A rational fear of men?

[RoyalCorgi]

I'm just posting this as an observation.

I've been on Twitter this morning, and one of the first things I saw was a link to an article in the Guardian by a mental health nurse about helping people who suffer from paranoia. It was titled: '''A patient thinks her landlord will stab her': my job as a mental health nurse"

A few tweets below that was linking to a story in the Mirror: 'I'm scared my killer ex will murder our daughter'

The Mirror link was tweeted by the Victims' Commissioner for London, with this comment: "The family courts, for too long, have allowed abusers access to their victim & allowed abuse to continue via proceedings & unsafe child contact orders. Time to shut down this state sanctioned abuse once and for all & fully protect those at serious risk of harm."

I was just struck by the juxtaposition.

By men, which only goes to prove the point that men are dangerous

^^This. I trust my male family members. I trust the few male friends I have that I've known since I was a kid. But from decades of experience and observed experience, I am afraid of and do not like strange men. It's not a paranoia - it's from decades of continued verbal, physical, and sexual abuse/harassment from men. Not one experience, or 2, or 10. But many times, and not just me - my female family members. My female friends. It's not "paranoia", when it's proven.

Yeah, it's defo usually men that's the culprit but the point is that men generally have more to fear in terms of serious assault, although women undoubtedly have cause to be afraid too.

men generally have more to fear in terms of serious assault

Only if you don't consider rape to be a serious assault.

And people are less likely to help a man being assaulted too. That's clear from all the social experiments done where they fake an assault. Men usually go to help a women being attacked but walk past the man.

It's an unpleasant world we live in.

Every time you post, Frogs, you're further proving my point.

That said, I don't think you can discount men's experience if you haven't lived as a man. We don't have to deal with the harassment many women experience but on the flipside we're the main victims of serious violence and homicide

Have you thought about going into male dominated forums and complaining to them and calling them to action? Rather than harassing women on here?

Completely rational. I was brought up to think there were only a few wronguns. Such an optimistic mindset had me behaving very naively as a teenager. I'm sorry but i think for maybe 90% of men the opportunity plus inclination plus no consequences would result in an offence being committed. Just my personal experience.

I'm not disputing that women should be afraid, I just disagree that it's any better for men. Knife crime is steadily rising but sexual assaults have more than halved in the last 20 years. It's going to get a lot worse for men, that's for sure, but the privileged majority ignore it.

I'm not disputing that women should be afraid, I just disagree that it's any better for men. Knife crime is steadily rising but sexual assaults have more than halved in the last 20 years. It's going to get a lot worse for men, that's for sure, but the privileged majority ignore it

So go onto a men's forum and explain that to them, and get them to sort it out.

Men don't want to discuss it. Men don't discuss things in general like women do, hence the soaring suicide rate.

That's what I like about mumsnet. It's possible to have an intelligent discussion around the subject (sometimes).

“It's so awful seeing both men and women tell other women that their boundaries are hateful and bigoted”

Yes, it’s ridiculous and awful and depressing. It gives a sense of how certain things should be forgiven, when we are far too forgiving a d the law is useless.

Even my mother, who had the good sense to raise us to be wary of men, is a bit shocked that I don’t make friends with men anymore. She does seem to think they’re handy to have stashed in a cupboard or something, IYWIM, but it’s just never worth it because they do tend to attack eventually - one way or another.

Ruffle “Such an optimistic mindset had me behaving very naively as a teenager.“

Sorry to hear that. A wonderful teacher at my school caused a great deal of controversy in some comments she made after a female pupil was attached en route to school. But the fact that she basically told us all to believe that an unknown male trying to talk to you was about to attack you - well, I think she really might have helped some pupils stay safe.

I won’t quote her because anyone at the same school will recognise the words, but they were very useful. And some parents and male teachers were upset because “menz feelings”.

*attacked, obvs.

I vaguely recall reading that there's an issue with the way violent crime is counted.

If memory serves, there was some sort of crime survey, in which the questions didn't allow for crimes typically perpetrated against women to be counted accurately. Also sexual violence being counted separately to non-sexual violence. Putting them together showed that there wasn't actually an enormous disparity between numbers of male and female victims - the disparity was in the type of violence experienced by each sex.

Does anyone have a clue what I'm talking about? I'm sure it was on here I read about it but my memory's failing abysmally.

I just disagree that it's any better for men.

You've never been attacked.

No men I know have been attacked, including my gay brother (more likely to be a target than a straight man - notably, he probably does have to contend with more of the low level stuff).

So while men might be statistically more likely to be violently assaulted, women are statistically much more likely to be sexually (read: violently) assaulted, while also having to put up with the constant, daily low level stuff.

So of course it's 'better' for men.

So of course it's 'better' for men.

I'm not sure this conversation is going anywhere productive anymore, but aren't us men like 75% of homicide victims? How many 'low level' incidents does it take to equal the ultimate cost of having your life ended?

Once, you're dead that's it. There's no recovery, improvement, or light at the end of the tunnel.

@Tyrotoxicity

I read something like that on Karen Ingala Smith's Blog

kareningalasmith.com/2013/04/29/this-thing-about-male-victims/

And we've not even touched upon workplace deaths, war, the brutality of sleeping on the streets, etc.

But I'll leave that for another day.

WHAT ABOUT THE MENZ. CALL AN AMBULANCE. SOMEONE MIGHT DIE OF MEN WAAAAHS.

Excuse me if I’ve missed the point, but I’ve just read this thread and it was glaringly obvious to me that the OP was saying that fear of men was rational. She didn’t say that women had more to fear than men, the point was that men were violent/abusive/scary.

IME, WhoLetTheFrogsOut has deliberately missed the point. Regardless if the victims sex, it’s largely men that are the attached/perpetrator. Therefore, both from a statistical and a personal viewpoint, fear of men is logical and, one could argue, a sensible view to take, if one wanted to live a life free of harassment and violence.

I’m 31 and have a DS and a DP. I love DS and do have one or two males in my life that I like and somewhat trust... but I don’t try and hide my dislike and distrust for men anymore. It’s too dangerous.

I am afraid of and do not like strange men

I'm neither afraid of, nor dislike, strange men. I am, however, wary of them. It is perfectly reasonable and rational for women to be wary round strangers who are bigger, stronger and statistically much more aggressive than us. I'd be a fool not to be wary.

No men I know have been attacked

I'm very surprised by this. I barely know a man my own age who hasn't been assaulted, though it is much rarer in my children's generation. Public violence (of the variety men suffer) has fallen drastically since my youth, though sadly is slowly creeping back.

How many 'low level' incidents does it take to equal the ultimate cost of having your life ended?

Again. It's unlikely to happen. It hasn't happened to you.

Whereas women are living daily with low, medium and high level incidences of assault, abuse and violence.

Bottom line: we (society - men, women, children) and animals are right be very afraid of men.

I may have gone a bit off topic, but I was responding to the 'men have it easier' arguments.

The grass is always greener from what I see. Many blokes think women have had an easy ride. No enforced military service (still a thing in America), can be unintelligent but marry a rich man, first on the lifeboats, blah blah blah.

I don't believe the above but many do. If everything was so rosy for men, suicide wouldn't be the most common cause of death.

Anyway, I'll leave it at that as it's clear people want an echo chamber not a discussion.

Didn't mean to flounce! I just don't want to 'cause trouble' or be branded a troll as usually seems to happen when a man dares to speak on here.

I just don't want to 'cause trouble' or be branded a troll as usually seems to happen when a man dares to speak on here.

Sorry but that's bollocks. I'm relatively new round here but I've noticed that men are treated perfectly fairly. It is your failure to take on board the issue at hand, reasonable fear of men, not your sex that is at issue.