Will the world ever be safer for girls and women?

[CactusSammy]

I haven't posted before, but I absolutely despair at the state of men, and worry for the future of girls and women.

Maybe I'm overreacting, but I'm so sick of the way men behave towards us, without any concept of the distress their actions cause. My teenage daughter has just started college, and gets the train there. The college have called me today, saying that she is very upset as she saw two men filming her at the train station.

For context, she was wearing jeans, trainers, and a non revealing top (not that it would make it ok, whatever she was wearing). The men were approx mid 20s.

I thought men my age were bad, but it seems the young ones aren't any better. I know it's not all men, but it really takes the piss when a young girl can't even go to college without being harassed, and made to feel scared, vulnerable, and intimidated.

I know its just some twats at the train station, but its really upsetting for a young girl. When she was 14 I let her walk to the corner shop five minutes away with her friend, and on the way back two grown men in a van shouted 'show us your tits' at them. What the hell is wrong with men?

Is the world ever going to be safer for women and girls? Sadly, as long as there are men around, I really don't think so.

Men having women put their hands up their kilts is awful. Those women are terrible. However- that was the experience of one group of men (doesn't make it OK) whereas almost every single woman will have had a bloke try to put their hand up their skirt, grab their tit, push up against them or worst at least once, and very often when they are still young teenagers growing into their bodies. It does NOT make women doing it to men ok - but surely the reaction of a man finding it so awful should be "wow, imagine how awful that must be for a 16 year old in a restaurant."

Also - I agree that it is horrible and must have been really horrible for the men in the band. But what happens when you bring these male experiences into discussions about sexual harrasment of females is that OTHER MEN think/say "wahey, I wouldn't mind that myself". You make the two experiences the same, and then men will argue that they wouldn't mind it so its not that bad and since its the same for women, its not that bad for them either.

Its why, while I do think we need to talk about men and male victims of violence/sexual harrassment, you also need to sometimes (maybe on a thread about girls and women on a feminism board on a female dominated chatboard) be able to talk about just female victims. Otherwise it gets derailed again and again and again.

@Namechangeforadhd said;
I wonder whether there may have been a 'sweet spot' when laws were already in place to help female equality, but males hadn't found new ways of oppressing females (eg gender ideology) and the Internet, and therefore Internet porn, wasn't so ubiquitous.

This. I believe that sexual entitlement is the last bastion of western male supremacy which they are not willing to give up. Porn is both a cause and an effect in that way.

we don't only have to deal with openly sexist, dangerous, woman-hating males, but also with 'I'm far more oppressed than you, and terribly progressive and must have my way as otherwise I'll kill myself' males.

Right. They are finding newer, more dishonest ways to hold onto privilege than openly bleating at us to know our place.

And that’s enough internet for me today. JFC.

Also, a singer in the actual red hot chilli peppers (not the pipers) had sex with a 14 year old girl, boasted about how great it was and then wrote a whole song about how great having sex with 14 year old catholic school girls is. Do you think the red hot chilli pipers should be expected to spend as much time lamenting this as you think we should lament the action of the women who harrased them (and none of us are fans of those women/named our bands after those women). Or does this all only go one way for you?

I think as soon as one thing gets better, something else pops up. I think that's also true with other social issues and democracy. You need constant vigilance and retaining rights is an ongoing process, not a goal you eventually reach and then everyone can rest. I don't think there is some inexorable process by which "the arc of history bends towards justice" but I do think individual decisions people make can make things better so work on doing that. The men filming your daughter were twats, but it is good that you took it seriously, and her teacher and safeguarding took it seriously. It would have been so much worse for her if she had had her experiences brushed of and I know people whose parents did that :(

My mother was a teenager when she got together with my dad.

Things are literally changing. For the better. Every year. World wide.

Violence against women shows no sign of changing, not even in the first world let alone the third world. That's why we aren't safe and never will be.

No they bloody well aren't.

They literally are. Every year. Every month. Practically every day. Things are getting better world wide for everyone but especially women.

What is wrong with you? What a crock of shit!

No, they are not. Wake up.

Really?

Over one million VAWG related crimes were recorded during 2022/23, accounting for 20% of all police recorded crime.
Police recorded VAWG related crime increased by 37% between 2018/2023.

https://news.npcc.police.uk/releases/call-to-action-as-violence-against-women-and-girls-epidemic-deepens-1#:~:text=Over%20one%20million%20VAWG%20related,37%25%20between%202018/23.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/jul/23/violence-against-women-national-emergency-england-wales-police

Yeah mate thanks for the chat gpt. All over the world you say? Tell that to the women in Afghanistan for whom even speaking aloud has been outlawed.

The idea that everything is better for women is a bit like the argument that there's no 'real poverty': It lacks any nuance. So yes, far more women have the vote, just as yes, the poor aren't in Dickensian workhouses. But the ultimate structural problems are still very much present. And that is true even in the global North where the patriarchy is clearly going strong, evidenced by the strength of gender ideology which is basically nothing more than pure misogyny.

@Zahariel
I take it this means you won't admit you got your facts about VAW wrong. You're doubling down instead. It's unprincipled behavior, but you do you.

VAWG isn’t going up, on a historical scale at all. If you zoom out far enough, as in not looking at years looking at decades which is what anyone looking at the history of this subject would do. VAWG is going g significantly down. Waldo reporting is going up. Rightfully. As it’s easier to do so and people are believed.

things are much much much better now than they ever ever have been for the entire planet on pretty much every scale.

Just looked up the couple omg

In Afghanistan women can't speak outside and are being stoned, five countries in the world don't have a minimum age for marriage and Iraq wants 9 year olds to marry.

In the US children get married, mostly girls with older men. The UK has one of the lowest rates for rape conviction and a quarter of women will experience abuse. 83% of victims don't report rape.

The West is an outlier when it comes to women's rights and even then, violence against women is considered a crisis. There is no country in the world with gender parity.

In Somalia 99% of girls have their genitals mutilated. In Egypt nearly 100% of women are sexually harassed outside the home. In Nigeria only 30% of women are in the workforce.

Strangely in countries which are meant to have more gender parity they have high rates of domestic abuse.

Although you're right that in the West, life has dramatically improved for women, there are still high rates of VAWAG. Worldwide they're astronomical and of course that doesn't include all the other oppression women face.

There's a long way to go.

It has never been safe for women and girls and never will be

I feel much safer now, at 60, than I did 40 years ago. I suspect much of that is down to becoming invisible.

From what I hear from younger people, though, the situation for women in the workplace at least has improved no end from when I was a young, big breasted blonde and had to run the gauntlet of the dealing room every day. Comments that were par for the course then would have someone disciplined or dismissed now.