So sad to hear another father has killed his wife and child

[spongefingeranyone]

Have heard on the news today that a recently sacked police officer has killed his wife and youngest child, with the eldest two escaping with dreadful injuries. It just makes me so sad for his family and very very angry that another father has seen fit to do this terrible thing.

My condolences to the family.

Larry you see no point in trying to change male behaviour towards women and children in the UK?

Sexual abuse
Rape
DV
Murder
Sexual assault
Street harrassment
Stalking

No point?

Sardine,

Is that known as a straw woman?

You just said that there is no point in trying to change rare behaviours. The personality / attitude that leads to all these things is rooted in the same place. Why don't you think that is worth changing?

Or do you think that the 2 women being murdered a week is completely unrelated to DV etc?

So not actually that rare.

anyway male propensity for violence is not rare

what do you think, why are men more violent Larry?

Sardine,

I see no point in pretending psychotic behaviour is part of a spectrum of societally accepted gender behaviour. I made no comment on any of your above list.

We should all do our personal best to change society for the better and set a good example to others. That includes trying to catch criminals of either sex and preventing criminal and antisocial behaviour. Personally, as I can see the ad hominem attack in this, I am bringing up both my sons to be gentle, especially to those physically weaker than them, and to be considerate to others at all times. I am also trying to encourage empathy.

I find the idea of terming generally antisocial and criminal behaviours as "male" to be offensive, probably as offensive as a modern woman considers it to be termed hysterical on account of the fact that she is in possession of a uterus. Some men behave badly, some men behave in an exemplary manner. Ditto with women.

Most violent offenders are male. Why is that offensive?

Cui,

emedicine.medscape.com/article/286227-overview#aw2aab6b2b7

The above link says that the sex ratio of anxiety disorders is 3.2/1 female to male. Thus, most hysterics are women. Are you offended by that bald statement?

One can make lots of points by bald statistical statements without any attempt at nuance or explanation.

There is clearly something wrong with a certain section of the young male populace today. That could be as much a reason for seeing them as being discriminated against as being in the ascendancy, as could the chart that I have linked to concerning anxiety disorders.

"I see no point in pretending psychotic behaviour is part of a spectrum of societally accepted gender behaviour. I made no comment on any of your above list."

Are you saying that the things on the list are psychotic? Or on a spectrum of societally accepted gender behaviour?

Do you really think that all the women murdered by people they know every year are the victims of people who have succumbed to psychotic episodes? Is there no room to consider that these murders are domestic violence? Even in cases where the men have form for domestic violence?

I am not offended by the fact that more women than men suffer anxiety conditions. Why would I be? I am interested to know why that is the cas though.

Yes the tendency to pathologise female emotion and its expression, particularly in response to life in western society, does offend but no longer startles me.

That most violent offences are committed by men is more worrying and probably provides a partial explanation for the above.

Sardine,

Read my post! I said that family annihilation was psychotic behaviour and that I had made no comment on your list. Again, there clearly are abusers that kill who are not strictly psychotic, although I do believe that physical violence towards women is not "normal" behaviour and that most abusers do have personality disorders of one sort and another, many enhanced by addiction of one sort or another.

The OP, though, is about a police officer who had no known history of DV and clearly had some form of psychotic break. His killing his family was then framed as part of a problem with the patriarchal society. It is this specific link which I disagree with.

I think the case for psychiatry being little more than an extension of male violence against women is an interesting direction for you to steer this discussion towards Larry.

Which post? We have been talking about 2 women murdered per week for ages, and your psychotic comment came in the middle of that.

I see no point in pretending psychotic behaviour is part of a spectrum of societally accepted gender behaviour

Neither do I.

Which is why I didn't say that.

I said it was an extreme on a not uncommon spectrum - that of domestic violence. I don't think domestic violence is socially accepted gendered behaviour is it? Surely most people would agree that DV is unacceptable.

The argument I am making is rather more complex and analytical than what you seem to think I am saying.

I am discussing the subject of family annihilation (extreme act), within the framework of domestic violence (not uncommon behaviour which manifests in diverse ways, some more extreme than others), within the wider framework of the power dynamic between men and women (a dynamic which is universal and forms what is commonly known to be a status quo AKA normal state of affairs AKA condoned by society at large). That power dynamic (the status quo) is gendered. Male violence against women operates within that gendered power dynamic and the socially constructed gender roles attributed to individuals according to their sex are integral to that dynamic.

The comments by the criminology experts appear to be in accordance with this analysis.

Cui,

Again, one problem is met with sympathy and an attempt to explain it away. The other (concerning men, natch) can clearly have no other explanation than men are just worthless violent creatures by nature.

Erm, no.

The other has an explanation and it would be interesting to find out for sure what it is and then tackle it.

You won't find feminists saying that men are worthless violent creatures by nature. Feminists don't like saying men are like this and women are like that and it's all natural. In fact they really hate it.

"You won't find feminists saying that men are worthless violent creatures by nature. Feminists don't like saying men are like this and women are like that and it's all natural. In fact they really hate it."

What about the stuff Sakura has posted in this thread then?

"You won't find feminists saying that men are worthless violent creatures by nature" - ah, that is why I am not a feminist. Most feminist thought makes sense and as a way of understanding and explaining the world it seems less flawed than all the others. But this stubborn belief in the humanity of men is where I have difficulty. So I can never be a feminist because they think of men as decent, rehabilitatable people.

Sympathy for anxiety disorders v sympathy for the violent, unlawful taking of human life. Anxiety v violence. Are you struggling a bit Larry?

Sardine,

True. What (certain) feminists seem to say say is "patriarchal society" causes certain attitudes and men merely express these attitudes (almost the way genes are expressed in one's character) as they cannot help be part of this oppressive hive mind. And, if they try really really hard, and listen in a submissive way to wise women, they may just reach mental escape velocity and be able to join women in the Elyssian fields where there would be no violence and everyone would be lovely to one another and split tasks in an ideal communist manner.

Well, I have no interest in the above and I am certainly not going to bring my sons up to believe in themselves as second class citizens. They will be proud to be both human beings and males and taught that both sexes have vital (and equal) roles to play within a functioning society. And that testosterone is a powerful hormone which allows men to perform both great good and great evil.

Lots of people prefer to think that incidents like this one are rare one off random psychotic incidents with no rhyme nor reason to them.

They are nothing to do with anything else in life and the individuals who commit them have some sort of random meltdown that is nothing to do with their past, their current circumstances or wider society.

In other words anybody could behave like this if something just sort of mysteriously snapped inside them and their brains broke.

Well that is fucking scary because it means any one of the people in my life could have this mysterious condition descend upon them with no warning and no explanation and they could kill me.

Thankfully such thinking is also ridiculous. There are patterns, profiles and explanations for such behaviour.

And they are gendered.

Apparently it's all hormonal. White men must have more testosterone than other men.

Beachcomber so you deny psychosis exists as condition, but is always triggered by outside influences?

Beachcomber,

You have been watching way too much "criminal minds".

Psychological profiling has a very mixed (if not downright poor) record of predicting who has the ability to commit criminal acts. There are all sorts of combinations of psychological and neurological factors which interact and we have a very poor understanding of them.

However, it is not scary. Not unless you find the idea of being struck by lightning scary. They are both possible but extremely rare events.