution, linking the driver’s violent actions to the failure of his marriage. This has also led to a shift in public opinion: the initial blame directed at the driver gradually turned toward his ex-wife, despite her having no direct connection to the violent incident.

The structural Violence. In daily life, people can sense subtle shifts in the social atmosphere, marked by a growing undercurrent of hostility. This intuitive awareness often points to systemic factors underlying the rising frequency of violent incidents. When men face setbacks in marriage, intimate relationships, or issues of “sexual entitlement”, such failures are framed in public discourse differently from other types of disputes. Notably, when women or emotional dynamics are implicated in these acts of violence, the narrative often shifts, strikingly casting women as the ultimate bearers of responsibility.

The Cultural Violence. While it is evident that the driver himself bears full responsibility, media narratives have shifted his portrayal from that of a “dangerous man” to a “dangerous divorced man.” This shift is not merely about stigmatizing divorced men; rather, it reinforces the societal notion of women—and marriage—as instrumental forces in maintaining social stability, which means women are expected to become the tie in families.

Moreover, this incident reveals an intriguing triangular dynamic: when a man commits an act of social violence, news reports often highlight his struggles in romantic, marital, or family relationships, subtly implying that the woman behind these relationships is the root cause of the incident. Emotional disputes as a cause of violence have almost become a “dog whistle,” subtly implying that the victim shares responsibility and contributed to the violence. This narrative consistently rallies a group of defenders and sympathizers for the perpetrator, hastily concluding that the perpetrator must have acted out of “great relationship suffering.”

These two triangular dynamics reveal a deeply rooted and pervasive undercurrent of misogyny within our society.

References

Galtung, J. (1969). Violence, peace, and peace research. Journal of Peace Research, 6(3), 167–191. https://doi.org/10.1177/002234336900600301

Researcher in Politics and Women’s Issues. (2024, November 25). Dangerous divorced men? Gender accountability and the sense of entitlement behind the Zhuhai car-ramming incident. Initium Media. https://theinitium.com/zh-hans/opinion/20241125-china-zhuhai-violence

United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). (n.d.). Executive summary on the qualitative study: Gender-based violence and societal factors. Retrieved from https://china.unfpa.org/sites/default/files/pub-pdf/2.%20Executive%20Summary%20on%20the%20qualitative%20study.pdf