A man raped me, another tried to. They were not animals. They were men

They've been vastly reduced, over quite a short time period. White and straight people mostly now take responsibility for their behaviour and help moderate and alter others.

I believe there are enough 'good men' to do similar but they need to understand clearly that men must be a large part of the solution.

Neither racisms nor homophobia have beeen eliminated. They may have reached the same steady state . Violence against women is not decreasing, another shove is needed to move things on.

thenproblem is that if you blame a class for something, you decrease the likelihood that the class will do anything about it. doesnt matter if they should and they could, they won't.

I really don't believe that's true.

White people as a class are quite rightly blamed for racism. So, 'good' white people have been challenged by this to reflect on their own behaviours. It's now unacceptable among 'good' white people either to themselves be racist in word or deed, and it's also considered poor form to tolerate such behaviours in others.

Same thing with heterosexuals as a class.

Its not blaming a class its pointing out a fact - the fact the majority of sexual assaults/ rapes/ violence are committed by men.
Men see this as saying all men are rapists rather than seeing it as this seems to be a problem with masculinity what can we do to fix it.

Even if we didn't point this out the men as a class wouldn't do anything to fix the problem because it doesn't affect them. Well sexual violence does affect men just not to the same level that it affects women. Violence does affect men but its always talked about as an aberration rather than a pattern. It has to be shown to be bad for men in a continuous consistent way and that changing it will be good for them as a whole, even though it may be bad for those who commit these crimes.
though this is reminiscent of the handmaids tale - better never means better for everyone. It always means worse for some

If we go back to the smoker analogy - it wasn't most smokers that enacted the change because even though smoking had a negative effect on them they didn't want to change, especially as it is an addiction. It was the other people affected by the smokers that campaigned for change, relatives, those affected by passive smoking etc. While there were benefits to the smokers that choose to stop there were more benefits to society as a whole. And I know some smokers that argue that it made life worse for them as they no longer had the freedom to smoke were they wanted.

The point is society needs convincing that changing rape culture/ toxic masculinity will be of wider benefit and at the moment that's not possible because the patriarchy provides a better benefit to men as a class even though its bad for women as a class.
I am not suggesting some feminist version of Gilead were women take over and force men to comply (though lets take a moment to imagine what that would be like, but the way to change society is to convince men as a class of the benefits and thats' the hard part

thenproblem is that if you blame a class for something, you decrease the likelihood that the class will do anything about it. doesnt matter if they should and they could, they won't.

its especially important to get the society drivers correct, because unlike smoking which has a negative impact on the smoker, sexual violence rarely does, and it's a lot harder to prove.

Well said Sardines

No the detention analogy means that you accuse all men of being rapists if you say " men are rapist

This is also used as a derailing tactic - part of the not all men mentality.
the men's feelings will be hurt if you say this so you can't say it. Its out in abundance on the lesbians at pride posts.
We have people on that thread saying that get the L out are calling all trans people rapists because they mentioned rape culture in reference to the cotton ceiling and the ongoing pressure on lesbians to enter relationships with trans women even when they point out they are same sex attracted and people with penis's aren't lesbians

"No the detention analogy means that you accuse all men of being rapists if you say " men are rapists""

No

Lots of people say the vast majority of sex offenders are men
That a large minority of men have done or will commit sex offences
That society to a point ignores and excuses these crimes
And that men as a group seem to do little to change anything, seeing it as a "women's issue", rather than accepting this is a problem that comes from their group, that with their best efforts women have little effect over, and can they please just stop ignoring it / saying it's nothing to do with them / that women and girls have to sort it out etc etc

Men run the world. It is in their power to change this.

Changes in attitudes to smoking took time and involved a combination of factors but it was societal change that made it less acceptable. The health impacts alone had some effect but not a great one, condemnation by non smokers had some effect, but combine those with changes to the law that made public smoking unacceptable and then an alternative that is seen as more acceptable (vaping) means that attitudes have begun to change and while there are still people that choose to smoke it is decreasing.

Now look at that in the context of rape culture and misogyny.

Anti rape campaigns alone have some effect but not a great one, women calling this out has some effect but not a great one, but if we combine this with other factors , e.g. , harsher punishments for sexual assault and rape, no longer blaming the victim/ survivor, making misogyny a hate crime
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-44740362
then we might begin to have an impact.

No the detention analogy means that you accuse all men of being rapists if you say " men are rapists" and that will not in my experiance do anything to reduce the likelihood that a man will offend.

Inthinknwe have the scale of incel problem because men read about it and glorify it. And the more material that is provided to them about their heros life, the easier it is for them to buy into the story. ( when we didn't know about trans hardly anyone was trans. Now it seems everyone is trans)

Yes I know the situation is wrong, that women's lives can be ruled by men's behaviour. What I am also saying is that we won't change that if we just say "men are rapists" and " men need to fix it" we need to get beyond that. I Amy be saying we need to work out how to manipulate men such that they start to do what we want and need and deserve. Eg make mysogeny a hate crime in all police areas not just a few. Discover better ways to resolve the " he said she said" problem of rape cases.

How do you get someone to change their mind or act differently? Is it perhaps through focussed flattery ? Isn't that how we get children to learn do you say..."what a good girl such neat writing " or "you really need to improve your writing, no girl is good at writing. "

Smoking hurts both the smoker and their family, yet look how difficult it has been to change that

Eh? It has been extremely successful. No smoking in any public building, no smoking in offices.

All men are not getting "detention" because some of them are rapists.

Using that analogy, all girls are getting detention because some men are rapists.

We are the ones who are told to stay in, not go out at night, not walk through the park, not walk by ourselves etc etc

The reason we have the incel community is because in come countries women are coming out of the status of property, and laws around rape are starting to be taken a little more seriously. They demand that women (girls) be given to men, to serve them, that rape be legalised etc. To blame this on women starting to say that rape is a crime that has a perpetrator and it is him who is to blame (rather than the victim) is preposterous. So we need to pretend that men as a class are not dangerous to us, and that will stop them being dangerous to us? But when women drop their defences, it's not uncommon for men to attack them, and then whose fault is it? Hers, for dropping her defences. THAT is what normalises rape and sex crimes - the idea that if a woman or an older girl is defenceless / incapacitated, it's quite likely that a man will "take advantage". Thi sis a SOCIAL excuse that can be removed. This excuse is not given (so often) with very young or very old victims, or straight male ones. Then society condemns it. That is well worth pondering on.

No I am not quite saying that critism of individual rapists leads to more men becoming rapists, More saying men are rapists groups all men together with rapists and that may make some think rape is normal for men.. a man raped a woman is one thing, men are rapists is another ( even i both are factually the same they may have different impact)

I think similar observations have been made around the incel community. The morevtheir actions are highlighted and the more their characters are discussed the more people join that cult

Smoking hurts both the smoker and their family, yet look how difficult it has been to change that. All my lifetime. Smoking has been made increasingly unacceptable somehow. A mixture of law, cost, threats, removal of opportunity( hum. Single sex spaces anyone) a provision of alternatives,support to change, and a generation of children who grew up telling Mam and dad not to smoke because they were frightened , Less smoking on tv.

Smokers have been marginalised. That was easy because you can see and smell a smoker. I would like to do that to rapists and perverts and creeps.

I am thinking how "unfair" it felt when the whole class got detention because of the actions of a few. A ineffective mechanism that did not improve respect between pupils and teacher and did not improve behaviour

In general terms, if you think yourself part of a group you will want to behave like that group

Men aren't just a group - they are 50% more or less of the adult humans on the planet.

and if you are part of a group and feel that group is being attacked you will become defensive and may even change your behaviour to be more like your tribe

Are you seriously saying that criticism of individual rapists is so unpalatable to the group of men in general that their response will be for men who were previously non- rapists to go out and commit rape?

Also telling people what to do, like do more exercise, tends not to work

Not comparable- not exercising hurts only the person being lonely. The world is far from perfect but even in my lifetime we have told people to stop doing things which harm others with some success. Of course domestic violence against women and children is still a major problem but it isn't that long ago that it wasn't even recognised as a problem

While most men are not rapists, a large minoroty of men are / have committed sex offences, if not then it wouldnt' be true that the mast majority of women have experienced multiple incidents.

The culture amongst society and men in particular does have worrying attitudes to men, women (and girls) and sex. A lot of it is based in protecting men pretty much no matter what they do, and blaming girls and women for men's actions. Not just with sex offences, but everything really.

Men in general need to take more responsibiltiy in society. They run the country the laws the police the everything. They could change this. They choose not to because it doesn't matter to them. How can we make it matter?

Men seem to have a knee jerk defence of their group (other men) that women dont' seem to do so much. Bros before hos in shothand I guess. Why is this? They other us, see us as lesser. Many many men quite simply do not really see the point of women except to look after them / fuck them / give them children. They would rather socialise with / work with other men.

Women can't change men. They need to change themselves. But they don't want to. So we are left with going on at them saying "please stop raping us and our kids" and TBF things have got better at least in law although they seem to be going backwards again with cressida dick's statement about acquintance rape & historic child sex abuse.

Meanwhile a little girl has been raped and murdered. They never say why they do it. That annoys me. This 16 year ols, they need to ask him why, and then tell us. All of this. Ask them why and tell us. Tell us - are they upset, do they repent? Don't they give a fuck? I want to know. They never tell us. This information - focus on these men not as "monsters" and so why bother asking but try to get to the fucking bottom of why they do all this shit - that would help. When a man rapes a woman, or shouts obscene abuse at a schoolgirl, or rapes a child, or kills, I want to know WHY. I really do.

In general terms, if you think yourself part of a group you will want to behave like that group. and if you are part of a group and feel that group is being attacked you will become defensive and may even change your behaviour to be more like your tribe.. Also telling people what to do, like do more exercise, tends not to work . I think these are fairly basic behaviours . The exercise question came up in the press this week.

a message that says most women go to their smear test tends to get more women going than a message saying 25% of women failed to go.
I think that is why I am told 97% of people made their nhs appointment, not 3% did not.

So a message saying most men are not rapists would be more likely to discourage rape than a message that men must change their behaviour and not rape? My theory anyway.

Which I admit I said slightly different to what I said earlier, I evolve my thoughts by listening to you guys.

#metoo was massively focussed on victims being harmed and after about 2 weeks the societal response (and one i heard from men at work) was this has got boring now needs to stop, it's unfair to say things when there has been no conviction (even when in the majority no-one was naming anyone just telling stories), you're exaggerating now stop it, and finally, this is an attack on men, women these days, you can't even say hello to one without being accused of something.

" How do you think we can reduce sexual violence given what is known about human psychology ?"

Can you be more specific about what bits of what is known about human psychology that you are referring to?

"Do you disagree that focuss on the association between the words men and rapist and violence is more likely to increase problems than decrease them?"

I have never heard this idea before. By naming male rapists as male we are going to cause more men to rape...?

FWIW in Engalnd and Wales the law DEFINES rape as a crime that is committed by men (recent addition to the stats of women with penises notwithstanding).

A focus on the victims achieves nothing, that's where it's been for all of time. People dont' actually care, except in the most extreme of cases, or with certain types of victims.

Sexual disrespect and violence seems to be growing problem especially in younger people. How do you think we can reduce sexual violence given what is known about human psychology ?

Do you disagree that focuss on the association between the words men and rapist and violence is more likely to increase problems than decrease them?

I agree btw that an association between the word animal and rapist doesn't help anybody either .

A headline like 'man penetrates woman's body without her consent' would be even better. It gets right to the crux of what rape is.

I suppose a lot of it is about word counts and things though, which is why it usually ends up being 'woman raped' or 'woman sexually assaulted'.

"So a headline of men raped me could be replaced by woman seriously hurt by rape"

These are already the headlines.

Things like "Woman and children dead in tragic incident" when it should be "Man arrested on suspicion of murdering wife and children". It's only in the last couple of years with massive pressure that the press are starting to mention the men in the pictures here as anything other than a by-note at the end with some commentary about what a great guy he was. And you want to change it back already?

We (societies) all of them, always focus on the victim.

And invisibilise the cause.

Women and girls "get themselves raped" the same as in the old days they "got themselves into trouble" (pregnant) - the language that is in common use 100% acts - and it is deliberate - to put the spotlight on the victim and away as far as possible from the cause. Tries to make the victim the cause, that they did something foolish and what happened was inevitible, an act of god, force of nature, not anordinary man or men deciding to commit a crime.

I noticed this in the article "A couple driving past had also looked away, they later told me, thinking it was a domestic, until one of them asked: What if it was our daughter?".

This says it all - women are the property of men. They were going to ignore a bleeding woman being dragged away from the main street in broad daylight because they assumed the man was her partner / dad / brother / whatever and therefore it was "their business" or actually "his business". This journalist is Australian, we like to think that in some parts of the world we have got past women as property. We have not. We just pretend that it's not true and make the right noises when a man goes too far. We also expect no better of men. That awful story in the news just now, the little girl. What did most people think, when she went missing? I imagine, oh god, I hope she's alright, but maybe, probably, a man has got hold of her. Why do we think this? If there was no problem, we wouldn't think this. If it was the occasional monster. It's not the occasional monster, women and girls are raped all over the world every second of every minute of every day. Some are murdered. Many live it day in day out. Of course we need to say what is happening. It's men, men are the ones who do this. Not monsters. The rapists I have known have been ordinary, unremarkable men. A lot of them have done things (to my friends, to me) that they woudl NOT categorise in their heads as wrong, criminal. THIS is the problem.

I agree with the article, they are not monsters, and looking away, will not help.

Yeah this drives me mad. The 'rapers gonna rape, what can you do' argument is such a cop out.

You see it in things like discussion about objectifying and commodifying women - 'well some men are going to do it anyway so let's just carry on dehumanising women'.

It's just a way of absolving men of their responsibility.

Does focussing much more on the victims help? So saying violence against women must stop rather than men must stop violence against women?

So a headline of men raped me could be replaced by woman seriously hurt by rape

they have the ability to make a choice between good and evil

Sure, but the problem here is the normalising of the “evil” acts to the point where many see it as an expected part of dating / being sexually active

That isn't remotely what I was saying. My objection is the attempts to try to find a word such as "animal" or "choice isn't clear cut" as if there is something external which just can't be helped.

No it's not a threat. We have got to change behaviours. Specifically the behaviours of a large percentage of men. I am suggesting that if we can find a way to divide the group of men we might have more succes than if we let that divide be between men and women.

The current approach seems to be glorifying bevahiours...look at the incel community as an extreme example

Yelling "men must change" has not helped. Violence against women is not falling. If you do the same thing over and over but expect a different result that is stupidity. If all you want to do is play a victim fine. But I am a very angry victim and I want change. And you won't get it by just blaming men for the behaviour of other men and expecting them to change for the better.