to be sick of all the man/boy hate.

[churchoflego]

What the hell is going on? Men are not the devil. Boys are not the devil. I have sons and all I read is how as white males they are basically considered the spawn of satan. When did males become the enemy? Surely there are good and bad individuals who happen to be male or female?

I was horribly bullied at school by females and again at work by females, however, I don't consider all females to be evil. They were horrible individuals who happened to be female.

It's really depressing and scary.

Why do you think Make is male?

Sorry Brilliant, I’m giving you a hard time and you don’t deserve it - I think you’re the only man on this thread who hasn’t acknowledged the problem instead of denying or minimising it. I have no arguement with you.

*HAS acknowledged, bloody autocorrect.

Depends on the type of crime, and of course we are talking about a hypothetical situation in which time is of the essence.

And this is where the police and social workers face all sorts of uphill struggles - because on the one hand, they have to treat everybody equally (rightly so), but at the same, their resources and time are limited so they have to make 'educated guesses' about where best to start, or where to focus attention, and that invariably means some location / group of people are going to feel targetted.

If you work in child protection, you know that any child, in any social environment is at risk, but proportionally, 'neglect' is a common issue and most often found in deprived areas. If you want to do the best you can, for the most amount of children, that's where you'd put most of your resources. Targetted? yes. Biased? maybe. But I can't see a better strategy.

If you want to tackle knife crime, you have to solve the cause, but if you can't do that, you just have to put your resources where they are needed the most, and that's deprived inner cities, and those locations have a disproportionate number of young black males.

If there is suddenly a terrorist threat in a city, reports of suicide bombs etc, then you can guarantee the police will focus attention on young male muslims. Time is of the essence, they can't treat everybody indiscriminately. They literally have to hedge their bets.

It's ok - these are emotional subjects, and to get to the heart of the matter, we have to really say what we are thinking. It's quite easy to misread a post, or make a post that's ambiguous and can be interpreted the opposite way.

If we can't overcome disagreements in on a forum, there really is no hope for doing so in real life! :-)

It's great that you're engaging with this debate, @TheBrilliantMistake you're not minimising or derailing the thread.

You're quite right. And obviously if you're looking into child exploitation you're once again going to be looking into the Muslim community. That's not saying that white men don't abuse children, but that specific type of abuse is committed predominantly by Muslim men on white teenage girls.

Yeah, and when that young Muslim male was born, he wasn't Muslim (per se) and I can't believe he was genetically predisposed to child exploitation. To my mind, he was moulded by many factors and ended up a perpetrator. That's not saying 'not his fault', as many Muslim males don't become perpetrators, but we have to understand how their thought processes and beliefs are shaped to the point where they are at now.

Already, I am nervous about what I type because the Muslim word has been used, and that's the sort of mess we find ourselves in.

Let me give you a few examples of where a man (I can only speak for myself) is being honest about his thoughts, but fears expressing them:

1. I find a woman in a pub attractive
   This can immediately be jumped on as sexually objectifying her. She's not there to be judged on looks etc. It's just something that can happen to a man and it's an honest / open statement. It doesn't mean he has a right to act upon it. but at the same time, if you're a single male attracted to a single woman, one side has to approach the other to say 'hey, fancy a date?'. It doesn't have to be a creepy approach. Quite often it's a nervous one.

2. Some arguments can be very stressful and it's better to walk away and calm down.
   I'm not a violent man, but sure, in a heated debate, tensions rise. Sometimes, it's better (for me) to walk away instead of saying something I might regret. If a woman says 'no, you need to stay and talk' it can only add to the frustration. That situation is a real catch .22 for some men.

3. Man cause most violence.
   Yep they do, and it hurts to be part of that group. Most of us don't act violently, but we can still be very imposing because we are male, generally bigger and stronger etc. We can't help that. We just need to remember it. It maybe wouldn't help sometimes though to appreciate some of us let out a silent scream inside when we see 'men cause most violence'. We accept it, but we don't have to like it (who would like it?)

4. We can never know what it's like to be a woman.
   We know. But you're trying to explain it to us as best we can.
   If you don't believe we can even learn what it's like, then why bother telling us?
   If you do believe we can learn what it's like, at least to some extent, then keep educating us for as long as it takes. Over and over again, until it sinks in. You could be in a for a long session sometimes!

I could go on and on (and probably said too much already). I can't speak for all men any more than women here can speak for all women. But I can attempt to express the experiences of one man so they can be debated sensibly, not ripped to shreds in a way that other men will be even more reluctant to express their views.

And obviously if you're looking into child exploitation you're once again going to be looking into the Muslim community.

I think if we are going down this road, statistically, isn't it true that the person most likely to abuse your child is the guy sitting across the table from you right now?

I do know that. I'm a victim of childhood SA at the hands of my father and others. I said that white men were also guilty of child abuse. I was talking about that specific type of crime, the grooming of vulnerable teenage girls.

Most children are abused by a close family relative (as far as we know based on current statistics) but this isn't a group that can be targeted with specific resources. It's impossible to closely observe the goings on of every family in the UK.

It IS possible to pay extra attention to specific hotspots of child exploitation, and that's what they (or try to) do.

Hedging bets again - with the limited resources at your disposal.
Whilst child exploitation can be more prevalent in some Muslim communities, child neglect is very commonplace in white working class communities, arguably because of poverty / lifestyle and educational issues.

We digress a little here, but sure it's a great subject.

Here's a (possibly more relevant one):

We know that men are the most likely violent offenders, and we also know that alcohol can significantly influence that. With limited resources, should the men who like a drink be focused on above others - accepting that plenty of violent men don't drink, or can become violent without it?

If we can't fix ALL of the potential causes in one go, can we fix them one by one? i.e. Alcohol, sexual frustration, bullying, self-esteem etc.