Caroline Nokes says it's 'depressing' to regard men as dangerous

@ArabeIIaScott It reminds me of going to baby groups as a new mother, still in shock and trying to figure out what the hell had just happened to me with women in the same boat. You could do that when it was just women. But then there would always be one with a velcro husband which meant you couldn't say what you wanted to simply because he was there and it felt like the privacy was gone.

MadamePickle - that is interesting about your son. It sounds as though you are very aware of the situation and are helping him to grow up as someone you can be proud of. I only had girls, and worried about them (silently!) when they started dating - who were these young men? What were their life experiences and attitudes? Would their testosterone levels mean they would drive recklessly with their precious cargo? We have been lucky - their partners are all lovely men and I fully trust them to take care of my DDs.

But I do often think about how a parent nowadays can help their sons to live well. As I now have 5 grandsons it is a topic of particular interest.

I look at these evil men who commit these terrible crimes and often think that once they were sweet little babies and toddlers loved and treasured by their parents.

I agree with her. It is depressing that men are violent. But this is the world we live in, and for all the fuss about Letby's whole life order, only 4 women have ever had one, and 2 of those women committed their crimes with male accomplices. There are currently some 60+ prisoners on a whole life order and I believe that 57 of them are men and most committed their crimes alone. 85K men in prison. Approx 4k women. Almost all incest is committed by men. Almost all murders. Almost all sexual assaults. All rapes (using UK legal definition of rape). Almost all cases of dangerous driving. And so on and so on.

@Mischance It's really difficult. I've got a teenage son. My father was a wife beater, as was his father. One of my uncles went to prison for manslaughter because he killed his wife. I have been very open that this is the family history. Men have to accept that they are in the group that does this. They need to deal with the shame and the guilt and the bad feelings they get when this is pointed out and face up to it. Women have to live with being the group most likely to be raped and assaulted by their sexual partners. We are trying to teach son how to be a decent man, and what that means, and teach him positive ways to deal with frustration and anger and accepting that sometimes he will fail, or not get his own way, and that when that happens, you suck it up, you don't use your male strength or the threat of it to get what you want. I also regularly talk to him about the fact that he will see other boys doing things that make him uncomfortable, and how to deal with that. It's really about making it clear that within men as a group, there are men that do this stuff, and it's his job to make sure that he isn't one of them, because men and women need to work together, our skills and abilities are complimentary. Neither is better, we just bring different things to the table, all of which are important.

I think there is a problem with people regarding males as dangerous - I have had this discussion with my teenage GSs who feel that they are somehow unacceptable and are regarded with wariness. The "all men are rapists until proven otherwise" has become part of our culture. Grayson Perry in his "The Descent of Man" describes this very clearly: "“I sometimes watch the evening news on television and think all the world’s problems can be boiled down to one thing: the behavior of people with a Y chromosome.” He acknowledges that the majority of crime, especially violent crime, is committed by males.

It is a massive problem worldwide; and I wonder how the parents of boys deal with this - how they help their boys grow into the sort of young men that they can be proud of.

It is sad, but I have to agree that men are regarded with caution and suspicion, often for very good reasons, and that, whilst I wish that we could get to a point where this is not so, we have to deal with the world as it is. It is for this reason that I find the idea of biological men in the WI or any other women's spaces unacceptable.

I'd love someone who interviews CN to ask whether Adam Graham/Isla Bryson is not dangerous because he feels like a woman and has done for years, according to him. Does he only become not dangerous when he utters the magic words, or was he safe around women all through the time he was committing rapes, before he decided to claim womanhood?

This is a fur coat message over the no knickers position that goes 'I think it's ok that some women (not me, or mine, or my sort of women, the sort nothing to do with me) get excluded, raped or worse so that I can feel lovely about patting men with special identities'.

Try some St John's Wort and long walks Caroline. Or just identify as not being depressed, if facts and reality don't matter.

Yes, she got the memo a while back.

She's a great example of identarianism at work.

One day, blame men, especially the white cisheteronormative ones for the ills wrought on all those below...women, gays, PoC, even the planet itself.

On another day, where men mysteriously can become women, they lose this feral imperialist discriminatory drive inherent to their male cisheteronormative patriarchal power base, and thru pure force of will, lived experience and millenia of genetic and hormonal drives and societal control, these individuals magically become part of the victim class.

Her logic is both so preposterous in physical reality terms yet totally internally coherent to advocates because intersectionality rules over real world outcomes and inevitabilities.

And because like a toddler, she screws her eyes shut, jams fingers in her ears, and screams "BECAUSE! BECAUSE! BECAUSE! BECAUSE!" over and over again.

How did this woman get into the position she's in?

Parents are wealthy and connected. Dad was an MEP. Went straight to work for daddy after uni, then on to well paid charity work and being a county councillor.

I don't know how she keeps her position tbh. Extremist and dim.

I think you literally described the first two KPRs on the Tory MP recruitment policy for the last decade.

It is, of course, a position which becomes necessary to those who have committed to the 'open up our toilets, changing rooms, refuges, social groups and sports competitions on the basis of self-ID' statement of faith.

If you believe people are who they say they are, #nodebate, you have to also believe that classes of people can't be meaningfully characterised, that we can't point to their statistics or their behaviours in the aggregate, or their shared social experience.

It was the circle I couldn't square when I was trying to be a trans-inclusive feminist. I think it's symptomatic also of wanting to be seen to be 'on the right side', rather than wanting to speak with integrity.

Remarkable. Really remarkable. Lucky she is nothing to do with making policy for women.

Men!

Actually I don't think it's naivety- I think it's all calculated. She knows that view will win her votes and she just doesn't really care about the issue. She used to be my MP too. When she was seeking election I remember her talking about attending the church I went to. I have never seen her there.

Apparently she likes going for runs around the local countryside. I would really like to know whether she reacts in exactly the same way to a lone man approaching her when out on her owasat night as to a woman. I really doubt it.

dear caroline, so dense light bends around her 🙄

Oh. So she DOES get it.

Don't you mean, what a load of old pony.

Completely disingenuous/faux naive. Where has she spent her life - in a convent?

Isn't Noakes the type to say in the next interview that the issues of racism, homophobia, transphobia, sexism, effects of slavery long term etc, are the fault of, now who is it, er, who did she say, um, is it, could it be, yes it is...men.

Oh for the privileged ignorance and naivety of that MP, and to live in such an ivory tower that this is all she can find to be 'depressed' about.

I mean, she's not wrong, it is depressing as fuck, but probably not for the reasons she's insinuating.