14 Introduction Some Facts in the Case 15 aggravated assault,88 per cent of those arrested for arson,and Table 4 Women at upper levels of the state so on through other crimes of violence.Figures for other recent years are very similar. Country Date Body So far as the official and semi-official figures go,then,it appears that men are more commonly than women the victims of serious Parliaments interpersonal violence,and even more commonly the perpetrators. (1)United States 1984 Congress 4 The same is true of the institutional violence represented by the (2)Japan 1985 4 police,the prison system and the military.At the census of 1981 (3)Soviet Union 1985 Supreme Soviet 33 Australia had 30,200 police officers;94 per cent of them were (4) India 1985 (federal) 9 (5)Australia 1985 (federal and state) 9 men.In June 1983,the most recent figures,there was a national (6)Colombia 1975 prison population of 10,200;96 per cent were men.The United States in 1983 had a prison population of 224,000;93 per cent fudges were men.This pattern too is international.The following figures (1)United States 1985 state and federal courts are the percentage of prisoners in 1974 who were men: (2)Britain 1984 high,circuit and county courts 3 Canada 97% (3)Soviet Union 1984 People's courts 36 West Germany 97% (4)India 1986 2 (5)Australia 1985 all federal courts Japan 98% Italy 95% Generals (1)United States carly 1980s 0.6 The situation in the military is similar.In June 1984 the (2)Japan 1986 nil Australian army,navy and air force between them had a total (3)Italy 1986 nil strength of 71,600,of whom 93 per cent were men.A comparison (4)Australia 1986 nil of the major NATO forces in 1979-80 shows the same pattern: the police,the bureaucracies,the soldiers?It is notoriously difficult United States 92% to locate actual power-holders with any precision,but a reasonable France 95% first approximation is possible,by looking at three groups from West Germany 99.9% whom some key power-holders are certainly drawn:judges, Britain 95% generals and members of national parliaments (see table 4).The statistics on parliaments are relatively easy to get,and are shown The dominance of the military by men was even more complete for countries chosen from the six groups defined earlier.Figures in the past.The United States armed forces,for instance,were for judges and generals are scrappy but illuminating.As a change, 99 per cent men in 1960,1965 and 1970.The percentage of the figures given in this table are the percentages of woomen in the women began to creep up in the early 1970s,with a formal policy groups named. of expanding women's role in the military starting in 1973.In The Soviet Union looks rather good on these figures.But in the most armies,nevertheless,women are forbidden to have a combat communist systems power resides more in the Party than the role.In anti-aircraft units in Britain during World War II women parliament-and in the Central Committee of the Communist were allowed to do every job,including aiming the guns at the Party of the Soviet Union,the participation of women in 1981 German planes-but not to pull the trigger. was 4 per cent. What of those who control the machinery of state,who direct At the end of an excellent review of the world-wide evidence on