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.

Well this is depressing. Does anyone have sons at all?

Men generally become violent because they live in violent household and/or live in violent environments.

Whilst there are men on Mumsnet, I very much doubt they are contributing to the male violence. I would imagine men commenting on a largely female based parenting website, who probably found their way here looking for parenting advice are fairly unlikely to be violent themselves although ofcourse there are no guarantees in life.

There was a thought experiment done where groups of men and women were asked what they would prefer and why if they woke up say on a spaceship and there were 17 men and 1 woman, or if it was 17 women and 1 man - all participants asked preferred to be in the majority female group as in the majority male all the men would be fighting over the female and in competition whereas in the majority female group the females could procreate with the male if they wanted but otherwise get on with their lives. Men preferred it because their would've no competition and no violence. Men are the problem.

in fairness the title was bad. It was late at night and it made more sense in my head. But it and the first post come across as deliberately goady and vague. But despite that the responses have been really mixed. Its not the case that every single post on this forum was telling men they don't care about male violence. I don't want to derail the thread talking about whether or not its a women's forum. There's another thread about that. Personally I find value in the fact its mostly female because there aren't as many spaces on the internet like that.

While I agree women are not to blame and not responsible for sorting men’s behaviour, I do think we need to look at society as a whole and our role in it.

women are still actively choosing to make themselves reliant on men. Giving up work post children, opting out of the workforce.

this means when men behave like shits we tend to put up with it, because we don’t have the independence to walk away. Society expects women to facilitate men and men’s lives, we need to start telling it to fuck off.

Linked to that many women raise their children still based on stereotypes, and strongly believe in those stereotypes. Even here, I see women arguing that their boy “naturally“ likes sticks and fighting, where girls are peaceful and caring. Nothing to do with the fact we dress and surround girls with pink, dolls and kitchens practically from conception, while boys get dinosaurs and taken out to be physical. Then when boys sort out disputes physically that surprises us.

so kids are still growing up seeing mum enable dad’s life, cooking, cleaning, raising children, while dad has all the money and power. He walks, he’s ok, mums in the shit. If mum walks, he’s ok, mums in the shit.

society needs a massive shift so we take our power back. But that means we need to maintain our independence from men, and depressingly on her I see so many women still getting married, changing their names, “proud to be a Mrs”, giving up work to take on the home. Giving up their lives to become a man’s support system.

I actually started the thread because I am quite conflicted. I have men that I care about and I care about violence on anyone because we are all human's etc. But previous attempts to address male violence, e.g. quite a lot of third wave feminism/the concept of toxic masculinity to describe the more destructive aspects of men's personalities that might explain the higher suicide rate, higher violence against other men as well as women. And also the fact that those traits hurt other men as well. It was unpopular with lots of 2nd wave feminists because it was undermining what feminism was mean to be/expanding its definition to the point of meaningless. But it was really really hated by men. Much much more. And there has been a huge online backlash against the feminisation of society etc. Probably they had a point a lot of the time - men don't always think/talk in the same way women do so possibly solutions crafted by women aren't going to work as well as solutions crafted by men.

So, maybe its better to leave it up to men. But as others said men aren't a hive mind and male victims of crime aren't the same as the perpetrators. So that doesn't feel right either. And I also think "women's issues" like domestic violence and issues like male on male violence are linked for example because boys that witness abuse can grow into men with trauma or substance issues. But I don't think that makes it a "feminist issue" so that isn't the right lens to discuss it under either.

I actually don’t mind having a separate thread about this. I’m fed up of threads about violence against women being derailed but lots of us will have sons and will be worried for them, hopefully not that they’ll commit the violent acts but that they may be victim of them.

I found this article interesting.

https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/06/male-violence-against-women-much-more-than-toxic-masculinity

Oh, that article is actually really helpful

If women could have solved this problem, we would have done it already. This is a male problem.

the glib answer: shrug.
the glib twatty answer: shrug. why not post on a male dominated forum?
very twatty answer: what about male violence against women? what about that, eh?

My actual answer: yes it's an issue. men need to get a grip. I am busy worrying about VAWG which is mostly carried out by men. I have no energy left to care overmuch about the men. However if someone started a campaign, wanted signatures, organised a march i am likely to attend.

It is a male problem. But I’m a mum of a son and I am a big influence on his life, as is his dad.

Seems like an important problem for men to solve.

I think half the problem is we worry about the male victims not focus on the male perpetrators. We see discussion of VAWG detailed with NAMALT and what about male victims etc. And here this thread is started for the male victims of male violence again it's not focused on the perpetrators as much as I think we ought to be.

I have male and female children and I see my son getting excuses made for behaviour I will personally pull him up for. It's not his fault xyz has played a part. Yes xyz played a part but I won't condone nastiness to others regardless of the trigger- childcare teachers other parents all say oh don't worry it's not his fault. Yet I see my girl being encouraged to be kind and move over to accommodate the needs of others. And my girl is nice, my son is a challenging child but my girl is shy loving and kind and she's been told she's unkind for telling teachers another child is being mean to her. I e just been to a children's play farm and watched a sand fight develop in the sand pit play area. They girls involved were removed from the situation by their parents either because they were joining in or to protect them but the boys parents just shouted stop that then let them carry on.

Boys are taught they can behave aggressively. Even that they should because if they don't they miss out to other boys. While girls are taught to shift over stay polite and complain politely and considerately if they have to but never are they taught to aggressively defend themselves or their resources.

I believe if we address male violence it will help both male and female victims of male violence. We need to be worried our boys are growing up leaning behaviour we don't want them exhibiting as much as we worry they could be the victim of it.

There is no one size fits all that covers all male violence regardless of the sex of the victim. Things that (in my uneducated opinion) would help:

• Fighting poverty
• Fighting addiction
• A sense of belonging to a larger group and having responsability toward it.
• Better parenting
• Mental health support
• Death to almost all social media. We already know Facebook, Tiktok, Youtube and so on can cause hatred to other groups - they are designed on purpose that way.

All of this will cost money and no politician is going to call to shell out for it as it will mostly have to go to working class men. If you think about it, when was the last time you heard any politician of any party really make a stand for working class mens needs.

The thing with male on male violence and female on female violence is that it has different motivations to male on female violence. Often m/m or f/f violence is altercations between people who know each other or are in the same location. Or assault / mugging for belongings.

Male on female violence is often sexually motivated or an act of dominance.

I think it’s highly, highly unlikely that in your area, in the last 10 years there’s only been 3 attacks on women, far more likely that the crimes just aren’t reported in the press as it’s not considered news worthy.

Having said that though, I understand why you would worry for him.

I believe if we address male violence it will help both male and female victims of male violence.

Agreed. While I can understand "Let men deal with it" replies, the facts are that violent men are usually violent to both sexes and violence is still socially accepted in boys. The whole problem needs addressing. It's a large and complex problem that needs attention from the whole of society.

I don't think it's true that women don't care about men assaulting men. Even from a women-only point of view, the man who feels entitled to assault other people is a danger to women. And women care about sons, brothers, fathers, male partners and friends, too. Yet a high frequency of "Let men deal with it" could lead observers to think women don't give a shit about the problem of violence in our society.

It is a societal problem. We are half of society. Of course we're involved.

Spot on, it's a ripple effect, parent can't discipline because they don't know what it is themselves.

As a mother I absolutely worry about male on male violence. My eldest son was mugged for the first time in his first year in secondary school. They were both attacked, robbed, beaten up, more times than I can remember. Both robbed at knife point on separate occasions. All in broad daylight. They never instigated anything, apart from once when DS2 stepped in to protect a younger child who was being attacked. Generally they were just coming home from school or from friends' houses. The police could not have been less interested.
I used to let their friends sleep on my floor overnight rather than travel home alone. I spent hours ferrying them around, giving their friends lifts.
Once they got into their 20s it got better. It is a huge social problem.

I’m sorry to hear that, how awful for your sons.

I (or DH) often spend lots of time collecting DS and his friends, despite them not wanting this and living in a City where most people walk everywhere. He will often be home before I get a chance to collect him. My child is a fellow human that is worthy of protection and the right of freedom to wonder without the fear of harm, some abstract notion of males only having to solve this to me is ridiculous. Perhaps that is not the sign of a feminist but so be it, from reading some of the posts, I don’t relate to this form of feminism as I am a real person with flaws and instincts, I don’t want to and never would be put on a pedestal for modelling the perfect feminist behaviour. I’m the imperfect feminist as I’m married and wanted to be, I’m not completely independent as I am in a relationship and by their very nature there is a codependency otherwise why be committed to someone. I am to some extent jaded by men but still went on to have relationships with others. My marriage isn’t always perfect but I didn’t get rid as logic doesn’t prevail, love does. I think this is not the actions of a perfect feminist but I can live with not being perfect. I therefore don’t have an issue with having an input on societal violence, I am just interested in the pursuit of peace.

Isn’t this an argument to say your focus should be on dv against women and children and that will also improve the problem of violent men?

You dont want to hear what men think. Be they victim, perpetrator or concerned 'bystander' .That's why this Post isn't where men are more likely to be ie Dadsnet, or any other men's forum. You simply want to talk about men. Just like the other male focused threads of the past couple of weeks with an undercurrent of 'yeah but the men/oh the poor men won't you think of the men'. Different ways of getting women to discuss men all the time in these respects are brought forward in various scenarios that at their core, amount to the same thing

If you wont ask men then you cant be that bothered about the issue anyway

How strange, I don't seem to have noticed a single man interested in commenting on or defending victims of male on male violence on this thread on this women's forum. I wonder why ?
Either they don't think it is a significant enough problem to concern them (?) or they are perhaps hoping that mothers, sisters, daughters and wives will somehow find a solution since they have proven to be entirely inept themselves.

Same thing. It is ALWAYS men. ALWAYS. ALWAYS.

Kind of reminds me of when I was in College and we had a union meeting to elect a women's officer. Some men started complaining to the women that it wasn't fair because there wasn't a men's officer.

So....elect one then? Someone stopping you?

No-one is denying that men murder men or that it is an issue.

But why is it an issue for women to solve? This is Mumsnet. We have enough to do protecting ourselves and our children.

I spend my time teaching my ds decent values, to deal with school bullies, to value his youth & health, to avoid drugs, porn, violence. Helping him achieve academically so he will have a good income and can choose where to live.

I gave up on any other men a long time ago. Perhaps post your question on Reddit.