To think it is actually mostly men?

[Nolpp]

Maybe I didn’t get the memo in the past but in the last year or so I’ve been so bitterly disappointed by make behaviour. I look back and wonder if it was always this way but I’m only just noticing. I think part of it is I recently became a single parent and so I’ve had more dealings with men than I would usually, as I’ve had to speak to insurance companies, take car for MOT etc. Obviously I did some of these things before and I know women also work in these places but overall I am having more interaction with men.

Examples…

Driving. Whenever a car is right up behind me it is ALWAYS a man driving. I drive at the speed limit, not under, so presumably they think speed limits don’t apply to them.

I recently donated to a sponsorship for cancer research, an old school friend, quite literally not spoken in over two decades. He then messaged me to thank me for the donation and followed it up with a question about sex and positions he can do after his surgery. Why would anyone think that’s ok?

A colleague, well respected in his industry, tells me when drunk on a night out that he wishes all women conformed to the way of the 50s and stayed at home. He wasn’t joking.

In Sainsbury’s a week ago, a man grabbed my arse in a queue, I was shocked and stepped to one side, didn’t know what to do and said get the fuck away from me. I was next up for the till and the man behind the till said he does it to everyone !!! What the actual fuck? He did follow up to say they had tried to ban him from the shop. I cried in the car afterwards, it was awful.

Waiting for the baby changing unit in Mc Donnalds. A man eventually emerges, mutters sorry but he couldn’t wait, and looked sheepish. He wasn’t unwell, he was downing a Mc flurry when I came out.

Around 7 years ago I used to date someone who had recently got a job as a Judge in the family courts. He was very young to have got this job and in part it was to do with his father being a judge in the same court. Anyway one day we were talking about how money is worked out in a divorce and he said ‘it’s disgusting, women expect to be paid out after staying at home doing nothing with kids for fifteen years, so rather than getting a job of their own they steal the x husband’s pension.’ I am ashamed to say I laughed and agreed with him. I had a good job with no interest in giving it up so I felt I was compatible with this man who I now see was a bit of a monster.

I honestly feel like men make up the bulk of shit behaviour. It probably sounds dramatic but I actually feel sad about it, genuinely sad. And embarrassed that it’s taken me until this late in life to see it.

Yes, I know it’s not all men.

Rant over.

Agree with you, the older I get the more I see it too. Even as someone in a healthy relationship with a man, ultimately it is most men.

• An estimated 91% of victims of rape & sexual assault are female and 9% male. Nearly 99% of perpetrators are male. Supporting Survivors (humboldt.edu)

• Yes, men can be victims too. However most rape & sexual assault victims who are male are mostly raped & sexually assaulted by another male.

• 96% of child sexual abusers are men. WWV-CSA-Fact-Sheet-Final.pdf (ywca.org) & 23 Horrific Child Sexual Abuse Statistics (safeatlast.co)

• Those who intentionally abuse animals are predominantly men under 30. Animal cruelty facts and stats | The Humane Society of the United States

• 70% of human trafficking victims are women. Human Trafficking and Gender: Differences, Similarities and Trends | CTDC (ctdatacollaborative.org)

• 99% of sexual trafficking victims are women. Breaking Down Global Estimates of Human Trafficking: Human Trafficking Awareness Month 2022 | Human Trafficking Institute

• Men commit 90% of violent crimes. The 1 % of the population accountable for 63 % of all violent crime convictions - PMC (nih.gov)

• 74.1% of domestic violence victims in the UK are women Domestic abuse victim characteristics, England and Wales - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk)

• 72.1% of domestic murder victims in the UK are women Domestic abuse victim characteristics, England and Wales - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk)

• Following on from above, of the 269 female domestic homicide victims, the suspect was male in the majority of cases (260). Domestic abuse victim characteristics, England and Wales - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk)

• In the majority of male domestic homicides, the suspect was a male family member. Domestic abuse victim characteristics, England and Wales - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk)

This says it all.

Dh is not like that but I find it depressing that he is exalted as some sort of hero for basically behaving like a decent person. When I had dd1 in hospital he was spoken of in hushed impressed tones by the staff and friends will say “oh well you are so lucky with your Dh” etc. He is unusual. The bar is so low.

And you know what it hasn’t helped him at work. He is not “one of the lads” so hasn’t gone as far as he should professionally despite being better than the other men and more liked by clients.

When I first met one group of his friends they were all women. Really nice women I would have been friends with. When I asked about it afterwards he just said “the men were all cocks”.

How exactly do we correct sex crimes for poverty?

My basis is the very next paragraph...

You just said overrepresented in jail. You didn't say for sex crimes. Are they?

So you respond to my stats about reports dropped before court, with a story about something that occured in court...

Dropping everything before the police can get a case together is exactly what you would do if you were fcking lying* about it.

Or if, you know, the police who dealt with your original complaint were the kind of police I provided copious links about above. And if you became aware at that point that you would be waiting a very long time to go to court, and then a very long time to go from charge to trial, and then a potentially very long and invasive trial where your private life would be turned inside out for the court by a hostile barrister, all the while the person who violently assaulted you would be free and walking about and potentially able to access you at any point... Maybe you would decide that going through all that, on the offchance your case was one of the lucky ones that secure a conviction, simply wasn't worth it, and retracting and repressing it might simply be the less traumatic route.

Do you really think two thirds of women who report rape are 'fucking lying'?

I find this fascinating. Reading the news and from my own personal experiences, I am very, very wary of men. How can so many be capable of such violence, such sadism? It's jut impossible for me to put myself in their shoes and to understand what drives them to such behaviour. Of course, not all men, but too many.

But now I have a 3 year old son and he has completely disarmed me. He is so sweet and so empathetic -- his sister is sweet too, but not like him. Just the other day we were settling down for story time and he brought me a cushion so "mummy comfy too" or how he rushes over to kiss me better if I hurt myself. At what point will this turn? I hate to think that all these good empathetic qualities might be knocked out of him. Or that society will devalue him for being kind and caring. It just breaks my heart.

@Ippagoggy My teenager lad is lovely to me and his girlfriend. I'm not really welcome on this thread by some people but we just have to hope they grow up to be one of the good ones. We can only teach and guide them.

I had a bastard of a boyfriend when I was younger but have chosen a good one to marry.

You can't lock people up simply because a woman said so, thus the process of trial/evidence etc. is inevitable.

I just go by the numbers, and the fact is that someone who is either lying or changed their mind about the report would voluntarily drop the case at that early stage.

If you were serious (or not lying) then you would let it get to court, where the conviction rate becomes about 70%. If not for yourself then surely for the other potential victims.

Perhaps if morons stopped parroting the ridiculous headline numbers without context, (and we both know for a fact that you never looked into them), then people wouldn't be so reluctant to bring things forward.

Why oh why do 68% of men not wipe their shitty arses?

What your DH is experiencing looks to me like some of the sacrifice of privilege that his behaviour and values require. The power of bestowing privileges is what maintains the culture he doesn't want to be a part of. Don't go upsetting the misogynistic boss, he may not give you the best work or find a way to get rid when there's layoffs. It's not nice, but it is important for men to recognise that if they're serious about equality. It helps if they understand some of the damage its doing to them too

Women have motivation to go against it because the potential gains are clear to see. Generally speaking men simply face losses, things they may just perceive as being losses or the death of aspirations to have privileges some other men have. This is the motivation behind much of the resistance. There are gains, but it takes creativity and imagination to see those.

I've written that in a very assertive "this is how it is" style. It is just my opinion, I know that :) It's a truncated form too, I think about this a lot and not just in relation to gender/sex equality but power/privilege etc in all kinds of contexts

@Ramalangadingdong at least you did something. You waited, you let het know that you’d seen and that she wasn’t alone. Thank you.

I'm going to ignore you needlessly rude and aggressive manner and namecalling and just address the substance of what you say (such as it is).

Nowhere did I say that people should just be locked up on someone's sayso; there is a process, that needs to be gone through, but there is no denying it is a gruelling one for a genuine victim. Someone might very well be not lying, but decide that that arduous process is not for them, that it will not make them feel any safer or better, at very least in the short to medium term. Rapists often target victims with other vulnerabilities (poor women, young women, single women without support, mentally ill women, previously sexually or physically abused women); someone can be in a very difficult place BEFORE being raped, and not at all in a strong enough position practically or emotionally to push through to prosecution. It is not the raped woman's responsibility to put herself through that for the sake of other potential victims, it is the responsibility of the rapist not to rape, and pushing that onto the victim is a bit sick imo. Do you think children who disclose abuse years later are obviously lying, because they never told anyone at the time, and if they were 'serious or not lying' then they would have?

I don't know what the answer is to encouraging more women to stick with prosecution. But I do not by any means think the number of cases dropped before court mean that the majority of those women were lying, simply that they realised that for them, the challenge of prosecuting the rapist would be more injurious and less beneficial than the chance of them being jailed was worth.

And by the way I have not been raped, but I have been sexually assaulted. I did nothing not because I'm making it up, but because it was my word against his, and I had no possible way of getting past the first hurdle and providing proof that I'd said no and he'd ignored me. It wasn't even worth trying. Nothing would have come of it. So I shrugged it off as best I could and made sure never to be in that position ever again. But that doesn't mean it was my fault, and it doesn't mean that it didn't happen.

Murder is very different to sex offenses.

Good news, they're over-represented in both.

So I ask again, why do poor people murder and sexually assault people more often than non-poors?

I'd say a combination of

1. less to lose from the consequences - cost/benefit ratio of crime is differently balanced for rich and poor
2. poverty may coexist with intergenerational trauma and abuse which can have effects on the developing brain affecting impulse control and empathy
3. more often caught and prosecuted than those with resources/information to know how to avoid being accused/caught/prosecuted/convicted

If you're actually interested rather than trying to draw a false parallel.

So why do you think men murder so much more than women do?

But what i was saying was, the fact women said if no consequences they'd murder at similar rates to men does not in any way substantiate the idea that women would, if they could, sexually abuse at the same rates as men. The offenses are very different. Murder can have a vast number of motivations and methodologies. Rape/Sexual abuse is not a monolith but it's much less diverse in terms of motive and method.

Jesus Christ, do you hear yourself?

Have I interfered with your programming so much that you're now explaining away sexual assault and murder as "poor people don't know any better"???

Maybe that's why women are dropping charges - they find our their rapist went to a food bank so they think 'oh well, he is a Poor after all'.

I'm not talking justifications, I'm talking reasons.

For example there was the recent thread about the baby who died of neglect in the hovel he shared with his drug-addicted parents. No-one is saying 'oh well they had shitty lives, it's fine they let their baby die"; but it is worth considering the circumstances and background that may have contributed to them getting to that point, rather than just screaming BURN THE WITCH and having our cathartic moment.

Just like it's worth understanding e.g. contributing factors to paedophilia, not to say "oh poor them let's let them fiddle with kids, they've had it rough" but so we can reduce offending and identify risk.

Just like it's worth recognising that there is something very interesting about the radical differences in terms of violent offending between men and women, and trying to explore that rather than pretend because our Nigel is a lovely fireman and some women gave me evils once in the office, there's nothing to see here.

As a man, I'm afraid YANBU. Most of this sort of crap is done by men. It is, perhaps, to be expected. Men seem to be programmed, whether by genetics or environment/society, to be more aggressive and to have lower empathy. Please don't think this is offered as an excuse on behalf of men. Being an arsehole is not okay. It's more a (rather vague non-expert) attempt to suggest reasons for your observation, as understanding these is a necessary first step to fixing the problem.

Incidentally, I initially misread your post as "AIBU to think it is actually most men?" I would have inwardly disagreed with this proposition, as I really don't think this is most men. Although it is far too many men, I personally believe that most men are decent if flawed human beings. I realise this may be a biased view based on my own experience as a man, but I am confident that several women I know would say the same. I would have thought hard about whether to respond YABU though: I fully understand why "not all men" is not a useful response to the #MeToo movement as whole, or to individual stories of male wrongdoing.

YANBU
Men are at best disappointing at worst terrifying

"why did you rape that woman?"

turns out pockets
"Intergenerational trauma, your honour"

I think we're done here...