To feel hopeless about male violence

[brujarosada]

Everywhere I turn I see news stories where it's implicitly understood that a man harmed a woman. An obvious family annhilator? Definitely the husband. Woman disappears while out? Obviously a man.

I know that this is nothing new, but it feels so inevitable and hopeless. Women getting angry gets some attention sometimes (like with Sarah Everard). But there's no real change and toxic masculinity seems to be ever more celebrated - for example, there's currently a story in The Guardian about an influencer who is capturing the imagination of secondary school boys everywhere.

Am I wrong to feel so hopeless? Is there some sort of inspiring change that I am missing?

I reckon most of the men on that train did not think it was okay to assault a lone woman, they were just scared of intervening and getting beaten up. Not much consolation for you but there is a difference. Intervention is always hard, even just a polite verbal challenge can very quickly spiral out of control and become physical, I have sadly seen on more then a few occasions the good Samaritan get publically thumped for his efforts which always makes others think twice about getting involved even if they know it is the right thing to do. It is a shit situation. I have offered a woman on the train the option of moving to another carriage with me when a group of lads started to verbally harass her. Problem is these lads followed us both into the next carriage but directed their abuse at me instead. I was a big rugby playing bloke at the time and it was still fucking scary, we got off at the next stop and informed the guard who in turn arranged for the transport police to rock up. I hate these aresholes.

It’s literally the first thing I said in the post you quoted

NAMALT. We've all heard this defence before.

There is, very much, such a thing as toxic masculinity, only this is is commonly misunderstood as an assertion that every man and boy is toxic. It's not. Toxic masculinity is a set of harmful stereotypes, perpetuated throughout the vast majority of human cultures, which are held up as exemplars of how males are 'expected' to behave. It often manifests in macho culture: the dominant male, the provider, the protector of his own (and sometimes the attacker of those who threaten them), the successful CEO, the sex to whom women owe our respect and servitude, the alpha male. There are images of this stereotype disseminated through every level of our societies: from education to faith to the justice system to reality TV to advertising.

Some men don't fit that pattern (cf the 'new man' of the 1990s), and are happy and confident enough not to fit it. However, a great many more who don't fit the pattern feel they've failed in some way. And they are being failed, in turn, by society itself. Male suicide rates, the present angst and confusion about 'gender' (which is to blame for all the above in the first place), unbridled anger, VAWG, the furious men who blame women for this predicament and come together as incel groups. And many of the casualities of this mess are women.

Dismantling these stereotypes is the only way of freeing both men and women from them. There's just as damaging a set of toxic feminine stereotypes out there, but a good many more women are sick of the whole shebang and are turning our backs on it.

None of the above is not helped by an aggressive gender ideology which seems hellbent on upholding these tired, dated, passe stereotypes for the majority of society so that they can subvert them on some very individual level of identity politics.

To deny this reality exists is to lose any opportunity of fixing it.

That's a long way of saying you are not doing anything, that you assume all the men around you are just fine and there isn't a problem.

From my PoV - without that little tag on your ear, the only safe thing to do is to assume you are a risk. Basic safeguarding. You don't like that - then start campaigning and lobbying for change, actively looking around you and intervening etc.

If I had a quid for every man I've met who insists they are one of the "good guys" but who still benefits from the labour of women, who just "doesn't hear" the dodgy jokes, and whose first reaction to a story of male violence is not "what can I do more to change things" but to jump in saying "not all men" then I'd be able to buy Neckar from Richard Branson and retire there.

Yes 100% agree. I suppose I’ve always told my adult son not to get involved as you don’t know if they have a knife and you don’t get any thanks when you are dead. So I can see it both ways. I would expect my son to call the police, get help etc but necessarily jump in and get involved.

My partner got between a man and the women he was repeatedly slapping in the street one night. He gave my partner and black eye and then the women kicked him in the ribs and spat on him. He doesn't intervene now.

When we talk about intervention though, there is a common denominator. Women are afraid that men will harm them, and men are afraid to help because they are also afraid that men will harm them.

The conversation has to be how do we stop men from harming people?

Fixed that for you there. If delta-male behaviour like this happens among farm animals they’re generally castrated and/or slaughtered.

Pretty much all male farm animals are slaughtered for meat. Keeping them beyond this becomes a logistical nightmare if they are a particularly aggressive breed.

Many will live peacefully in bachelor groups (thinking rams and cockerels here), but only if well away from females of the species - if too close the males will fight each other constantly.

It’s all very well blaming parents, and specifically mothers, as a poster here has tried, but parents aren’t the only influence on growing children. Once at secondary school they become more influenced by each other. Porn is easily accessible and largely accepted as normal and ok for men to watch (thank libfems), and teaches boys that women and girls are ready and willing to do anything at the drop of a hat, and that dangerous and painful practices are a huge turn on. This teaches boys that women are objects to look at, to use, rather than equal members of society. This is compounded by every single person who spouts “boys will be boys” or “NAMALT” or “sex work is work” or “TWAW”. Every one of these takes away women’s humanity.

Men can sort it by stopping watching porn. By calling out sexist banter and rape jokes every single time they hear it. By not dismissing women’s natural fear of men and respecting their spaces. By not treating women as the go-to childcare, housekeeper, carer. So many things they could do, but you hear so many excuses why they can’t possibly.

Dd is a young adult, lives in a big city. She is harassed by men every day. She’s bothered by men in places where there are rules stating she’s in a place where male employees are not allowed to approach women in a flirty/sexual way, and yet they do, every time she goes to work, to the gym, to the swimming pool. It’s endemic. You cannot escape from it.

I have a few men in my life that I love, but on the whole I now find men to be entitled wankers who make a shit ton of excuses as to why they can’t just be decent people. It’s always someone else’s fault.

Does anyone remember the case where loads of men were drugged and raped? The outcry from that from the men was heart rending. I actually thought it might make a difference to how men treated female rape victims, but nope, straight back to supporting <sporting hero rapist> <poor drunk friend who didn’t know what he was doing> <poor brother who definitely hasn’t raped anyone>. It’s like this sick man code stops a large proportion of men from being decent human beings. It’s sickening.

By calling out sexist banter and rape jokes every single time they hear it.

Fine in theory, but what following scenario is more likely:

Scenario 1

Pissed bloke outside pub: "Oi love, show us your tits"

Other random male pub patron: "Come on mate, no need to say that, it's really disrespectful"

Pissed bloke outside pub: "Hmmmm, yeah, sorry you are right, that was bang out of order. I will be more considerate and respectful in future, thanks for the heads up "

Scenario 2

Pissed bloke outside pub: "Oi love, show us your tits"

Other random male pub patron: "Come on mate, no need to say that, it's really disrespectful"

Pissed bloke outside pub: "Fuck off you prick"

Other random male pub patron: "Seriously, it's not cool to treat women like that"

Pissed bloke outside pub: "What the fuck are you going to do about it..................oi I'm talking to you.....come on then.....<sound of glass breaking>"

etc etc

It's not a case of not wanting to challenge crap behaviour, it is a genuine fear of what the dickhead you have just challenged is going to do.

But doesn’t this ’men are too scared to help women cause other men are scary’ really just prove how dangerous and horrible men are?

If men are willing to do that to another man, imagine what they are ready to do to a woman?

And man has more changes againts another than a woman in pretty much all cases.

And why are there so many making excuses for men not stepping up?

As someone has pointed out upthread, at that point many potential steps have been missed out.

At my dc’s secondary school sexist comments to girls from boys was rife, it was dismissed each and every time as boys being boys, and in one case, where a very creepy boy would mock choke girls, dismissed as him having poor social skills (so teach him that choking girls is dangerous?).

When girls were groped at parties it was never the boys who were at fault - he’s drunk, doesn’t know what he’s doing, and if the girl complains she’s just attention seeking.

Boys need some decent role models who will show them and teach them that isn’t ok, so hopefully by the time they are middle aged and drunk outside a pub the first thing in their heads won’t be to harass women. At the same time girls need good strong role models to teach them the common red flags and help them grow up to be assertive.

If every time a teenage boy behaved badly towards a girl all his friends and all the girls called him out, it would stop. Right now he is almost congratulated - how does that teach any boy to grow up to be a decent man, and how does it teach any girl to expect more from life?

Very often you find men and boys behave in a civilised manner when trying to get a girlfriend. Once she’s slept with him he’s off. Or once she’s had children and can’t easily leave, he turns into a 1950s man who expects his dinner on the table and sex whenever he wants, or he’ll sulk.

Honestly men get away with behaving like animals.

How often do you see a thread where challenging boys are seated next to girls in primary school?
The conditioning of girls to take responsibility for boys behaviour starts young.

I wasn't implying men deserved it, just that they are not targeted in the same way as women. When a man kills another man there is usually some back story to it.

I have witnessed thousands of chances men I know have had to safely challenge other men on sexism. My XH, my dad, my brother, my uncles, my colleagues, my (ex) friends, ex boyfriends. Sure there have been times when it could have been dangerous, but i'm thinking of sexist jokes by text, sharing porn, comments on women's appearance and fuckability, strip clubs/ buying sex, calling me naggy names, having a good old laugh about women's issues and initiatives at work, endless 'on-the-rag' jokes (I can give a thousand examples and details if they aren't good enough) and these are just things i was permitted to witness. In the vast majority of those cases there would have been no threat of violence if they had spoken up. There could have been lost friendships, tense work relationships, and in the case of the landlord at the pub I worked at from 13-17, potential financial loss if he told patrons to stop groping and sleazing.

Men care more about money and their social comfort than about women's lives. They just do. I'd be willing to bet ALL men have let something slide when they could have physically safely done something at some point and the VAST majority do it on a regular basis. They don't care, they want the status quo. No fcking idea how to change that - agree with the word hopeless in the OP.

NAMALT. We've all heard this defence before.

There is, very much, such a thing as toxic masculinity, only this is is commonly misunderstood as an assertion that every man and boy is toxic. It's not. Toxic masculinity is a set of harmful stereotypes, perpetuated throughout the vast majority of human cultures, which are held up as exemplars of how males are 'expected' to behave. It often manifests in macho culture: the dominant male, the provider, the protector of his own (and sometimes the attacker of those who threaten them), the successful CEO, the sex to whom women owe our respect and servitude, the alpha male. There are images of this stereotype disseminated through every level of our societies: from education to faith to the justice system to reality TV to advertising.

Some men don't fit that pattern (cf the 'new man' of the 1990s), and are happy and confident enough not to fit it. However, a great many more who don't fit the pattern feel they've failed in some way. And they are being failed, in turn, by society itself. Male suicide rates, the present angst and confusion about 'gender' (which is to blame for all the above in the first place), unbridled anger, VAWG, the furious men who blame women for this predicament and come together as incel groups. And many of the casualities of this mess are women.

Dismantling these stereotypes is the only way of freeing both men and women from them. There's just as damaging a set of toxic feminine stereotypes out there, but a good many more women are sick of the whole shebang and are turning our backs on it.

None of the above is not helped by an aggressive gender ideology which seems hellbent on upholding these tired, dated, passe stereotypes for the majority of society so that they can subvert them on some very individual level of identity politics.

To deny this reality exists is to lose any opportunity of fixing it.

This post ^^ needs pinning to the opening page of mumsnet, adding to the national curriculum, and putting up on a billboard in every single city and town, on posters on the sides of buses and inside trains. Everywhere.

You've put it in a very confrontational way but there's absolutely a truth in what you're saying. On one hand it's men needing to do more to call out other men and the other is rolling our eyes when these same men take objection to being lumped in together.

For all those items on your list I can honestly say the times I’ve come across them have been very very rare, to never, and I have called those out.

i know men are the problem. Just not men I know. Which of my friends should I be calling out or accusing when (to my knowledge) they don’t do these things?

But being nice and pandering to men doesn’t work either.
Most women make nice and try and stay on men’s good side.
They still hate us/ think women are less than them.

Not even the porn / strip club / talking about looks part?

If this is true, and they are honest about themselves around you, you have found unusual group of men.
Seriously.

@verystablegenius
Today 09:02
Men are not murdered for just being men, I am more likely to be murdered than my OH, however should OH start buying drugs, dealing drugs, fighting in pubs and football matches his chances go up.

“this is what bothers me. This is the “men deserve it” argument. Turn the tables - “she went out to a bar, …., her chances went up”. how does that sound?”

Dealing drugs, a criminal act
Buying drugs, a criminal act
Fighting in pubs? Not in the league of drugs but can also lead to arrest.
Going to a football match, not a criminal act.

You responded with “she went out to a bar”.

Going to a bar does not compare well with buying/dealing drugs. And it does not compare well with fighting in pubs.

Does it compare with going to a football match, yes, if a man goes to a football match and is endangered simply because he was there he should not be blamed for that.

But I’m sorry your “women going to the bar” response doesn’t work with the rest. If a man or woman gets involved in crime and it leads to violence against them, that’s a risk they run!

Rarely
ve said no to strip clubs on stag nights. I’ve said “that’s not on mate” to the occasional colleague or acquaintance, but proper friends, no.

I know it’s a huge problem. I know probably most men are arseholes. I want to help. I just know the aresholes don’t listen to me

Either you live in a bubble or you don't notice sexism. The fact that you have joined this thread to say no man you know is sexist...is proof of the latter to me. Telling women sexism is so rare in your experience, contrary to us giving you our experience...is sexist. You aren't listening. Men do not listen. Like I said, they don't care.

You've put it in a very confrontational way but there's absolutely a truth in what you're saying. On one hand it's men needing to do more to call out other men and the other is rolling our eyes when these same men take objection to being lumped in together.

We roll our eyes because they are not calling it out, yet claiming they are somehow better. If they aren't calling it out then they are so insignificantly better - because they are perpetuating it by not doing so - that their "poor me being tarnished with this brush that I am quite happy to use to polish" act is pathetic and meaningless.

I literally said I know it’s widespread and probably the majority of men to some degree are awful. What I’m saying is you can say it’s mens fault and men’s responsibility, but unless you get through to the ones actually doing it, all you’ll do is tell the ones who are not that they aren’t helping right.

I’ve said on previous threads I want to help, and I’m open to how I can. But I know it won’t be “call out your mates”

Ok, you @FloydPepper bear no responsibility, have no sexist friends, acquaintances or experiences and are useless in the fight against sexism.

You have nothing to contribute of any use except to add to the hopelessness. Ta