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?

I think the police and courts need to start taking it far more seriously for a start. My neighbour a few years back had her back broken and collar bone fractured in an attack by her ex. The CPS decided not to charge. Time and time again I see cases like that dropped, or the police behaving terribly, even refusing to investigate. Why is this being allowed to happen?

Apologies, I re-read my post and it reads like I don’t think women’s efforts are making any difference. That’s not the point I was trying to make. The point I was clumsily making is that women are and always have been at the forefront of this cultural fight. Women are doing everything they can, whether that’s by campaigning, formalising support networks, or raising the conversation. But individual women are still policing their own words and actions to attempt not to ‘provoke‘ male violence. That’s not ok. Men need to step in and think about how male violence isn’t there to be ‘provoked’.

@Thuglife

Derailing the discussion to make it about men

As I've already pointed out, the first person to make this thread about 'men' as a generic group, did so with a flippant post that generalised about the whole. A blatant AMALT post if you will. I'm not surprised in the slightest it got called out. If you want to blame anyone for derailing...

Completely agree angels. Punishment needs to fit the crime. If they are doing DV work as probation they should be fined for any non-attendance. Women have the right to be safe.

Thank you to @Atalune and @SeasonallySnowyPeasant I don’t tell people IRL but it’s really nice to have some online support.

When men ask what they can do to make this type of crime unacceptable, well the first and most obvious one is if you know someone who does this and you're interviewed by the media or posting on social media about it, don't say what a nice guy he was! Nice guys don't murder women and children!

Also, from the side of the reporting, the balance of the reports need to change to put the focus on how unacceptable the man's behaviour was and to highlight the abusive aspect.

It's the same way that attitudes to NRPs who don't pay child maintenance need to reported with a different slant to make it socially unacceptable. Until the media gets on board with this anyone trying to do anything is swimming against a very strong tide.

The vast majority of men are not and never would be family annihilators.

The vast majority of family annihilators are men.

The wikipedia entry en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Familicide has an interesting (to me) bit

The internal logic for family annihilation can stem from a number of sources.

David Wilson of Birmingham City University has divided these cases into four groups: anomic, disappointed, self-righteous and paranoid.

In this typology, the anomic killer sees his family purely as a status symbol; when his economic status collapses, he sees them as surplus to requirements.
The disappointed killer seeks to punish the family for not living up to his ideals of family life.
The self-righteous killer destroys the family to exact revenge upon the mother, in an act that he blames on her.
Finally, the paranoid killer kills their family in what they imagine to be an attempt to protect them from something even worse.

I suspect, from what I've read of these dreadful crimes over the years, that most women who murder their children fall into the final category.

I wonder how many of the parents on this thread put as much care and attention into teaching their boys to be kind, to value themselves for their ability to be a caring and good friend, to be open about their emotions and encouraged them to cry when they were having a hard time, as they did their girls.

I wonder how many encouraged their boys to watch a lot of friendship/sharing/caring oriented TV and how many just stuffed on violent content like ninjago or star wars or any sort of superhero related shite?

I wonder how many parents encourages their boys to play with soft toys and to role play, and how many bought them toy weapons.

I wonder how many held pirates parties for their boys birthdays.

All in all I think its fucking ridiculous to encourage boys to engage in violence glorifying activities and then expect them to turn into kind caring men....but maybe I'm just mad.

When men ask what they can do to make this type of crime unacceptable, well the first and most obvious one is if you know someone who does this and you're interviewed by the media or posting on social media about it, don't say what a nice guy he was!

And if they don't know someone who does this?

Another poster here with a violent ex. He threatened to burn my house down with me and my children inside after I left him. Violent throughout the relationship, well known to police etc.

His mother excused his behaviour, maybe if the house was cleaner or I managed the money better he wouldn't be so angry type nonsense. Boys will be angry, violent boys. I have a lovely sensitive DS who knows it is never acceptable to lay his hands on anyone unless it is self defense.

StillDrSethHazlittMD Wed 19-Feb-20 16:40:44
When men ask what they can do to make this type of crime unacceptable, well the first and most obvious one is if you know someone who does this and you're interviewed by the media or posting on social media about it, don't say what a nice guy he was!

And if they don't know someone who does this?

Well, if they're sharing the story on social media, maybe they could comment to point out that him being a nice guy is obviously a lie since nice guys don't murder women and children. Or comment this on a newspaper's report comments section.

Sonja What about his father? What was his attitude about your ex's behaviour?

Careful, or Batshit will be back and say "see, women enable it" and start their victim blaming shit again.

I understand the kneejerk defensive reaction many perfectly decent men have to incidents like this, truly I do. If 99% of murders and violence generally were being carried out by women, I'm sure I'd feel tainted by that and touchy whenever it came up and I'd want everyone to know I wasn't like that, no, not one bit! So I get it.

What I don't get is why the thinking so often stops there. Male violence and its consequences are surely everyone's problem society's problem. When the conversation is derailed by many voices - or a few loud, insistent ones - shouting, "Not me! Count me out! NAMALT!" and it stops there, that's what I don't understand. The persistent deflection that expects women to talk about the decent men, and stroke them, and turn the conversation to how grateful we are that these nice men aren't axe murderers is what I don't get.

If you're a decent man, it's not about you and it's a mistake to draw attention to yourself and try to make it about you.

Instead, why not stop disowning the problem and talk about finding a solution; become part of the solution?

Women feel safer and will be safer from male violence when decent men step up in the places women don't go and the conversations women don't hear, challenging misogynous talk and rape jokes and hate speech.

Don't tell us you're not an abuser; tell us how you closed down a sleazy, distespectful conversation instead of laughing uncomfortably, or how you and your friends challenged a man who was catcalling or groping a girl or woman in the street and made sure she was safe from him.

Where are your stories about being part of the solution? You can do things women can't do and we can do things you can't (like volunteering at a crisis centre or refuge) and if everybody tries, between us we could make a difference.

@StillDrSethHazlittMD his father was absent from an early age. He had a step father for a short period of his childhood who was abusive to his mother, he claimed this was abhorrent and "hated" the step father for mistreating his mother. But then he went on to continue the cycle regardless.

My employers have signed up to the white ribbon campaign which is about domestic abuse. The campaign “visits” football matches etc. When I posted it on my face book page so many people said to me it’s not just women who suffer from DV blah blah. Blah. True but this campaign is about women!!

Just seen this in the news and it is one of the most awful things I have ever read. So so sad.

When I posted it on my face book page so many people said to me it’s not just women who suffer from DV blah blah. Blah. True but this campaign is about women!!

Exactly! There’s such a strong desire to shut women up and stop us talking about this. 2 women killed a week is not worth a conversation.

Maybe the man had mental health problems and needed help? I mean, that’s exactly what would be said if a woman did it

Good post NearlyGranny.

It's not 'sad', it's evil. That needs saying for a start.

@XDownwiththissortofthingX - no, I was referring to another post by that poster in which they accused posters of "pretending" that violence was a sex/gender based issue. Complete denial from them that it is predominantly one sex which commits violent crime. Then the poster who claimed that 50% of family annihilators were women (it's actually around 83%). Then all the posters who turned up aghast at how the OP could defame their Nigels, and completely derailed the discussion away from the issues the OP was raising.

If we can't name male violence, we can't talk about it, and if we can't talk about it, we can't find solutions to it. All those posters who flock to threads like this to defend their Nigels and are so invested in derailing discussions are part of the problem.

If you want to generalise and pretend it's a sex/gender issue
It is a sex issue, hth.

Maybe the man had mental health problems and needed help? I mean, that’s exactly what would be said if a woman did it

Any proof? Can you find a story about a woman burning her husband and children alive in a car intentionally along with comments that support that statement?

It has been said many times on here when a woman has harmed her children. Even Catherine Flack got sympathy and she was up for DV. A man wouldn’t. To say you haven’t seen it is a lie

Those going on about stigmatising half the population:

Statistically this kind of thing happening increases massively amongst those with a history of sbusive behaviour.

It ISNT stigmatising half the population, it’s acknowledging abusers (mainly male) are far more likely to kill.,