Just feeling really angry at all the murder, assault, rape of females that goes on

No, you didn't make it clear.

No matter how you dress it up, you said 'i'm sorry but the way women chose men encourages male violence.'

That is inexcusable.

It is also absolute horseshit.

MN runs an 'I Believe You' campaign - how do you think people like you going around and saying you think 'the way women choose men encourages male violence' fits in with that? You are saying that this is something to do with us as a 'species'. Suggesting it's innate or socialized to all of us does not make your victim-blaming better, it makes it worse.

I have already explained you have misunderstood my use of other, above.

not blaming women , i thought i made that clear.
'other' doesnt mean less inportant, it's just another type of violence, and different crimes need to be policed differently.

whatme - sorry, I think I get the gist of what you said about wiki but it 'bodies' a typo for something? If it's for figures or similar, no, my point was, I didn't have any idea where the stats were from because you get that 'citation needed' thing, which could mean anything from 'I made it up' to 'this is absolutely correct and well-known, but I didn't find a source'.

I'm sorry, I'm still not following the stats, just because I can't do numbers. The only one I can evalute is pornmonkey's which he or she clearly has just made up, since no-one mentioned anything like it on the thread before.

But I agree, there is clearly so much violence going on, that is the problem. Maybe we should take the same attittude as with rape: focus on the rapists, not people who have been raped?

meow - 'i'm sorry but the way women chose men encourages male violence.' Absolute rubbish. That is a disgusting thing to say. You are blaming women, and claiming it's something we do as a species makes it no less of a lie.

Do you know how many women (and men) can't cope with seeing violence? Trust me, it's actually quite a few. Men who've seen their mothers beaten up as boys, and women who've been subject to DV, and children of both genders who've been abused - lots of these people react strongly and physically to seeing violence. Our 'species' seems to cause that, too - that revulsion to violence, doesn't it?

Btw, sexual violence and domestic violence are not 'other'. I said upthread that the myths surrounding them are an attempt at 'othering' these types of violence, by implying the men (and occasionally women) who carry them out are other from the community. They are not.

IME Men are much less likely to report violent crime and if there was a sexual element to that crime, well, none of the male victims I've known have reported It.

When I tried to report my partner for DV, I was laughed at in the Police station.

sexual violence and domestice violence are 'other'. they are a different type of violence, hugely underreported by both sexes due to shame and fear.

To get back to OP and Tia Sharp, the case that got her starting the thread, the grandmother has now been arrested for murder. We automatically assume that it would be the man- rather a dangerous assumption.

Statistically its usually the Step-partner who does it and the woman colludes.

But female on female DV is possibly increasing (a police friend told me that, but I've no hard evidence) but is still hardly ever reported .

young boys are just as unsafe in their own homes as young girls, they report even less so current stats are meaningless

its just an unpleasant world we live in

Tia Sharpes grandmother may have been involved but its rare, most perpetrators of violence are male

To get back to OP and Tia Sharp, the case that got her starting the thread, the grandmother has now been arrested for murder. We automatically assume that it would be the man- rather a dangerous assumption. We will have to wait to find out what actually happened.

I don't know any men who are violent. When my DSs are in groups they are not remotely dangerous. Undoubtedly, there are terrible people in the world but we don't need to let them colour everything for us

Me neither. Putting LRD's stats into perspective, ther are roughly 30 million males in the UK, and if there are 880,000 episodes of attack per annum that's about 3% of all males attacked PA.

I'd bet most of us can easily work out pretty much where, who, and when most of that happens - so avoiding certain places/people at certain times probably is the best solution.

But not everyone has that solution - I do feel very sorry for the boys on the big city estates, as the gangs define certain streets as "theirs" so just walking from home to the cinema can be a "crossing enemy territory" issue. I think making just the main streets in an area safe would do more to help reduce overall violence than anything else.

So women are safer out than in their homes. Go out at night as a woman to save yourself from violence, in a sense is the message

Paaaarty! as the new women's safety campaign - I like it :)

But I do wonder if the causality is the other way, ie because women are at home more, more happens at home - and if they went out you'd see a rise?

This thread has got me thinking.I have both boys and girls.Up to now,my DH and I have been more concerned about the girls safety out at night,rather than the boys.But actually,the boys are more at risk of general violence.
I am also now thinking,that as a general rule,my boys,and other groups of boys I know,go out and about in larger groups than the girls.About eg 8 of them,whereas the girls maybe in groups of say 4.
And presumably this is why boys go around in large numbers socially,to keep themselves safer than they would otherwise be.

Sorry, I maybe wasn't clear: part of my problem is that citing from wiki is not a good idea, because (as quoted), it tends to be full of 'citation needed' annotations and, if references are there, you might as well look at those

The thing about Wikipedia is you know where the bodies are, when you look at special interest websites you don't. Google ranks sites on popularity, not accuracy (so sites pandering to belief groups usually score highly, those trying to be accurate often less so. Wikipedia thank heaves is always on Page 1).

But there were women, or at least young girls, participating in the riots. Most of the rioting was teenagers on a thieving spree, not organised disaffection. (I live in Croydon, I had to walk home pretty much through the riot and some of the people I saw yelling and egging each other on were definitely teenage girls).

Though I do remember Tweeting that what was needed in some of the more jumpy areas was for the women to come out and defend homes and businesses; in Eltham, where my DB and SIL live, they had the fucking EDL lolloping about looking for 'invaders' to duff up.

I guess aggression as a trait exists because we are a predator species and it has been a significant (perhaps necessary) element of our evolutionary success.

Arguably if we had exhibited no agression/propensity to violence at all we would have been a very passive, non-risk taking species and ultimately ended up as prey to the aggression of other creatures. Instead we survived because we could protect ourselves and displayed a sufficient 'killer instinct' to hunt and kill other animals for food and territory.

We have presumably also been the masters of our own development to to the extent that men in particular showing certain traits like physical strength and a willingness to use agression have been able to mate and pass on those characteristics.

In some societies (I'll try to avoid saying more 'developed' ones) we perhaps increasingly see those traits in a more negative light, preferring a gentler more cerebral approach. Ultimately for better or worse they are the characteristics that have brought our species to where it is today and it will take quite a feat of social engineering to hang on to the positive aspects whilst eliminating the negative ones.

Men with no qualifications could get heavy labouring jobs that did at least use up their energy! No one wants them now-the world has moved on.

The useful stats above show men at risk from other men who are unknown to them and women at risk from men they know. So women are safer out than in their homes. Go out at night as a woman to save yourself from violence, in a sense is the message. And the message to 14 - 17 year old boys is stay in or go to safe places like the gym not the streets in the most dangerous bit of London

Whether rapists are known to their victims or not, there will be less rape if they are locked up.

I expect that the rioters were male because they are the ones whose jobs, in heavy industry, have mainly gone so they are the most disaffected.

This isn't true though. The cuts have disproportionately affected women, both in terms of job losses and in terms of loss of services and benefit cuts.

We need to get away from the terrific fear of strangers and concentrate on how to stay safe from the people that you know.

The majority of rapists are known to the women.

Is there a way to fight violence against women without playing in to the misperceptions that make girls and women (and parents) more afraid and overprotective than necessary?

Yes there is - we could get a lot better at convicting and locking up the perpetrators. That would make a real, rather than just a perceived, difference to women's and girl's safety. It would certainly make me feel safer if I knew that the majority of rapists were not roaming free.

I agree with Himalaya about media response.

I agree with pornmonkey - I don't know any men who are violent. When my DSs are in groups they are not remotely dangerous. Undoubtedly, there are terrible people in the world but we don't need to let them colour everything for us.
It is sad that OP feels that the situation is so bad she needs to have a boy, and I hope that she doesn't make him feel bad about the fact that he is male.
I expect that the rioters were male because they are the ones whose jobs, in heavy industry, have mainly gone so they are the most disaffected.
SGB probably has the best point that women are encouraged to fear violence from strangers and so they accept it at home as the price they pay for protection. There is very little danger from strangers - it is far likely to be someone you know. You only have to read MN to know that the message is constant, as in you can't leave an 8 yr old at home for 10 mins, you can't send them to the shop alone.In reality the risk is slight and what they should be taught is that they don't have to put up with anything that makes them uncomfortable from people they know.

In terms of why the media focuses more on terrible things that happen to women and girls/ risks to women I guess there is a certain amount of supply and demand to this.

I mean if the papers/TV report on a missing girl and a missing boy in the same way and the public responds with more interest in the girl, then the media responds to that with more.

Same with the different media/public response to middle class/working
class kids, and black and white kids in different ways.

The media responds to our prejudices and our prejudices are shaped by the media.... There is this fascination with peril for young girls. Which ends up with the OP and others thinking their daughters are more at risk e.g. from murder, when in fact the risk to their sons is 4x greater.

Is there a way to fight violence against women without playing in to the misperceptions that make girls and women (and parents) more afraid and overprotective than necessary?