...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!

MOREBETA What you say is true, but it is the crux of the point;

Sexual violence against women needs to become more of a priority for more men

birds

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

Hmm yes MoreBeta but if children were dying of starvation because men were going round on a large scale and nicking the bread out of their hands, I think it might become a more immediate concern and it would be clear that it was the responsibility of every man to stand up against that kind of crime.

Also viz the starving children point, if somebody posts something on facebook with which I don't have very much personal involvement, but which I think is a worthy cause, it takes me two seconds to re-share, six if I add a comment. so I re-share, because although I personally may not be active in that cause, I know it's an important 1 and I want to help spread the word. It's the absolute minimum I can do. Apparently that's far too much to ask of most men though.

AND if someone started a thread about starving children, people wouldnt come onto that thread and start talking about nobody doing enough to help raise awareness of violence against women

No, because nobody thinks that starving babies have no right to have people speak up for their interests.

except loons of course.

It is men (in the vast majority of cases) who steal food from children.

Look, I am not trying to derail with the starving children arguement just using it to point out that most sane people accept that bad things happen, wish they didn't happen, don't do bad things themselves, teach their children not to do bad things, support laws to stop bad things and talk about how they feel among friends - like we are here.

I get it. Sexual violence is a bad thing. Men are responsible for most of it and women suffer most from it. Most men know very well that sexual violence is a scourge and most have nothing to do with it. I don't see why men should have a 'special' responsibility to stop it any more than women should. We all have a responsibility.

"We all have a responsibility."

Which I think was the OP's point.

Her point was:

"all the good men against sexual violence should make a big noise".

I disagree.

I don't see why men should have a 'special' responsibility to stop it any more than women should

because they have a greater ability to make a greater impact on stopping it

No we don't. No more than women.

Please see here for an example of how it's done

MoreBeta, women, left right and centre kick up a fuss about sexual assault. But here's the thing. Most of the time, we're the passives. We're not the one's committing sexual assault. For a lot of us, we're rape survivors, sexual assault survivors. We're told that we're "over-reacting", or fed tales of women "lying" about rape. In other words, when women speak up about rape and sexual assault, we're told to sit the fuck down, STFU and let the patriarchy doing the talking. The tide changes when men talk about it.

Last week, I opened up to a close male friend about the abuse xP put me through. There's a difference in the way men and women respond to these tales. Whenever a man I know hears these tales, they react with genuine shock; the women I know might act with a lessened shocked reaction, but a reaction of dismay is much more likely. It's almost as if the women we tell our tales to think "you've been through this, too?"

A blog post on Tumblr went viral recently. A young man from America spoke up about victim blaming. The reaction to his post was one I've never seen for a woman's blog post on the same topic. Within hours, the blog post had received several thousand blog posts, with him receiving praise, left right and centre for being a man, speaking out against sexual assault. Women started turning to him for advice, men applauded him for speaking out. Had it been a woman speaking out, there would have been people reblogging, but not to that extent. It just shows that, while we still have a patriarchy, we need a male voice speaking out against VAW.

OOOHhhhhh, YES you do!!

Reread Pan's post as well, maybe.

?. in trying to answer the OP....

I guess it comes down to what 'noise' do you expect me to make?

I'm not on Twitter and there's little chance of me signing up just to tell some lowlife he's a lowlife.

I'd hope and expect men with a profile in football would speak out in that instance in addition to him being suspended and condemed in the press. If I was asked my opinion ( which nobody has ) I?d say I found it disgusting.

For me personally I'm pretty selective about where I go and who my friends are. So whilst I would ( in most circumstance ) pick someone up on a sexist / racist / homophobic attitude or comment, I don't come across it very much in or outside of work because most everyone I work with or socialize with are decent people.

If anyone made sexist comments where I work they'd be in front of HR pretty quickly. Any kind of physical assault and they'd likely be dismissed if not arrested.

On an aside, I also think contrary to some comments, being a man and challenging some random bloke?s sexist remarks doesn't reduce the chance of experiencing violence at their hands.

I'd certainly think twice before approaching some group of burly shaven headed sexists in an east end pub with my Surrey accent to tell them to modify their thinking. I'd expect to get thumped.

All the blokes I know who've stepped in to help a woman being attacked in the street by their partner ( which I hope I'd have the balls to do ) have been attacked unsurprisingly. In two cases by the warring couple together.

The reason, to answer another bit of your OP, I personally don't often get involved in these discussions on MN is partly because frankly as a man one tends to get accused of being the problem if you don't agree entirely with the party line. I find some peoples attitude towards men in these threads to be, ironically, sexist and offensive So I tend not to get involved.

Doesn't mean I don't find rape and DV abhorrent, probably leaves me less informed though.

The vast majority of grown men got the message lound and clear a long time ago that sexual violence is wrong. A minority didn't and the rest of us know they won't change no matter what we say. The majority think that minority need locking up - we don't agree with them and we don't want them near us, our friends or our family.

I don't think I really need to state that obvious truth to blokes around me because most will say' yeah I agree' and a few will ignore me. I don't think saying it on a blog/forum so a load of women come and praise me for speaking out does much good either. It's nice for the ego and all but not much practical use.

Perhaps I'm just too jaded, old and realistic. Some men say and do horrible things. It shocks and saddens me. I can't stop it happening - all I CAN really do is make sure my sons don't.

so preusmably you don't think white people have any more of an obligation to speak up against racism, than black people do? White people should just leave black people to fight the cause by themselves?

I don't feel I have more of an obligation no.

It's something all people should speak out against.

Isn't this a bit like "all muslims should denounce terrorism". And it usually seems to be some group that doesn't include yourself that has to do all this denouncing

also it's not obvious that everyone around you will agree with platitudes about violence against women being wrong in all cases. Lots of men beat the women in their lives and rape. They assume other men do it too and just pay lip service to what they se as PC orthodoxy, just as rapists think most other men are rapists and meanwhile, normal men assume other men agree with them that vaw is wrong.

So, all people should speak out about sexual assault. We've established that? Good...

Does it happen? No. They may do the talking with women behind the scenes, but not out in the open, where it makes a difference. We need men to be speaking out WITH women, not leaving us to get labelled "man haters", or told we're "on our soapbox" when we do.

yes all people should speak out.

so why aren't men doing so?

Where and how would you like to see men speaking out ?

Frothy - not all women are speaking out publicly. Not even a majority. Actually its usually a very vocal minority of women. Most are just talking about it privately to other people - like most men do.

MoreBeta, I'm not disputing that, at all.

But more women are talking out about it than men.

I'm quite vocal about VAW; those who know me on my personal FB account know this. But when I speak out, I find, more often than not, that it's women speaking out. Sometimes, there'll be one or two comments from men, but in a 50+ comment thread on FB yesterday, not one male voice was heard. Not one. I know men were watching it, as I had a couple discussing it in PM. But they don't discuss it as much in a public space