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

Nobody on this thread has suggested that all or most men are violent. But what they have observed is that most violence is committed by men. I'm sure that this is an uncomfortable fact for many people, but feminism is not a cosy enterprise. Consciousness raising can be a painful process - it certainly has been for me.

With respect to the riots, my memory of the coverage last summer was that a lot of it focused on the fact that the rioters were young and socioeconomically disaffected - but the rioting was also gendered, and I don't remember seeing a piece anywhere that specifically talked about this. Why do disaffected men choose to riot when disaffected women, on the whole, do not?

So many generalisations is unusual, even here, but good to know what others think. Please go off and research the demographic of all the beastly men in the riots, and then pop back and apologise to the 99% that you lumped in there with them. Many teachers, nurses, civil servants, even just any happily middle class employed people rioting? Thought not...
I don't know any man in my family life, social life or working life who is violent and I don't believe that is unusual for a minute. But please don't let the truth stop you from joining a commune, seriously.

I remember thinking about this sort of thing during the riots last summer, when it was clear that nearly all the people who were acting violently in them were men. I kept thinking "why is nobody talking about the fact that virtually all of this violence is being done by men?" If any other identifiable social group was overwhelmingly the main perpetrator of that scale of disorder, we'd be talking about it.

Why are men (as a group) so violent? How the fuck does this happen? Sometimes I get so angry and depressed about it that I think living in all-women communes is not such a bad idea after all.

Violence against women is a bad thing, and there is too much of it that goes on with impunity. There is plenty to be angry about.

But we dont need to hold onto spurious factoids about it being more common or worse than male-on-male violence in order to argue this.

Here is some more data - it is from US, 1994 but it doesnt look too different from the longer term.What it shows is that:

• Men experienced more violent crimes than women: (6.6 million versus 5 million).

• Strangers committed most of the violence against males (3.9 million), while persons whom the vic tims knew committed most of the vio lence against females (3 million).

• Women were 5 times more like to be victimised by a partner/ex/bf than men, and 14x more likely to be victims of sexual assault/rape

• Men were 4x more likely to be murdered than women. Where the murderer was identified it was someone known to the victim 75% of the time for men and 90% for women.

• In assaults, but not robberies, females were more likely than males to sustain an injury. When injured during a violent crime, male victims were more likely than female victims to be seriously hurt, including causing brain damage and disability.

I.e. men experience more violence, women experience more DV and sexual violence. women are more likely to be injured, men are more likely to be seriously injured or killed.

And that's why gender stereotypes are so so damaging.

Someone gets attacked -
And boys are ashamed of themseves for being weak enough to let it happen
and girls are ashamed of themselves for being too provocative and letting it happen

meanwhile, the attacky bastard carries on, having inflicted physical damage, and society stiks the boot in by inflicting a certain type of self hating psychological damage.

The violence against men that's referred to upthread isn't generally committed by women, is it, Margery? So acknowledging that violence certainly isn't denying male violence.

It's very obvious isn't it Margerykemp but also so incredibly painful to acknowledge.

you aren't comparing like with like- the kind of violence men commit against women eg rape is 10x as harmful as a punch in a bar brawl between 2 men

men as a group are dangerous- why is there so much denial about this??

I agree completely, solid - and I think that the press have benefitted from reporting stranger violence against women as it can give people that cosy 'aren't we safe/lucky/sensible' vibe, keep women 'safely' at home ('better the devil you know', etc), and maintains nice, safe gender roles (heaven forfend that she should pop out for a few jars while he cooks the tea and looks after the kiddies). I also think it stems from very ancient and anachronistic cultural, religious and legal traditions of treating women as property ('don't forget your steering wheel lock and keep a close eye on yer bird...').
So that's all pretty shitty for women, obviously. (Oh, and it must keep licenced mini-cab drivers relatively safe from lean times. - but only a very sickened and sickly )
But still I can't help worrying about vulnerable boys. Maybe I am getting a bit 'what about the menz', I dunno. I just worry about them, that's all.

Women are encouraged to fear violence from strangers so they accept violence in the home or at least accept being owned by one man as the price they have to pay for protection by him against violence by other men.

(and yeah, yeah, Not Your Nigel etc. Plenty of men are not violent to their partners or sisters or daughers. Nice men do exist; I had a lovely non-violent father, I have a lovely non-violent brother, I have had relationships with decent men and I am raising a son. That doesn't mean I ignore the patriarchal construction of society.)

x-post with exotic. That was more or less what I was trying to say. exoctic put it a lot more succinctly and straightforwardly.

I agree that as far as we know women and girls are much more likely to be victims of sexual violence and DV/violence from someone already known.
But here's a thought: male rape was (so I'm told) virtually unheard of until comparitively recently, as were sexual assaults on men.
Could it be that in fact men are not so much less vulnerable to male violence than women are, but that this remains a sort of 'last taboo'?
I ask this hypothetically, and not as a 'what about the menz' red herring, BTW. It's just a question that occurs to me from time to time.

Boys may also be less likely to tell because 'they should be tough and not let it happen'.

"The OP said she would rather have a boy, because girls are more likely to be assaulted, murdered etc... All the data i have seen says that isnt true. "

OK. Yes being a boy will def not save your child from violence. (the risk of experiencing sexual violence is much smaller though)
I just came to the thread sick and sad of all horrible shit men keep doing to women and children. It's in the news all the time like some normal background noise, people hardly raise an eyebrow...it wears one down.

Interesting points about stranger violence. I have also heard that the ones most in danger of it are young men. Girls and women however are most likely to be harmed by someone they know :(

I think it's about othering violence done to women.

We like to think that women (who're pure and lovely and need protecting, of course) only get harmed by people outside the community. That way, we don't need to take responsibility.

It's like the way when girls/women do go missing, the media likes to identify a 'loner', some kind of social outcast, to pin the blame on, if they possibly can.

Personal experience tells me that boys are more likely to be victims and the data certainly backs it up.

Agree, LRD - but I think there's an assumption that women and girls will almost certainly be targetted victims of predators whereas boys and men will just be 'out there on their own'.

For whatever reason, there's traditionally been an assumption that women and girls are more liley to be targetted by stranger-predators than boys and men will be. I think I remember hearing that in fact, statistically, men and boys are more likely to be the victims of 'stranger' violence - (as viv and solid have said upthread. And IME - or at least from remembering experiences and anecdotes of friends and acquaintances - this seems to be the case).

I'm interested in posters opinions about what might be the dynamics behind this, IYSWIM?

cardgames - I really dont think it is a case of "what about the men?" to question the belief that women are more likely to be the victim of of violent crime than men. It is a case of "what does the data say".

The OP said she would rather have a boy, because girls are more likely to be assaulted, murdered etc... All the data i have seen says that isnt true.

Terrible things happen to boys too - it just so happens that the latest one in the news is a girl.

As the mother of boys I worry - they are statistically far more likely to be the victims of violence.

Gosh, I don't know how to even think about evaluating 'worse'. I think pretty awful things can happen to boys and men who go missing, can't they? I've always lived in areas with high homeless populations and, well, freezing to death, getting run over, getting killed for tiny amounts of money, dying of alcoholism or bad drugs, these things all happen pretty often and they almost never make the papers. And they must be somebody's sons and daughters. I don't know how much homelessness is gendered overall, but the charity at my church claims there are far more men than women in our area on the streets.

Sorry if I am being 'what about the menz' but it seems to me it's the flip side of the same coin, when people assume a young lad is somehow more capable and protected than a young woman the same age, and they are both vulnerable if they go missing.

Oh dear - meant to say: any reason that what might happen to women and girls would be any worse than what might happen to men and boys.

Dear oh dear.

Interested to hear what posters think about this, though....

Probably is, LRD - but it's possible that sadly this is about the manipulation of fear, as you say, and not about real dangers. Actually, is there any reason to believe that what might happen to missing men and boys would be any worse than what might happen to women and girls?

Of course there are different ways to interpret why there's apparently a tradition of encouraging us to fear more for our daughters than our sons.

That's a good thought, SGB.

Looking over at the thread about the Saudi olympians ... we could have it much worse.

mango - now I wonder if that is to do with the manipulation of fear, as someone was saying upthread? That as a society we are scared of the idea of a missing woman or girl more because we think worse things might happen to women who are lost/alone?

ISWYM that violence against men doesn't negate the horror of violence against women, Card, but WRT 'just read the papers'... why is it that missing girls and women are considered more 'newsworthy' than missing boys and men? (I ask that as a genuine question, BTW.)