it's not a tiny minority is it

[noddyington]

I do not know any women who have not had something bad or intimidating happen to them in their lifetime. Whether that be cat calling, followed, talked down to, pushed out of spaces, pushed over for promotion, assaulted, stalked, raped or murdered.

I do not know any women who have not changed their behaviour to try and keep themselves safe. It might be walking with keys between their fingers, getting a taxi when they'd rather walk, covering their drink when they are at a bar, not responding when a guy intimidates/heckles at them because it's safer, run or jog in groups, don't wear headphones walking late a night.........

AIBU to say that it's not a tiny minority of men is it?

This is it because some men can and do and will flex that muscle of self restraint. But far too few. I do think it is a muscle and when they grow to think empathy is a dirty word that muscle shrivels up.

this is such a good point, and of course that they are entitled to whatever they want because society tells them they can do as they please, preferably with legs akimbo taking up as much space as possible.

So. What makes that section of men - however many it is - be the ones who are respectful and considerate of women?

I'm lucky enough to know many men who are good men, who do stand up, speak out, who have cut ties with bad men, intervened, dropped work projects, etc.

How do we increase the number of good men?

So you've already gone from 'all' to '80%'. If we give you an hour will you come down even further?

@LumberPainJackie I think the issues OP is considering is the entire man problem - the patriarchy that uses women in porn, in work, in family life then creates a legal system where most men will get off without a conviction when they abuse a woman.

You're looking to the wrong places for the solution to the problem. The legal system isn't the answer. The men committing these crimes don't care about the legal system, and would not care if they were given a criminal conviction.

The answer comes from communities. Men's behaviour is regularly excused and forgiven by their friends and families. Men who have criminal convictions for child abuse or domestic abuse seem to have absolutely no difficulty finding a new partner.

If abusive men were isolated from their communities, and if they were told that no one wanted to have anything to do with them, then the behaviour of these men would instantly change overnight.

MVAWG risk factors included a lack of male role models.

So - mentoring, maybe.

@ArabellaScott this country's culture is also sexist and dangerous for women. Not least because of the propensity for drink-fuelled violence. In fact, I'd suggest tackling alcohol might have a huge impact on MVAWG.

Yes, this is a perfectly sensible perspective.

If alcohol was banned outright in UK, then violence against women should decrease massively.

I support this blanket ban on alcohol.

You can't even be bothered to find the studies and understand the research so I won't bother further but here, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30358432/ is an actual study. Women look very few times a year compared to men and it isn't explained if this is with their partner or through their own choice. Knock yourself out. I won't engage with some bloke trying to win the argument with "but women look at porn too" when this is about male violence.

Is this accurate? My local community is fucking vociferous about abusive men.

I don't think its outwith the norm, tbh? Local young men up in court for abuse can expect to - at best - lose all their friends. There are 'vigilante' type of groups who share information on social media about them. Most of the teen boys/men I know are FIERCE about men who abuse.

I think that this is true as far as it goes, but kind of incomplete.

Men are naturally much more sexually driven and physically aggressive aggressive compared to women. There are solid biological and evolutionary reasons for this.

It is what it is. Sometimes it's useful, but it's also potentially dangerous and so it needs to be socially controlled.

As a society, I think we are falling down on that in some important ways. We do make sexual assaults illegal. They are in general looked at unfavourable through the population. We try and teach kids that sexual violence is not ok. Those are all good things.

But they are all also kind of cognitively managed things. They depend on someone thinking, oh, that's not good.

What we don't do well is understand the nature of sexual feelings and try and make sure men and women develop healthy sexual lives, or have good tools for self-control.

For example, we explicitly sexualise so many things publicly that kids are exposed to sexualised material from quite a young age. I suspect this contributes to the development of things like fetishes and it absolutely contributes to how young men learn to think about girls.

It's not worth much telling them, don't sexualise girls, when they see it constantly on tv, the music industry, and in the kinds of clothes and things that are marketed to women. The sex drive is lizard brain stuff, you can say all you want it's not sexual, they know it is because they experience it that way (and it is intended that way, mainly as a way to make money.)

Porn is the same but even worse, pushing the development of disregulated and more and more edgy sexual appetites.

People tell themselves that their fantasy life or viewing etc don't affect anything real, but it's just false.

We've also let people develop this idea that everyone needs to have access to sex, it's kind of abnormal for people not to be sexually active, and it's unfair and cruel to allow someone to live a sexless life.

We do nothing to teach young people actual tools to help with sexual desires that aren't appropriate to express. That's not easy for a lot of people, and I thinks sometimes women really underestimate how difficult that can be for young men. You hear people now talk about food noise a lot, and sex is at least as compelling as that for a lot f young men. They need tools to help cope when they are finding it is a problem.

We've really neglected a lot of this, and I mostly blame the sex positivity movement.

how did you go from 'tackling alcohol' to a 'total ban'?

Are you just here to sneer, or are you interested in perhaps offering somethign useful?

Thank you @LumberPainJackie

This exactly

I disagree with this because women come in all sizes and strengths but funnily enough strong, super tall women don't attack small women just because they can.

I agree to some extent but a big part of why communities accept them back is fear, because they don't get locked up and the community isn't protected from them. If you knew the bloke you reported for beating his wife half to death was going to be back home in a few hours, you'd be keen to look like a good neighbour too, no matter your sex. So sadly the law does have an impact on communities and how they report and respond to VAWG. Also tagging is a clear issue with a large % of men being released from prison with no ankle tag fitted for months while on probation, probation services not having the time or funding to actually track them... That is on the legal system as an issue when they know what these men are capable of. Communities are often victims too.

Why are you being rude? I said I agreed with your perspective.

"Tackling alcohol" means banning it. There's no point in trying to get people to change their behaviour, or drinking less, because so long as alcohol can be freely purchased and consumed then people will continue to drink too much.

You can’t stop couple having a bottle of wine with dinner because of predatory men. This site is bonkers!

Do you think part of your issue might be that you've decided anyone who disagrees with you is a man?

I responded to the wrong post, and I edited my post to say so within 20 seconds so why on EARTH are you coming at me?

I can only surmise that you meant to quote someone else. Otherwise your response is ridiculous.

.

@LumberPainJackie because they don't get locked up and the community isn't protected from them. If you knew the bloke you reported for beating his wife half to death was going to be back home in a few hours, you'd be keen to look like a good neighbour too, no matter your sex.

There's no requirement to interact with these people or speak to them. I have nothing to fear from someone who beats his wife.

If someone is convicted of rape or domestic abuse and sent to people, then the correct course of action is to isolate that person. End all dialogue with them. Delete their phone number and don't answer their phone calls. Don't interact with them if you bump into them in public. Don't let them inside your house. Don't respond to messages they send on the internet.

No one convicted of these crimes should be able to come out of prison and simply have a friendship circle, a social circle, and be able to find a new romantic partner as if nothing happened. They should be fully isolated and not permitted to have any new romantic relationships.

I think it’s one of those issues where there are loads of intersecting reason, all of which have some validity but it probably boils down to a single simple foundation, in the case of male violence/sexual assaults against women they are simply stronger. They have an innate advantage and one that women cannot make up for or ignore. When it comes down to it, if discussion, reasonable behaviour, moral expectations, ethical considerations etc get pushed aside then a man will in most cases be able to overpower us physically, it’s like an automatic (nearly) guaranteed win card that they can failsafe to.

Not a tiny minority, no, unfortunately 😔 hopefully a minority though. I know many wonderful men, my DH and 5 sons among them, who don't see women as less than them and who don't use their physical size and strength to intimidate women.

I don't know the cause - do they hate women or do they perceive women as weaker than them so act out their own inadequecies on women? Men who manipulate, control and abuse women are not strong and confident in their own identity - they are weak which is why they have the need to control or intimidate. Abuse, including sexual assault and rape are about power and control. Needing to have power and control over women is indicative of a weak inadequate man.

I think you missed the idea that if you report a violent man and he is released you might be on his list to visit when he is released.
This is why communities do not report.

To add that ankle tagging is now meant to be more restrictive for the perps, as in they will be confined to a smaller area rather than the victim told they are out and not meat to be within a 1 mile radius, thus limiting the victim's safe area. However as I said they aren't doing a great job with tagging so no one is safe-the perps will be prime suspect if something happens to their previous target and they won't have the back up of the tag as an alibi. The system is screwed. It also does mean however they are likely to be back home with mum and dad or family, thus back into a community who knows full well what they are capable of and likely wary of getting on the wrong side of them.

There are batshit women and batshit men, there are also some really great men and some really great women. The few that overstep the line are in the minority.

In England and Wales, about 78% of people dealt with by the criminal justice system are male, while 22% are female. [gov.uk] Many violence-against-women offences are committed by men, particularly serious sexual offences and partner violence. However, a relatively small proportion of men are responsible for a large share of such offending

One statistic that is often overlooked in online debates is that the majority of women are not victims of violent crime in a given year. The Crime Survey for England and Wales estimated that in the year ending March 2024:
6.6% of women experienced domestic abuse,
4.0% experienced stalking,
3.4% experienced sexual assault. [ons.gov.uk]

Those are serious numbers and absolutely matter, but they also imply that the offending behaviour is concentrated within a minority of the population rather than being something done by most men.

That position acknowledges the reality of violence against women without unfairly labelling millions of decent men, including husbands, fathers, sons, brothers, friends and colleagues, as potential offenders.

But the sad fact is that men are physically stronger than us and those that do offend use violence against us and whilst women have been speaking up, the message has not be given the importance and value it deserved so we must louder, we must make it unacceptable and this idea that we must hide ourselves away from men because if they then fail to control themselves, its our fault, just needs to be completely knocked on the head.

On the other hand I did get sexually assaulted in an empty church (or so I thought), by a married male acquaintance, I decked him and read the riot act (he was way bigger than me but he was just chancing his luck). Roll forward 20 years and the Police contacted me saying I may have been the victim of an assault and it appears he had gone further with others and they were just piecing the picture together. They had made a freedom of information request at the church (he struck again there) and my name came up from 20 years earlier because I had told the church at the time.

I should have reported him to the Police and then perhaps others would have not been victims. But in that era, it was common place to have your bum pinched, boob squashed or sexual comments made and women were sadly used to fending them off and I would have been laughed out of the police station. It wasn't right but it was an accepted challenge.

And there are good men out there that do not want to be represented by the violent nature of the minority of men who commit these acts. I come from a family of rough male diamonds, they can hold their own (all ex miners, rugby players etc) but they look after any women in their lives and I have never felt fear in their presence from them or those around them as they make me feel safe.

Lets not forget the men that get it right!

OK but you're not typical.Many women DO want to go to parties and pubs, travel to where they want to get to without needing a chaperone, have interesting friendships with both men and women, have a career and some independence. You may have avoided assault but you must see that you have circumscribed your own life. Women shouldn't have to be shut away because MEN don't know how to behave.

It's always been too simplistic. I'm not sure how people believe that it's the case tbh.

It strains credulity to think there are no men or even women who are willing to harm other people to satisfy a sexual urge.