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.

Someone posted earlier "We can walk on the fucking moon FGS. We produced television, the internet, non-stick pans. We abolished the death penalty,"

We??? Really? Actually, it was men who achieved all those things.

We can't have our cake and eat it. We can't look at the bad in our society and split it male/female because it suits us to do so, and then take the good and claim it was "we".

Male violence against women is not an issue that should divide men and women. It's an issue that should divide violent and non violent people. When a woman is murdered by a man, she leaves behind sons, brothers, husbands, fathers, uncles and nephews, all of whom are victims of the crime.

The idea that decent men should beat themselves up over the action of scumbags is crazy. Unless you expect the average bloke to feel proud of being a man because men walked on the moon and invented the internet.

Should decent white people feel ashamed because of race hate crime . Should all drivers feel ashamed because of the number of pedestrians killed by motorists. Just bonkers.

As for the way Roxanne has been treated on this thread for airing an alternative view, it's appalling.

Well why indeed. Their whole inaction in this is pretty shocking really. Anyone would think that there may be some advantage to being allowed much more scope to be violent. Oh wait...

Inde. You seem like a good sort so I don't want you to think feminists hate men.

I know that Kasey. And I can understand the anger, especially by those who have experienced this violence. I can also see though how statements like the one I quoted could be used by MRA's against feminists. I do agree with a lot of what feminists say but I have no time for MRA's.

What a vile, man-hating thread this is. If you want to know why women turn away from your ideology, it's this rancid pile of hate, masquerading as feminism.

How can anyone read this back and not see how hate filled it is? Shameful.

Calling Roxanne a handmaiden was a cheap shot fired by someone who deserved a lot less adulation than she got, frankly. Pitiful behaviour.

That was to backonthefence.

Hmm it wasn't solely down to men, in fact the Internet was down to a woman but hey ho women's history gets erased all the time and women were prevented from having education for centuries.

However the "we" Basil as referring to was society. But if men can do all those things they can stop male violence.

And no it shouldn't be dividing the sexes. Stating that violence is gendered as in more men perpetrate it, is not dividing the sexes. It is naming the problem. That doesn't mean the sexes have to be divided in finding a solution. But if you aren't even going to admit the problem how can you find a solution?

It is hate filled I agree Sigmund. All these people just accepting men can be violent. Not actually wanting to address it is incredibly hateful against men. It seems to suggest that men are naturally more violent. That's not very nice is it?

Absolutely Inde, the place where I work is full of men who are the same and it's a joy. I think a lot of it depends on where you work and like I say I do think a lot has changed.

One of the problems today is of course the Internet. Witness the death threats and abuse that Caroline Criado Perez experienced and the way lots of men talk about women there.

The issue though: there has to be something that accounts for the gender skew in violence and I think we need to get to the bottom of what that is.

And if there is no gender skew then why does it appear so in the media? is the media trying to make us afraid with their voyeuristic fascination of female victimisation and body parts?

And women didn't do those things because they were busy bearing ten children each, being denied an education and being barred from the workforce. We,ve only been given even partial access to the world of work for maybe 50 years out of 200000 yrs of human evolution. Just before anyone starts with a "men are more driven and focused and that's why they invent the electric light bulb/act out their aggression to get what they want". Like they are a power and we are mere observers. It's a load of rubbish.

We are actually very similar - men and women - for good and ill. We've been denied power and men have often abused their power. Both genders deserve better.

Given that males of lots of species (including primates) are designed to be more aggressive with larger body mass, strength and hormonal responses to perceived threats (ie the potent cocktail of testosterone and adrenaline) is it all that surprising that as a whole men are more violent?

Perhaps other questions to ask are why are some men less violent or not at all violent in spite of that, and why are some women seemingly becoming increasingly violent.

Brenslo Sat 02-Nov-13 09:44:36
Someone posted earlier "We can walk on the fucking moon FGS. We produced television, the internet, non-stick pans. We abolished the death penalty,"

We??? Really? Actually, it was men who achieved all those things.

Um, Brenslo, I hope you're not suggesting that the reason most modern technology was invented by men is due to anything less than the marginalisation of women's education and women being expected to give up work on marriage until very recently.

I also don't under what you mean by wanting to have our cake and eat it. Do you mean that if we want non-stick frying pans we need to tolerate male violence?

Bluegrass - I would say in the main, socialisation plays a large part in how men are able to control aggression (which is innate in all of us, to greater and lesser degrees). Which brings me back to the class issue debate.

Sigh.

And so it always goes.

Feminists: we hold that men are not inherently violent, that it's mostly down to the influence of society that more violence is perpetuated by men than women. We hold that it is unfair and insulting to men to assume that's "just how men are" and that they are incapable of managing their violent behaviour.

Anti-feminists: Why do you hate men so much?

Homicides in the UK are 1.0 in 100,000, violent crime is 983 per 100,000. Fewer than 4% of people will experience violent crime in their lifetime, and that figure is falling.

Source: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22275280

It really is the tiniest of minorities who are violent, this thread is indulging in daily mail-esque hysteria to make it seem a lot worse than it actually is, the threat of violence towards anyone, male or female, is in fact extremely low. To read this thread you'd think its lucky to be able to go out in public without being attacked.

For the sake of clarity yes men do perpetuate more crime, this is likely a mixture of upbringing (I don't actually think there's much social pressure to be violent but I think a some people are bought up this way), and physiology (rather than testosterone, I think just the fact that men are generally physically stronger) and unless there's no crime at all, we should always as a society strive to reduce it. But expecting 50% of people to take responsibility and shame for what is a tiny proportion of the population committing these crimes is frankly bizarre.

Out of interest do you

Perhaps SideshoBob has found the crux of the matter.

One in 4 (or 5, depending on the statistics you read) women will be sexually assaulted in their lives.

But only 1 in 25 people, by the 4% statistic above, experience violence.

So since women are experiencing a disproportionate amount of this violence, we're the ones noticing it and making a fuss.

this thread is vile - its about hatred. some views are so skewed its unbelievable.

This thread isn't about hatred, it's about some very plain facts re male violence on lots of people and especially women.

Am with Dervel up thread, as a man I don;t feel any 'guilt' about male violence. What I do think though, which D. missed to go onto saying I think, is that it's a male problem and we are equipped and responsible to tackle this, by way of example, education, holding up male violence to argument, taking greater roles in the caring professions, and supporting practically womens rights in all aspects. It isn't costly or risky, just takes a bit of thought, gumption and a change in attitude - it really isn't a win-lose situation, its a win-win.
The TED Talk on Men's Roar is fabulous.

I feel both parents have an equal role to play in raising boys than perhaps people realise. I have raised one son to know and understand that men and women should be treated equally and with respect. Overall I think I have achieved that based on feedback from other adults as he has been growing and seeing how he treats women now, as a man himself.

Rightly or wrongly I have usually favoured the view of any girl he has been dating at the time, when he has asked me for advice, otherwise how would he have learned to accept that his partner's opinion can differ from his and still be ok? He never had a father in his life and my biggest fear was, because of that, he would grow up with some kind of issue with women. I don't know why I had that fear but I did.

However I also know a mum who knows her 11yr old son behaved in a sexually inappropriate way with a 3yr old girl and has justified it by blaming the young girl. What kind of message is that mother sending to her son about what is and is not acceptable behaviour towards females?

I really believe that women, as much as men, can help raise their boys into good, decent men who treat and value women equally. Boys need to be raised to understand that they are held to the same standards of behaviour as girls and that girls are equally as important in society as boys.

My grandfather died recently. My mother was helping him in his final days caring and he started talking about how proud of his son he was. My mother reminded him that he also had daughters and his reply was "Ah, but he is my son." That opinion is also held by my Grandmother. I have witnessed this son grab my mother. His controlling behaviour is always washed away by his parents. He has been treated more favourably by both parents his whole life as opposed to his sisers who have been treated like second class citizens.

Men don't become rapists overnight, bearing in mind that rape is usually a crime of power/control, I believe rapists are raised with an elevated sense of entitlement and are used to getting what they ask for in life because parents put them on a pedestal, perhaps unintentionally. It may sound too simplistic and I am not up on any statistics or DV information, but having experienced sexual abuse as a child, and know of at least 3 children who have been sexually assaulted by young lads without recourse by parents I genuinely believe it all starts in the home.

Both parents are responsible for how the child is raised and I feel parents should never, ever distinguish importance between their children based on gender. It does happen though, every day.

As I say, I'm not experienced on debating this issue so please feel free to enlighten me where needed!

Like hell they did

Women invented things in spite of men trying to exclude them from society. And when they did, men re-wrote history to erase women's contributions.

Is it man-hating to say that?

It's funny how when women release the occasional howl of fury and despair about the constant, constant violence perpetrated by men upon us, that's not allowed - we must always, always be reasonable about the level of woman-hating we are forced to endure in this society, lest we are accused of man-hating.

Let's look at woman hating shall we: 1 in 4 women raped or sexually assaulted, 1 in 4 women living with DV, 2 women a week murdered by men, women's lives constantly trammeled and restricted by needing to take male violence into account when they plan their journeys, social occasions etc. to keep themselves safe from the ever-present threat that a random man will rape and murder them if they dare to go out unaccompanied.

Let's look at man-hating: women complaining on the internet that men kill and rape and wondering why they do it and why they don't stop and why so many people in society make excuses for it.

If I could swap woman-hatred for man-hatred, I would - it's a helluva lot safer for a start. Men complaining about me, is a step up from men raping and/ or killing me and/ or beating me up and/ or subjecting me to the constant threat of those things to keep me in line. Yep, I'd rather be the victim of man-hatred any day.

The vast majority of violence IMO is caused by othering as others have said. You can commit the most appalling violence to animals, women, children, blacks, whites, Muslims etc etc as they are different, not as human as you or whatever. Inclusion, stamping out lad and princess culture and avoiding gender stereotyping is the way forward.

Yes I think othering is the biggie.

But also, responsibility for your actions.

We still live in a culture that accepts the idea of "provocation". How far it accepts it, I'm not sure. I'm not even sure if it's reasonable/ unreasonable to accept it and to what extent. But the bottom line is that both sexes are taught that at a certain point they lose responsibility for their own actions but boys are taught that they lose it way before girls do (boys will be boys etc.) and that seems to me to be an extremely dangerous and a cause of lots of violence.

Here's another:

and we are often asking the wrong questions of the wrong people. From only a few months ago. Speaks a lot of how I at least view the whole matter.

It;s about 17 mins long but he grabs your attention within the opening seconds.

Women are not supposed to recognise that the overwhelming majority of violence is done by men. They are supposed to think women and men are equally violent.

Women are supposed to think of the men who do terrible acts of violence, as just a few bad apples. As if male violence is rare.

The fact is it is men who are the ones committing most awful acts of violence. Both against women, and other men. Until we recognise this, we have no way of as a society of finding a way to tackle it.

Yes othering is wrong. Andrea Dworking gave a graet speech against othering men and the dangers of it. She also recognised the reality of male violence.

So why shouldn't we be angry about male violence?

Oh I suppose Jackson Katz is one of them man-haters Pan.

He's so hate-filled and misandrist. Wah.

Excellent link