Looking at men differently now I know too much?

No offence, but it seems you're just determined to focus on negatives and embrace victimhood. It doesn't have to be that way. Being autistic definitely doesn't equal a 100% chance of being assaulted. That's a ridiculous statement.

I've got ADHD, dyspraxia, and have previously been told I fit much of the criteria for AuDHD, although I'm in no hurry to be assessed. Trust me, as a male you'd face much more confrontation and generally need to be much more prepared to fight your corner to be respected. That's how male hierarchy works.

Most men have had to punch a bully at school/get in a fight because boys usually bully physically rather than psychologically like girls. It's much easier for women to be respected without being 'assertive', even if that's embracing stereotypes. But let's face it, the world isn't politically correct and society usually doesn't work how we want it to. We have to find a way to navigate it.

@Galadriel You've talked about women being catty and manipulative. Yeah, they can be. Yet the incident from twenty years ago that I've just had flashbacks to was a group of men trying to use me as a cat's paw against another group of men in a dispute about the "winner stays on" rule in pub pool, without my consent, and me having a panic attack because of it. No woman has ever manipulated me to the point of panic, not even the ones who were actively trying to bully me. That's because I could see these men jostling for dominance and squaring up, with me stuck in the middle and completely helpless if they kicked off. Women cannot induce that visceral fear. Men absolutely can be manipulative, as any woman who has ever suffered spousal abuse can testify, and they back that manipulation with brute force.

I'm pretty sure that the Palestinian women would quite like the fighting to stop, seeing as Hamas have described women's wombs as their "greatest weapon" and healthcare, including maternity care, in Gaza is severely stretched.

Imagine a situation where one of two people are going to be the victim of serious violence and you have to pick which person you'd rather be. Would you choose to be the one who has a 70% chance of being attacked and will probably be killed/seriously injured, or the one who will definitely lose but only has a 30% chance of being attacked in the first place?

Having already been in the 30%, I'd rather be the 70%. I can train to meaningfully improve my odds against a violent person of my strength and size. I cannot train to meaningfully improve my odds against a violent person who starts with 162% of my punch force. I cannot train to make my skull thicker or my bones stronger. I cannot train away my vagina and uterus, with the pregnancy hazard that they pose if "losing" looks like a third rape.

My earliest memories of being attacked are by gangs of boys in the schoolyard. Being female has not protected me from group assaults.

When you are autistic, the chance of being attacked during your life is basically 100%, regardless of sex, because you are catnip to every bully in a 10 mile radius. I'd rather be a bloke, given that certainty.

The other way of looking at it, is that you don't know too much now, you just didn't know enough before!

I came to this realisation sometime ago!

Yanbu and AMALT!

But as I said, violent people and bullies don't usually pick a fair fight. That's why in films the hero of the day often enters with the line "why don't you pick on somebody your own size".

Imagine a situation where one of two people are going to be the victim of serious violence and you have to pick which person you'd rather be. Would you choose to be the one who has a 70% chance of being attacked and will probably be killed/seriously injured, or the one who will definitely lose but only has a 30% chance of being attacked in the first place?

And as I said, men face much more knife crime and group assaults. It's men that usually get lynched or have their heads soccer kicked. Having more strength doesn't really help much when you're outnumbered or they have a knife.

And who is always expected to 'step in' and challenge violent men? It's certainly not women! The vast majority of people putting their lives at risk and standing up to protect the weak are men. Look at the conscription thread. So many women talking about fleeing to safe countries and presumably leaving the elderly/ill/disabled to fend for themselves. You just know it'll be men that stay and fight if that happens. It always is and the fact it's men they're fighting against doesn't make them any less brave. You really think the women on each side of the Israel/Palestine situation aren't behind the men, egging them on?

WTF is catastrophising on this thread?

You've repeatedly minimiized abuse against women and mocked us for our reactions to it.

The only time I'm terrified of men is when they're actually threatening me, e.g., I'm being mugged, or when I'm having a PTSD reaction, e.g., if I see a man in the women's loo. If you're mocking women for being having a PTSD reaction, bless. Do you openly mock the blind and those in wheelchairs too?

I don't know any women who cower in fear afraid to go out except women having a trauma response. Even those of us with PTSD generally lead normal lives except that we try to avoid situations that we've learned, through experience, are likely to trigger our trauma response. When you see us on the street, in a shop, at a concert, etc., you wouldn't be able to tell us from anyone else. Like rapists, rape victims (and victims of other crimes) look like everyone else.

A typical man has 162% of the punching power of a typical woman. When a man is assaulted by another man, he's fighting a peer who he has a reasonable chance of beating. When a woman is assaulted by a man, she is smaller, weaker, slower when fleeing, and generally at an all-round physical disadvantage. Her assailant is capable of killing her with his bare hands so much more easily than he is of killing another man.

Men walk the earth knowing that, outside of prison, they have a very low chance of being raped and they have a reasonable chance of fighting off most assailants.

Women don't have either of those assurances.

As a PP said, we also have to fear the enemy within, the man we married or the man we live with. Our homes are only our fortresses if we live alone or only with other women. Men can usually rely on friendship making another man a lower risk to them, whereas women are more likely to be attacked by male friends, acquaintances, and current or former partners than we are by strangers.

The fear women have of men is rooted in the physical strength mismatch between the sexes and the reality of "acquaintance rape".

I bet 100% of those terrorists were men. Yet islamophobia on the streets looks like muslim women having their headscarves pulled off for being muslim, by white men. Islamophobia in French law looks like women having their clothing policed.

My point being that it's still men who are being violent.

There are two points I'd like to make. I can speak only for myself but doubt I'm alone in this.

I don't believe every man is a bad guy but what is coming out these days is that there is no possibility way to identify them. So so many articles showing what an upstanding member of the community he was. Everyone amazed, happily married to a woman who had no idea. There a a LOT like this and that scares me. There are also a lot of bystanders not calling minor sexism out and while they aren't up there with the rapists they making the bad guys more confident in their actions. And I get it, I've not always called bad things out, but it needs doing. And no more saying that's just want someone is like!

The other thing is the type of murder. With women it is predominantly not stranger danger - it's someone who professed to love you. A family member, a partner, so you get betrayal as well and you are tied to your abuser and making excuses for them before giving them another chance to abuse. I hope very much never to be a victim of violence but if I am I really hope it is from a stranger rather than someone I love.

To be clear, I'm not downplaying the seriousness of femicide when it does happen. It's a truly tragic occurrence and should command a serious sentence, probably life imprisonment. Just wanted to make that clear as I appreciate it might appear that I'm being dismissive of it. I'm really not.

But male violence isn't something I worry about day to day and neither do any of my friends. Obv I'm aware of my surroundings (which comes with being around heavy plant all day) and there's places I wouldn't go alone at night, but the thing most likely to injure or kill me is the activities I perform at work every day. I'm just not worried about male violence. Perhaps it's the fact I work with quite rough edged men so don't really find them intimidating at face value. What I'm interested in is the dynamic whereby men don't seem to worry about this area like we do.

I notice that you're very emotive and self focused when you discuss it (which is natural, I'm not having a go) but when you talk about men you present them almost as a homogeneous group, which is a common thing in feminist discourse - again, just an observation. I'm trying to imagine how I might feel as a non-violent man navigating the world. A middle class office worker whose expensive car breaks down in a bad neighbourhood. Or a Sikh/Jewish guy in a majority Muslim area. A somewhat effeminate gay male walking home surrounded by drunk football supporters after a nearby match.

I think when you break it down into individual examples it's harder to take the common view of "men can't complain about male violence because they're the perpetrators". In current woke theory this would surely be regarded as victim blaming as you can't really blame a black/gay male for the actions of the racist/homophobic men lynching him.

Which actually raises another point. The focus is always on male/female in these discussions but it leaves out many other important dynamics like perpetrator/victim. No doubt some men end up injured as a result of their own actions, but often I'd imagine that violent men and their victims are not really in the same category.

The mugger and the mugged might share their biological sex but this isn't the only dynamic at play. The mugger is unlikely to target a 6'5 beast of a rugby player or somebody he just saw walking out of the local boxing club. He'll look for an easy target. So it's perfectly logical for a non violent or physically weak male to feel intimidated when out and about, especially as he's much more likely to be assaulted/killed than a woman, with the pattern of violence being different - e.g. stranger violence vs spousal violence. And even with a weak male being stronger than most women there's the fact that he's much more likely to be stabbed or assaulted with a weapon, and the fact that men don't hold back as much against other men. Certainly it's extremely rare for women to get their heads stamped on or get glassed/headbutted. I'd imagine this is partly because a fellow man is more of a threat to an attacker.

With tensions running high around Israel/Palestine I'm pretty sure many Muslim women would feel more affinity with Muslim men than Jewish women, so, I think sometimes there are divisions that are stronger than biological sex. I also think some working class women proves won't really relate to posh women so much as men like their fathers/brothers.

It's likely that a lot of men just 'man up' and hide their fear though. My partner is 6'2 and 120kg due to about 15 years of weightlifting. And he has a boxer's nose from playing rugby which defo doesn't help. He's actually a big softy but I can see that other men are often intimidated by him when he approaches them and they don't realise he's with me - e.g. when he asks for directions.

I'm rambling a bit now but I don't think that men committing the majority of violence logically means that they shouldn't be afraid of other men. So why are they so much more able to navigate the world without being hindered by fear? Perhaps it's mainly down to evolutionary aspects.

It's unfashionable to say that some forms of violence are worse than others

If this is true then it explains a lot. It's kinda logical than being stabbed to death is worse than somebody shoving you during an argument.

Yes, but who are the main victims of male violence? 70% of homicides? Shouldn't men be terrified too? How do they manage to go about daily life without catastrophising?

As you yourself said, "However, men are still more likely to kill their partner", like nine times more likely. Men are more likely to hospitalise their partners. Men are more likely to sexually assault their partners. Men's sexual behaviour, not women's, is why strangulation is now a standalone criminal offence.

If men's DV never went further than a thrown plate or a slap across the face, feminists would be a lot less bothered about it than we are. It's unfashionable to say that some forms of violence are worse than others, yet it's also true.

The male paraphilia behaviours, the drugging and repeated rapes like in the Pelicot case, that's uniquely a male preserve, and one that can leave the victims pregnant and with STIs.

Citation needed. I don't know any feminists who have claimed that femicide is society's biggest issue, but I've met plenty who say that male violence is, and am one myself.

Male violence kills men, women, and children. Men are responsible for over nine times as many murders as women.

This I agree with.

The funny thing is, were my younger self (say ten years ago) to read my above posts she'd likely disagree with them and parrot all the usual arguments we've seen. However, I'm wary nowadays of going along with the dominant narrative without questioning it. Common beliefs aren't always logical or benign. And it's possible IMO for something to be logical yet far from benign, but some of the stuff of recent years is just bonkers.

Like the trans stuff. Male sex offenders being housed with vulnerable women, many of whom will be victims of abuse, and women arrested/losing their jobs for speaking out or making such outrageous claims as "humans can't change sex". And whilst the tide has turned a little with the recent Supreme Court ruling, plenty of people still despise 'terfs', most of these people being female because straight men largely don't care about the gender war.

And the general public swallows all the claims about transwomen being statistically at much higher risk than women without fact checking said claims, much like modern feminists often don't question or fact check the narratives they're spoonfed by angry misanthropes whose perspectives are far removed from those of most females.

Whether or not people agree with me, it's worrying that the vast majority of the demographic most obsessed with DV/male violence aren't even aware of the biggest DV study to date and what it's findings were. If it's mentioned they'll usually wave it away on some spurious pretext that they don't apply to the dodgy studies they reference themselves - like the 'most men would rape if they could get away with it' study, which only involved about 50 men from the same college who were all given course credits for taking part, likely meaning they just did it for the credits and gave silly answers. How could you straight facedly reference this study whilst dismissing a metastudy of 1400 peer reviewed studies!

Too many people view society in a simplistic manner IMO. I work with rough men every day. Men that might make the odd sexist joke but would risk their life to save mine. Then I look at all these 'paragon of virtue' woke types/feminists who wouldn't piss on a man/conservative if they were on fire and unconditionally dislike half the population. I don't think the latter are better human beings.

Read a history book or two before writing shit like that on here.

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Why? People on here always say that when they disagree with someone. Seems a bit like an attempt to shut down discussion.

He was nice to all Germans?

Feel free to start your own thread. See how you
get on.

We must all be more relaxed when it comes to what we think of others. Be more carefree with who we deal with but exercise discernment, check the signs before engaging. Hitler was a nice man to all the germans. He practically hated everyone else.

It's always the same on here. All the same old statistics and unverified claims. Until the going gets a bit tough and then it's all silly responses and cake recipes.

"Men commit the majority of DV."

"Um, that's not what the biggest DV metastudy to date says."

"Anyone fancy a plum cake!"

🤣🤣🤣

Bless.

Thought you might try and get around addressing that. 🤣

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