To be sick to death of male violence against women?!

[Conkergame]

Kilmarnock attacks: Mother and daughter killed and man dies in crash www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-55948245

Just read about the poor mother and daughter killed in Kilmarnock by what sounds like the mother’s husband/partner. When will this stop?! And when will it be taken seriously as the misogynistic hate crime that it clearly is?!

Feeling even more fed up with it than usual as I also had a scary incident this week where I went for a run with a friend in the centre of a city at 6pm and got harassed by a man

I’d been so looking forward to going out, getting some fresh air and catching up with my friend and then some d1ckhead had to ruin it by running alongside us saying “I want sex with you, I want sex with you” over and over again. When I turned to confront him and told him to “shut up and go away”, he turned nasty, raised his hand as if to hit me and said, “you trying to mess with me?” in a really menacing way. I’m mid-thirties and haven’t had to deal with this sh1t in a while but it left me really shaken (we ended up sprinting for our lives and trying to ask for help from a stranger, who just ignored us ) Luckily the weird guy got bored and stopped following us eventually, but who knows what could have happened

AIBU to think there needs to be much more effort made to reduce male violence and harassment against women in the UK?

@Sulkywoman

Who the hell on the poll thinks the OP is being unreasonable?

Quite. So why the hell is this very serious question posted in AIBU? The only possible response is YANBU. It's not a fucking stupid petty gripe that is the raison d'etre of AIBU.

Im a man and I agree with you wholeheartedly. To my shame I was unaware of the scale of the issue but MN has really opened my eyes to just quite how shitty some men can be. I'm sorry it's taken so long for me to realise.

The violence is sickening and I feel the roots are in all the smaller acts that the me too movement highlighted a couple of years back. If that's ok, in their mind, then the next step is ok and so on. I've tried explaining to some idiots who think it's no big deal. Don't say or do anything that you wouldn't want big Jimmy on D-Wing saying / doing to you once the cell door's been locked for the night.

I'm sorry OP. We need parental input while boys are growing up and much harder sentencing when they're caught so that it finally gets taken as seriously as it ought to be.

Clearly YANBU.
Unfortunately 3 women being murdered by men every week doesn't seem to be seen as an issue by the government or police.

There's a heartbreaking and shocking website called Counting Dead Women.

The Femicide Census is a unique source of comprehensive information about women who have been killed in the UK and the men who have killed them.
By collating femicides, we can see that these killings are not isolated incidents, and many follow repeated patterns.

kareningalasmith.com/counting-dead-women/

It's almost too much to read.

I think it has become so “normalised” that it just doesn’t register for a lot of people. I follow the Twitter account @CountDeadWomen and retweet them regularly. A male work acquaintance sent me a private message to thank me for retweeting the messages as it had opened his eyes to how bad things really are.

kareningalasmith.com/the-femicide-census/

Drakeford lifted the ban on meeting other people for exercisec last week, saying that women felt scared to exercise alone. It really pissed me off though, cos although I know he was trying to justify backtracking, it was basically admitting that lone women aren't safe.

I run alone, but it's at snatched times. I don't know any other runners who would drop everything to come with me and besides, it's headspace. I really resent the fact that dh can run anywhere, pretty much any time, but I tothink about my route and who will be around.

Rather than let us out inpairs, like Victorian ladies, why not focus on making the country safer?

Yep. Agree 100%. But normal (ie. balanced & sane) men need to call these people out too. But they often don’t because they don’t have the backbone to stand apart. However it needs to stop being seen as a male vs female issue. Someone with anger issues who is a bully and picks on women would almost undoubtedly be just as happy to pick on a physically weaker male. Perhaps not in a sexual manner but in a violent or intimidating manner nonetheless.
The media too needs to play its part in how these crimes are reported to the general public. If women were carrying out this level of violent crime we’d be universally denounced as unhinged. But men seem to easily brush off and ignore violent crimes carried out by other men. Maybe it all boils down to a perceived power issue. I’m not male so I’ve no idea!

We have to educate children about respect and boundaries. Many parents don’t seem to be teaching boys to respect women and girls, or girls to respect themselves and not to put up with misogyny. Not that I’m victim blaming, the issue is with the men, but we have to try to give women the tools to help themselves as well. Do we need more input from schools? Perhaps, but curricula are already overstretched.

Yes, it would be nice if there was no male violence against women. No male violence against men, which is more common, would also be nice.

However violence in general is an innate human capacity, particularly among males, so it's unlikely to ever be completely eradicated. Overall there is a lot less violence in modern society than there was in many previous eras. So I don't think I'd say we have failed to make any good progress on that.

None of that means we shouldn't feel terrible for victims of violence, and see this kind of incident as especially awful as it's so personal and against people who are less powerful and really entirely innocent themselves.

Someone posted this on mumsnet ages ago and it always stuck with me and opened my eyes.

@Conkergame YANBU. It's dreadful what happened.

Indeed.

Too many men still seem to think that women are on earth to be their submissive property and don't see us as human beings.

Online porn is also making them think that women are sexual objects to be abused.

Same. Angry about the violence. Angry that it is brushed under the carpet. Also if you check out the personal histories of terrorists there is often violence against women there. I think taking violence against women seriously would change the world for the better in so many ways.

I spoke about this earlier with friends. In my view the violence of men towards women is terrorism - terrorism is the use of fear and violence by one group to try and frighten and control another group. Male acts of violence are endemic and constant, from the daily lower level stuff all the way up to this. In the last few months alone I've experienced a man shouting at me and my friends, as we sat having a cup of tea outside a cafe (when it was legal to do so). In his view we were both taking up too much pavement, and sitting too close together, all at the same time.
I've had a van load of men thinking it's hilarious to roar at the top of their voice at me and my friend while we are out running in the dark. Which they did repeatedly for weeks, leaving me anxious and scared when vehicles come up behind me. The police did follow up on that once I got the vehicle reg, but made it clear "the lads" were just having a laugh and hadn't meant to scare us.
I am not comparing that to the awful thing done to these women but it comes from the same impulse and the same root of misogyny.
The way women have to live their lives subjected to this stuff constantly, is unacceptable and should shame all "good men" who do nothing.
if there were two people a week being killed by Islamic extremists that would certainly be put down to terrorism and we would have all kinds of legal measures, campaigns, we would be told this was evil that needed to be stamped out. As things stand, our politicians and police just shrug, make some sad noises and get on with it.

A big step forward would be guidelines about how the media report these deaths. In right wing media all too often there is too much focus on making excuses for the male perpetrator (how he was a great guy, valued member of the community etc.) & little mention of the female victim & children. This does seem to be changing but I’m sure this bias contributes to how the public view these deaths.

@wherethewildthingis

I spoke about this earlier with friends. In my view the violence of men towards women is terrorism - terrorism is the use of fear and violence by one group to try and frighten and control another group. Male acts of violence are endemic and constant, from the daily lower level stuff all the way up to this. In the last few months alone I've experienced a man shouting at me and my friends, as we sat having a cup of tea outside a cafe (when it was legal to do so). In his view we were both taking up too much pavement, and sitting too close together, all at the same time. I've had a van load of men thinking it's hilarious to roar at the top of their voice at me and my friend while we are out running in the dark. Which they did repeatedly for weeks, leaving me anxious and scared when vehicles come up behind me. The police did follow up on that once I got the vehicle reg, but made it clear "the lads" were just having a laugh and hadn't meant to scare us. I am not comparing that to the awful thing done to these women but it comes from the same impulse and the same root of misogyny. The way women have to live their lives subjected to this stuff constantly, is unacceptable and should shame all "good men" who do nothing. if there were two people a week being killed by Islamic extremists that would certainly be put down to terrorism and we would have all kinds of legal measures, campaigns, we would be told this was evil that needed to be stamped out. As things stand, our politicians and police just shrug, make some sad noises and get on with it.

Totally

Actually you have such a good point and changing the terminology in any campaigns would be a great idea

I think schools need to be a lot more proactive. But then school doesn't exist in a vacuum.Lots of boys have truly, truly terrible attitudes to women and girls. Guessing it starts at home, but it's pretty bloody galling when you see a boy who's has absolutely no respect for female teachers practically fall over themselves for men. You see it in some classrooms, where girls don't speak because of a male culture. And then the girls who tell you they're not feminists because they don't hate men and men get raped too and dads aren't allowed to see their kids.

Sadly, I think men have played the long game and they're winning.

But I agree I find it shocking & sickening. It makes me so angry that people would make excuses for the men that perpetrate these acts.

This type of violence is just the end of the line in an abusive relationship. It happens 2 (or is it 3?) times a week.

I'm with you OP with being sickened by the misogyny demonstrated by a frightening number of men.

Of course yanbu OP. I find myself crying at some of the stories.

Its heartbreaking. Misogyny is getting worse and at this moment in time, it really does feel like we have taken massive steps backwards were womens safety and rights are concerned.

When a minimum of 156 women a year are being murdered by a male known to them, there needs to be MORE done to combat this. And these are the ones we hear about. What about trafficked women and girls. We don't know the real number.

Endemic is a word I would use.

@Bluekangaroo123

A big step forward would be guidelines about how the media report these deaths. In right wing media all too often there is too much focus on making excuses for the male perpetrator (how he was a great guy, valued member of the community etc.) & little mention of the female victim & children. This does seem to be changing but I’m sure this bias contributes to how the public view these deaths.

That would be a big step?

I think we (I am a man, but consider myself a feminist, at least I am trying to become more and more feminist, by educating myself and thinking about my actions) need to think bigger.

If the Women’s Equality Party had stood in my area in the last election I would have voted for them. If the WEP (or a similar party, to be honest i need to fully check they align with my values) stood in every seat, then why shouldn’t they stand at chance at election? 50% of this country are women. Honestly, a well funded and focussed movement could change this country forever within 1-2 election cycles.

The demeaning and humiliating attitudes of the Fail, the Shun and the Below Par tabloids don’t help either. Or the fact that there was a ‘man’ who ‘joked’ about grabbing women by the pussy in charge of the Western world. At least he’s now back to being the nonentity he really is. On a more mundane level, the horrible bullying man in the viral council meeting wouldn’t behave like that to another man either, I’m sure.

Pteppic- we need more fatherly input, not parentally. Women can’t fix male violence, men need to do it.

It sucks when mothers perpetuate misogyny and sexist be, saying boys will be boys and so on. But it’s the role of fathers and other males to bring boys up to respect women and women’s boundaries. This isn’t a problem women can fix because boys will look to how men treat women to see how they should. Fathers are absent or abusive and lots of other male influences are no better. But that’s on you men, not women.