My husband says “notallmen”

[Lastchancesalonco]

NC for this! My teenage daughter and I were discussing the current outcry regarding violence against women and women living in fear, my husband entered the room, and immediately said it “wasn’t all men” and now men were “scared to do anything” wtf??? Scared to what exactly? Terrorise women? it’s very relevant I feel that my husband is a police sergeant! And although we do live in a very very low crime area so he doesn’t personally deal with many murders etc it’s mostly petty crime I KNOW he deals with domestic situations and has previously been very vocal about protecting people in domestic situations etc. This is very out of character for him, when pressed he said he felt people were “taking it too far” calling for a “6pm curfew” for men, when my daughter, who I’m ashamed to say was more vociferous than me because I was stunned, pointed out she effectively had an unofficial curfew for safety reasons, he seemed flustered like he hadnt thought of that, then he said “men are scared of attack too” and I said “who from? Who from? Not Denise on her way home pissed from her hen night is it? No it’s MEN you are scared of OTHER MEN” anyway he reflected a bit and was apologetic but I’m worried, he never used to be like this? Is he hearing some extremist narrative at work that poor white middle class men are under attack because the system that gives them every advantage is trying to be dismantled? He works with women and even a transsexual officer and has never shown any sign of prejudice or anything but acceptance for them and up till now never said anything concerning but he literally said “not all men” did we say it was??? I dunno it’s made me a bit sick, and I can’t help but wonder how a man who was previously totally on my wavelength about these things has changed to “but what about me”
Especially when we have a teenage daughter who will be going off to uni soon and won’t be in her safe little village! AIBU to take this so seriously or was he just being a giant selfish man baby and truly sees the error of his ways?

As a man I agree that it is all men.
Or at least it’s potentially All men, therefore from a female point of view it effectively is all men.
I also believe that this will also always be true.
How do we stop it happening?
I don’t think it’s possible.

@tellmewhentheLangshiplandscoz

Please can someone point me to where anyone is saying all men? Where is this impression being formed from?

I wonder this all the time

I dont think you are being over sensitive OP. A lot of men, even very nice ones, dont realize the extent of their privilege or their advantages. What is concerning is how many men seem to be quite annoyed and as if they are being disadvantaged (which I suppose is true if you consider that more equality means they may not be at such an advantage when it comes to opportunities). You know that book about why the author is stopping talking to white people about race? This is how I feel about talking to men about misogyny and sexism. Sorry you feel sick about it. I guess he must be feeling quite sensitive himself if he is in the police at the moment.

People keep asking how many men is it: I posted a study earlier that shows that 6.4% of nonincarcerated men, i.e. slightly more than 1/20, will admit to rape if it is not called rape. Of those, 2/3 have committed more than one rape. Rape is a pretty serious crime; if we add in all the other shitty, violent things men do to women, I think we might be up to as many as one in three. Not all men, but far, far, far too many.

To the posters complaining that women treating 'any' man like that is treating every man like that: these issues are high stakes for women. If we are wrong and you're actually a good guy, you're offended. If we wrongly give you the benefit of the doubt, we die. How many of you would treat all women as safe if there was a reasonable chance they might rape or kill you, and if you had been anything other than ultra-cautious, you would be blamed for it?

@Deathgrip

It isn’t just those who actively harass women or laugh at their jokes. I grew up in a conservative Evangelical church. Men there would never have thought of leering at women openly or laughing at sexist jokes. But the victim blaming was horrendous, and women were sadly guilty of it too (including my DM actually).

I suspect your husband was feeling defensive and some of his responses weren't that considered.

There are alot of nuances to this debate but it's hard to have an effective discussion when people are so angry or frightened.

There are so many discussion to be had across so many areas. If it's just in relation to preventing violence against women from a stranger: How do we make streets safer for everyone? The role of drugs/alcohol; media culture and portrayal of women; upbringing and good role models for men; education in schools/colleges; police culture towards victims of violent crime; govt funding of the legal system; the justice system and how it treats victims/offenders; mental health treatments; community funding for children/teenagers to channel their interests; safer parks; public transport systems etc

If 94% of women under 30yo have experienced sexual assault, what do you think is the percentage of men who are perpetrators of sexual assault?

Exactly. Either a tiny minority of men are very very busy, not sleeping, travelling around the country full time assaulting women 24/7....

....or....

men generally aren't even on the same page as us about what assault and aggression actually is.

I actually think it's the second one and thats really sad. Because that means we are even further away from solving this 😢

YABU he should be able to have a rational discussion in his own home with his close family members and have his views heard without being shut down. Cancelling people who think differently to us is a fucking plague on society. Although I personally agree that the discussion around violence towards women is waaaay overdue and needs to continue there is a place for debate and consideration of the viewpoints of others. As he is a Police Sergeant I'm sure he's had some interesting experiences in this regard. You can't tell people how to think.

My husband didn't get it until I pointed out that I didn't know a single woman who hadn't been harassed and at least half of them had been assulted.

Currently where I am it seems very much that it’s all men who are Australian politicians.

I hope there comeuppance actually comes to something.

This whole debate has become so toxic to both sexes, with zero interest in context or actually improving the relationship between the sexes.

What do you think a teenager/young adult man will think of the proposed 6pm curfew for men? It might be an-oh so clever-thought experiment but, for a young man who has always been egalitarian and respectful to women, it is a provocation.

The NAMALT argument might resonate in academia and amongst people who are already on side but, will do zero to actually improve the behaviour of men who need to change their attitude, or to enhance women’s safety (although, as most know, young men are those statistically most at risk from harm from other bad men).

@OnlyHerefortheBiscuits,

That argument does not really work. If most women have dates many men and some men always do something between ‘trying their luck’ and sexual assault, 94% of women could easily have bad experiences with the same 5-10% of men.

That is just how statistics work.

@TheReluctantPhoenix your stats are in line with the rape stats, but as I said above, rape is a pretty serious crime. I would estimate the number of men who do something less serious than rape to be much, MUCH higher. I can think of only two men my life who haven't at some time tried to use their physical strength to get his way with me, for example. One of those has still gaslit me and treated me like shit.

This whole debate has become so toxic to both sexes, with zero interest in context or actually improving the relationship between the sexes.

This.
I wasn’t going to post but finally - a sensible comment.

[quote TheReluctantPhoenix]@OnlyHerefortheBiscuits,

That argument does not really work. If most women have dates many men and some men always do something between ‘trying their luck’ and sexual assault, 94% of women could easily have bad experiences with the same 5-10% of men.

That is just how statistics work.[/quote]
No. Because it’s not that women only have bad experiences with one man, we are subjected to this shit from puberty.

I can easily count the number of men I know well who’ve never tried anything on with me or made inappropriate comments or been disrespectful about women in my presence - it’s 2.

The problem is the number of men who don’t recognise what they are doing wrong, and therefore jump to “not all men”. I’ve seen men who’ve been abusive towards me saying “not all men”. I’ve seen men who befriended me when I was in my early teens (and when they were already adults) talking about how it’s not all men, completely oblivious to the fact that the women they’ve treated this way can see what they are saying publicly.

@SuperCaliFragalistic

YABU he should be able to have a rational discussion in his own home with his close family members and have his views heard without being shut down. Cancelling people who think differently to us is a fucking plague on society. Although I personally agree that the discussion around violence towards women is waaaay overdue and needs to continue there is a place for debate and consideration of the viewpoints of others. As he is a Police Sergeant I'm sure he's had some interesting experiences in this regard. You can't tell people how to think.

How has he been “cancelled”? How melodramatic.

Rather he was a man disregarding the views and experiences of two women, in fact the two women closest to him. But rather than listen, he became defensive.

My DH has listened. He’s asked me questions. He’s stood up to other men talking this crap. And he’s not some amazing man - he’s doing the bare minimum all men should be doing right now, which is listening.

@CallItLoneliness please could you repost that study? I've searched through the thread but I'm missing it and it sounds really interesting. Thankyou.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion and I believe it's not all men - we don't condemn other sections of the population if one of their number has done something as that is stereotyping. If we allow men to be cancelled what is the next group that we see cancelled? We live in a free country and everyone is allowed a view

We do live in a free country but what really happened here? This was 2 women talking and a man came in and tried to shut them up with #NotAllMen. Part of the problem is women not being allowed to talk about their experiences because it makes men uncomfortable and let's be honest men are not used to having to listen to women. Society is sexist and women have a long way to go before they are truly viewed as equal members of society and until then an awful lot of men will treat them however they want. Any and every type of behaviour from trying to look up a girls skirt at school, commenting on a womans body all the way up to rape and murder need to be addressed and ALL men need to take responsibility for pulling others up on this behaviour

FFS. Men are not being “cancelled”. They are being asked to listen and to think about times when they may have been complicit in a culture that enables sexual harassment and assault.

You can’t cancel the most dominant group of people in our society, and making links between men now and marginalised discriminated-against groups is offensive.

@SchrodingersUnicorn:

Lisak D, Roth S. Motivational factors in nonincarcerated sexually aggressive men. J Pers Soc Psychol. 1988 Nov;55(5):795-802. doi: 10.1037//0022-3514.55.5.795. PMID: 3210146.

[quote TheReluctantPhoenix]@OnlyHerefortheBiscuits,

That argument does not really work. If most women have dates many men and some men always do something between ‘trying their luck’ and sexual assault, 94% of women could easily have bad experiences with the same 5-10% of men.

That is just how statistics work.[/quote]
I can almost see what you are trying to get at, but respectfully I have to disagree. The reason being that I don't believe that the 94%* is comprised of only single women.

(*or whatever the shockingly high rate is of women who have experienced such behaviour)

I really think an alarmingly high number of men do not realise that their behaviour is considered aggressive, intimidating. They don't realise their own behaviour is being counted amongst these statistics. They would never identify themselves as these awful types. (as as a result are offended).

I sounds like we are in agreement that women and men aren't in agreement about what generally constitutes bad behaviour though....

I just don't believe women who experience this behaviour are overwhelmingly single women.

Society is sexist and women have a long way to go before they are truly viewed as equal members of society and until then an awful lot of men will treat them however they want. Any and every type of behaviour from trying to look up a girls skirt at school, commenting on a womans body all the way up to rape and murder need to be addressed and ALL men need to take responsibility for pulling others up on this behaviour

100% this.

This thread has numerous examples of how deeply ingrained misogyny and patriarchy are in society. It makes for depressing reading.

Nobody has says it's all men - nobody. Not one person. We know it's not all men BUT it is a lot of men especially if you think about men's behaviour towards women in general.

Nobody is trying to cancel men.

We just want men to listen to our experiences and think about how men, as a group, treat women.

That argument does not really work. If most women have dates many men and some men always do something between ‘trying their luck’ and sexual assault, 94% of women could easily have bad experiences with the same 5-10% of men.

Are you suggesting only single women are experiencing sexual harassment and assault? That's simply not true.

I've experienced sexual harassment and assault too many times to count and none of them happened while on a date. They were strangers in the street, in bars, on public transport and at work.

@Deathgrip,

Men need to listen to women but women also need to listen to men. It is ok to respectfully disagree about some things. Too often these days, disagreeing is termed ‘not listening’.

The whole concept of ‘lived experience’, especially when used as a silencing tool, is contrary to the idea of being able to intelligently analyse and assimilate facts and opinions and come to an intelligent conclusion.

In some areas, the sexes will never share the same experiences but, unless you actually want Saudi-style sex segregation, we will continue to live together and need to be able to discuss these issues with everyone having a say and listening to one another.