I'm fucking sick of male violence

Unfortunately simply the act of leaving does NOT guarantee your safety, that's the point I'm getting at. DV does not end when the woman leaves. He either continues abusing her or he moves on to the next woman, or to his children.

No, I know and police can still be breathtakingly useless. But in the simplest terms, isn't reducing risk, reducing male access to victims, still a huge step forward?

Speaking as a survivor of severe DV who had a small child at the time, I got us out and I made our lives safer

That's great, and so did I, and so did my mother.

Unfortunately simply the act of leaving does NOT guarantee your safety, that's the point I'm getting at. DV does not end when the woman leaves. He either continues abusing her or he moves on to the next woman, or to his children.

For example, the NFL has a pretty sordid history of players being involved in domestic violence. In 2014 they launched a campaign that involved everyone who works for the NFL and targetted outreach for players, in some cases led by ex-players who had themselves committed domestic violence in the past.

I think the campaign has stagnated a little, but it's still a model worth looking at. Can you imagine if the FA had done something similar, rather than brushing aside the things that players like Stan Collymore and Paul Gascoigne did (never mind the more recent rape cases)? Surely that's got to have more impact with the target audience than anything that MN can come up with?

Juicy - it would be more effective if men educated the violence out of men, surely? Like Joe Biden is trying to do for locker room talk / consent / sexual assault at college

But men will still be violent, and what happens to that? Does he find someone more vulnerable for a relationship (age, learning difficulties, asylum seeker, addict) or does the violence spill out into the community (rape, assault, sexual assault)? I don't know, I just don't think if women are strong and reject these men then they'll just decide to not be abusive and violent or just slink away and leave us alone.

Maybe they'll go and beat each other up?

It's obviously difficult but if we can't talk men out of being violent and we can't physically stop them from being violent (the "supply side" of violence as it were) then surely addressing their access and opportunities to commit violence is valid too?

Who knows (I admit I don't) maybe male on female violence can be reduced in the same way drunk driving has, by attempting society-wife attitudinal change? If so, that has to include women.

Maybe we need a Mumsnet campaign to educate the violence out of men?

Make it socially unacceptable?

Count the violence here?

We can teach our children how to grow into considerate men but we are fighting a wave of "justifiable" violence on tv, in the press, games etc, how does that work?

Perhaps all children should be given martial arts training where one of the most important lessons is self control?

Hmm. I'm thinking this through as I'm posting, I must admit.

What I do know is that;

1. When I used to deliver the freedom project , a lot of women attending clearly had very low self esteem and the basic elements that caused "penny drop" moments were often heartbreaking.

2. The stigmatisation of single mothers by society for centuries must feed into these cases to an extent. I know plenty of educated MC divorced mothers who have spoken of feeing lesser, heading a one parent family.

3. Ditto gendered economic structures (pay gap, difficulty of securing CM, welfare state costs etc). Public policy pushes women into pairing up.

Serf perhaps it's that what works on an individual level doesn't always translate to a wider context? I'm very glad for you that you left an abusive relationship and I can see that this will have been empowering and validating. Of course women should be empowered to leave abusive relationships and education on red flags is a good way to hopefully stop the relationship from starting. But men will still be violent, and what happens to that? Does he find someone more vulnerable for a relationship (age, learning difficulties, asylum seeker, addict) or does the violence spill out into the community (rape, assault, sexual assault)? I don't know, I just don't think if women are strong and reject these men then they'll just decide to not be abusive and violent or just slink away and leave us alone.

Try it this way around;

Men have for centuries had the power (economic, social, physical) to arrange their domestic lives, their homes and their families for their convenience, comfort and preference. They haven't been noticeably timid or apologetic about it. They've just carried on and arranged things to suit themselves (and that includes family law until quite recently).

I don't see why women exercising the same agency, in the face of a threat or more generally, should be diminished and presented as an act of weakness.

I can't read the article, even the headlines are so heartbreaking

Why isn't male violence talked about more? Because women don't have a loud enough voice (when we raise these concerns we get dismissed as shrill and hysterical), and men either don't recognise the concern or think it's just something that Other Men do

That's a false equivalency, in this case the murderer had past behaviour. It's not as if he'd had a lifetime of good behaviour and then all of a sudden why mental. Yes there will always be edge cases that come out of nowhere, but I don't think this is one of them, so therefore something could have been done that wasn't.

Maybe instead of worrying about the small number of women that commit violent crime or the small amount of men with no history of violence flipping out we could look at the large number of men who do have a previous history of violence and do something about them first?

A legal requirement to inform new partners of a history of dv and ss if you start a relationship with someone with dc?

Long prison sentences for dv and child abuse? People made examples of rather than slaps on the wrist?

Media guidelines as how dv and child abuse are reported, less he's a nice bloke normally and more his wife reported him several times for dv.

Culturally challenging the idea that any relationship is better than none, that relationships should be worked at and that inadequate men deserve chances?

I don't agree with the advice btw but it's the same argument- how can women change their behaviour to protect themselves from male violence? I'm a bit tired of hearing it as the main solution.

I'm not at all comfortable with that analysis in terms of its practical application.

Speaking as a survivor of severe DV who had a small child at the time, I got us out and I made our lives safer. I don't like that framed as a concession or a capitulation. It was a powerful decision. It felt like powerful female action, like powerful, defiant mothering.

Violence can never be fully prevented. Men are biologically stronger than women and no matter what preventative measures taken, no matter the amount of public awareness, no matter the amount of education, some men will inevitably act violent in certain circumstances.

There reaches a point that the only way to prevent male violence is to have pre-crime, or thought crime. How can you prevent a man that appears non violent for his whole life and then has one flip out and kills someone. What can actually be done to stop that?

I dunno, it's a particular punch in the gut reading that when it's a child around your child's age. That little boy was so so beautiful. This is probably counter productive, and I don't feel this way very often, but I would have been inclined to have been very violent myself if I'd walked past that scene.

Reading around this tragedy it seems the murderer had form, so could there not be some kind of register? Any violence towards women and children, and you go on a list with a legal requirement to inform any new partner that you are on it? As well as an online database people can look up?

I'm at a bit of a loss really, it's been running through my head all day.

It isn't just men though. There is a trial taking place as we speak about a case near me where the mother and her bf are accused of killing a 4 month old baby that had drugs found in its system including cocaine 😔 It's heartbreaking to read stories like these and it's made so much worse when there are people out there who desperately want a child

I don't agree with the advice btw but it's the same argument- how can women change their behaviour to protect themselves from male violence? I'm a bit tired of hearing it as the main solution.

How can children protect themselves from male violence? At what point do we look at the subject rather than the object?

I think a massive issue is the lack of strong laws to protect us. Currently domestic violence and child abuse are not taken seriously enough and I think that's partly due to severely underfunding police, prisons and social services.

The other thing that shocked me about this case was it was in a public place and noone intervened.

The report suggests that there were no witnesses to the alleged beating - a witness heard the shouting (but obviously didn't investigate).

As I said above, I think early intervention (whether at the moment of an attack or years before) would be easier if violence against children were illegal. As a bystander you don't really have a leg to stand on if a parent chooses to hit a child. Obviously once it had escalated in a case like this you would, but initially you might not investigate because there's no illegality.

Absolutely Furchester. Women and girls are sexually assaulted and raped at all hours of the day, in any clothing, in all kinds of areas - the only common denominator is the men and boys choosing to attack.

Exactly NoLove

I think many women sadly still believe if they only do x y or z they'll be safe. They won't, because the problem lies with men.

I agree to an extent but women can't make themselves less vulnerable to rape without living alone and never leaving the house.

Yes, handbag - that's exactly what I was getting at.

It's a bit like rape - if women don't make themselves vulnerable they can lessen their risk but the advice passes the risk on to a different group.

I don't think education is a bad idea but it's an easier option than looking at men and what they choose to do.

Also bear in mind that a lot of these men don't always have totally obvious red flags. Emotional abuse in particular is insidious and very very subtle.

Would he not be violent if women were better educated about domestic violence and red flags?

I have worked in DV for 10 years and I still had a man beat me, so I'm afraid my answer would have to be yes, in many cases he would still be violent.