to wish there was a way to make young women aim higher in their choice of boyfriends? (distressing story about child abuse)

[ReputableBiscuit]

First off, this young mother is categorically not to blame for what this awful man did to her child, and ALL the guilt belongs to him for his unforgivable crime and attempts to hide it. But AIBU to just wish she'd had more self-respect than to let a man with 38 prior convictions into her (and her baby's) life? How can we empower emotionally vulnerable young women to protect themselves from dangerous men? This happened local to me. It's so bloody sad.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-30019395

Did I mention that 93.6% of murderers in the UK are men Tinkly? Men kill other people - other men, women and children - 15 times more often than women kill other people.

Either men are a danger, and we need to be wary of them, or everyone kills everyone else and there's no point in being wary of anyone. Which is it?

And because you seem to be repeating the fallacy that women can not or should not take any measures to avoid such men, but should just wait for men to stop...

Where have I said this?

In lots of posts in lots of ways.... I did point out a few way upthread, but you didn't respond.

One of the ways is to insist that women shouldn't have to act, that men should be made to act. I did ask why you thought that, as it sets back feminism about a century

You seem to misunderstand what feminism is Nomama. Feminism isn't about women taking on responsibility for avoiding dangerous men. Or do you think that it is?

What on Earth are you talking about, cailindana?

That's the sort of thing I mean. A sideways interpretation of a post that traduces the poster.

You said women need to take action and that action is learning to avoid dangerous men. And that if we don't take that action we're setting feminism back. Is that right or have I misinterpreted?

Misinterpreted. That's at least 2 separate things that I did say, concatenated into one sentence that isn't quite what I said or meant - but is close enough to look very much like it.

Ok sorry. What did you mean then?

I'll try. It probably has as much to do with the passion/rhetoric you post with. I don't get the neo-feminist stance that all men could be bastards, therefore treat them all as though they are.

Nor do I understand why asserting that a woman - well, as I said earlier, I wouldn't say woman, I would say 'person' - so, why a person should not be empowered, supported, taught how to make better decisions for themselves. Therefore enabling them to recognise and avoid dangerous behaviour in other people.

You said earlier that it is not for women to make any changes, it is men who need to change. I asked how that was in anyway a feminist stance? I read it as women should simply wait for men to realise the error of their ways - or be forced to change them - presmably by other men, as women shouldn't have to take part. This equals making women wait for men to act and is, in my opinion, setting back feminism.

Women should be encouraged to act, to say no, to refuse to accept behaviours, to be helped to recognise those behaviours - and, as I also said earlier - young men form dysfunctional backgrounds should also be helped to rise above them.

All people have responsibility for themselves. Taking care of yourself is one of those natural responsibilities - though I have read the neo-feminist take on that. A woman having responsibility for her own safety is somehow equated with being responsible for a man's actions - which I find weird and reprehensible as it is, again, saying that a woman can not do anything to ensure her own safety.

It is probably semantics. But it really annoys me.

There is a bigger picture which includes the feminist actions that Cailindana mentions, the campaigning, the re-education of civil society.

But then there is the smaller picture with individuals. At grass roots level with vulnerable women who have not have the chance to develop self esteem, or self actualise in many ways at all - then hell yes I am all for any kind of assertiveness workshops or group therapy, or counselling, or any kind of appropriate support that helps to deal with anxiety, doubt and loneliness at being alone in an often hostile world, with or without small kids.

I have already acknowledged that, InVino. Part of my non teaching job is doing just that, on a person by person basis. I have worked vulnerable young people for about 2 decades.

As I keep saying, I don't focus on women but also help young men... that is I work on both halves of the social problem. I offer to set up or run workshops of all sorts to men and women - including single dad cookery nights.

Of course it is always possible that the fact I work with vulnerable men as well as women puts me beyond the neo-feminist pale!

I read a Buzzfeed article - which was absolutely horrible, so I won't link it - about how in America, some women have been given sentences longer than the murderer of their children, for not preventing the murder.

That's because these women stayed with men they knew were beating them and their children. That makes them equally as responsible for their child getting hurt. It's not like a random man broke into their house and killed their child.

They allowed this man into their life and near their child. They allowed these men to continually hit their children when they had the power to remove them from the situation and leave. As a parent you are 100% responsible for who you allow into your child's life, and if you let someone continue to harm them you should be held to the letter of the law for that. I have no sympathy for these idiot women who allowed their children to be murdered.

If you see a child in the road, with a car barreling towards him, you yank them out of the way. If you fail to do so, you are just as responsible for them getting hit.

Their inaction killed their children just as much as the murderer himself. It's not like the murderer got off either. But these aren't innocent women who are victims of circumstances. They actively participated in the death of their children.

Nomama - I think your "all men could be bastards" exposition of what you call "neo feminism" (not quite sure what that is - list of people you think hold views typical of this might be useful) is one I've ever heard articulated. Most feminists I know are very careful to explain that "not all men are like that" - in fact that feminists, in holding men to higher standards and saying very publically that they know and like men who do have higher standards, are actually more positive about men as a whole than the type of woman who says "all men watch porn because they have needs/ women mustn't dress provocatively because men can't help themselves..." That latter group are the ones who really have low opinions of men.

However, you use the word "could" - so perhaps you're thinking of feminist discussions like the ones surrounding "Schrodinger's rapist" - which is meant as a way of trying to explain to men why what they mean as fairly harmless social interactions - trying to engage a woman in conversation on the train late a night - may lead to rebuffal. It's an attempt to say "put yourself in the position of the woman. You may be perfectly nice, most men are, but there's a non-negligible (and the non-negligible bit is important) minority who aren't - and the important thing is that on the basis of a casual one-off encounter, a woman can't tell the difference. Therefore you need to think about your behaviour patterns, not tell her she's being unecessarily defensive because you're a nice guy (and she should somehow magically be able to intuit this." Again, this is not the same as saying "all" or even "most" men are bastards - I have never heard a feminist I know say this.

The reason this thread has left a nasty taste in my mouth (I posted early on) is the way what could and should have been a reasonable discussion about the way women put up with absolute crap from men, and why they do so, has been hung on one particulary extreme and unpleasant case which none of us actually know the precise details of (unless we are police officers or social workers actually dealing with the people involved, in which case posting on this thread would be massively unprofessional), with people throwing round extreme and unsubstantiated accusations.

There is a place for this discussion - we need to talk about why women put up with crap (and what's more, as a feminist, I'd say do it in a way which acknowledges the immense social pressures on women to put up with crap - from Disney princesses and the massive social pressure that any man is better than none, through the financial difficulties of leaving an abusive man, and the totally inadequate measure in place to prevent abusive men stalking and harrassing - even killing - their ex partners when the partners do manage to leave). But really this sort of Daily Mail witch hunt directed at one woman is not the way to do it.

Bulbasaur, where did I say we should live as if no man poses a threat?

When you replied asking why women should be more cautious/careful or be expected to use common sense when it comes allowing new men into their lives. The onus falls onto everyone to use discretion as to who they allow into their circle.

Lurcio - I didn't say that - I was paraphrasing a part of another post that really annoyed me!

And I have read many threads around MN that espouse exactly those sentiments - women should not trust any man because they may turn out to be dangerous. Statistics like the 93% one being used to insinuate that most men are murderers, only men murder kids etc, sloppy and irritating. But no, I have never heard a feminist I actually know say anything like that - which is why I label it 'neo-feminism' here. I have no idea if it is an online thing or if younger more, erm, rabid(?) feminists actually talk like that. I am an older model...

And, as I haven't levelled any accusation at any of the women mentioned here I think it is fair to say that I agree with your last 2 paragraphs.

Bulbasaur - do you really think that the woman who allowed an abusive man into her life should get a longer sentence than the man who actually committed the murder/act of violence? Even as an accessory to murder I can't see how you'd get a longer sentence. Unless of course you buy into the idea that male violence is a "force of nature" with the onus on women to guard against it (in the same way you wouldn't put up an umbrella on top of a hill in a lightning storm) - rather than something a minority of individual men choose to do and thus bear moral responsibility for.

I am not denying for a moment that women and men have a moral responsibility towards their children which outweighs that which they owe to their sexual partner and I am fully in support of social services taking children into care where a parent (usually a mother) refuses to leave a physically abusive partner. But I really cannot see how you can come to the conclusion that the mother is somehow more morally responsible and therefore deserving of a longer sentence than the man who actually committed the violence.

Cross-post nomama. Sounds like we are on a similar page then. I just worried a bit that the views attributed to your "neo feminists" in fact sound rather more like the views attributed to "straw feminists" by people with a vested interested in making feminism sound extreme and rabid and something no right-thinking person would sign up to.

Ah! Yes, them too!

Sadly I have been savaged on here for trying to understand some points being made. Maybe I come across as a straw feminist to some - but I am certainly put off continuing to try and find out more by the raging I have been accosted by.

I had written myself off as a lost, old fashioned, feminist cause

Your previous post is interesting. I had wrestled with the American sentencing a while ago. I can see the logic in handing down huge sentences to mothers who refuse to have a violent partner removed... if you accept the starting point of the American system, that is. But a more sensible look at the issue notes that such a deterrent, across very many crimes, does not seem to work in America, or anywhere else it seems.

LurcioAgain Those "mothers" were the gatekeepers. The men could not get to their children unless they allowed it. The men could only hurt their child as much as the mother allowed them to. They were active participants.

Sorry, but the onus IS very damn well on the mother to guard against the violence from her children. He can only harm them with her blessings. She had the power to stop it and failed to do so.

The mother committed two crimes:

• Failing to protect her child, and remove them from the situation.
• Actively participating in the child's abuse.

The partner committed on:

• Actively participating in the child's abuse.

These children are not dead because of premeditated murder, they're dead because an all too common beating finally got taken too far.

I'm not too concerned about who's in jail longer, that's a matter of who has the best lawyer and more sympathetic jury, not an accurate representation of the law. It is not the norm that women get longer sentences than their partners, it's usually the opposite. The fact that these women got longer sentences is not representative of anything other than a blip in the courts. They're both scum. I don't have sympathy for them getting a longer sentence. They both deserve to rot in jail until they die, who stays behind bars longer isn't something that's going to keep me up at night.

I never said all men might be bastards and therefore we must treat them as though they are nomama. In fact you are the one arguing that women must be wary of men, aren't you?

The American system also routinely insists on court ordered contact for ex-partners.

Imagine being in that situation. You choose between living with the bastard, having to put up with his shit every day but yet still hoping that you were able to put a modicum of control over the interactions he has with your DC, versus leaving and being forced (with a threat of jail and hence him gaining full custody) to hand DC over for unsupervised contact for set periods of time. With absolutely no control over what he is doing.

No way - NO WAY - would anybody who thought their partner was capable of killing their children take the second option there.

And that assumes that a, she realises he's capable of killing, and b, she's not trapped in the relationship in one of the myriad ways that abusers trap their victims in relationships.

BTW there is no such thing as "neo-feminist."

No I am not, cailindana, that's the problem. You are misunderstanding me on a lot of points.

And there are indeed neo-feminists, Simone de Beauvoiur was one of the first given that name... and there is another version - feminists who believe all women are superior to men...

Aya Gruber defines them like this:

"Distinct from post-feminists, these “neofeminists” prioritize women’s issues, but do so in a way that evidences a strong commitment to distributive justice and a recognition that subordination exists on multiple axes. In defining neofeminism, this article examines how the troubling nature of certain second-wave feminist principles engendered new schools of feminist thought. It then illustrates this process in the domestic violence reform context."

It is this last that is often found here, loudly!

As I said in a recent post, I am an old fashioned feminist. I don't want a separatist state for women, I don't want to demonise men or to use DV as a platform to prove all/any men are bastards. I want, and actively work towards, building communities where the natural/real differences between the genders are recognised and celebrated and the negative social constructs are challenged.

I know that is very outdated these days... so shoot me! I don't really care.

The American system also routinely insists on court ordered contact for ex-partners.

So does the UK.

But, if you prove he's been abusive, they can bar contact or have supervised contact only. My cousin was abused and the courts I believe either had supervised contact only or blocked it all together with his child. The mindset over here I believe is if he'll hit the mother, he might hit the child.

Actually, I don't know a single person who had an abusive ex, and the courts forced contact with the kids. One reason is that the mother will usually get a restraining order and how can the ex see the kids if he can't go near the mother? Sure you can see the kids, but if you go near the mother where the kids are, you'll be arrested. Good luck figuring out how to get around that. It's a bit lazy from a legal perspective, but it works better than fighting custody in court.

The majority of court ordered access is from when allegations of abuse suddenly surface during the court hearing, with no previous evidence such as hospital records or police reports.

Ah you believe in natural and real differences between the sexes nomama. In that case we won't agree.