...to think all the good men against sexual violence should make a big noise!

[Berts]

I know this probably isn't entirely fair, and loads of people will now come on and cheer my heart with all their examples of men campaigning against rape and sexual violence, but it really does seem like an issue dominated by women and female-led organisations.

AIBU to ask all those good men (and I know you're out there) who are horrified by sexual violence and the awful treatment of victims in our society to join in the debates, the arguments, the discussions? It's not a 'women's issue'!

Us girls may 'hold up half the sky', but we can't do without you, the other half. Sexual violence distorts the whole of society and fucks up the natural dynamic between men and women. So condemn it wherever you see it reported! Get on Twitter and slag off Connor Brown! Campaign for better sentencing and the busting of rape myths! Stand up with us!

I would have thought 90% of mugging, burglary, assault etc. allegations are true so why is it so hard to believe the rape statistics?

londonone all men?

do you not understand that 90% is not all?

mayorquimby its a nicety in the sense that it makes fuck all difference to the likelihood of a rape victim getting justice. if a rape victim bothers to report, she has a 6% chance of justice. if she doesn't get justice, you can call it what you like, she hasan't got justice. most rape victims get no justice.

I'm interested in the lack of justice, you're interested in quibbling about attrition versus conviction.

Basil - Sorry replace all with 90% in my statements. Happy to lock them up. How are you going to decide which 90% it is by the way?

Why do so few cases make it court ?

Is it down to a lack of evidence ?

er, trial by jury, londonone?

will that do you?

The elimination of rape myths from juries (and the Police and the CPS) would ensure that justice is done. The rapists would be locked up and tens of thousands of women a year would be safer.

The system would implode for a little while, but rapists don't tend to do it once, so it would become manageable over time as the rapists were put away. And put away properly, given that multiple rapists are a danger to the public.

I haven't yet figured out how to address the consent issue properly under the current system, but give me time....

mrgin see ayerobots post at 1825

Of course, all of the worried men on here could just decide that in future that they have enthusiastic and continuous consent from awake and non-incapacitated women and then we could be free of many cases of rape and tedious questioning on forums.

often it's lack of evidence mrg, because the police don't bother to look for any.

mostly it's because the cps don't think there will be a conviction, because they rightly assume that most people are on the side of rapists, not victims and wi will do anything to let rapists walk free. so it trends to be mostly the easy cases which go to court - the un-typical stranger rape with extra violence ones

It may be worth noting that the attrition rate in reported rapes is 96%, not 6%. Attrition isn't the number of reported rapes that end in a conviction, it's the opposite.

Yes, rape myths are why many cases don't get to court. And poor evidence gathering. And the fact that we have an adversarial rather than an inquisitional court system. It's od to me that consent is the crux of the law, but that the Crown has to prove that the defendant didn't have consent. Proving a negative seems a poor way to try a serious crime. And that's where rape myths take a real hold.

I think TheBody hit the nail on the head , so to speak 4 pages ago.

How the hell did we get to 'standing up to sexual violence' to kicking round conviction and attrition rates? They're linked, but the first bit is asking men to do something that isn't hard to do at all, and there's no cost to it.

flatbelly - I think TheBody hit her thumb very heavily after missing the nail.

Thank you, Pan... You just made me choke on my tea... :(

And sorry, went completely off topic, but everyone else saying men should be standing up to sexual violence made their points really well...

Oh dear, could we not argue about (a) the principle of innocent until proven guilty and (b) the percentage of false rape claims on another thread? They've been done to death elsewhere and it just goes round in circles.

For what it's worth, false claims of rape have been shown to be no higher, percentage-wise, than false claims of any other type of crime. So yes, although rare, some people do falsely claim to have been burgled, mugged, assaulted or blackmailed.

Can we get off that issue now?

I wonder how many people would have said that white people living in aparthide South Africa had no moral duty to try to protest against racial discrimination, provided that they did not think that way themselves? That it was ok to ignore anti-black violence in the street, to keep quiet when their white friends were making racist statements, to say nothing when they got a job in preference to a more qualified black candidate, to play on a sports team that refused to allow black people to join? That it was ok for them to benefit from a system that placed them in a much more preferential position in society than black people, so long as they were polite to the black cook and housekeeper?

It wouldn't take much for men to start to make a difference - just to pull up your friends when they make sexist jokes, instead of laughing along or ignoring it. To say something to the guy in your office who has the wandering hands and penchant for staring at his co-workers boobs, or to report him to management and refuse to work with him. To comment on Facebook and other social media about misogynistic behaviour when it appears in the news. Just to let the men around you know that you don't tolerate that sort of behaviour, rather than, you know, tolerating it.

Thisteldew I think a bit of a prob. is that we men just grow up and absorb stuff passively and learn a sense of entitlement effortlessly. If as an adult your social life is a bit liberally, then there aren't really many startling episodes to exercise your anti-discriminatory view.
Last time for me was at work when a colleague who didn't know me at all was about to make a comment about a very attractive female colleague, immediatley after he had introduced me to her. We moved away,and he nodded toward her and our conversation went:
Him - I don't want to be sexist, but...
Me - Well don't be?? (delivered with a slightly enquiring face).
Short awkward moment was shared, and then we discussed lunch.

I'm not perfect, or complicated, or particularly brave. But this stuff is easy.
Beachcomber cookies were lovely.

Hehehehe

"Just to let the men around you know that you don't tolerate that sort of behaviour, rather than, you know, tolerating it."

Kerching.

oh thistldew, that's far too much to ask...

One thing that has struck me from talking to my DP about this is that men just don't talk about these issues. He said that he had simply never had a conversation about violence against women or misogynistic attitudes. I think that without men taking the initiative to actively make it known amongst their peers that they consider these to be problems in need of solutions, then they will continue to be flourishing problems.

Pan - that is just the type of thing I am talking about. Have another cookie .

I think there is an belief amongst many men when the issue is raised about them doing more to combat misogyny, they are expected to start chaining themselves to railings and throwing themselves under racehorses. I would hate to commit any gender based stereotyping, but is it possibly a 'male' idea that when women ask for help they are wanting a grand gesture from a knight in shining armour, and that just talking about stuff is what women do, and is inconsequential chatter that changes nothing?

Wouldn't it be great to have a 'Men against Misogyny' day, when every man who agrees with that sentiment is encouraged to start up one conversation with a male friend or colleague, or make one fb post, or one tweet. How would you go about getting something like that off the ground?

Pick a date, make a Facebook page, invite all your friends onto it, get them to invite all their friends etc etc??

thistledew, that's a brilliant idea.

Bottom line is that there are may 'bad' things going on in the world and the vast majority of people agree they are 'bad' - just like my earlier example about children dying because of corruption in Developing and Less Developed countries.

Most people don't feel compelled to actively campaign about the many bad things going on in the world beyond talking about them to friends. Its how life is. Sure I have had conversations with male and female friends about sexual violence against women, among many other bad things. I can't address every bad thing in the world - I do still care about them though.

I have always thought that it needed men to speak out, to make a change.

I can remember in a Judge's summing up how he commented how it wasn't unusual for a man to look elsewhere for sex when his wife was pregnant. In the case of him raping his 8 year daughter.

Womens groups spoke out against his low sentence, but not many men, who would have been the important one's to discredit the Judges views, being men and all.