Men, if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.

'society/ the media doesn't take it particularly seriously'

Do you have any idea how seriously society/the media takes female on male DV? Not remotely, is the answer. In fact, men have reported that when they've experienced DV and called the police, THEY were arrested.

I am not an MRA, in response to curlew's question.

Re Neitzche, the quote was in response to something Buffy said, not violence. I screwed up my reply to here. Sorry about how it read, my bad editing.

Kickass, re measuring violence by victim's gender. My gut feeling is that men would commit more DV. Men kick off more full stop, in my RL experience. I am NOT denying male on female violence, and not belittling it. My question is more one of semantics, so perhaps it isn't important in the grand scheme, but it is with the link you make. Men commit more DV, these men must hate women, therefore men hate women. What if the same group of men are also the ones scrapping in pubs and clubs and football matches and taxi ranks and umpteen other places. What if these same men also kick shit out of other men on a regular basis? Then they are not misogynists, they are misanthropes - they hate everyone. Like I say, semantics, but what if it's true? It doesn't mean that it is acceptable. It means that your distinction that (a group of) men hate women and women alone. And I think that that is an important distinction, because I think feminism would be different if it recognised that fact.

Lastly, my comment about Jordan et al covering up. You did see that it was only part of an approach, didn't you? Good. So we have two 'sides' here - those that buy the pictures, and those that pose. Those that buy do so because they can, and because, as men, they are not being harmed directly. Selfish bastards, but it is a fact.

Those that pose are the ones being harmed. So, why have they not responded to the arguments that their actions are harmful to women as a group? From a point of self-preservation, and for the good of their fellow women, why have they not responded to 40 years of evidence and debate? Why, in fact, despite all the evidence you can present as feminists on here, does this kind of sexual presentation/objectification appear to be increasing? As a crude comparison, the level of smoking has decreased since evidence of damage to health has grown, despite massive pressure from extremely rich and powerful tobacco companies (Talking UK here). Why despite 40 years of feminist evidence, have similar inroads not been made on page 3, Heat, Nuts, Loaded etc., with those who stand to gain the most by boycotting?

Is anyone on here a MRA?

Certainly not. I think we have enough.

On a different note, I don't think it's society that hates women, it's large sections of the media, the Heil, News International, those magazines aimed at the 'Lad' culture, those magazines like Heat, Grazia, Chat etc that really put women down, they all hate women, even those publications aimed at women. They're a part of the problem along with the men who are unwilling to stand alongside feminists.

I am not a feminist, I don't believe I can be one, but I am an ally.

People who want to discredit a group often attempt to do it by associating the more moderate members of that perceived group with the most extreme ones with the most radical and "dangerous" ideas. See the way some people seem to lump all Muslims in with Al Quaeda.

'I am a feminist. Not a radical feminist. A feminist.'

Unfortunately, usage has now substantially redefined 'feminism' to mean radical feminism. This stems in part from the radicals themselves. If a woman doesn't buy into their core belief (women are massively oppressed by misogyny, patriarchy, objectification and privilege) she is told she is not a real feminist. Most women implicitly now accept this definition when they say they are not feminists, because they don't wish to be associated with the extremists.

Men who don't accept that women are massively oppressed by misogyny, patriarchy, objectification and privilege are called MRA's. So far this widened definition hasn't caught on.

Do you, curlew, believe women are massively oppressed by misogyny, patriarchy, objectification and privilege?

I advocate equally on behalf of my son and my daughters. I observe that my son is very lazy and my daughters are very hard workers. Given that there is no way I would expect my son to do better in life than my daughters. Unfortunately my son appears to land on his feet constantly with a minimum of effort, whilst my daughters work very hard for their results. I feel that my son expects things to happen for him with minimum effort nonetheless. I have never knowingly enabled this or encouraged it. It looks as though he might do as well as his sisters in the long-term.

I do not feel that my daughters or his female classmates working harder than my son in any way disadvantages him. My husband works hard and achieves well in his chosen profession. I do not feel that he suffers any anti-man bias in work. In fact men outnumber women by quite some way in his work (research science).

I find it astonishing that people think we have made a seamless and complete leap to equality from the retrograde sexism of the postwar period. Hell even in the 1980s we put up with some breathtaking things. A friend make student films in the late 80s and I have to watch them from behind a cushion now, whilst remembering that we didn't in any way think there was anything wrong with them at the time. That was a scant 25 years ago. How can we possibly have achieved equality (and possibly slightly gone "too far in the other direction" as some contend) in one single generation?

I completely agree with you that boys should have the HPV vaccination - a male friend of mine is going through chemo right now due to cancer caused by it, so the more it can be stopped the better. And the high suicide rate of young men is very tragic and something that needs to be addressed - but these problems are not caused by feminism.

Do you think that they are?

You're article sounds like some USA schools may be going a bit far in trying to tackle their national problem of gun culture and boys shooting up their schools. But again, this is not a problem caused by feminism - do you think that it is?