A society that prioritises male sexual gratification above all else...

[Squidstirfry]

What would you call this?

This seems to be the society that we live in, right now, am I correct?

The Rotherham sex abuse problem,
The Westminster child sex abuse ring,
Well-known Paedophiles gaining access to children by working at the BBC and other entertainment establishments.

The overwhelming similarity between these recent exposes is how these men were enabled, protected and practically encouraged by the establishment. The cover ups have been astronomical.

You get the sense there was more effort put into covering up these crimes and protecting these men enabling them to continue, than in protecting victims. Why are sexual criminals so vehemently protected?

Women are constantly reminded to protect themselves from being raped, be careful what you wear, who you have a drink with, "Don't talk to strangers" campaigns that teach children how to avoid paedophiles... As though it is a man's birth right to violate, and everyone else just has to accommodate to this.

Add this to the normalisation of rape/misogynistic violence in video games and popular culture, Porn/Prostitution... Can you help but wonder what is going on?

I completely agree. Its so depressing I might have to have a lie down.

I heard

Sab I think it actually is possible that that person has no recollection of seeing those letters because he never actually "saw" them in the first place. Yes they were written, yes they were sent to him, yes they reached his desk, yes he read them... But he didn't - wouldn't - register what they said. Even when women and children talk about what happens, they can't hear us. Maybe it's because we've been so thoroughly "othered" as to be completely incomprehensible.

I did wonder where you were going with that post, gin when I first started reading it . But yes you have nailed it I think.

I'd call it a patriarchy Squid btw. Or male supremacy might be better. It is totally insidious. If you look at the guest blog post about violence in video games, there are so many excuses and avoiding naming the problem. Denial of any correlation between sexual violence in RL and the combined influences of the normalised and sometimes glamourised sexual violence in media. And if course the demands that we we have to consider all violence not just violence against women & children. The minimising and ignoring and refusal to name the problem is rage inducing.

Horrors like Rotherham show exactly why we should be focusing on VAWG. It is a specific problem and needs tackling as such. But it has to be named.

I understand your alarm OP, it's so awful.

I would call it patriarchy, and these are the type of things that happens in a patriarchy. We are seeing it openly and it's shocking because this is 2014 not 1880, in Europe and those kind of things aren't suppossed to happen right? We like to think that women and children are protected by the law.

Didn't see your scallops; I agree.

*your post

I agree OP. It is terrifying and it really highlights where women and children are on the list of society's priorities. Throw in the added value-judgements that social vulnerability seems to confer upon a group in our society - this group is immediately chucked on the Daily Mail scrap heap of life, considered beyond help because we don't want to pay to give it - and bam, we have a perfectly-formed herd for predators of all description.

It is patriarchy without doubt. A patriarchy that relies on vilifying the vulnerable in order to convince us that the weaker among us as unworthy of our hard-earned taxes.

Sabrinnnnna I think it was Mike Hedges who was Chief Constable in South Yorkshire at the time. No-one important then. Not someone you'd expect to have a handle on the nature of abuse and it's forms. Dear god how are these people trained??

God the Daily Mail!
I nearly cry every time I see it. Shaming women for being too fat, or too skinny, blaming the poor for being poor, unapologetic victim blaming... It seems to represent a cross section of general values. Everyone knows the Daily Mail is sensationalist, but a vast number of people still agree with it's underlying views...

It's so obvious what's going on, I mean I would like to think that women and children were protected, not just by the law, but by society as a collective. But no, it seems abuse rape and violation just gets minimized, ignored, and enabled as a default by everyone and anyone who has any opportunity to prevent it.

It does seriously worry me. I'm starting a family, and raising young boys, it seems no matter how many times I might say "This is wrong, that's wrong" etc about certain issues, it seem the background noise of normal society screams the opposite. It teaches men that's it's normal to turn into a sexually aggressive predator if they want, with no consequence.

It's not getting better is it, with technology and the rise of hardcore, I worry it is going to get more difficult...

I know how you feel squid. I think it just makes it more important to try and bear in mind i know i forget discuss social/political/ethical values at mealtimes etc, and encourage empathy wherever possible - for the poor, the old, the young, the infirm, the vulnerable.

Children have such a strong understanding of justice - one that has not been warped by prejudice wrapped up as news or truth day after day until it sounds true. My kids are obsessed with hearing about Galileo at the moment - the man who said the world was round and was imprisoned for it even though it was true. They are fascinated by the injustice that ignorance can carry out.

It's actually really annoying me that people keep talking about these grooming scandals as the sexual abuse of children. I may have missed the reports about boys, but if it's all girls (as it seems right now), what's wrong with saying girls? Why must we avert outlet eyes?

Outlet eyes. Of course.

There were a few boys involved but they victims were overwhelmingly girls.

I've been totally naive, i mean, I'm mid 30's now and have always had a vague notion of a patriarchy. How we live in a world where there aren't many female directors, politicians etc but well, women do have babies so may have different priorities but nevermind we are all looked after...
Recent events have catagorically opened my eyes to the sheer exent to which everything in life is set up to appease men at the expense of the health and wellbeing of women.
I see it everywhere now!

I can only hope that i can help my boys see this for what it is too, snd not be drawn in

Once your eyes have been opened, it is nigh on impossible to look at anything the same way again. Unfortunately.

I would say its a class issue more than a 49% of the population issue, women are also embroiled in the coverup and boys are also victims.

The Rotherham case is down to culture and effectively class, as is the bbc.

Yes men are the main perpetrators, but women have been involved as well.

All these cases result in class, that is what we needs focus.

Really?
So all of these seperate cases from high upper class men in government abusing young boys being covered up, to middle class BBC toffs protecting and enabling well known peodophiles to poor working class groups of male sex offenders being protected by the establishment in their sexual and emotional violation of young girls from various socio-economic backgrounds...
Class is the problem??

I can buy into the idea, to some extent, that the class system allows an underclass of girls to be thought of as 'fair game'.
But no girls are safe from male predation really.
It's a caste system with male and female castes.

Middle class girls and women get raped too, Justanotherlurker.

Not in circumstances like Rotherham, but in their own homes usually.

The problem of male sexual predation really isn't class. It's classless.