A good job there aren't many men on MN

[Truckulent]

I think men would be shocked at the level of resentment leveled at them on MN. Almost a seething mass of contempt at times.

I'm a man, been on here for years. And I was surprised by it.

AIBU to think it's a good job there aren't many men on here, or would more men posting help men and women understand each other better?

I thought we were talking about whether a sense of male entitlement pervades society and if so, is this proof of patriarchy?

In which case,TSH, I would argue that the fact that one half of society is responsible for the overwhelming majority of violence committed against all of society raises questions about why is that? Why do they feel able/justified/motivated to do this?

Could it be because one half of society views the other half as less entitled to basic human rights (apologies for trotting out this phrase but it was always coming...) than itself?

This is not just a travesty for women, it is a travesty for men too.

Ah, well then.

Yes the people from the feminist section believe that the patriarchy is alive and well and oppressing like billy-o.

TSH thinks otherwise and likes to tell us so.

It never gets anywhere, does it

Actually if you don't believe that male entitlement exists, take a look on the rest of the interweb.

Particularly where there is a rape story. The way men speak about their rights to have access to women's bodies, is horrifying.

And explain why nearly a quarter of young men think it's OK to rape women, while almost half of them deny that rape is actually rape (IE when a woman is unconscious).

Do they sound unentitled to you?

Granted - sorry that was me with the statistics but it kind of irked me that a few threads on here with women venting (albeit with violent imagery which I said was not nice, two wrongs don't make a right and all that) were quoted as if they evened up the score and showed that women were as violent as men. They're just not and to suggest otherwise is laughable. Men on the whole are more violent to men and women. Some women are violent to men and other women and most men are not violent to anyone. But if the victim is a woman it is more than likely the perpetrator will be a man.

It's realisations like that which mean, yes, I probably have a low level of resentment towards men in general and for the OP that may be why he sees what he sees on MN - the view from the other side. I hope to bring up my son to be the kind of man (as my dad is) who, walking down a dark street at night behind a woman, will cross over the road and march on ahead so she doesn't feel threatened.

MN wouldn't be MN without reams of statistics

TSH - any luck with those varying and inconsistent statistics on DV suggesting men as victims are in the majority? Am googling away over here but yet to find anything...

But of course society is sexist/patriarchal - has been for centuries and though wildly better than in the past, obviously not 100% perfect yet.

But who needs proof?

Surely that's obvious to everyone... Even the OP seems to agree, as far as I can see.

BTW, my trip to hunt for the feminist section just now brought me great joy. Iam so so thrilled to discover that mumsnet has a Weather section. Wow. How British is that?

Does it have a tea-drinking section, too? Love it.

Also found a Ford section. Confused. Then realised it probably meant the woman not the car.
I'm new, but I'm learning...

Tortoise - it's true that less is more - you said it all with just those few words.

Well I would agree with you there Granted but apparently quite a few wouldn't and that's when statistics get wheeled out. And the OP comes across as pretty well-balanced and trying to do the best for his daughter and son and as a lone dad I think he's just exploring what particular challenges a daughter might face, a son wouldn't, on the basis he'd hope to know more from his son's persepctive having been a boy once! (and maybe still is...don't want to be ageist )

granted, I think it;s the car - there was a competition or something

GF is SWMNBN (she who must not be named) after a sticky legal situation that occurred.

I think society is patriarchal but is changing very slowly in someways in the UK anyway. Men are more involved with their children than my Dad's generation for example.

The work place is not geared up for change though. Most of the women at my work are part-time, I was part-time for a while and was considered an oddity, I still am as I put my children above career and it is deemed a bit strange.

"We've also had the argument before about the high conviction rate when the case finally gets to court. The only reason that there is a high conviction rate at that point is that only 10 in every 100 reported rapes result in a court case.

It would be like if they decided to only take 10 in every hundred murder cases to court. There would be an outcry."

CPS will only look to prosecute where there is a reasonable chance of conviction. The rates for rape are pretty much the same as for most other violent crime with the exception of murder (and even then that isn't that much better).

That isn't to say that more can't or shouldn't be done for rape, for DV and for violent crime in general just that there isn't some great conspiracy to silence or trivialise violence against women. Its just that it's really no worse (and no better) than most other violent crime when you start to look at it - hence my point about being more worried for my hypothetical son than daughter.

And as I've said, the reason why rape cases tend to be so hard to prosecute is that the crime tends to occur in private between two adults concerning an act that is normally entirely legal. Given this I actually think CPS do well to get the results that they do.

And for whoever asked, I don't have the figures to hand - they're from an old NPIA journal I have at work and frankly I'm not bothered enough to hunt them out.

One of the main reasons why rape cases tend to be so hard to prosecute is because it is the ONLY crime where the prosecution witness's previous sexual conduct is considered to be relevant to the issue of consent.

Analogy: Someone is mugged, and the defence are allowed to bring up all previous occasions where the victim left their bag unzipped, carried a lot of cash on them, left their phone in a cab etc.

Analogy: A bloke is punched in a nightclub and the defence are allowed to bring up the fact the victim was previously a boxer (he consented to being punched before why not now?)

Looktowindward just a few things that spring to mind

• The total bungling and failure of the police to investigate the assaults carried out by Warboys. Women being dismissed and laughed at. A culture that believed a black cab driver couldn't do something like that. Many of these rapes were reported to the Sapphire specialist rape unit, who presumably should know what they're doing, still the complaints were not taken seriously.
• Ditto the case of Reid, police had his name and numberplate, but they didn't do anything with them.
• The review a couple of years ago showing that the police were not up to scratch in rape investigation
• Anecdotal stories by the score of women being treated appallingly by the police, evidence not being taken, injuries not being logged etc etc

Anyone who claims that the criminal justice system is working when it comes to rape, and that the only problem is because it's a private act between two people, is in a fantasy world. Women self select the rapes they report as they know that they won't be taken seriously - the rapes that are reported tend to be the ones which have some evidence. But all too often the evidence is not taken, the women are dismissed. And no I don't have any stats for that specifically but look at that horrendous thread on here with all those raped women and hardly anyone reporting it. We know that 85% aren't reported it stands to reason the ones that are, are the ones that are "worse", that have evidence. Women aren't stupid, we know that if we go in with a "date rape" and no injuries we'll be laughed out of the station.

To say that the way the police treat female victims of sexual violence is exactly the way they treat victims of other crimes is patent bollocks, I'm afraid. And it's not just my opinion, the stern review states it:

Talking of the policies to do with rape:

"These policies are the right ones and we have only a few changes to recommend. In some areas the policies are applied consistently and with commitment by all involved. The policies are not the problem. The failures are in the implementation. Our report gives examples of very bad practice. Much publicity surrounded the cases of John Worboys and Kirk Reid, two persons now convicted of rape, who were left to continue their attacks because of failures by the Metropolitan Police Service. A number of shocking cases from other police force areas came to our attention. Problems persist with the CPS. There are still prosecutors who do not make the effort to communicate properly with victims. In some areas cases are still not being dealt with by specialist prosecutors. Whilst treatment of victims has improved considerably, we heard of areas where victims? organisations struggle to have their concerns heard."

I think that some of the anger and resentment n comes from the person's individual experience, projecting their own anger and frustration onto all men is something I saw in some of my girlfriends when they were angry.

If someone has had a distorted social learning experience it is not uncommon for them to have a negative person schema about members of the opposite sex or same sex if you are in a same sex relationship.

One of my girlfriends had a really horrible time in a relationship and even when she meets nice guys she is angry at them for being male. Any contradictory information simply is assimilated as belonging to another category rather than helping her accept that she may have a distorted view.

This is not to say that 'insults to one gender over another' is excusable because of past experiences, of course it isn't and in general as we are supposed to be a parenting group, surely the purpose of this is to raise our children to be liberal, open minded and fair?

I agree that this is an open forum but would we tolerate racism, homophobia, tranphobia etc? And if this is an open forum where all opinions can be expressed, then the dad's have a right to say that they are offended by some of the anti-male comments.

From my relationship experience - both men and women can be abusive and toxic - and if I were to base my view of men and women on the one or two I met who were idiots - I'd be hating everyone now ;)

OP - with regard to your situation at work you've already seen the other side. I would guess that less men than women who apply for flexible working get it granted, because, well men don't really do childcare so why would you need flexible working? Save it for the women returning from maternity leave. The assumptions of a patriarchal society cuts both ways which is why it is a travesty for men AND women.

I have a male friend who is a derivatives lawyer who was just openly laughed at for making a flexible working request because...why would a father want to spend more time with his son when his wife already works part-time?

But that is a bit like arguing that because lots of white people are nice, white supremacy never happened.

Look, I'm a relatively senior police officer in the North of England. My work indirectly helps to form policy for police authorities across the UK. Figures like this are my bread and butter.

I don't have the figures to hand and given the increasingly addled state of my memory I'm willing to accept that I might be referring to old or just plain inaccurate numbers but I'm not seeing anything other than "I don't believe you" to suggest otherwise.

I'm posting here for entertainment, I have nothing to prove and I'm certainly not going to hunt through a filing cabinet for sake of some random on the internet. If you chose not to accept what I say then that's fine but I'm flattered that you think I care.

Rape is a very tricky subject in general. Sex is - most of the time - completely legal and engaged in by most adults on a regular basis. We (rightly) criminalise a very small section of behaviour around sex but because most other criminal acts are just flat out illegal, it's not like drug possession where the kilogramme of coke is physical evidence or aggravated assault where we can use the physical injuries as evidence. We can use forensics to prove what physically happened but we can't prove what goes on in peoples heads.

Unless we make some sweeping changes to the nature of the criminal justice system we're always going to face this issue because jurors are unsurprisingly reluctant to convict someone when it boils down to one persons word against another. I don't see how we can change this without changing society and behaviour.

That was in response to purpleglowspider.

Have just come on and seen 13 pages which I'm not going to read as am off to bed soon, however thought I'd answer you Tortoise.

Er, yeah, actually, it does make me think that! No, that doesn't mean I think women OR men are indistinguishable groups, funnily enough, but I do find it embarrassing when other women act badly, as most of the decent men I know do when they witness other men acting badly.

LTW - I have worked for the CPS in a previous career and yes, rape is a tricky subject, made trickier by laws and policies that support the view that the victim is lying until proven otherwise - as opposed to the defendant not being guilty until proven beyond reasonable doubt.

If as a senior police officer responsible for drafting such policies you can't acknowledge that what hope do we have? Many, many crimes boil down to being one person's word against another's and with the shocking increase in gangrape, one victim's word against several others. Law and policies need to recognise that, not stack the odds against conviction.

Out of interest, how have you approached the flagrant disregard for the ban on introducing evidence of a rape victim's sexual history except in 'exceptional circumstances' as per the Criminal Evidence Act 1999? Still seems to be rife as far as I can see - but very happy to hear otherwise.