Hi, Asgara. I think I can shed some light on the disparate numbers.
According to the Department of Justice, the rate you quote--1 in 6--for the incidence of rape for American women is about right.
However, they do not include the rape of girls under 12 in those statistics--some studies suggest as many as 25-30% of rape victims are in that age category.
Also, the statistics only include reported rapes, while multiple studies demonstrate rape to be the most under-reported crime. Also of interest, the rate for American men is 1 in 33; the percentage of male rapists is 99%.
Further demonstrating the under-reporting of rape, female American college students report an incidence of rape of about 1 in 4.
Given the age definitions used by the statisticians and the phenomenon of under-reporting, my personal opinion is that the rate of 1 in 4 is low.
As someone who was raped as an 8 year old, and both beaten and psychologically terrorized throughout my childhood, I'd like to point out that physical v. psychological aggression is a false dichotomy: all physical abuse includes a devastating psychological component.
In general, if given the opportunity to avoid one or the other, I'd have preferred to avoid the physical hits: the developing psyche can toughen up to the rain of emotional and psychological blows but the body does not; and the personality that can grow strong in defiance of either psychological or physical aggression may well crumble when faced with both. Torture, after all, is almost 100% effective in shattering resistance; brow-beating is not.
I've read the studies I'm sure Archer was referring to, and it is important to note that those studies describe girls as most likely to be more socially/verbally aggressive during the years when their apparent gender-based verbal development advantage is most in play, i.e., those years following the onset of puberty. That gap in social/verbal aggression gradually narrows (which Archer noted).
It appears that adult men and women are fairly equally socially aggressive--e.g., in terms of "gossip" and verbal-exclusion behaviors in the forming of friendship circles and cliques--because men, though slower to develop these behaviors, eventually catch up. However, the differential in physical aggression remains: women do not "close the gap" in the opposite direction.
Drinking when we are not thirsty and making love at any time, madam, is all that distinguishes us from the other animals.
-Pierre De Beaumarchais (1732-1799)
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