To wonder (thinking about this awful French rape case) if humans are just rotten

[OptimismvsRealism]

It wasn't just the husband - at least 80 men went along with this. Guys with ordinary lives drawn out of nowhere.

I wonder if it would be better if we were to just wind things up as a species.

The women who NAMALT are, perhaps understandably, keeping themselves psychologically 'safe' by rationalising that it can't possibly be true that the male sex class overwhelmingly hate the female sex class, because that would be utterly terrible.

It is, however, that bad.

The men who NAMALT are kidding themselves for reasons of convenience or (often willful) ignorance.

I asked them not to delete the thread nor the OP's posts. I agree.

This needs restating to make the point that male violence does not equate to women’s violence and that it is not our responsibility to stop male violence.

Look how fucking fast Starmer acted to stop the racist riots.

Now imagine if just half of that effort went into policing, stopping and charging MVAWG? Or if half that effort went into blocking online pornography including violent porn enacted against women and children? If the software developers (largely male) made adjustments to their social media algorithms to stop amplifying sexist, misogynistic and violent posts?

We don’t have to understand why they do it. There only needs to be the political will to stop it. There isn’t because politics and business is dominated by men with vested interests in seeing this continue.

I also want the thread to remain:

If there can be anything good to come from these sickening crimes, it may be that threads like this go some way to shake up the complacency of people who easily sweep misogyny under the carpet or who think feminism has 'gone too far.'

The gloriously selfless bravery and poise of the women involved should be our new talisman.

In fact I’m glad the OP is a male apologist.

If they’d said that they wondered if men were just rotten, there’d be more agreements (with the occasional not my Nigel) and there’d be less discussion supported by evidence that had been posted.

Yes. I think it’s clear OP deliberately chose the wording ‘humans’ rather than ‘men’. But actually did us a favour because it opened up the debate more, I think!

It's sad and ironic to investigate what the OP might have thought he was doing starting the thread. He probably thought it was exactly what a 'nice guy' does, deploring a nasty crime.

From his furious responses, we see exactly how low that bar is.

I’m convinced it’s a male poster, especially with the ‘there I said it’ comment - I’ve had a man say that to me in a discussion, as if him saying that meant I had to shut up and agree with his point!

This is a really bad faith response OP, to be referring to a woman as 'toxic' because you don't like her post. On a thread with the topic introduced by you, about a hideous crime committed by dozens of men, against one innocent women.

I am done with trying to understand male violence. Let the self styled 'nice men' understand it themselves and explain it to us; presumably as men, although they refrain from this behaviour themselves they have a better insight into the causes of it? Instead all we get is defensiveness and hurty feelings, from them and their female apologists. And I am speaking as someone who doesn't hate men: I have a husband, a son, a brother, a father; I would be in a very bad way if I hated them rather than loving them all as I do.

'Humans are bad'. That is an inane conclusion for you to state when one thing that is apparent in the situation you cite is the selfless courage of the victim. So at least one human in this story is good.

"The gloriously selfless bravery and poise of the women involved should be our new talisman."

This cannot be said enough imo. This story is not just about the dreadful acts of the men involved, but also the inspiration strength of the women.

I'm off topic here, but yeah. I'm so fucking over making allowances for men's logical errors when they are based on nothing more than self-serving arrogance.

Fucking look at yourselves telling women not to interrupt while talking over us!

Agree!!

None of this is new. A cursory knowledge of history confirms this. Look what the Russian army did tomthe German women most
other battle / invasion scenarios.

The internet whilst also responsible for many amazing things has enabled like minded men to find each other and mobilise. We need to be aware of the thin veneer between civilisation and savagery and safeguard it.

Also focus on the millions of good kind human beings undertake daily. A relative of mine literally gave his life for others in WW2 and there were many like him.

I fully agree that women can do toxic things and cause problems for others. But women committing atrocities like this are vanishingly rare. Women may harm others emotionally but the tendency and capacity to physically and sexually brutalise and murder others (more often women) is just not there for the vast vast majority. OP I hope you’ve read every reply and are now having a word with yourself

My late husband heard two relatives talking about the Great War - both had served.

“Aye,” said one. “They talk about what the Germans did. They never seem to mention the Tommies that broke into the French convent.”

How do we cope with this dissonance? Genuine question.

@HebburnPokemon i think that poster was being sarcastic in response to a PP claiming more horror at the language being used about men which might upset her male relatives than at the acts of violence that started the thread.

Which seems may now have been started by a man who has turned to insulting women for pointing out it’s not humans who committed these acts, but men.

I'm coming back to the thread to admit I was wrong to say it's a society issue and it's not helpful to focus only in the men.

I only just read the news piece about it. I had to search for it for a long time on Apple News- took quite a long scroll and it was not under Most Read, Most Discussed, or one of the bigger stories.
It was just a non obvious bbc link, placed next to another article 'Woman in her forties enjoys sex with strangers' or something similar (Cosmopolitan?).

I did come across a few other rape related news though - a podcaster admitting he's raped someone on air, and the Israeli hostage submitted to physical and sexual assault...

Once you alerted to the fact, its everywhere and happening every day and there is complacency and minimising, and victim blaming...

I do hope this brave woman coming forward and agreeing to a public trial will have some positive effect but sadly, as I said, it's already yesterday news and I had to look for the articles to read the details.
Women are appalled, discussing it all,having heated arguments but how many men have stopped and noticed.

We go on, calmly, logically and clearly explaining why it's wrong. We do it over and over again. We keep going. We will have to take turns or we will all be drowned.

I'm personally at saturation point for today, but there are enough of us. We have to believe there are.

Interesting point

How do we comprehend that our sons/husbands/fathers are more dangerous by virtue of their sex?

This gives me such hope. Thank you for coming back.

Thanks for coming back @roseyblack

That's the problem with feminism. Once you see it, you can't unsee it. And it's much more painful than denial.

Yes, how do we? I have supplied my answer below.

We want to stop this being true, and hope that most men would be allies in this aim if they understood, so we have to explain how true it is. Repeatedly.

I like your answer. It's a journey I've been on my whole life, particularly as a survivor. I still can't seem to get through. It seems my husband will never call out other men.