So many evil men...can't stand it

[SplitHeadGirl]

First of all, I know fully well that men will get upset at what I think and am about to say, so I would like to clarify that I am talking about EVIL men, not the good, wonderful dads and granddads and husbands and nice single blokes out there....the ones who I KNOW (my brain, not my gut, tells me so) are in a majority, but who seem to be few (is it their deafening silence?)

But any fool can see that the sheer amount of men, who are prepared to do unspeakable things to women and girls (and boys as well as other men, not to mention the vulnerable and the elderly...wow, the list goes on) is just overwhelming. I read today about Anene Booysen, and I was absolutely heartbroken, but yet not shocked. For men to be so diabolical to women is not shocking anymore, and that is men's greatest tragedy.

I have two little daughters, and a little son, and I fear for them at the hands of men. Not women...just men.

I feel like I am thinking out loud with this post, so no worries if no one feels they can respond. I just wish I didn't feel so helpless at the tsunami of male violence.

You quote the survey of lesbians. I know that lesbians will rightly identify one off incidents as abusive that Het women seem to gloss over. A shove will be identified in that survey as domestic abuse. I know, because I completed one.

The reality is that it is rare for lesbian couples to identify the ongoing abuse that is more common in Het relationships. I am not saying it never happens, it does.

But I know for example a lesbian who ahs been labelled as abusive by her friends because she shoved her partner in public. They have split up and her partner says this is the only time she had ever done this. I think in lesbian couples there is much more willingness to label behaviour like this as abuse and much less willingness to accept it.

What I am trying to say, is you are not comparing like with like.

Unfortunately I have seen posters many times accuse women of being stepford wives for simply enjoying all aspects of homemaking and not wanting their husbands to do certain household tasks.
I'm glad that lots of people don't take that view, but sadly it is a view that I have seen far too often on this website.

kareningalasmith.com/2013/04/29/this-thing-about-male-victims/

so, no, not very common as it turns out

Yes, just about all of that article is authentic and provides the back-stories to the simple reporting and registering of DV between the sexes. I'd only quibble with the assertion that men are 'more likely to report abuse from a woman'. Really tricky and something the author claims but then body-swerves.

But overall though when interviewing identified male DV abusers of women, none of them state that violence was role modelled for them by seeing mum knock 10 kinds of shit out of dad. Where there is a stated familial effect the story is always dad-on-mum, as a means of problem-solving.

I find these claims about men being victims of DV by anything approaching the same degree as women to be ridiculous. It's perfectly easy to see it's untrue however it's becoming a form of gaslighting by MRAs to hide the truth about male violence against women. If it were true, we would hear the children's accounts of it as we do with male violence, as Pan said.

I rarely post here, or on the Rel. board now, but it reminds me of the 'ground-hog day' feeling. Same stuff. Over and over again.

Plenty of threads about abusive women on these boards. Mothers, mothers-in-law, sisters. These women are also wives in many cases.

I agree, Flora, and I admire those of you who keep entering the "groundhog day" scenario on this issue as it's important to resist the blanket gaslighting. If it isn't resisted it will become a "truth." I find it upsetting and frustrating and difficult to argue against, so the article that Julia has just linked to is really helpful and interesting.

I think part of the problem is how we define, use and talk about the terms 'domestic violence' and 'domestic abuse'.

I don't know how many women kill their partners every year but I suspect it is much much fewer than the number of men who kill their partners. Anyone arguing otherwise is probably not going to get very far.

Physical attack in a relationship is a type of domestic abuse but not all domestic abuse takes the form of physical attack.

I think it would be better to talk about domestic abuse generally and violence within that.

Yes, if you want to obfuscate the reality of male violence and the impact it has on women, to deny the gendered nature of domestic violence and to avoid women naming the problem in an effort to find a resolution, it would be better to talk about domestic abuse generally.

Thanks rosabud

Yes that's exactly what I want.

A lot of people, both women and men, do not understand that they are being abused because they have never been hit.

I'd disagree Billy - I'd wish to separate out the acts of violence from financial/emotional abuse very very clearly. Impact wise, life-threatening-wise, evidence wise, shaming wise, enforcement wise - it;s much 'cleaner' and apparent and so much more accountable.

The number of men killed by partners ( both gay and straight) is about 1 and a bit per week. Thats a stat about 5 yrs old. From a Parliamentary enquiry, the source for which I've long lost.

Then it has to be clear that violence doesn't mean other types of abuse. The terms seem to be used interchangeably and/or the impression can be given that violence is the only abuse. As I understand it violence tends not to appear without the other abuses also being present or being present first.

Also I've had a couple of people say to me that the physical violence in their relationship was the least worst bit of the abuse. Other abuses can be extremely destructive. Obviously there is no coming back from being dead.

I dunno. People mostly know that being physically attacked by their partner is wrong but don't necessarily spot the other types of abuse so building up awareness of that is also important.

As outsiders looking in, reading newspaper reports we may think 'but why didn't she leave him? I would never stay with a man who hit me' because we don't understand that the victim has normally been 'groomed' to accept that often with the use of other types of abuse.

According to this 2011 BBC article, the figures for people killed by a partner (gender unspecified) is women: almost 100/year, men: 21/year. So 5x as many women as men, and nowhere near 1 and a bit a week. It would be interesting to know the respective sources of the data used to make that article and the source you are remembering, Pan.

yes the "figures show" is pree-ty vague. The Parliamentary enquiry result was quite startling, to me anyway, and part of a very large DV research project over the previous few years I recall.

I'd disagree Billy - I'd wish to separate out the acts of violence from financial/emotional abuse very very clearly. Impact wise, life-threatening-wise, evidence wise, shaming wise, enforcement wise - it;s much 'cleaner' and apparent and so much more accountable.

Emotional abuse can be just as devastating as physical abuse. Emotional abuse can lead to self harm, anorexia and suicide so it is also very accountable. I don't think we can underestimate the impact that emotional abuse has.
Children witnessing physical domestic abuse can be very emotionally damaging, but witnessing a parent have significant loss of esteem and be emotionally abused on a daily basis can also be very damaging. I don't think its necessary to separate the different forms of abuse to the extent of deciding that one form is more accountable as it effectively minimises some of the forms of abuse.

'If it isn't resisted it will become a "truth."'

This is how feminism became 'mainstream'. People never bother to check 'facts', just swallowed what was said wholesale. Most of feminism is opinion, not fact.

The desperate efforts to inflate stats indicating violence against women here in the UK, by adding just about any conceivable situation (including non-violent situations) as DV, is extremely misleading and distasteful.

It's not a sodding competition, both sexes deserve compassion and help.

Duchesses - 2 a week is current partner or expartner. The most dangerous time for a woman is often when she tries to leave her partner.

And if we don't recognise the truth of any situation, how can we hope to solve it? Physical violence is a crime carried out mostly by men. Against other women, and men.

You can pretend it is otherwise, but we will never tackle this until we admit the nature of the problem.

No you are right Sigmund it isn't a competition. So why are MRAs desperate to make it so? Why are they denying women's reality? As Flora said you only have to look around you to see what that reality is. It is women being intimidated with street harassment. It is women fleeing to shelters to get away from abusive partners. It is women being murdered by abusers. It is men that make up 95% of the prison population. These are facts.

Where is the compassion for women from MRAs Sigmund? What feminists are trying to do will ultimately benefit men. A world with less violence would be good for everyone.

Sig, do you think that a man in a heterosexual relationship is just as likely to be in physical danger from his partner than vice versa? Is that what you mean by inflated stats?

At the same time - I think it is important to talk about all types of domestic abuse. I think emotional abuse is an issue for both men and women. But that's a separate issue to male violence.

It is a separate issue but not totally separate as the thread is about men being evil - not necessarily just violent. The title of the thread is about men being evil.
Evil takes many forms and does not always involve violence. Heck, if we are going to include all types of evil behaviour then we should also be looking at child custody issues, people using children as pawns when relationships break down. As well as emotional abuse, financial abuse, sexual abuse, physical abuse, peer bullying. I dont know if some of those types of abuse might be more evenly distributed between male and female perpetrators (or even more likely to be committed by females) but it would be interesting to know. If they are more evenly spread then does that make women as evil as men in some respects? Should we feel ashamed for those types of abuse where women are equally culpable? Should we need to feel a sense of responsibility as women?
Personally I only take responsibility for my own actions and those of my children and will not feel any guilt for the actions of others.