The problem is men!

[DollyDayScream]

Please forgive me if you've covered this before, I just need to get this off my chest.

I've noticed that the media are reluctant to name men as the problem in widespread harassment against women.

For example, Moira was reading the news on bbc Radio 2 this morning. She reported that an astonishing number of school girls has reported being sexually harassed. At no point were men mentioned. The problem was reported as being harassment, whereas I would say that the problem is the men, the behaviour is symptomatic.

Why is this? It's seems as if there is a very conscious effort to distance the perpetrators (men) from the violence and harassment they commit. Is the media therefore shielding men?

Jeremy Vine is discussing this today. He said "is the problem the uniform?" and I literally bellowed your thread title at the radio OP

‘Is the problem the uniform?’ Fucking hell.

No, it isn’t the uniform. I was 10/11 and in a fucking below the knee tunic on my way home from school.

Maybe the problem was my walking home from
School? Maybe the problem was that I went to an all girls school?

I can categorically tell him the problem was that man, 50 years my senior, cornering me.

But was talking to my husband last night about the trans issue and he said that both sides are so entrenched that it’s nigh on impossible to resolve

I think that's a false equivalence, sexnotgender. The extreme demands (as well as the violence, threats etc) are all from one side. All women are asking for is to retain what has been the status quo in terms of single sex provision and to retain safeguarding best practice.

Your DH seems to think that compromise is possible. But with many of the issues, men in women's sports for instance, there can be no compromise. It's either ok or not.

But in this, as in other areas, the science and facts are all stacked up to support the gender critical view.

Male and female physiologies are very different. I quite often find myself wondering what the world would look like were women markedly bigger and stronger than men.

People with gender critical views are not threatening transwomen with violence or doxxing them. Until they are, or the trans lobby stops trying to silence and intimidate women, the two sides are not comparable.

The trans ideology is rooted deeply in misogyny and toxic masculinity. I agree there is no compromise to be reached.
How do we compromise on men hating women? Isn’t that what women have done for centuries? Put up and shut up?

I think that's a false equivalence, sexnotgender.

I agree. Men are entrenched on taking rights, freedoms, protections and legal identity from women. Women are entrenched in defending what they have from those men's snatch and grab raid.

And yet those women are being framed as unhelpfully obstinate and misbehaving by not compromising? Basically they should and must give up to men at least some of those rights, freedoms, protections that men wish to take away?

Why shouldn't they fight like hell in their own interests? No one is blaming the men for the piracy and intent to deprive! To blame women for resisting is profoundly misogynistic.

The issue of male violence is the central question for feminists and challenging it goes to the core of male power over women in society.

With regards to the derailing of the conversation by men, this is another reason we need women only spaces, beyond the obvious safeguarding issues. It's only possible to talk about male violence, to analyse and understand it, in a women only environment. Without women's groups we cannot discuss our oppression freely without the influence of the oppressive class.

Even the presence of a lovely, kind man will cause women to tone down their remarks to avoid hurting his feelings. The presence of a self entitled argumentative bastard will mean the meeting dissolves into argument. Potentially you could have the same weary argument week after week and never move the analysis on to what it's like to be a woman in a violent society, how it contributes to daily life and what can be done about it. Until women give up and stop attending.

Every oppressed group needs to be able to organise together, hopefully before feeding back into society to get the change they need.

Women always meet resistance to this, men always find objections to women meeting independently.

The demand of TRAs to be allowed into women's spaces is the most recent and inventive form of this resistance. Once in, the way in which they demand that their interests are centred is exactly what men do in wider society and the reason for keeping men out in the first place.

The support that they have instantly received from those in power indicates either the worthlessness of women in our society, or that those in power do not want women meeting without men and are seeking to prevent it. Women's rights to organise politically have only come about relatively recently, and despite paying lip service I'm sure many in power would like to re-establish the status quo.

there can be no compromise

This.

It has been proven by the extreme exploitation of the door that the 2004 GRA opened.

Thanks to those who responded re the compromise. I had to go make a cup of tea, to cogitate a less shouty response

The compromise, in certain situations, would be third spaces. I would support them and I know a lot of women would do the same. TRAs won't campaign for this - you would have to ask them why.

Men as a sex class need to sort themselves out.

It's men who have to compromise.

Agree OP

The problem is men.

Lets be honest, the TRAs have never pretended there is anything in this for women.

The TRA argument basically goes: you have privilege as women (somehow, it's very dodgy and based on a political belief anyway) so your job is to suck it up and accept less freedom, less privacy, less rights to benefit male born people. It's your job to enable those male born people to your cost because justice. Or something.

You're not happy about it? You're scum.

The nice bloke argument goes: well it's all getting a bit nasty now isn't it? Shouldn't you be kind and the bigger person and stuff and offer compromise?

Yes I know you say that they won't compromise, they just want total capitulation and then they'll be straight on to the next target of what they want.... but the attitude that they will never be happy and what you give will never be enough is a bit mean isn't it?

No I haven't read Lundy Bancroft.

No, what are cluster B personalities?

Why do I think you women should be the ones to compromise and enable to try and find a solution when I don't expect the male born people to have that responsibility? Well.... it's obvious isn't it? Women are just good at that kind of thing.

Yes I know the other side are supposed to be women too, but....

No that's not sexist, it's just that...

Oh come on. Do you want everyone to think you're a hairy, mean man hater?

Yy, I love the "you're a woman, so you're privileged because we've tried to make some ways of offering some you equality, so you need to give those up".

I've been going into my DD's secondary school for 2 years complaining about the ongoing sexual harassment, sexualised behaviour and sexualised touching the girls are subjected to by male pupils. Two members of staff completely agreed with me, in the presence of another professional from another agency. My concerns are well documented. Nothing changed. In my last meeting with school I was accused of slander for raising my concerns. They are denying that any staff have ever agreed that the school has a problem. I've given up arguing with them and moved her to a single sex school. They re sitting on a time bomb bur they give no fucks about girls welfare and safety.

That sounds terrible WitchBitch. It's one of the main reasons I picked an all girl's school for my daughter.

Because of my experiences of being around men I admit I do hate them a little bit. The good ones are very few and far between. So how does that hate manifest? I certainly don't go out harming or killing any men. I don't harass them, drug them, enslave them, manipulate or use them in any way. None of that, I mostly just ignore them. If I can't ignore them I'm polite but not overly warm. Please tell me why men are so scared of man haters?

I have just walked away from a discussion at the school gates on this issue. I walked away because it was obvious no one was listening to my views and I will just be labelled as 'that' mum.

The issue? One of the mothers at the primary school gates claims that the nearby secondary school must review their school uniform policy 'as a matter of urgency' following information in the press about sexual harassment if school girls. Apparently the fact that many of the girls choose to wear 'skater' type skirts is a problem, and the school should insist on knee length pleated skirts. Not educate the boys about how to behave, not look at whether there is an issue in that school and address it , not call out any male who acts inappropriately etc. I was firmly told that 'boys will be boys' so the we need to deal with the girls.

I now feel I should have stayed to argue my point more- but I just can't see how I could have made the point more clearly.

I now feel I should have stayed to argue my point more- but I just can't see how I could have made the point more clearly.

It's a stark reminder of how internalised misogyny can be that those mothers are willing to find fault with the uniform and the girls rather than localise it in the behaviour of the boys.

You couldn't be clearer but the fact that you didn't gain support today doesn't mean that you didn't succeed in planting a seed. These things can take a long time to grow.

Please tell me why men are so scared of man haters?

Please don't worry - they aren't. Simple as that really

Men would benefit enormously from dealing with male violence.

But not nearly as much as they benefit from controlling women and appropriating our labour, which is why they won't address it.

I might drag out my List again soon.

blimey !

a few years ago, my dad wanted specific labels attached to the men involved in a child abuse thing

I said to him, I want every single report to specify "men". He was honestly shocked. My mother told me later that he does know that men are the problem, but he thought I was getting a bit anti-men.