THE FEAR OF CRIME IN THE UNITED STATES: A TALE OF TWO GENDERS

One of the most consistent findings of the fear of crime literature is that women are more fearful than men. This difference has been explained through several lenses: through evolutionary, vulnerability and socialization perspectives, to name three. But we focus on a perspective that emphasizes the violence of men and examine the question of whether the extraordinary decrease in both rape rates and other forms of violence against women since the early 1970s in the United States (Pinker, 2011) has been associated with a comparable decline in women's fear of crime and a decrease in the difference between men's and women's fear. We use General Social Survey and Bureau of Justice Statistics data and find support for both of these possibilities and consider policy implications.