To be terrified by the Australian rugby coach setting his family on fire?

[SeasonallySnowyPeasant]

In brief: earlier today an Australian ex-rugby player was in the car with his wife and their three children, poured petrol over her and set her alight. She, he and the children all died. The parents were ending their marriage and disputing custody over the children.

It’s absolutely horrific and I just wonder why there seem to be no depths to which some men - and it almost always is men - will sink when it comes to asserting their dominance over women and children. Throwing acid over them seems to be the newest ‘thing’ over the past 3 years. Assault, rape, stalking, harassment, murder are so common as to be un-newsworthy.

It scares me. My exH was abusive and I have a non-molestation order to prevent him from continuing the abuse. At the back of my mind I worry about him taking something I do/say as pushing him too far and being seriously hurt or killed. What if he decides one day to kill our DC?

Why won’t men sort their lives out and put an end to this horrific violence?

Those of us who have never been raped have been lucky, it doesn't mean we're smarter or wiser or have better 'spidey senses'.

Precisely. But unfortunately lots of women like to wave stupid ideas about responsibility like talismans in the face of male violence. It does absolutely fuck all, but they clearly feel better for it.

I mean saying a girl who goes on a night out with friends and is attacked on the way home has behaved like a 'helpless victim' is gross.

The girls and women who feel the need (as you suggest) to be chaperoned at all times are behaving in a more helpless way surely.

The other thing is that most rapes are not stranger attacks drunk women, although there are enough of those. They are happening in schools, in homes, in hotels by work colleagues, by friends etc.

This also still has little to do with this woman who was in her car with her kids when she was murdered. You say it's her fault for making a poor choice of partner. You think she should have known what he was like when they started seeing each other even though you have no idea of how he behaved in the early parts of their relationship.

All of this is simple basic victim blaming. And diversion from the topic at hand into some made up scenarios where girls are asking for it.

Frogs,

Stop putting words into my mouth. I didn't state that the woman in the car was at fault, I didn't state that women should never drink, and I didn't state that men are more likely to rape than help.

I'm saying that in certain situations you are at greater risk if you do not employ some common sense/judgement.

'Here's a radical idea.

Maybe us women should stop dating arseholes and then it would be impossible to be killed by your arsehole partner/ex. '

In the context of this thread, it certainly does strongly imply that the woman who was murdered had done something wrong, or at least stupid.

Your ideas are not grounded in how things work in real life. How dangerous men operate. They are all pointing the finger at victims. And accusing them of behaving 'helplessly'.

It's not a great read tbh.

Here's an example.

When I was at uni, I was on night out at the bar in the other campus and got a bit too tipsy. A male friend of a friend said I could go and sleep in his bed and he'd sleep on the floor in his mate's room on a blow up lylo.

I declined as I didn't 100% trust him. A few weeks later he tried to sexually assault another girl on my course who accepted his offer and woke up with him naked in the bed with her. 🤷‍♀️

So... what you're saying is that your individual decision didn't do anything to actually stop a predator from being a predator?

And really, it's one thing merely making stupid arguments, it's quite another to make them on this particular thread. Horribly disrespectful to the murdered woman and children.

So... what you're saying is that your individual decision didn't do anything to actuallystopa predator from being a predator?

No, but it stopped me being sexually assaulted. Are you saying that's a bad thing?

Chardonnay why don't you start another thread about silly girls and how they irresponsibility victimise themselves.

This one is about a murder.

Miss C that’s all well and good

But how it’s linked to him immolating his family ? She had been suffering for years and had left him

It does nothing whatsoever to reduce crime in general.

If course the pp isn't saying she hopes you had been assaulted. What she is saying is that another girl was. This highly individual approach just pushes the crime onto another victim. I imagine that step 2 of I'm alright Jack is well, if she'd just had a brain in her head she could have avoided it too! ( And pushed it onto someone else and so on and so on down the line).

Many people care beyond themselves when it comes to victims of crime.

Anyway it really is another thread. Accusing another poster of thinking it's not good that you avoid sexual assault is pretty low tbh. As is implying this murder victim had got herself into this with bad choices, when you know nothing of their relationship, how he was when it started etc and so on.

Chardonnay why don't you start another thread about silly girls and how they irresponsibility victimise themselves.

This one is about a murder.

The thread had turned into a discussion on how to combat male violence by the second page. It's odd that you didn't complain about it going off topic until 18 pages later.

It's almost as if you're trying to shut down an opinion you don't like. #nodebate

MissChardonnay - it's not trying to shut down debate, it's just that your comments are in incredibly bad taste on a thread about a woman and her children being brutally murdered by a terrible man.

Don't be an arse chardonnay, you couldn't possibly think there was anything in my post to imply that. That's even thicker than your seatbelt post earlier.

As has been pointed out to you now lots of times, the problem of male violence doesn't go away because the easiest opportunities are removed. When men want to attack a woman, they do. Hence for example no woman would have Eliot Rodger, so instead of attacking his current or ex partner he attacked women he didn't know because they'd do, as a proxy. Tinkering round the edges doesn't achieve anything.

And again, this is why in countries and cultures where the women aren't going to be doing things like getting into bed with male friends, they still have rape. They merely redefine and narrow the sort of behaviour a woman can engage in before she's considered to have been irresponsible.

Lastly, you're still being grotesquely disrespectful to the victims.

I imagine that step 2 of I'm alright Jack is well, if she'd just had a brain in her head she could have avoided it too! ( And pushed it onto someone else and so on and so on down the line).

That says more about your reasoning than mine.

I wasn't even to know that the man in question was a predator. I just used common sense and was fortunate enough to avoid a bad situation. Many other times I would've likely been ok.

I've never understood this mindset of acting like helpless little fairies and then wondering why men patronise us. I'll continue to risk assess situations and act in the manner I feel safe, despite people telling me I 'shouldn't have to' and that I'm victim blaming myself etc.

I'd rather be victim blamed than an actual victim.

They merely redefine and narrow the sort of behaviour a woman can engage in before she's considered to have been irresponsible.

Indeed. Simply catching a bus can get you killed in some countries.

Nobody objects to you risk assessing situations chardonnay, they object to you pretending women doing this is any kind of solution to male violence and to you crowbarring your aggressive naivety into a thread about a woman and child horribly murdered by a family annihilator.

Quite justanouk, and there were people in India who thought the problem was that Jyoti didn't risk assess properly.

MarchDaffs,

The problem with most people like you I've encountered, and many on here, is that they'll talk all day about the problem of male violence but won't actually consider how they individually can try to contribute to sorting it / protect themselves from it. Usually it's just a generic 'men need to sort it out', as was said on the very first page.

Which men need to sort it out? Do Jews need to sort out neo-Nazis? Do POC need to take responsibility for the KKK? Which men need to deal with which violent issues? Or are all men just responsible for male violence, like you could be said to be responsible for human violence which includes male violence, being a fellow human.

If I want a pay rise I consider what I need to do to achieve it, which is usually speaking to my employer. I don't just throw my hands up and say 'my company need to sort out my pay' and hope it happens', although saying I should try my best to address it could actually be seen as victim blaming myself for not being paid enough.

@MissChardonnay

May I ask why you think some men behave the way they do as obviously it is NOT any woman's fault that they rape, assault and murder?

And how may we address this behaviour in order to minimse the real risk to woman ie violent, predatory and abusive men, which is the real and very deeply rooted issue?

Odd assumptions chardonnay, I've a number of ideas about things we might be able to do on a societal level. Possibly even more importantly, I can identify approaches we absolutely shouldn't take because they're really stupid. Defining the issue as one that can be compared to someone looking for a pay rise is yet another corker.

Also, you're still being disrespectful to the victims dumping your nonsense on this thread.

'I've never understood this mindset of acting like helpless little fairies and then wondering why men patronise us'

What the hell is this supposed to mean? In a conversation about VAWG- murder and rape?

How is men raping us related to men raping and murdering us and where do helpless fairies come into it?

Are you trying to divert the conversation again, down another unrelated blind alley?

Yes she is.

'Do Jews need to sort out neo-Nazis?'

????

So, men who aren't rapists are like Jews and men who do rape are like neo-Nazis?

That is a seriously shit analogy, as are the ones that follow.

Did rapist men ever oppress slaughter imprison enslave etc non rapist men? As an organised attempt to eradicate them?

I mean... What?

And where are the women and girls in this analogy?

'How is men raping us related to men raping and murdering us and where do helpless fairies come into it?'

Should say

How is men patronisng us related to men raping and murdering us and where do helpless fairies come into it?

Also, you're still being disrespectful to the victims dumping your nonsense on this thread.

Well, it takes two to tango. 🤷‍♀️

May I ask why you think some men behave the way they do as obviously it is NOT any woman's fault that they rape, assault and murder?

And how may we address this behaviour in order to minimse the real risk to woman ie violent, predatory and abusive men, which is the real and very deeply rooted issue?

I'd guess that biology is likely a key factor. Despite what Cordelia Fine says, higher testosterone has been demonstrated to increase the 'fight or flight' response, shown to be generally higher in violent criminals, and has also been found to make animals more aggressive/territorial when administered to them. It even makes females more aggressive.

Socialisation may also play a part, but I believe a certain amount is likely innate as fully intact animals are often much more aggressive. We also have millennia of armies of men fighting each other which may have altered their instincts - I'm sure I read that DNA can change in a relatively short period.

As for solving it, I'm not sure we'll ever stop humans killing each other unless we develop and install a Domestron 900 in everyone's house to intervene when domestic disputes start to go south. As is, over 99.9999% of women aren't murdered each year, so I'd probably focus first on stopping wars which likely kill a lot more civilians.