The problem with "#NotAllMen"

[TheABC]

I read this on the BBC and it beautifully sums up the doublethink problem women face in society.

*"...some people are keen to point out that it's a tiny minority of men who are attackers - using the hashtag #NotAllMen.

"The issue with the argument is that women can't win," says Daisy.

"They want women to not treat all men as potential attackers, but then we also are asked to keep ourselves safe.

"Keeping ourselves safe means that we have to see everyone as potential attackers because if we were to say, 'OK, not all men, we will treat everyone as innocent until proven guilty", that's when these things happen.

"And that's when people say, she should have been more careful.

"So it's really tough, because I think it's an attitude that's really built into society."*

Is she (and I) being unreasonable?

No man as far as I am aware is denying that male aggression towards women happens, the question was what the men who don't do it are supposed to do to prevent it?

Seeing as this is a male problem maybe they could figure this out? Or even feel some responsibility for solving this? Like women have done with their problems?

Are male online forums filled with posts about the problem of male violence and how can we fix it?

@Tinkat

It’s another form of silencing women standing up to male violence

No, it's about standing up to the people who use tragic events to stir up hatred, mistrust and discrimination against 50% of the population, the vast majority of whom have done nothing wrong.

What the actual f?

What is this men can't win bullshit? Can't win what?

.

The vast majority of extreme violent offenders have abuse in their childhoods. It's less about positive role models (often used as vilification of single mothers) and more that abuse and trauma happened at a time when their brains were developing which caused them to develop these personality disorders.

So it’s not just absence of good role models, but the presence of bad ones (presumably it’s mostly male relatives doing the abuse). So what can be done about it? Adding in more good male role models (eg teachers) might still help those who have been/are being abused, to turn things around?

@pallisers

No man as far as I am aware is denying that male aggression towards women happens, the question was what the men who don't do it are supposed to do to prevent it?

Seeing as this is a male problem maybe they could figure this out? Or even feel some responsibility for solving this? Like women have done with their problems?

Are male online forums filled with posts about the problem of male violence and how can we fix it?

Well said. Men can call it out when they see it. That's what they can do. They can respect women and call out their mates when they don't. They can do a whole lot of things.

Men are not dogs.

True. Dogs are not really responsible for their actions but men have the choice to attack or not. Also, most people who say they have been bitten by a dog are believed.

@Silenceisgolden20

They can respect women and call out their mates when they don't

If only it were that simple.

Men will tend to hang around with men of similar mindset, so if he is of a mentality that is respectful of women then the chances are his friends will be too. Unfortunately, this means that those men whose mentality is boorish will also gravitate to similar men.

#Notallmen (unless I’m with my mates then it’s just a bit of a laugh innt and that doesn’t count)

It wasn't that long ago people were making a big point about mens mental health, and that men are vulnerable too. Now it seems - screw that, let's impact mens mental health even more by making all men a potential rapist. That will really help the male mental health crisis.

And while we are at it, what happened to 'we want equality, women are just as strong, powerful etc as men' but oh no, now we are vulnerable and need to be protected from men.

Womens safe spaces are almost no more because we are accepting men who identify as women, into them. How does this work with #allmen?

This works is fucked. As a woman, I'm massively outraged

[quote OurSurveySaid]@partyatthepalace

So in this case it means men calling out other men on aggressive behaviour towards women

Easy to say, far less easy to do.

Interfering in a situation where one party is being aggressive to another (regardless of the sex of the protagonists) puts one's own self at risk. If a man is aggressive to women I would suspect he is likely to be aggressive to men too, especially ones poking their nose into his "business".[/quote]
@OurSurveySaid

Ok, you are misunderstanding the change that is required here - no one has to run at the guns.

But when men hear their mates talking disrespectfully about women in a bar or at work, they need to call it, when they are walking pass a school girl being yelled at by a guy from a car, they need to yell back at him, when they hear a couple of teen boys shouting at a girl girl if she gives good head he needs to tell them how vile that is. Men need to do that in the same way as I as a white person need to call it in my office or over an extended family lunch if someone says something racist.

Obviously we should all try and intervene in a seriously aggressive situation as best we can - but most of us would. It’s the day to day misogyny and racism - the kind that’s got itself so embedded into the fabric of our lives we half the time don’t notice it, that in turn produces a society that treats so many of its members in an inhuman way - that we, all of us, need to start calling out.

Not all men will kill themselves but men are known to be more at risk from suicide than women. We hear this a lot about the risk to men of suicide, presumably to alert men that this is a risk. And to alert women to this risk too. It's done as a protection to men, not to assume they will all go down this route.

@Charley50

I wonder why this pushback from women has come right now? Apart from the devastating abduction and murder of a young woman by a police officer?

Anything to do with rape convictions being at an all time low? Domestic murders at a high, but sentences at a low? Having to fight to get a law passed to abolish the 'rough sex gone wrong' defence in murder cases? Having to fight just to be recognised as women in law? Having to fight to keep words pertaining to being a woman? Having shockingly high numbers of sexual assaults and harassment done to us? Having to fight tiring and expensive legal battles to keep men out of women's spaces? Being excluded from govt covid payments for doing the work of bringing into this world new members of our society? Being harassed and threatened for fighting against FGM or talking about male violence? Being the only protected characteristic that is excluded from hate crime laws (Scotland)? Being banned from social media for talking about issues that affect us?
I wonder why we are so dissatisfied and angry, being only half the population, paying our taxes. Women of all colours make up half the population, yet this discrimination goes on and on, and is supposed to be accepted as normal.

THIS.

And yet despite all the above we still get ‘what about the men’ 😡😡😡

[quote Crystalclair]@partyatthepalace I didnt say all!

I'm a woman btw. And my post makes perfect sense.

Fed up of people being offended by absolutely everything [/quote]
@Crystalclair

The OPs post is about the double think women are having to grapple with. None of your posts indicate that you understand this: you start by being ‘fed up with people being offended’ (offended by what?), while your later posts have hurtled into talking about trans women.

You appear to be on a completely different thread to everyone else, and while your posts are entertainingly random - you are certainly confused, limited, or on the sauce.

Ok picture this

You’re going to go to a haunted house that has 10 rooms

Each room has a single man in it

Now you’ve been told that 9 of these men won’t move. One however will jump out at you and try his best to terrify you.

Do you
a) walk through all rooms confidently because you know only 1 man is trouble
Or
B) (more likely) walk through cautious because you know one man is going to be trouble?

That is how women walk at night. They don’t see a man in the dark coming towards them and think “oh shit he’s gonna rape/murder me!”

They become more alert to their surroundings so that they can be prepared for anything that might happen just in case!

[quote OurSurveySaid]@Silenceisgolden20

They can respect women and call out their mates when they don't

If only it were that simple.

Men will tend to hang around with men of similar mindset, so if he is of a mentality that is respectful of women then the chances are his friends will be too. Unfortunately, this means that those men whose mentality is boorish will also gravitate to similar men.[/quote]
@OurSurveySaid

You are being incredibly naive. If the problem were limited to really unpleasant characters, it would be much less of a problem. Plenty of perfectly ordinary men have behaved in an aggressive way with women at some point in our lives - because it’s a socially acceptable thing to do. Examples in my earlier response to your earlier post.

Aggressive behaviour to women is found all over the place, like racism. Ordinary men and women can make a huge difference by calling it out.

@partyatthepalace

when they are walking pass a school girl being yelled at by a guy from a car, they need to yell back at him

It will be well past by the time anyone reacts.

when they hear a couple of teen boys shouting at a girl girl if she gives good head he needs to tell them how vile that is.

OK, but there might already be context (I hate the word "banter") that she was complicit in so Mind Your Own Business, and anyway a "couple of teen boys" who are 6'+ are just as intimidating to a slim 5' 7" man as they are to a slim 5' 7" year 11 schoolgirl.

Not at all @partyatthepalace. I'm talking about the issue in general, not directly just this post. And to make my point, I'm including other factors. Please don't try and control how I post. I'm glad you find it entertaining. Not very PC of you eh 😊🙄

[quote OurSurveySaid]@partyatthepalace

when they are walking pass a school girl being yelled at by a guy from a car, they need to yell back at him

It will be well past by the time anyone reacts.

when they hear a couple of teen boys shouting at a girl girl if she gives good head he needs to tell them how vile that is.

OK, but there might already be context (I hate the word "banter") that she was complicit in so Mind Your Own Business, and anyway a "couple of teen boys" who are 6'+ are just as intimidating to a slim 5' 7" man as they are to a slim 5' 7" year 11 schoolgirl.[/quote]
@OurSurveySaid

As I said to you before - no one needs to run at the guns, or put themselves in an unsafe situation. But the majority of opportunities to make a difference don’t require this - you can often call out your mates in a bar, a guy in a car, boys on the street without putting yourself in danger.

It is not Ok by the way for you to try and hold up your crumbling rationale by suggesting that you cannot generally tell the difference between teenage banter and a teenage girl being verbally abused on the street - there are a couple of posters on this thread alone talking about the endless abuse their daughters suffer walking home from school - a girl looking miserable with her head down is not engaged in banter.

@partyatthepalace

You are being incredibly naive. If the problem were limited to really unpleasant characters, it would be much less of a problem. Plenty of perfectly ordinary men have behaved in an aggressive way with women at some point in our lives

Oh, you mean in secret? That's pretty much impossible for a man to call another man out on.

@Crystalclair

Not at all *@partyatthepalace*. I'm talking about the issue in general, not directly just this post. And to make my point, I'm including other factors. Please don't try and control how I post. I'm glad you find it entertaining. Not very PC of you eh 😊🙄

@Crystalclair

You are very entertaining - and am delighted you’ve got us onto the very relevant topic of ‘PC’. Can’t wait to see where this extraordinarily wide ranging ‘issue’ of yours is going to take us next...

[quote UnderperformingSeal]@partyatthepalace

You are being incredibly naive. If the problem were limited to really unpleasant characters, it would be much less of a problem. Plenty of perfectly ordinary men have behaved in an aggressive way with women at some point in our lives

Oh, you mean in secret? That's pretty much impossible for a man to call another man out on.[/quote]
@UnderperformingSeal

No I don’t mean ‘in secret’, I mean in bars, workplaces and on the street. What point are you trying to make?

@party I find you more entertaining that you assume your 'smart wit' will make me somewhat crumble. The fact that's all you got proves to me you've not really got a sensible response to my very reasonable opinion.

You cant argue with stupid. So I'll disengage with you now. Hope you feel really empowered and clever now. I'm way too thick skinned to get offended:-)

It is not Ok by the way for you to try and hold up your crumbling rationale by suggesting that you cannot generally tell the difference between teenage banter and a teenage girl being verbally abused on the street - there are a couple of posters on this thread alone talking about the endless abuse their daughters suffer walking home from school - a girl looking miserable with her head down is not engaged in banter

No, but, putting yourself in the position of a man, would you be more concerned about her looking miserable with her head down, which I gather is not abnormal for a teenager, or the potential ramifications of getting involved with a teenage girl when it might turn out that it was all harmless fun? How does one tell the difference?