to think that ALL men must engage with male VAWAG

[StellaGreen]

These last weeks the papers are full of horrific stories of men's violence towards women. I have always believed it is a tiny minority of men who commit these crimes but I'm not so sure any more.

1. Gisele Pelicot case where at least 80 men were involved in rape and now an associate of the husband (Dominique Pelicot) has admitted to similar abuse.
2. Puffy daddy accused of sex trafficking I believe, I've not fully read this one.
3. The Olympian Rebecca Cheptegei allegedly killed by her partner after he doused her in petrol and set her on fire. It's not as though this was unique Olympian murder, Agnes Tirop was fatally stabbed by her husband in 2021 and Demaris Mutua (a runner) also killed within six months of Agnes.
4. Kristina Joksimovic from Switzerland where the press crudely wrote about her being strangled and her body being pureed in a blender.
5. Moumita Bebnath, the trainee doctor brutally raped and murdered in Kolkata in August.
6. Steven Van de Velde competing in the Olympics for Netherlands after he was convict of rape I believe.
7. Huw Edwards
8. And three weeks ago it was reported that women have been banned by the Taliban from speaking or showing their faces outside the house.

AIBU that, as well as women speaking up, all men must engage with this problem. It is not women's responsibility to solve the problem of male VAWAG

Even the men who commented on here saying "what else do you want me to do" comes across as well I've tried, nothings changed.

It would be interesting to see how quick they would make it a bigger priority if the situation was reversed

Not many blokes really put the effort in now and the only time the majority of blokes do decide to pass comment, is to promote how good they are as a man rather than opposing the mysoginy around them.

The majority of men are more outraged that a women might think they are a danger than they are outraged at the raping and assaulting and abusing and the killing of women and girls at the hands of men.

I look at it like this … I’m white, there is a lot of racism in the world that leads to horrific acts of violence, I don’t commit acts of violence and I’m not a racist. But it’s not enough that I’m not a racist, it’s my responsibility to be actually anti racist and to call out things I come across in my life that are racist, this can be as small as calling out office “banter”. In my view the same goes for men. Decent men who would never oppress or harm a woman have a role to play here. They need to calling out their mates who are labelling a woman a slut, calling out their colleagues who may tell jokes indicating a woman was asking for it, calling out friends who are bragging about a young girl being old enough to bleed etc. All those types of things contribute to violence against women and girls. All of it. It’s not enough not to join in, women and girls are being raped, mutilated and killed. Men have to recognise that the “banter” and locker room talk contributes to it.

The court and justice system also needs looked at. They’re condoning acts of violence by letting perpetrators walk. I read an article recently where a man raped a young woman with three bottles, held her head against a shed door and brutalised her - he walked free from court. An Irish soldier assaulted a woman on a night and messaged his friends about he knocked her out - he walked free from court.

But they can be aware of women’s fear. My Dad is in his 70s, we were talking about this the other day and he was telling me how if he was walking behind a woman in the street and fairly isolated with no-one else around he would cross the road so the woman wouldn’t feel scared. I didn’t know this until recently. He didn’t make it a big deal, it was just something he does.

Of course not all men are the problem. The predators are a minority although a significant minority. If 1 in 4 women experience abuse, chances are a lot of them will experience that abuse from someone who has abused someone else so it is less than 25% of men. That doesn’t mean it is a small number of men.

A good man will, like my Dad be aware of women’s fear and understand it. They will do small things to help alleviate that fear. They won’t engage in misogyny or find things/jokes aimed at oppressing women funny.

You might think the men in your family are not threats to women but every man that is a threat has a family and most won’t think there are a threat to women. You are probably right, as I said the majority of men will not be a threat but enough of them are to make women feel uncomfortable and nervous when in a vulnerable situation.

Let's go beyond just the men calling out other men thing on here. Here are a bunch of other things I think we all (including men) could be doing. it's obviously, tip of the iceberg:

Schools and parents not buying into "boys will be boys" when it comes to rough housing on the playground, especially when it's aimed at the girls. No more "he pokes you because he likes you" etc. Similarly, let's stop telling the girls they can't shout - DD had a skin tag that a boy kept touching but she was too scared to shout at him to stop when he ignore dher because she was told she wasn't allowed to shout.

Active teaching on consent and the reality of men being (usually) physically bigger. DS is a tall child - he's 13 and 5:10 already. He has always been taller and bigger than the children around him so from when he was about 2 I started explaining to him that if he's playing with another child he has to be thinking about how the other child feels. I have mentioned this on the playground a few times and had horrified responses.

Let's also not be coy about sex and reproductive education etc. Our children are seeing and feeling this stuff. Saving the tough conversations until they're 16 is too late. We don't only start teaching them about road safety when they go to high school and have to walk = we start when they're still in their prams, reminding them to look both ways. Periods are normal and not shameful and should be openly acknowledged from a young age. Condoms are normal and essential. Sex is fun... at the appropriate age and stage. normalise these things from a relatively young age BEFORE they're being influenced by social media and other uninformed teens.

Role model men ACTUALLY stepping up. Taking on their share of childcare and household tasks. Taking responsibility for things in the home and for children. Identify and highlight positive role models, male and female, at home, at school, at work, in public. Similarly, don't drag women in public down. Really really stop and think before you disparage that woman - is the disparagement real, or is there some unconsious bias there? Never ever make disparaging comments about women BECAUSE they're women "oh, women are a bit silly about this stuff - don't worry about it." Support women in leadership roles and aim to have more of them.

In the workplace, if you have power, support women who have caring responsibilties. AS importantly, support the men. Make the culture one in which neither are penalised for caring responsibilities and both are encouraged to use any flexible working or similar. Similarly, consider how you talk and think about women in your organisation. Really examine unconsious biases. Are you networking with the women in the same way you do with the men? Do you have to do that golfing event? is it excluding a bunch of women?

If your local council is considering changes to its playgrounds or facilities, get involved. Find the research on making these spaces welcoming, and safe, for girls and lobby for the change. Start by taking a look round your local public spaces and tell me if you see anywhere near as many girls as boys? I bet you don't. Be angry about that. Lobby for change (this is next on my list in my area).

Is the TV youre watching passing, at the very least, the Bechdel test? Where else are you finding you're defaulting male around you without even being aware of it? Every man should read Invisible Woman - it's an eye opener and is the precursor to this other shit. Don't talk down about literature, movies, or art aimed at woman - why are "chicklit or romantic comedies" considered less than male-dominated detective series or action movies?

All of these things are small things but that consistently position women as less important, less relevant. frankly, less HUMAN. if we can stop thinking of women as second class citizens, it's an important step towards reducing VAWAG.

I find these threads a bit ridiculous. Should all women feel personally responsibility for Lucy Letby?!

Can I add books to this?

I read a book by an author, John Marr and found how casually he easily he seems to write the scenes of violence and sex acts against women and how easily he portrays incels and mysoginy in his books. They make for uncomfortable reading.

I was asked to leave my ongroup (mixed sex) bookclub after I raised this at the author event he did because apparently it's only fiction and I must hate men if I'm trying to ruin his career.

I don't find I can connect well with an author who writes about these events so easily and regularly and comfortably

But the difference is not one person went on the lucy letby threads and said "not all women do this" not one man went on and said "my wife or girlfriend would never do this"

Everyone was allowed to be disgusted and angry at her.

This never happened on the Huw Edwards thread, people quickly hopped on and defended men and justified what he did

It never happened on the Gisele Pelicot thread, people came on and quickly defended men there too.

It appears silencing women and belittling their experience is more favourable and easier to do then encouraging people to actually stand up against men and their crimes.

I haven't read these. I think it depends on how it's done but I will absolutely say yes, it's absolutely right to say that how we approach and appreciate books should be considered.

I didn't see threads being derailed by male apologists for Huw Edwards or the French case. Thank god. I'm not sure I'd have coped.

My DD would tell me what the boys in her school were like. She'd come home in tears of frustration. It seemed to escalate in Yrs 10/11/12/13 so GSCE years and Sixth Form. An example: having to sit in school lessons, next to two boys in particular who would talk across her about the sexual positions they 'made' their girlfriends do the previous night and laugh about the fact that the gf found it uncomfortable or didn't want to do it. (I've no idea if what they said was even true tbh)

She would rage at them in class, turn and ask other peers 'why are you not telling them their behaviour is inappropriate?!' and they'd just laugh at her and take the piss because she didn't have a bf. She would fire back 'well, if they're all like you two, why would I want to tolerate that level of shit'. But it just added fuel to their fire; they would then do it on purpose knowing it wound her up.

Up until the point she spoke to the teacher and I spoke to the school. She was the one who was moved away from the table onto another table which allowed the boys to just continue with that behaviour. I would regularly email/phone the school about the misogyny displayed by young boys (I was a regular PITA about this) but the teachers didn't do anything else and I wonder if it was because a) they couldn't be arsed, b) the hassle it would cause in discussing the issue with parents, c) the flack they would then receive from said parents about the fact 'that it's not my nigel' saying that...

My daughter has said it's the level and type of porn they watch and the Andrew Tate's of this world.

@DancingLions "I feel that the more rights we have gained, the more men hate us. Not all, granted but a significant amount. Too many."

I absolutely agree with this and said as much to do DD the other day. Men are hating the fact that we have more rights/control (even though it feels like we're going backwards it seems) than ever and they are beginning to lose control of that hate and it's coming out in pure violence.

I play a sport with lots of old people majority male. All seem so nice. Then I realised some of these men will have used prostitutes, viewed appalling porn, maybe hit their wives, insulted women as cunts and bitches. Statistically it must be true. But which ones? No way to tell.

I've stopped automatically smiling and "being nice" to men in general. It's bloody hard. The habit of mildly and preemptively appeasing men is embedded it seems.

A bloke asked me, at the sport I play, while a group of us including at least six men were chatting, if reading Sharpe novels made me hot and flustered. I managed to reply "oh my god why are men so pervey". Cue embarrassing silence from all but me.

100% agree

Lucy Letby is so shocking beause it flies in the face of everything we know and expect of women and nurses, particularly female nurses. That's the point. DV is so normalised, we're still seeing article after article in which a man who has murdered his wife and family is referred to as a "good guy".

The other thing worth thinking about is that while of course, so many of these men do completely slip under the radar, part of the problem is that often the smaller things ARE obvious and yet we all just ignore it. That woman on the school run who can come to the mum nights out because she has to look after the kids - where is her partner? The woman who complains to her mother that her H expects her to do all the cooking and cleaning because he earns more, and who is told, "men need women to look after them". The woman who laughs nervously as she pays for coffee because, "oh, DH is going to want to know what I've been doing when he sees this on the bank statement." In each of these scenarios, the same man might well be there on the football field supporting his kids, playing with them in the park and taking his wife on romantic meals out so that his broader community is saying, "oh, he's so lovely". But often the small little signs ARE there.

I mean, just today we're hearing again about how the police ignore MUCH bigger signs than the ones above, so it's not exactly surprising the rest of us are ignoring these small ones....

Actually, an interesting example of this from when I was a teenager. I went to uni in a different town. When I came back on holidays, it was always great to meet up with my home friends and hang out etc. One friend had a boyfriend who used to "joke" that I was a bad influence on her. We were young and dumb and so we didn't really notice the sinister undertones to this. She would occasionally say something about how he didn't like it when she came out with me, but broadly, she didn't let that stop her. In retrospect though, i suspect it did impact her behaviour on a day to day basis - it was just harder for him to justify not seeing me when I was only there for 2 weeks every few months. I do remember being very confused once though because we were housesitting for a friend of my parents for a weekend and the deal was we had to be home for their rather sensitive pets! So we were making dinner and drinking wine at home and he was having a meltdown and neither of us could figure it out. It's not like we were out clubbing.

But at some point, she broke up with him after a night out when he put his fist through a random car window because he was upset she'd been talking to someone at the bar.

I should ask her what else happened in that relationship. I was naive so I think I thought the window thing was a standalone. It' sonly now, in hindsight, that I realise it probably was just one in many many DV moments she may have experienced with him.

I'm sick to death of people bringing women offenders into these threads.

Can you imagine for a second, a woman drugging her male partner for years and inviting dozens of women over to sexually assault him??? You wouldn't even find that many women who wanted to! And it would be reported very quickly by 99% of women who were invited.

I worked in the CJS for years. The male sex offenders were so many I lost count. I had a female sex offender case once. In 20 years.

When female offenders commit a serious crime of course it hits the news. Because it's so bloody rare! Men commit awful crimes every day so sadly the only ones "worth" reporting on are those who do the absolute worst things or are famous/notorious in some way.

It is in no way comparable. Women make up 4% of the prison population. There's no space issue in women's prisons. We're not seeing women being let out at the 40% mark like men are right now. So even there, men are now serving 10% less in prison than the equivalent female offender.

Totally different. This is a list of female nurse killers world wide in the last 130 years or so as well as Lucy Letby

Amelia Dyer - late 1800s. Killed 400 infants
Daniela Poggiali - 2014. Killed 90 patients
Jane Toppan - 1901. Killed 33 patients
Genene Jones - late 1970s' early 80s. Killed 60 patients
Kimberly Saenz- 2008. Killed 5 patients
Kristen Gilbert - 1995/6. Killed unknown amount
Beverley Allitt - 1991. Killed 4 children
Elizabeth Wettlaufer- 2007-14. Killed 8 elderly patients
Gwendolyne Graham and Cathy Wood - 1987. Together Killed 5 patients

It's not that many. There might be more in fact there probably is but it is nowhere near on the scale of mens violent offending. I don't see how that is in anyway comparable.

I fully accept and understand that not all men are like that, most aren't but it takes nothing for men to be aware of why women might feel scared in a vulnerable situation.

Most men just don’t value women. It’s a sad truth. Accept it or not but at root they’re all to some extent, misogynists.

From the micro aggressions / behaviour day in day out, to the macro obvious hatred. It’s all there.

It's the responsibility of those within a demographic to police each other when there is negative behaviour. Most men cannot be bothered to do this, and just moan NOT ALL MEN before sulking like the manchildren they are. We've been trying to get them to deal with their bullshit for years, but it's never going to happen because they know it's going to take work.

This isn't going to change unless we systematically tear down patriarchy, but too many women enable and uphold it too. I honestly long for entirely man free spaces. I'd support curfews for them, even if it meant we had to restructure every day life to safeguard women and children.

Clearly there is a problem with some men committing violent offences against women. Cultural issues are behind some of that, and of course those should be addressed.

However, I don’t think men as a group can or should be held accountable for the actions of a small minority. Women as a group are clearly not responsible for the crimes of Lucy Letby just as Muslims are not to blame for 9/11.

This is classic. No one is holding men accountable. We're asking them to step up and be an active part of the solution.

To use your Muslim example - lots and lots of Muslim communities, mosques, imams etc have been actively working to address radicalism in their communities. To identify young Muslim men who might feel marginalised and are at risk of being radicalised. To support members of the community who are struggling. That does not make any of these communities or individuals responsible for the actions of actual terrorists, but they are 100% stepping up to play an active role in attempting to eradicate it.

The Patriarchy and ingrained misogyny is responsible for violence against women. Society needs to change in order to tackle it alongside prosecutions.

You can't compare female offending to male. The crime statistics speak for themselves and violence against women is not an anomaly that some men do, it thrives in an environment that doesn't respect women as human beings.

Women have been oppressed by men for centuries often backed up by the law, societal norms and religion. It's systemic and not down to a few outliers.

Sorry, did you say that they teach boys coding, but not girls? That is completely illegal.

It's nice you acknowledge there is a problem.

It's not really a small minority of men though. There's a 1 in 7 chance that a man will sexually assault you. Men's prisons have no space left.

Why are you so keen that men shouldn't play any part in being part of a group that tries their best to stop this? Muslims aren't to blame for 9/11 but what did they do? They went out into their communities and opened their places of worship and challenged radicalisation.

Why do you think men are above this?

I asked if girls could do coding and they said yes. I asked why it was worded as a boys club and the HOY spluttered and said it wasnt just for boys it was just that only boys were interested therefore it fell under the remit of a boys club but girls were welcome

I was able to get the leaflet changed after I'd sent it to the Head and Governors. They said they would consider it and only made the change after I gave them 24 hours before going to Ofsted.

I'm currently working on getting the school prospectus changed where it's all boys on the science pictures and girls on the food tech pictures

Everyone should as possible disincentivise violence and other harmful behaviour.

1 in 4 women in the UK will experience abuse and rape and sexual assault is unknown because it's so rarely reported.

The 1 in 4 stat includes sexual assault alongside domestic abuse and rape, just as the 1 in 6 stat for men does.

It may not be absolutely 100% of men, but it's always men.

No, it isn't and this mindset has no benefits, it only causes those who are harmed by a female perpetrator to feel like they can't come forward.

the ridiculous of men (mostly white men) continuing to dominate leadership roles across business, government and finance.

I can understand the point on leadership roles largely being men in some fields like government and finance, much as in education and mental health leadership is largely women - but the UK is a country with a significantly majority White population so any equitable balance of leadership would still be mostly White here.