(Click on the graph for a larger view.)<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n My Internet search for explanations was cursory at best, but it turned up nothing. I have only two ideas:<\/p>\n 1. Men Behaving Better. Men have stopped doing those things that made women want to kill them.<\/p>\n I offered this explanation to two women in the Justice Studies department here. They rejected it out of hand and without comment. (Maybe they didn\u2019t like the blaming-the-victim assumption: if women kill men, it\u2019s because of what men do. Or maybe they were using a convenience sample of anecdotal data on men\u2019s behavior.). One of these women, Lisa Anne Zilney, offered a counter-explanation . . .<\/p>\n 2. Women Having Options. Women\u2019s shelters and other facilities have given women an alternative. Without these, the only way to escape an intolerable situation at home was to get rid of the cause. Providing abused and desperate women a safe place to go saves lives \u2013 and apparently not just the lives of women.<\/p>\n I\u2019m not wild about either of these explanations for the steep decline in the SROK (and as I recall, Wilson and Daly weren\u2019t wild about any of their explanations of why it was so high).<\/p>\n Any ideas?<\/p>\n ———————————–<\/p>\n Thanks Jay!\u00a0 Read his other guest post: When grown men loved teddy bears<\/a>.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/__cLfPbhhwmw\/SfHO8f_AfxI\/AAAAAAAAB08\/RQY5iaDd4zY\/s400\/00+Intimate+Homicide.jpg\")
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\n<\/span>Between 1976 and 2005, the number of women killed by their male partners decreased by about 25%, less than the decrease in all homicides nationwide. But the number of men killed by women dropped dramatically, from 1300 to 330, a 75% decrease (since the population increased in those three decades, the change in rates is probably even greater. The SROK fell from 82% to 28%.<\/p>\n