About international men’s day blog

[Pumpkinspicewhatever]

I work for a big bank. We have an active company intranet and various blogs go up at different points in the calendar from the great and the good of the company. Most recently for international men’s day.
This blogs opening gambit was “did you know 1 in 3 men have experienced domestic violence?” (And no source to back this up) followed by a fact about how suicide rates are 3x higher for men than women.
Now I have no problem in theory with international men’s day and the associated celebrating good male role models etc, which is the main thrust of what my company seems to be doing. But to lead with a fact about men being common victims of DV (I can’t find the 1 in 3 statistic from a quickish google) feels really blind and inappropriate. DV across the world is more a problem for women than men. Surely this is universally accepted? Can’t they lead with anything more positive for IMD than misrepresenting what is a devastating social problem (more so for women?)
Not sure, but this didn’t sit well with me. I wish they had led with something else. I’ve asked the writer to clarify their source as well.

I'm certainly not a man-hater, and the thread was started by the OP because of reservations about the focus of an event having a nefarious agenda, not as a support thread for men.

PBo83 this thread wasn’t started as a support thread for men, it was to specifically talk about the misinformation shared on IMD. Why don’t you start your own thread about what you’d like to see on IMD? Maybe on a male-dominated website like Pistonheads?

PBo83, you absolute tool, if men don't want to 'just deal with it', they can do something about it themselves instead of whinging at women to sort out their problems. We have enough problems with men as it is. IDIOT.

Like men who strangle us in the bedroom. cough cough.

And if men have problems in their lives, they can sort it themselves.

And if that's your attitude, you can't expect them to give a shiny shit about you. And guess who that benefits.

Fortunately, most of the men I know don't think like this (even if they could be doing more to change things).

Like men who strangle us in the bedroom. cough cough.

Aaaaah I KNEW I recognised his username! Weird he didn’t correct a PP who implied he was a women.

Yeah, that's the dude who choked a woman in the bedroom. My stomach turns itself inside out whenever he pops up on a thread.

HaHa.. you're more bitter and pathetic than I thought. Using a 6 month old post out of context.

Considering I have seen 3 male suicides in under 30s within my circles in last 18 months I think it is really important to get over the "just man up" thing.
Talking about male issues too doesn't take away from female ones. It's a shame that someone wrote wrong info in that blog. I would actually correct them, because bad info=bad reception.

There is a short list of things men could do to help themselves and other men;

Seek help if their mental health is suffering.
Seek help if they were victims of child sexual abuse.

And women in the same position should help themselves too?

Fucking hell, it doesn't matter if 1 man or 100 men experience DV, absolutely NOBODY should have to put up with it.

A man's experience of getting smacked in the face by his partner is no less valid than a woman's. Yes, the stat might have been wrong but that does not mean jack shit in the great scheme of things - human beings are still being beaten by their partners.

And as for And if men have problems in their lives, they can sort it themselves this is why feminism gets such a bad press.

Interesting responses on here. I wanted to say that the reason I started this post was not to bash men, not to say IMD has no value, not to say that men don’t experience domestic violence. I just got a sense from the blog post in question that something was off. I guess because they were clearly in such a rush to say “men have it as bad as women!!!” That they didn’t even bother to use a correct fact on DV- they used the incorrect fact as an attention grabbing headline- and they went on in the same sentence to say “men are three times as likely as women to commit suicide”. Bringing women into the equation like it WAS some weird competition. I literally hate the fact that IMD is lazily used as some kind of contest with IWD. There are issues that affect both men and women but setting them up in contest, or just trying to get attention with headlines like what i described, for me made it feel like there was an agenda.
Comments btl were on the lines of “it’s great to see men’s talent recognised” “it’s great to see this attitude to gender equality” and the frankly unbelievable “men are not celebrated enough!” “we have international women’s day but it’s great to see that now men have a day too”
All by men. All making me think that IMD is a great excuse for the latent entitles, in some cases apparently deluded misogynists to crawl out of the woodwork.
They still have not taken this incorrect fact down which drives me absolutely mad. Someone else has picked up on it too in the comments. And yet nothing.

I think the argument "men as a class..."muddies the water too much.

Many individual men will be struggling with issues - mental.health, unemployment, abuse, childhood sexual abuse, body image issues, poor schooling, gang culture... Just because men as a class are privileged it doesn't mean that all men are privileged and so clearly comments about IMD are going to reflect the struggles that many men have.

Who, when embroiled in their own struggle with something, stops and considers all the other people in the world who have bigger problems? No one would expect a woman with severe depression to pull herself up short and consider how.priviledged she is in relation to the people living in war torn Syria.

How can you figure out privilege based on just one aspect? Men as a class may have privilege over women as a class but then factor in race, social class, age, wealth and surely it's far more complex than just sex? That's what people are reacting to. It's hard to see your privilege when life has dealt you a shit hand and you feel that it's insurmountable.

@Hearhoovesthinkzebras fully agree however in the blog I am referring to “women” and “women’s day” have been used in the same way- “as a class”. And I didn’t like the almost competitive aspect of that blog post with the stats they used.

A thread about the issues men face hijacked by man-haters. What a surprise. Someone think of the wimminz! NAWALT!

Oh look the usual suspects bleating about how oppressed they are. It's like bingo. I call house.

The most useful bit about IMD is that it gives an answer to give to the bleaters on IWD "but wheeeeeen is International Men's Day?"

The blog the OP mentioned would have had value if they'd bothered to stat check.

IMD used to be all about bashing women even a few years back, but for the last year or two I've actually seen better campaigns attached to it- regarding MH and just being a better father/ partner etc which was a positive way of tackling male violence IMO.

I'm not massively keen on the paternalistic attitude surrounding it- as an adult woman I don't need my partner to protect me as such, but I hope we'll get a more nuanced approach as time goes by.

The most useful bit about IMD is that it gives an answer to give to the bleaters on IWD "but wheeeeeen is International Men's Day?"

So this is more important for you than, say, men's mental health?

Don't bother attempting an intelligent response.

How have we lost the ability to show concern for the individual?

I truly don't understand some of the posts that I've seen on this thread and others too. How can anyone not show sympathy for individuals who have experienced mental health issues, or domestic violence or any number of other problems, regardless of what sex they are?

Seems to vary a lot from place to place, where we are currently (Asia) amongst the people DH and I know I would say 80%of the DV is female being V towards male, sometimes using tools such as scissors, kitchen knives but mostly verbal.

It's always the DH who has to move out in order to escape but the really weird thing is the DW nearly always pursues after him and threatens them with all sorts unless they move back home because of the embarrassment of their DH leaving them!

Hear I think you’d probably understand a bit better if you bothered to read the OP and focus on what it’s about, rather than only responding to your own fear that someone, somewhere, might be saying something negative about men, and getting on your high horse.

It's funny isn't it, I've noticed an influx of men on MN over the last few days telling women how violent and awful they are, with some posters even stating that suicide in men is the fault of women.

some posters even stating that suicide in men is the fault of women.

This is awful. Can you point me to where please? I would be very happy to challenge them on this nonsense.

Hearhoovesthinkzebras I expect it's because we aren't discussing an individual but the whole thread is surrounding the issues and statistics for men as a whole.

Plus there's a distinct tendency to try and claim that it's just as bad if not worse for men without anything backing it up which is exactly what happened at the OP's work.

Sorry if this has been said, but I would be interested in seeing the percentage breakdown of how many male victims of DV are victims of male violence via their partners

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-49459674
an article about the increase in domestic violence.

From it..."In April 2018, the Home Office published its long-awaited strategy to tackle serious violence in England and Wales.
The policy paper acknowledged that a "significant proportion" of violent crime was linked to domestic abuse or alcohol but said neither was "driving" the increase. "That is why they are not the focus of this document," it added.
Instead, most of the effort from government, police and other agencies has gone into combating street-based violence, gang crime and county lines drug dealing. "

So actually more resources are being spent on male-on-male crime, which I suppose is understandable as it is such a serious, devastating and far-reaching problem (can't resources be spent on both??? ), but this shows that male on female crime aka domestic violence is taken less seriously (resources, money) than male on male violence.