Just had a terrible shouty argument with a relative

[failingatlife]

Oh God just need to rant. I've just had a terrible stand up argument with my DB in front of my 3 kids, his DC, his wife and my mum. We quite often talk about politics, brexit, Scottish indy, trump etc. As feminists my DM and I are obviously all over the whole gender issue so this also comes up.

Today, it was VAWG and it got very heated. To cut a long story short my DB is sick of feeling guilty about male violence. He has never been violent or raped /sexually assaulted anyone and us bringing it is making him feel bad. NAMALT. Apparently women do bad things too. Myra Hindley was mentioned . We were both shouting and DB got extremely angry and red faced.

I'm embarrassed about losing it in front of my family but bloody hell his pathetic arguments about it being 'a human problem not a male one' made me mad! He also said to DD, not in front of me,' I hope you dont end up a misandrist like your mum'

DD pointed out afterwards that he had just shown how male anger is a problem. She said she thought he might hit me he got so angry so fast. (I never felt physically threatened BTW the last time he hit me was about age 10). It was a good lesson for DD about male attitudes. She thinks he was a bully shouting down women (dm & I) with stupid non arguments who expected to be listened to just because he's a man.

So we shouldn't bring up MVAWG cos it upsets the menz? How exactly are we supposed to tackle something we can't talk about?

The questioning about what you did that made him so angry by our resident anti-feminist derailer is pretty much classic MRA crap.

My suggestion to others is to grey rock anyone that pulls out those sort of lines. We don’t need to dignify it.

Yeah, women shut the fuck up about bad men, because it upsets good men to hear you talk about bad men and the things they have done to you or may do to you in the future.

@LauderSyme you have clearly and succinctly summed up the problem with the “not all men....” argument - I’ve actually screen-shotted your post so I can remember & use your points!

I’m inclined to agree that male discomfort in these discussions is perhaps an indicator of something more concerning. Most men I know can acknowledge the problem of male violence against women and girls and discuss it sensibly. My DH indeed has worked in the field and is quite comfortable dealing with the fact that the phenomenon exists and must be tackled without personalising it. Because it’s not something he is part of; in fact, he’s part of efforts to suppress it.
If you need to make it about you, something’s not quite right there.

@Mummatron3000 Why, thank you and you're very welcome >

I was going to copy and paste some of @DecomposingComposer's comments which have sought to deflect blame and responsibility from where they properly lie. In DC's case, largely whom is accountable for whose emotional reactions and behavioural responses. But there were just so many examples, I gave up. It is ironic (or maybe not!) that DC's contributions to this thread illustrate very well, in a different context, the problem raised by the OP.

I cannot understand how anyone can possibly think that violence is a human problem rather than a male problem. They must be wilfully blind, there is no alternative explanation. It is like saying that lions eating antelopes is a mammal problem when it's only a problem for the antelopes! I simplify, of course.

It is not just the violence itself that demonstrates the cultural issue but also (in the Western world, at least), the fact that aggression against women is routinely served up as titillating entertainment, whether dramatised or as real-life crime, across all forms of media.