If men behaved like women, the money saved by the state would finance, almost entirely in one year, the economic recovery plan of 100 billion euros announced by the government.
This is the relentless observation of the historian and member of the Equality Laboratory, Lucile Peytavin, who released a first essay this Friday: “The cost of virility” (Éditions Anne Carrière).
In this book, she estimates the price of male violence, which weighs on society as a whole, at 95.2 billion per year.
A staggering figure to which it results, at the end of a meticulous analysis of the damages caused by a toxic masculinity.
Lucile Peytavin, historian and member of the Equality Laboratory, is the author of the essay "The cost of virility" (Editions Anne Carrière).
“When I told the men around me about my project, some felt targeted.
I will say it very clearly: I am not attacking men in this essay but this education which values and perpetuates the virile values of strength, resistance to pain, to the detriment of feelings, of empathy ... We are not born violent, there is no genetic predisposition to that, we become it.
These are cultural patterns, more or less conscious, which push for a differentiated education between girls and boys and lead the latter towards dangerous behaviors, even violent.
These behaviors have consequences for the common good.
It is time to become aware of it, ”warns the historian.
Male behavior mobilizes, each year, 7 billion euros from the justice budget
Lucile Peytavin does not hide in any way the obstacles, from a methodological point of view, to arrive at this estimate.
“There is no synthetic study on this phenomenon of the harmful effects of virility.
I had to do a lot of research because the figures are scattered all over the place, particularly in the departments.
In addition, I did not have access to the data of many offenses which are not disaggregated by sex, and then everyone does not file a complaint.
The figure for this estimate is therefore probably even higher, ”says the author.
One thing is certain: men are responsible for the majority of anti-social behavior and the "statistical chasm" that exists between men and women on this subject is ignored.
Small inventory à la Prévert: men represent 83% of the 2 million perpetrators of criminal offenses treated annually by the prosecution and 90% of people convicted by the courts, 86% of those accused of murder, 99% of perpetrators of rapes, 84% of the perpetrators of fatal road accidents, 95% of those implicated for violent thefts with a weapon and ... 96.3% of the prison population.
On the Justice budget alone (€ 9 billion), male behavior mobilizes 7 billion each year.
How many police officers or gendarmes, magistrates, prison staff were needed to deal with this situation?
At the same time, what is the cost of the physical and / or psychological care of a possible victim?
Productivity losses?
The repercussions of a feeling of insecurity on the most diverse economic sectors (such as tourism)?
These questions are the foundation of this essay.
Worldwide, the incarceration rate for women is between 3 and 20%
Social background, age, environment ... these criteria are used by the security services to best identify the profile of delinquents and criminals.
"However, if these factors undeniably play a role and can sometimes be combined, they are in my opinion always secondary with regard to the differential education given to children according to their sex", Lucile Peytavin slices in her book.
What is his opinion based on?
“Whatever the social background and the period considered, the figures show that women indulge much less in violence than men.
And this holds true for those who grow up in poverty, beaten up, or sexually assaulted.
Poverty is therefore a much less determining factor than sex.
Moreover, across the world, the incarceration rate for women is between 3 and 20% (the highest rate is in Hong Kong).
The challenges of virility therefore arise on an international scale.
“We have integrated so much that it is, supposedly, in the nature of men that, paradoxically, it makes their over-representation invisible.
So much so that when a woman is violent, it surprises everyone, it is not considered
normal
and makes the headlines ”, further illustrates the author.
The singer Renaud already said it in 1985, in the song “Miss Maggie”, where he underlines the absence of the responsibility of the women in the worst acts committed by the humanity.
While scratching in the process, the politics of Margaret Thatcher, making her the exception.
When a man does not correspond to the masculine “norm”, does not live up to the “virile” stereotypes that are expected of him, he too often finds himself the victim of this injunction to “be a good guy”.
While “males” commit suicide 3 to 4 times more than women, the risks are increased tenfold among young homosexuals, transsexuals and older men.
A person killed "costs" 3.241 million euros to society
Because they put themselves in more danger than women, more men go to the emergency room.
Regardless of age, their premature mortality rate (before age 65) is 2.1 times higher than in women and their preventable premature mortality rate (caused by risky behavior) is 3.3 times higher. .
The estimated cost of virility in the health services?
2.3 billion per year.
In her calculation, Lucile Peytavin also relies on the “value of statistical life”, defined in the Quinet report, published in 2013 and based on the work of the OECD.
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“The physical and psychological traumas causing pain and distress are human and are of an order infinitely greater than the financial dimension that I evoke in this essay,” acknowledges the author.
However, they too have economic repercussions which can and should be quantified ”.
We learn that a person killed "costs" 3.241 million euros to society or 405,180 euros for an injured person hospitalized for more than 24 hours.
"So yes, if men behaved like women, we would live in a richer and freer society", pleads Lucile Peytavin.
