To think that most men do respect women

[katieloves]

I’m concerned about the vilification of men that we’re hearing a lot about. I know there’s some men who disrespect women and this absolutely needs to stop, but equally I’ve witnessed women being equally disrespectful to men. I’ve seen plenty of women feeling up men etc. on a night out and it being laughed off. If this was reversed it would be considered assault. It feels like all men are being accused of treating women badly and I just don’t see it.

[quote donewithitalltodayandxmas]@SmileEachDay sorry but am I not allowed to also feel offended that some ( not all) on here view my sons as violent thugs because they have been born as boys
[/quote]
Though experiment.

Your friend's dog has a litter of 6 puppies. They all look exactly the same. OMG they are SO cute! You just want to cuddle them.

She says as you reach out "watch out - five of them love cuddles but one is a biter!"

Do you:

a) just grab one anyway - it's only a 1 in 6 chance that you'll get the bitey one?

b) approach carefully and treat them all as if they might bite until you have safely picked one up?

Maybe men could educate men to be better instead of asking women to be nice

Yes! Why should we have to be nice in order to convince them we deserve to be treated as equal humans.

@Blibbyblobby I didn't say about lack if caution , what I said is I wouldn't write if the other 5 based on the one
I always have my guard up, if you met me you know in rl I would challenge sexism there and then , I am not afraid to speak up. I have gone to defence of a women being abused by a partner and put myself in the middle of it.
But I wouldn't look at those 6 puppies and say get rid of them all because one of thems a bad one

People who are offended because they think we are saying most men are violent are massively missing the point.

This OP was about lack of respect not about about violence.

JerkStore [Flowers] what an awful experience, I'm so sorry your mum had to go through that.

Just heard a very good tiktok by a MAN.

He says
"I am fully aware that not all wasps are out to sting me.
But I don't make that distinction when there is a swarm of them.... I just assume they are all going to sting me. So that I can get away and be safe.
Just food for thought if your a man and if you ever wonder why women say 'all men'....
Because they don't have time to differentiate! "

but it wasn't at you it was at those that have said all men

You could waste energy on being offended or you could accept that there’s a massive issue with male violence and that this may cause overgeneralisation (although actually most people are talking about men as a class).

It’s up to you.

That’s nice. Condemn every white man then. Including my sons who are respectful kind and caring. Is that any better than saying ‘all black men are ...’. Don’t be ridiculous.

As a white male I feel spectacularly not offended by such comments. Cos at the end of the day, despite being a fairly pokey example of one, they are 2 characteristics that are hugely in my favour and genuinely do imbue me with a degree of confidence I probably don't deserve

@lifeturnsonadime

People who are offended because they think we are saying most men are violent are massively missing the point.

This OP was about lack of respect not about about violence.

JerkStore [Flowers] what an awful experience, I'm so sorry your mum had to go through that.

Thank you

donewithitalltodayandxmas
I agree with you on the role of education, but think the starting point has to acknowledge the fact that men as a class are more violent, that men as a class hold power within society, that women as a class are victims of this system.

I've been in lessons where a GCSE text covers rich men installing poor, vulnerable women in flats they have borrowed for a mate to use as they please and paying them for being his mistress, and rich men getting to a vulnerable woman's door and drunkenly threatening to make a scene unless she lets them in and sleeps with them. Not a year goes by without this turning into a heated discussion because some boys, usually with a couple of girls, come out with things like 'but she didn't have to let him in, why walk home with him if she didn't want to sleep with him, you have to admit she led him on a bit... she's a bit of a slag isn't she if she's sleeping with a taken man, woah she's getting around sleeping with them both (2 different men several months apart), she's hardly a victim if he is giving her money and somewhere to stay". It gets quite heated, and leads to some excellent responses from a range of views, because in the 21sr century the idea of freely given, informed consent is still such a controversial topic.

Whilst I like those students, it's not hard to see how abstract discussions about a character could easily feed from dominant social attitudes such as "but did she actually say no, if she went along with it then that's consent, women who go on a date with a man are leading him on if it doesn't end in sex".

That's just one part of the picture that normalised disrespectful and misogynist attitudes to women.
It concerns me that this is the world my son is growing up in, especially when women passionately talking about their sex based oppression at the hands of men top often get met with "yeah but NAMALT, whatabout the men".

I played a male dominated sport when I was at university, I was one of maybe 4 women out of 30 men.

I definitely saw and heard more stories, incidents and pictures that I wanted to. Don't get me wrong, there were a few good guys on the team, but locker room chat was most definitely a thing. I see some of these guys on Facebook and just think about their poor wives!!

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/mar/13/sarah-everard-met-officer-appears-court-murder-wayne-couzens

Latest update from the Guardian.

Our suspect has sustained two head injuries, one apparently while alone in his cell.

Having seen male rage close up, I suspect it is self inflicted. An explosion of uncontrollable rage and frustration, or some expression of remorse? Did he do it to get out of his cell for a while, because he was scared? Was his anger because he was caught?

Will there be allegations of police brutality?

Am I supposed to feel concerned for him, or go with my gut feeling which is "self centred twat"?

Lola

Yep. I have that exact scenario every year.

I reckon he's knocking his head in a lead up to insanity plea or some bullshit

Might be a hard one to swing when you presumably go through rigorous psychiatric evaluation before they send you out with a gun

Young men in particular are sexually aggressive due to a diet of hardcore porn and good old fashioned misogyny. They see women As objects to be used and discarded. I've always believed that there were no laws many men would happily rape and
Even murder women without a second thought

[quote donewithitalltodayandxmas]@Blibbyblobby I didn't say about lack if caution , what I said is I wouldn't write if the other 5 based on the one
I always have my guard up, if you met me you know in rl I would challenge sexism there and then , I am not afraid to speak up. I have gone to defence of a women being abused by a partner and put myself in the middle of it.
But I wouldn't look at those 6 puppies and say get rid of them all because one of thems a bad one
[/quote]
You said "view my sons as violent thugs because they have been born as boys"

Not get rid of, view as.

So it is the same thing as treating all the puppies as if they might bite.

It's safer for any woman to treat an unknown man as a man who might be violent than a man who never would, because the cost of being wrong that way is hurt feelings for a man, but the cost of being wrong the other way is an attacked or dead woman.

The people (I'm speaking generally here, not specifically about donewithitalltodayandxmas) who say - "meh, it's all sexist, misandry from women to men and misogyny from men to women, it's all just as bad" are only thinking about the relative injustice of the misogynist/misandrist act or statement, not the social context and power imbalance in which it happens, nor the asymmetric costs of getting it wrong.

So in the same theme, the fact that men pose a greater risk of stranger violence to men then they do to women is true. But the impact of that risk on women as a class - the unofficial curfews, the smiling at strangers so they don't escalate, the way many of us restrict our lives that men don't - is greater. Not all men, but the actions of the men that do impact all women in a way that is not true of male on male violence.

Just in case I'm not clear: I am 100% ok with prioritising women's autonomy and safety over men's hurt feelings.

MistressoftheDarkSide

Wayne Couzens will be absolutely terrified of going to jail. Not only is this a a highly publicised case he is a police officer

Wouldn’t surprise me if he is trying to go down the I’m mentally ill and can’t go to prison route he will be carefully monitored and assessed before a decision is made but it certainly won’t be the easy solution for him

I’m glad he is feeling so fearful

@OhWhyNot

I'm waiting for that one too.

@OhWhyNot

MistressoftheDarkSide

Wayne Couzens will be absolutely terrified of going to jail. Not only is this a a highly publicised case he is a police officer

Wouldn’t surprise me if he is trying to go down the I’m mentally ill and can’t go to prison route he will be carefully monitored and assessed before a decision is made but it certainly won’t be the easy solution for him

I’m glad he is feeling so fearful

Yep I was just talking to my partner about this today. I'm watching his bullshit very closely. Along with millions of other women I suspect.

I really hope he's terrified right now. And I'm very far from throw away the key type, I've actually worked with offenders. But some crimes its almost impossible to feel anything but hatred.

To be a bit more charitable to a murderer, my interpretation of the self harm is that he has completely ruined his own life as well as that of a young woman and her entire family, and he may well be genuinely suicidal. I’m not surprised if he feels he can’t live with himself and can’t face prison as a police officer.

It’s also possible that other police have kicked him in the head.

@shamalidacdak

Young men in particular are sexually aggressive due to a diet of hardcore porn and good old fashioned misogyny. They see women As objects to be used and discarded. I've always believed that there were no laws many men would happily rape and Even murder women without a second thought

Well, this is a depressing comment. I certainly don't believe most men would rape and assault if there were no laws.

And I say this as a woman who has experienced rape and DV.

I think any police officer would be petrified of prison and even more so for what he has been accused of

I don't mean that in a sympathetic way

@Blibbyblobby and I get that but there are some on here who have said all men, incl your partners etc and while I may proceed with caution , I won't believe there are no good men in the world
But yes I agree I will prob feel more scared walking on my own than my dh etc for fear of violence than he would

SmileEachDay
It's depressing because these are nice students, and they've been fed this diet of drip drip misogyny that manifests itself in those sorts of discussions.
I'd be willing to bet that in PSHE when talking about consent, every single one of them would agree that consent is important because they aren't bad people. But under the surface, some of their ideas of what constitutes consent is actually full of quietly (and not so quietly) transmitted norms that seem to ignore the role of coercion, or power, or nagging, which leads to the idea that forcing someone to have sex is a purely physical act and to not give consent is to shout/scream/physically fight back.

They're children, so they've not taught themselves those views. They've picked them up from what they see adults saying and doing, which means that those attitudes surrounding consent and women are attitudes in everyday life.

I work with in forensic mh

Some have offended when the are unwell and but not all

There are many times when a criminal is caught they will self harm that does not mean they will be diagnosed

I think the only person he is remorseful for is himself