'But women do that too...'

[workistoomuch]

Discussing the Epsom college case with DH and I said 'how can a man to do that' and dh went mental saying women do that too and that I should say person and I'm associating him with it. I am unbelievably angry at him because it is a man who did that. What is wrong with saying that?!

I pointed out even if I had said human that associates him as he is a human. I could have said mammal, I could have said brown eyed person, but I said man and he's flipped out. He won't respond to my question about being human.

I don't understand how he can't see how ridiculous he's being and that he sounds like some kind of mens rights activist 😓

The data tells us that examples of female family annihilators are vanishingly rare. Your DH can feel however he wants about that, but it's still a fact.

@ohfook virtually noone has suggested that. What we're complaining about us the knee jerk reaction that some men make when faced with the undeniable reality that the vast majority of violent offenders are men. But the "whatabouttery" is rife in all areas. Look at any thread about deadbeat dads, non payment of CMS etc and within one page you'll get "women do it too" and "my husband's crazy ex stops him seeing his kids". Both statements are no doubt true, but don't negate or mitigate the overwhelming stats regarding the relative positions of the different sexes in relation to single parenthood.

I think the main difference - apart from the massive disparity in numbers - is that when women kill their partners it’s usually after years of abuse. When men kill their partners it’s usually after years of abuse too - but they are the perpetrator rather than the victim and the murder is the culmination of the abuse not a desperate attempt to free themselves.

When women kill their children, it’s often (usually?) related to post-natal psychosis or serious psychotic illness.

The motivations are very different.

The Epsom murder thread is a really interesting read regarding the stats for all this kind of thing, and how different it generally is when women kill vs men.
its also interesting in a terribly sad way to read of so many women’s experiences of DV.
Namalt and Wdit people should have a read and then consider how vulnerable men and children are from women vs women and children from men

Young children are just as likely to be killed by their mother as by their father (under 6). After that men are more likely to be the perpetrator and also more likely to be the victim.

However on an individual level, men and women are capable of violence and of harming each other. Both can be perpetrators or victims. There has to be a better balance and more nuance in the conversation. The idea that male victims don't matter and are disposable and should never be talked about and the only victims who matter are women or the insistence that woman are all altruistic and never do anything evil or harmful don't really help anyone. In individual cases, it is best to deal with the issue at an individual level. The greater societal level issues aren't directly connected to the individual level ones so the generalizing just leads to more frustration.

The flaw in using this as a case to bolster the argument that it isn't just men, is that she didn't annihilate her entire family when she was driven to the edge. She survived, the other child she tried to murder actually survived, the husband/partner survived. She managed to kill one child. ONE. (Sorry if saying it so bluntly causes anyone upset. I'm not condoning this woman's actions at all just stating that she didn't carry out a similar attack on her family).

Find me a case similar to the one that took place in Epsom. Where the woman was the perpetrator. I give you 5 minutes to search and find a case.

With respect, I think this is part of the issue.

A knee jerk response that says all men are part of the problem, we’re all guilty because we all behave badly.

some of us take that as a sign of womens frustration and understand why, but some (many) will knee jerk respond themselves with “it’s not me, stop blaming me”

if you tell all boys that they are a problem, many will think “fuck it, might as well do what I want as I’m getting blamed anyway”

And I see why the “women do it too” people say that, but I don’t think it moves the conversation forwards. We can all see it’s predominantly men who are more violent so the quicker men (and women) move on from saying women are as bad, the quicker we can talk about solutions.

You’re married to a misogynist.

Not all men - but always a man.

But she didn't kill her husband or partner?

And possible PPP

I think a lot of it is actually shame and cognitive dissonance.

I think most men have done unacceptable things to women/girls, or been around men who have, probably as teenagers. (So unwanted groping, using derogatory language, maybe some violence).
As adults they are very ashamed of that so respond angrily when reminded that is male behaviour. " I'M not like that, not all men yadda yadda". Its deflection from their shame.

But where am I saying All Men?? I'm talking about the kinds of men that get defensive. Clearly not all men do that, and I'm married to one one thankfully.

With respect (and I'm using those words sarcastically, as when people say "with respect", there is never actually any respect meant), you are misreading my posts and, ironically, becoming defensive.

Well, that's good. Thinking about high profile cases of child murder by family members though, there are sadly a fair few women involved.

They really don't.

The majority of violent crimes are committed by men (rape, domestic violence, murder).

That is a fact backed by statistics.

No amount of gaslighting and ''what about'' is going to change that fact.

The people who take that line are simply refusing to acknowledge the obvious issues that we have as a society with male violence and toxicity.

I genuinely did mean with respect. I wanted to disagree without dismissing your point as I understand it.

I am talking about the men who get defensive. I don’t agree that it’s down to guilt as they’re actually bad (or have been). Not all of them. I think there’s a large cohort who react aggressively to being blamed (in their mind) for the sins of others, and if we want to address this, those are the ones we should focus on.

I agree with this.

But it's glaringly obvious that when violence is involved, the perpetrator is generally male.

Who benefits from pretending that when women do commit murder, it's often that of their children? Or other children known to them.

From pretending that it's not their children, that should say.

This really isn’t so different to men who kill children at all. We could just as easily diagnose them with some kind of psychosis if all psychosis means is responding to a ongoing stressful situation by snapping and lashing out with violence.

The typical profiles of family annihilators don't really fit that pattern, though, from the work done by Uni of Birmingham and others. They tend to plan their murders and don't fit into the spree killer/'something just snapped' categorisation.

From a Birmingham City University study:

In all of these cases masculinity and perceptions of power, sets the background for the crimes. The family role of the father is central to their ideas of masculinity and the murders represent a last ditch attempt to perform a masculine role.

Myra Hindley, Rosemary West, Beverley Allitt...