The men I know feel like this too ...

[Givitarest]

This "Every woman you know" meme is trending on social media. But men are in danger from violent men too and, in fact, are much more likely to be a target. With reference to Jess Phillips, if a politician were to read out the names of all the men who had died at the hands of other men, as well as the women, it would be a very long list indeed. If society has "just accepted" dead women then we have just accepted dead men too.
I fear for my sons' safety, and give them very similar safety advice as I would if they were daughters. My husband has always taken similar measures to the things on this list (whilst also avoiding walking behind lone women etc) and has had more negative personal experiences than I have. So can people please stop sharing memes that demonise men? It is 'misandry' ... the antonym to mysogyny ... and the movement against violence will not win widespread support unless it is more appropriately framed.

No, I want to support a campaign to stop violence, but can"t support it at the moment because much of the language being used is offensive.

That’s easy.
Let’s just say lets stop the carnage of violence from MEN.

FWIW, you must live in a strange place if you are as worried for your ds than you are about yourself.
As a. 50yo. Mother of two teen ds, I’m less worried about them than I am about myself doing the same thing.
At 16 and 17yo they’ve never been harassed, sexually assaulted, whistled at, followed, been told to be nice etc..... whilst being out in the streets..

And. IF violence towards male was just the same, surely the Met would also tell MEN to not be out and about alone at night. But they aren’t . Why is that?

@Naunet

statistics show that attacks by strangers are 5 times higher on men than women

Those stats don’t include sexual assault, so not relevant.

You think that more people are raped than attacked on the streets of the UK 🤔

Some interesting points, thanks.

Yes I'm guilty of the banter thing and casual sexism jokes.

To be honest I wouldn't involve myself in scenarios such as cat calling. Maybe I'm selfish but I would see that as inviting violence towards myself.

I'd like to think I would involve myself I witnessed someone being the victim of violence but fortunately that has never happened.

I posted on another thread that in my experience attitudes are changing slowly but it's generational so won't happen quickly.

...men are in danger from violent men too and, in fact, are much more likely to be a target.
Yes. Our conventional wisdom is all messed up. More men are murdered, and they're almost always murdered by men.
Fewer women are murdered, and 40 to 50 percent of them are murdered by husbands, boyfriends or exes. So if we're going to advise anyone to stay home, be alert and take all those precations when they're out, it's men we should be advising.

But it's women who get all the advice and learn to be afraid all the time. It's women who are blamed for their own murders and rapes in the most vicious, misogynist ways, including by police, by high court judges, and by other women.
We live in a misogynist culture. A corollary of that is that men are supposed to be somehow immune to male violence. They know they're not. Plenty of men know safety strategies that have never occurred to me.

So can people please stop sharing memes that demonise men?
I agree with you that memes like the one you posted are simplistic and unhelpful, and it is a huge mistake to treat male violence as a force of nature that can't be controlled and that only affects women.

It is 'misandry' ... the antonym to mysogyny
I don't think misandry is an antonym of misogyny. That would be uxuriousness or something

... and the movement against violence will not win widespread support unless it is more appropriately framed
I agree that we need to be more realistic about male violence, who it affects and how the threat of it is used by both sexes to intimidate and control women, but I'm not sure if that's what you meant.

I recognise this argument. If only we were polite and kind and asked nicely men wouldn’t murder women.

Dream on OP.

I feel a terrible sort of sorrow when I read posts like yours @Givitarest. Women have only had the vote in the UK for just over 100 years. Rape of a woman was legal up until 1991, as long as that woman was your wife. Hundreds of thousands of women are sexually assaulted by men every year. A woman, who was just trying to get home, was murdered by a police officer. Women are trying to talk about the situation they're in, the horrific situation men created for them. And you think that's misandry? You think, in a world where we are only allowed to own property because we fought tooth and nail to convince men to allow us to own property, that the problem is how much men are discriminated against? What is wrong with you? How do you think this? Where have things gone so wrong that women can look at the world around them and think 'oh dear the poor men, how hard they have it.'??? To me, the fact that such women exist is the lowest evil that men have stooped to - they have not only treated women like absolute and utter shit for centuries, but they have also somehow convinced some women that they are the victims. What an achievement on the part of men, they should be so fucking proud of themselves.

All I would say to you OP is that maybe you can't look this situation in the eye because it scares you too much. If that's the case, I get it. But please don't do men's dirty work for them. They are doing a fine job on their own and they won't appreciate you for it. Being one of the lads, taking on the cause for men, never saved any woman. Men ride on the backs of women plenty, don't bend down for them step on. Just don't.

Sweet can you suggest what my DD 12 can do differently when walking home from school in uniform to prevent unwanted sexual attention from another woman's husband/dad/brother/uncle?

OMG. I just had a thought. You know when clueless people say things like "it's awful i just imagine if it were my mum/wife/daughter/sister..." and we all roll our eyes and say "mate, women aren't defined by their relationship to you or any other man, they are human beings in their own right"?

How about when we talk about the people who have catcalled, groped, raped etc us, we say "blimey, someone's son grabbed my boob today" or "someone's husband in a white van catcalled me today"

Would that drive it home?

Serial killer Joanne (can't remember surname) murdered 3 men in Peterborough.

It’s the little everyday decisions we have to make. Any time I would go on holiday to Barcelona or Paris with my sister when we were younger, there were places we just didn’t go because of previous bad experience. I remember a guy asking me if I’d been to this famous bar down a side street and I said no, but didn’t say it was because as an 18 year old a man grabbed me and shoved his hand between my legs down that street. When I went back to these cities with DH I could go anywhere, because I had a man.

It is not the same for men, it just isn’t.

@CoalTit

...men are in danger from violent men too and, in fact, are much more likely to be a target. Yes. Our conventional wisdom is all messed up. More men are murdered, and they're almost always murdered by men. Fewer women are murdered, and 40 to 50 percent of them are murdered by husbands, boyfriends or exes. So if we're going to advise anyone to stay home, be alert and take all those precations when they're out, it's men we should be advising. But it's women who get all the advice and learn to be afraid all the time. It's women who are blamed for their own murders and rapes in the most vicious, misogynist ways, including by police, by high court judges, and by other women. We live in a misogynist culture. A corollary of that is that men are supposed to be somehow immune to male violence. They know they're not. Plenty of men know safety strategies that have never occurred to me.

So can people please stop sharing memes that demonise men?
I agree with you that memes like the one you posted are simplistic and unhelpful, and it is a huge mistake to treat male violence as a force of nature that can't be controlled and that only affects women.

It is 'misandry' ... the antonym to mysogyny
I don't think misandry is an antonym of misogyny. That would be uxuriousness or something

... and the movement against violence will not win widespread support unless it is more appropriately framed
I agree that we need to be more realistic about male violence, who it affects and how the threat of it is used by both sexes to intimidate and control women, but I'm not sure if that's what you meant.

Well yes but protecting men from male violence isn’t my fight. It’s men’s fight.

I’ll concentrate on fighting male violence towards women. Because MEN are not going to fight for us.

Sorry OP I don't have time to dry man tears and hold their hand, I am too busy trying to not be raped, groped and abused on a daily basis by men.

I remember a male colleague at work talking about the racist abuse he got in the street back in the 80s. He finished his piece by saying "but when I walked back down that road later in the afternoon they'd gone." I replied saying that, as a female, I just wouldn't have entertained walking back down that same road again, and the other female in our group was nodding with me. This bloke was about 5"9, and relatively slight, but still saw no reason to deviate his route despite a group yelling racial taunts at him. I think women learn to have different expectations of spaces, whether empty or populated.

That tweet never mentions men once. It talks specifically about the experience of women.

And yet the OP seems to be using this as an example of how all men are being offended and demonsised by it. It's just another "what about" argument.

I'm on Twitter too and it's had plenty of men speaking up in support of helping women be (and feel) more safe on the streets. And women who are recognising their help. But there are still the twats, such as whoever wrote the following to Harriet Harman:

"Dear Ms Harman, The naivety of your comment about Ms Everard are depressing. You and I are about the same age. When I was a young man it would have been unthinkable for a young woman to walk city streets at night. Why? Because there have always been weirdos on the look out for women and this will always be the case. It has nothing to do with "male behaviour". Don't you understand the difference?"

With attitudes like that out there, we've still a long way to go. I've never seen any man who was attacked, blamed for that attack by being there at night. That's the problem that Twitter is enraged about.

The men could do a lot worse that watch the Daniel Sloss video embedded here:

Dialogue transcribed from Daily Record :

Deep down, I know most men are good, but when one in ten men are sh!! and the other nine do nothing, they might as well not f!!!ing be there. "Instead of having this f!!!ing hero complex and being, like, "I'm going to beat up a rapist, stop one, because I know it can be done, because I know how I f!!!ing failed at it.

Were there signs in my friend's behaviour towards women that I ignored? Yes. And then he raped my friend. That's on me until the day I die.

Talk to your f!!!ing boys. Get involved.

www.dailyrecord.co.uk/entertainment/celebrity/scots-comedian-daniel-sloss-shares-23688472

Yesterday, a man parked next to my parked car and whacked his door into my car when he got out. He peered into the window and muttered, "Oh, sorry." It didn't occur to me to do anything other than quickly smile acceptance and stay inside. He was much larger than me. These things add up, over time. I will always feel intimidated by male strangers who are inherently larger and stronger than me. It's something I've grown up with and accept as fact. He expected me to not be cross and I expected to put up with it. I doubt it occurred to him that I could react differently. I definitely doubt he realised I had my hand hovering over the lock button while he was peering into my window. So, yes, I believe this meme is grounded in kernels of truth. It doesn't mean I dislike all men. There are good males in my life; my BFF is my son's godfather.

OP you are extremely extremely unreasonable. Women must be able to complain about their risk from men, which comes in many forms and is insidious in our lives, without having to consider how this makes men feel. Male/male violence is a separate issue and it’s nothing to do with us, men need to take the lead on challenging and changing their own behaviour.
Why not save your anger for the men who sexually harass, sexually assault, stalk, exposure themselves, commit domestic violence, rape and murder women, to name just a few of the ways in which this constant threat presents itself.
We are all SICK of ‘but what about men’.

It’s weird that when there are conversations, say about gang related crime and how we can protect men and boys, that I’ve never seen anyone upset because the focus isn’t on women and girls, but when it’s the opposite there always seems to be people getting angry that men are being forgotten about or targeted or whatever the problem actually is....

@itwillallbeokay

Serial killer Joanne (can't remember surname) murdered 3 men in Peterborough.

And?

The reason you cant find it in the news is that it doesnt make the news.
75% of homicides are male victims.
Of the 25% female victims, 11% are from strangers.
2% of homicides are female victims with a stranger as murderer.

As others have said, men may be attacked more than women, but the difference is how blame is apportioned. When women are attacked they're questioned on why they were out late at night, why they walked down that street, why they were wearing those clothes. Grace Millane's murderer argued, in all seriousness, that the multiple injuries she sustained before he stuffed her in a suitcase were due to consensual 'rough sex' - an argument made successfully by other criminals to avoid conviction based on the idea that women want to be hurt and injured. Behind that idea is the belief that woman who has sex, especially a woman who has a one night stand, is a slut who deserves what's coming to her. If a man injures her, well that's her own fault, she shouldn't have been there, she shouldn't have been so loose.

The nature of male violence against women is very very different to that of male violence against men. Men attack men as equals - they know there could be a fight and the risk of injury. Men who attack women do so knowing that women are generally smaller, weaker and unable to fight back. Those attacks are not fights, they're expressions of dominance and cruelty, aimed at getting the man what he wants.

There is an acceptance that men are violent and will attack other men, women and even children. Women are told to stay out of men's way, to take 'sensible precautions' (as one poster put it) to deal with the fact that men are only one step up from dangerous animals. At no point do men look at who they are as a group and say 'hang on a fucking minute, this is ridiculous, we should be ashamed of themselves.' If the problem is pointed out they just wail 'not all men' and continue to ignore the problem. Meanwhile women continue to be told to curtail their lives, to stay in their homes, to avoid going places, because men simply cannot be trusted. Where is men's shame? Where is their feeling that this is just wrong?

Homicides? Is that UK data?

OP it is people like your who are the problem as well as the violent men.

I am not telling anyone what to post or not to post but I can see where OP is coming from too. I remember an ex telling me in a pub that we had to leave, because there was a bunch of guys about to thump him for being a posh twat - up to that point we had been sitting quietly talking to each other and the men had been completely off my radar. And another male friend from work saying we had to leave a pub because there was a bunch of guys about to thump him for being of Indian heritage in a suit, again, up to the point of him telling me it was off radar for me. I think about that poor 13 year old boy lured to a field and stabbed recently. Young boys are at risk all the time, from men and from each other. I agree that this should be about our dysfunctional society and not just women, to raise awareness with accurate information about how many people are harmed.

I really hate this kind of post. It's akin to 'all lives matter' vs 'black lives matter'.

Just because men murder men doesn't mean there isn't a problem with men murdering women. Yes all lives matter but women being told/feeling as though they need to alter their behaviour to stop men from being compelled to attack them puts the blame at women's door NOT the men who are attacking them. It's been this way forever. She was 'asking for it' because she accepted a drink/wore a short skirt/willingly kissed him. Men need to be held responsible for their actions. It's classic domestic abuse rhetoric. 'Why didn't she leave?' How about why didn't he control himself and not abuse her?

I only have DDs and yes I don't want them to experience the sexual harassment/assault I did. It starts with your DH and everyone's DHs/DPs/DSs etc.

You know, a lot of the men you know don't feel like this.

They say they do. They even think they do.

And then they access violent porn, they snigger at misogynistic jokes, they join in with the 'bantz' not because they're 'too scared not to because toxic masculinity' - they join in because actually, they look around at all the other banterers and they think, nah, these guys are cool, I know they're decent, it's not the same. We are Nice Guys!'