Not all men, but always men

[Amodernhistory]

Driving home from work tonight to the main news stories on the radio being 1) man tortures adopted baby to death and 2) man arrested after child ends up in crocodile enclosure at zoo.

I am absolutely sick of the daily onslaught of problematic men, monsters, committing outrages. That’s all, no suggestions, just AIBU to be sickened by this constant stream of beasts who live amongst us (Gisele Pelicot’s husband, recent terrorist attacks, daily murders of women by men) combined with personal experiences of men who ‘you wouldn’t have thought it to look at him’ turning out to be sex pests and paedophiles is putting me right off them as a sex class. Not your man, not your son, not my (lovely) Dad, but all the other men… how do we know which ones?

Its hard not to conclude it’s a man problem.

I think we have to change how we view this….. it’s no longer a ‘man’ problem, it’s becoming a society problem. By saying it’s a man problem suggests the men just need to adjust their ways. However I think it’s well beyond that point and we all need to address the problem, which no doubt has many root causes (single mums, poverty, unemployment, social media etc).

On that point, it’s why I don’t like male nursery workers. Maybe not ‘all men’ but statistically more likely to be a man. Yet for some reason a lot of women seem to want more men in these roles irrespective of all the recent news reports of men in these settings doing despicable things.

I may be overly harsh but if his mental capacity is so rubbish he thinks throwing a 3 year old he doesn’t know into a crocodile enclosure is okay, then he shouldn’t be on day release or allowed near the public.

Might upset people but I care more about the kid who was mauled by crocodiles personally. Sorry if he has issues but it’s not up to society to be put in danger to ‘be kind’ to those who can’t coexist with us.

Yes, a colleague's son was left with brain damage after being attacked by random strangers whilst waiting for taxi.

A young colleague was jumped by a group of young men while he was waiting in the bus station.

Yes, this reminds me of the horrific case of the young man who pushed the French boy from the balcony of the Tate Modern and left him fighting for his life and permanently disabled even after a very long process of some recovery.

I don't think it helps anybody to conflate 'standard' male aggression and violence, as shown by so many men, with people who clearly have severe mental health issues and/or learning disabilities which cause them to do appalling things, just because they happen to be male.

Even that case was different though. Jonty Bravery likely had a personality disorder as well as autism, and his actions were clearly malicious and calculated/ planned in advance. The crocodile enclosure incident was most likely as a result of having very little mental capacity, let alone the capacity to plan ahead. But yes, risk assessments are usually undertaken before taking someone into a public place who is known to be unpredictable and is in the care of others.

My point is, I don't think he 'thinks' at all, in the usual sense. My mum used to work with severely mentally disabled people, and it's those who come to mind. But yes, as I said in my previous post, scrutiny will likely be on the effectiveness of his carers' risk assessments.

“No longer” a man problem??
When was it ever defined as a man problem?
Male violence has always been considered at least as much of a woman problem (why was she dressed like that/in that neighbourhood etc) or an inevitability like earthquakes or volcanoes but almost never a problem that MEN in general need to solve.

So you think women with learning disabilities are equally likely to throw a random child off a balcony or into a crocodile enclosure?? FFS

It’s BECAUSE he’s male that his MHD or LD express themselves in extreme violence to more vulnerable people around him. The MH issues mean that his male violence isn’t held in check by societal norms. That’s all.

Exactly this. It's not all men of course, but it is nearly always men. Some people think it's some kind of gotcha when they say 'yeah but wot about wimmin?!' And then they go on to name about 5 or 6. The fact that they can name them shows how rare it is. When it comes to men, it's impossible to name them all because there's so many.

The vast VAST majority of violent crime is committed by men: fact. Despite the NAMALT brigade coming on here trying to defend men. As has been said, if the amount of violent crime committed by men was equal to the amount committed by women, the entire UK would only need about 10 police officers.

Women are overwhelmingly the abusers of children

Women will murder 25 million children this year for convenience

Women are overwhelmingly the parents / guardians / teachers of the men involved in those crimes

Certainly if you look at any one type of crime, only a minority of men commit it. But not necessarily a small minority.

See the post upthread about men who admit they have or would abuse a child - 1 in 3 admit they would if they could definitely get away with it.

Similar surveys on rape give similar results - if you avoid using the word 'rape' and express it as something like 'make woman have sex with you when she doesn't want to' you get similar figures. Would if they knew they'd get away with it, 1 in 3; admit to having done it, 1 in 6. (That particular one was US college students, so not old enough to have had much opportunity yet; a recent meta-analysis covering more countries and age groups gave very slightly lower numbers, but only marginally.)

So a minority, yes. And we can probably guess there's a near 1-1 overlap between those 2 groups. But that's still one-third of men who admit they would commit the most serious sex crimes. There are bound to be more who don't admit it, or who would happily carry out more minor versions. That's a pretty big minority.

And there won't be a complete overlap between those who do/would commit sex crimes and those who would commit murder, robbery, violent assault ...

Are we still confident the total is under half?

I'd like to be. I really would. I'm not.

As for the warning from @MrFlintstone that someone might be riled up by this thread and 'do something stupid'. We know what - and who - that means, don't we?

Not a woman going on a rampage against men. Not a man going on a rampage against men. If it happens, it will be men who do it, and women will be targets. (In a response specifically to the anti-immigration posts there's a possibility that men would also be targeted, as the recent Belfast riots showed, but not only men.)

Yes, this. I'm never sure what the point is of starting these kinds of threads. We're all fully aware of the appalling endemic problem in society of violent and abusive men, and that the number of female offenders is vastly lower.

However, by framing it in that sensationalist way, it often seems an excuse to paint women as pure as the driven snow - i.e. by claiming that "It's always men", you're logically trying to claim that "It's never women", which we all know to be false. Women commit far fewer serious crimes than men; not none.

If 101 children were murdered and 100 of those murders were committed by men, every single one of those murders would be just as devastating to the victims and their families. How does it help anybody to minimise what the female murderer has done just because a hundred times as many murders were committed by men? Would the family of that one child who was murdered by a woman take solace in the fact that the vast majority of other murder victims are killed by men, or maybe feel that their own devastation should be mitigated and downplayed on that basis?

Women are overwhelmingly the abusers of children
Rubbish

Women will murder 25 million children this year for convenience
Equally rubbish

It’s awful and I’m in no way a man hater - I know a lot of decent men (friends, dh’s of friends, husband, past colleagues), but appreciate that men as a species are problematic esp in certain cultures.

My DCs’ teacher (they both had him in secondary), turned out to be a paedophile accessing images online. He was my DS form tutor and it really affected him as he’d put trust in this man who’d helped him w some of his issues. He was a bit of a legend - all the kids liked him. When I think about the horror who abused Preston I also feel bad for his ex-pupils and colleagues in this way too.
Unf he didn’t get a custodial sentence and my DCs have since seen him around locally.

‘Women will murder 25 million children this year’ Are you referring to abortion here? If so, I think the number is actually about three times that. Abortion isn’t murder though so not relevant to this discussion in any case. Apologies if I misunderstood your point.

Baby P was murdered by his step dad, but his mum allowed it to happen

And here we have it, folks.

Vile misogyny proudly displayed for all to see.

They walk among us.

I'm still recovering for the post just upthread who calls it a society problem and lists 'single mums' as the first of the possible root causes. These 'single mums' presumably budded their offspring off like sea anemones and cactus can do.

For my daughters futures and safety I hope they are lesbians or asexual. And even that won't protect them from male violence.

Whilst I agree, I do think that we have to talk about agency.

Because effectively you are excusing women for a variety of reasons including mental illness, being too weak, addicted, helpless, choosing abusive bf over child.

I feel that pretty much anyone doing this awful sh*t is mentally ill. The awful man and his male partner have to be either mentally ill or addicted to do what they're doing with that poor kid.

I think that women who condone or permit or facilitate abuse should be just as culpable.

And so I dont think many women should get the free pass that some would like to give them. Same way I don't think that men should be given a free pass for "going along with" some disgusting behaviour.

It paints that picture of women being helpless when we've spent decades trying to insist that women are as good as men if not better.

Lucy Letby springs to mind...

if the amount of violent crime committed by men was equal to the amount committed by women, the entire UK would only need about 10 police officers.

Regardless of the rest of your post this statement is absolute BS with no foundation.

I don’t think it helps that thousands of working class white girls were ignored and labelled “promiscuous” when reporting that they had been raped by Pakistani Muslim grooming gangs. And that authorities turned a blind eye so they didn’t appear racist. Police wouldn’t always record ethnicity or demographics to avoid tensions.
so whilst a lot of white men are disgusting and perverted you can’t be ignorant enough to say “ men with black and brown” faces barely made a ripple because it isn’t true

The white men just called the girls “slags” who were asking for it. Not sure they’re getting off the hook here.