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.

That was a harrowing account, SF. And obv consistent with the drive of the OP.

Additionally, the experience of male prisons has a different dynamic but a familiar result. Unrequested sexual action in male prisons is startlingly high. Do prison officers know of this? Of course, but it's their job to 'keep things calm' so the actions of the predatory go unregistered as the victims generally have nowhere else to go. Rather like the other soldiers who witness the abuse but say nothing.

Unrequested sexual action in female prisons is, as I understand it, quite different. Less abusive in nature and there is more of a culture of raising a complaint and for it to be dealt with appropriately.

Right. I am as guilty as anyone from thinking 'whataboutthemenz' when I see certain comments. But I accept that generally this board is not the place for that discussion. It is a focus point for women's issues.

But. But. On this subject, I think it is impossible and illogical to concentrate only on male violence towards women. And the reason is the vast majority of violent men are violent towards everyone, and the reasons that they will hit their wife or their child are the same reasons that they will hit someone at the pub, at the match, in the park etc etc. And the violence is, by and large, indiscriminate. And, if I am wrong about that and there is a large set of men who only hit women, won't the reasons for the underlying violence be the same as their counterpart football hooligan, or mugger, or serial killer?

And I could be wrong. And there may be discrete groups of men who do stuff only to women for one set of underlying reasons, and another who concentrate on beating up men. That doesn't seem logical to me, but I am willing to read and learn if this is the case.

Yes they were. But you think the majority of 'evil' is perpetrated against women, it's not.

I think someone might have very different reasons for hitting their partner (of either gender) to generally being violent, to do with controlling things domestically.

Biggedy - there is a very large swathe of men who will only hit women, and children.

I'd posted in Dadsnet yesterday about the 'explanations' offered by DVers for being so. One of them is 'I have an anger management problem'. But the proportion of those who say that have absolutely no evidence of assaulting other men is massive ( I haven't counted it but anecdotally it is massive). Their concern is to 'control' the women and children in their lives, and so other men do not fit into that category as potential victims.

x- with Doctrine

'there is a very large swathe of men who will only hit women, and children.'

How do you know that Pan?

Also, men who get into "pub fights" or whatever, is this largely with other men?

SF, because I've been working in this field for a very long time. Violence re women is v often 'instrumental', and the profile of DVers gives that creedance.

And also, because I'm male, so have perspectives and experiences of chat/banter/socialisation/general stuff that women, usually, just don't have. You pick things up, as the men on this thread will know.

Um..that seems to have been a stopper?? There's still 77 posts to go!

'I can't recall witnessing a man being violent to a women.'

I have, a fair few times, quite severe violence as well, right in front of me. I have also experienced DV, I quite literally thought I was going to die at one point!! I have been forced to take unidentified pills by some lunatic that singled me out when I was alone, and I had to make my escape swiftly. I have jumped out of a window to escape someone (a stranger) that I thought was going to rape me. I have had deeply unpleasant, unwanted sex many times (probably rape in your view).

I've witnessed shedloads of violence. Lesbian violence, DV, including both sexes. I've been punched by women (twice). I have witnessed men kick 7 bells out of each other, sometimes because of me (long story). I have been sexually assaulted by a very drunk woman.

I might add that all of this occurred before I was 25, and my circumstances were mightily different to now, then and now, for me, just aren't comparable.

That's my experience of violence, but it doesn't define me. At all.

And it doesn't make me believe that most men are evil bastards. I know that SOME men are, and I also know that I made bad choices, but they were choices all the same.

"What I think is a derail is to bring up anecdotes about violent women. Yes, we know it happens, but we also agree that it is far rarer than make violence."

It may well be a class issue, I grew up on a very rough council estate and went to a very rough high school, violent girls and women were the norm along of course with violent men and boys.

I also lived on many military bases during my first 12 years of marriage and women fighting was very common indeed, especially amongst squaddie wives.
Female violence among nice middle class women may be rare (or well hidden) , when you've had years of bullying and violence from girls then it rings kind of hollow to see such denial of female violence. My DD was also assaulted by a group of girls when she was 14 - now she's 23 and a high school teacher she deals every day with girls bullying, in fact a 14 year old girl threatened to stab her before half term.

Largely, for DV the underlying motivation, and feeling, is 'fear'. Fear that you aren't in control. Fear that you'll be seen as less of a man. Fear that 'women' in general will threaten your sense of self. Fear that someone is 'brighter' than you. Fear that in an ever-changing world you are being side-lined and can't adjust very quickly. Fear that women are no longer 'shackled' to you as a requirement to do well.
For men on men it's rather similar, re the control things.

So it's unexpressed fear really, imho.

Yes SF, I have no idea why you punched your ex-, but I'd still insist (sort of) that there was a fear factor.
Oddly also, we never get MRA types coming to Dadsnet, where there could be richer pickings. Only to FWR to wind up the feminists...

I hear a lot of people quoting statistics check these

News
Society
Domestic violence

More than 40% of domestic violence victims are male, report reveals

Campaign group Parity claims assaults by wives and girlfriends are often ignored by police and media

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Denis Campbell	
The Observer, Sunday 5 September 2010	
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DOMESTIC VIOLENCE BY WOMEN AGAINST MEN
Assaults on men represent more than 40% of domestic violence in the UK. Photograph: Sakki/Rex Features/Sakki/rex

About two in five of all victims of domestic violence are men, contradicting the widespread impression that it is almost always women who are left battered and bruised, a new report claims.

Men assaulted by their partners are often ignored by police, see their attacker go free and have far fewer refuges to flee to than women, says a study by the men's rights campaign group Parity.

The charity's analysis of statistics on domestic violence shows the number of men attacked by wives or girlfriends is much higher than thought. Its report, Domestic Violence: The Male Perspective, states: "Domestic violence is often seen as a female victim/male perpetrator problem, but the evidence demonstrates that this is a false picture."

Data from Home Office statistical bulletins and the British Crime Survey show that men made up about 40% of domestic violence victims each year between 2004-05 and 2008-09, the last year for which figures are available. In 2006-07 men made up 43.4% of all those who had suffered partner abuse in the previous year, which rose to 45.5% in 2007-08 but fell to 37.7% in 2008-09.

Similar or slightly larger numbers of men were subjected to severe force in an incident with their partner, according to the same documents. The figure stood at 48.6% in 2006-07, 48.3% the next year and 37.5% in 2008-09, Home Office statistics show.

The 2008-09 bulletin states: "More than one in four women (28%) and around one in six men (16%) had experienced domestic abuse since the age of 16. These figures are equivalent to an estimated 4.5 million female victims of domestic abuse and 2.6 million male victims."

In addition, "6% of women and 4% of men reported having experienced domestic abuse in the past year, equivalent to an estimated one million female victims of domestic abuse and 600,000 male victims".

Campaigners claim that men are often treated as "second-class victims" and that many police forces and councils do not take them seriously. "Male victims are almost invisible to the authorities such as the police, who rarely can be prevailed upon to take the man's side," said John Mays of Parity. "Their plight is largely overlooked by the media, in official reports and in government policy, for example in the provision of refuge places – 7,500 for females in England and Wales but only 60 for men."

The official figures underestimate the true number of male victims, Mays said. "Culturally it's difficult for men to bring these incidents to the attention of the authorities. Men are reluctant to say that they've been abused by women, because it's seen as unmanly and weak."

The number of women prosecuted for domestic violence rose from 1,575 in 2004-05 to 4,266 in 2008-09. "Both men and women can be victims and we know that men feel under immense pressure to keep up the pretence that everything is OK," said Alex Neil, the housing and communities minister in the Scottish parliament. "Domestic abuse against a man is just as abhorrent as when a woman is the victim."