To ask what about victims of male on male violence

[anothernamitynamenamechange]

Many men are victims of violence by other men. The majority of men are murdered by other men, very often their friends or acquaintances. So, if that isn't being talked about enough, I created a thread right here, for that specific issue.

I have two teenage boys and the risk of male violence is something we have to talk about and consider everytime they go out. With my autistic son we have to rehearse situations that could lead go violence and what to do as he wouldnt naturally pick up on things. They have learned things like staying in areas with cctv, lighting and lots of people, spotting drug and drunks.

Quite a lot of their friends have experienced things like a random attack in broad daylight, or more targeted 'punishments' ie you looked at me wrong, you spoke to my girlfriend.

There is a campaign on social media from my local police clearly aimed at young men which has two teen boys and a caption about walking away if someone starts, and looking out for your friends by encouraging them to walk away and checking they get home OK.

Isn’t that a bit simplistic? So no deliberation over an issue that has a significant impact on women? I don’t agree that discussion on a subject makes you responsible for it i.e another thing for women to sort out. Surely debate and ideas are all necessary in attainment of the ideal position - no male violence? Equally, as a woman, our intellectual insight is necessary for such a discussion, it is valid and necessary as opposed to irrelevant and not of equal status!

You really think if women took this shit on it would all change? Have they been withholding some secret way of men not being violent all this time?

It’s not about being responsible though, how is a woman having an opinion on this making them responsible for violent men? Women can definitely have a huge impact on changing societies outlook - why wouldn’t they, we aren’t living in the Victorian times. An abstract notion of men sorting it themselves as women have done enough is not going to be helpful to any women.

No, not even remotely.

I'm saying that there's value in everybody being involved in the conversation, compared to half of the population saying, "Meh, not my problem".

Because, self-evidently, "Meh, not my problem" doesn't appear to be a winning strategy.

Women can definitely have a huge impact on changing societies outlook - why wouldn’t they, we aren’t living in the Victorian times.

Agreed. That's why violence, and deaths, against women and girls has drastically reduced in the last twenty years. Oh wait...

I wish men would start a dadsnet forum so they would leave mumsnet for women. Why do they think we have to share everything?

There is one, and for once I wish they'd fuck off to it.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/jun/04/met-chief-says-millions-of-men-are-danger-to-women-and-girls-in-england-and-wales

Agree with previous poster - men pls go to your own forum to discuss this.

These days whenever something like this is raised it has to include men, it annoys me as it seems to be trying to minimise how violent men are towards women,

Women are at more risk than ever from men as they are being given the green light to say they are women, this is about to get much worse under Labour as their plans mean self-I'd by the back door.

So are you actually suggesting that women are these vapid beings whose input on societal and political matters have had no impact over the last 20 years?

I don’t know how old you are but stats on violence towards women surely have to be viewed with some kind of intellectual scrutiny, you do realise that 25 years ago many women wouldn’t report rape, sexual harassment/assault and violence as it just wasn’t worth it, maybe the statistics are an indication of some progress there? Alternatively, in the UK at least, society has not progressed and women’s rights have taken a back seat; is it a coincidence that this is with ‘advances’ in technology? Who knows but I think women’s absence in that debate is reductive and perpetuates the notion of the helpless female!

So are you actually suggesting that women are these vapid beings

Vapid : without liveliness or spirit; dull or tedious

Nice choice of word you used there.

This is how I see your argument though, this is how you are depicting women? You haven’t really answered any of my points. Just answering a question with a question, please enlighten me?

Men’s attitude to other men could go a long, long way to helping issues caused by men.

When Dave rolls his eyes and laughs at the fact he got hammered and ended up in a fight with “some prick” chances are Dave’s mates will either laugh or roll their eyes and say “typical Dave”.

When was the last time any man you know stopped being friends with a man who didn’t pay maintenance for his kids? Or said “that’s out of line mate” when one bragged about being a dick to his ex?

Men generally don’t care about the opinions of women, but they do generally care about the opinions of other men.

If men held their brothers, friends and themselves to higher standards then that would benefit everyone.

Well as we gave birth to these violent men it is clearly our fault so we should try and fix it (just like we are supposed to fix everything else)

A fourteen year old boy was stabbed on a train platform near us, his last words to the ambulance crew were 'I need to see my mum'.

So male on male violence is a huge worry to me, I have a thirteen year old. It needs addressing by all of us.

I think it’s a valid topic OP but you won’t get much constructive input on mumsnet

if it’s mentioned on threads about women victims then you’re told to “start your own thread”. Rightly.

if you start your own thread you’re told you shouldn’t be doing that on a “womens” forum (it’s not)

And if they start their thread on Dadsnet......... we'll see.

Are threads about VAWG restricted to the fwr forum? No, and rightly so as it’s a societal issue. They’re on chat or Aibu. Nothing wrong with threads about male victims being there too.

full disclosure, I’m a bloke. I think male violence is a huge issue and whilst I do agree in part that it’s “mens” problem to solve I don’t think it’s always right to treat a large societal group as homogenous and expect one part to be responsible for the actions of another part. You wouldn’t do it with religious groups or racial groups.

im not a typical big strong aggressive man. I’m more likely to be a victim than a perpetrator and whilst I would call out poor behaviour in my friends it’s often hard and risky to call out strangers.

Yes, exactly, it is so pointless to close down conversations about humanity by putting us in little boxes. Simplistic platitudes that don’t help anyone.

I do think this is a good question. I think you’d get some sensible and constructive thoughts from the “better” forums but some frankly awful one from some.

Decent men I know are not friends with the Daves of this world, just like decent women are not. It’s extremely hard to influence groups that you have no link to and don’t agree with their behaviour.

if any friends become Daves, yes we do end those friendships. However that just means the daves can exist in their echo chamber and don’t get challenged. It’s hard

shitty men only care about the opinion of other shitty men. My opinions and comments would be derided.

and yes I’ve ended a friendship with someone who would not take responsibility for his kids when he divorced. It does happen

Yes, this is a very likely scenario as most people are friends with people who are likeminded.

I would always tell my son to run from any agro as it is self preservation; a 17 year old is not the right age to challenge a load of thugs on their attitude. My DH is a different story he is a 42 year old man and has challenged some people but yes in safe environments like colleagues or acquaintances not complete strangers.

I've always believed that if we could ensure every child was brought up in a stable, functional and loving family, within a couple of generations we'd probably reduce crime by about 80%.

Where I differ from other posters is that I disagree that the nuclear family is the best family model. Research from the Children Society showed extended families tended to reduce child abuse more effectively than nuclear families due to the additional adults providing a greater safety net. So for me it matters much less about the structure of a family or the sex of family members. It matters much more about the number of adults a child has in their life who are genuinely invested in that's child wellbeing and who commit time to the child and each other to support that.

In my personal and professional experience, the single mother debate is a red herring. IME most mothers with violent male children tend to be mothers who themselves have experienced a fair amount of male violence and have been unsupported to leave (so stay and normalise it), leave too late in the day (so could be a case of too little too late), or leave and are then so unsupported that all their time and energy is spent trying to make ends meet/manage everything rather than spending the time they'd lie nurturing their child. The solution to this is not to encourage parents to stay together by penalising family breakdown. This just entrenches the problem. In most cases family breakdown is the first step to recovery. It's what happens afterwards we need to look at. Support families (in all their forms), especially financially, and provide better public services and you would see an improvement.

An alternative or how we can incentivise people not to have children until both parties have demonstrably proven it's the right thing for them. At the moment we see far too much of this responsibility thrown on the woman. Make men believe that they 100% will be made to pay child support and I guarantee they'll be a lot more careful about fathering children they have no intention of investing time or money into. At least the majority of single mothers actually retain and raise their child!

Male on Male Violence is still committed my men. They can sort out their own problems. Maybe you can post on Dadsnet to see if they care....

Although a clue might be in the name. "Mumsnet".