'what about the men' -any tips for how to respond?

[Interestedwoman]

I hope I'm posting this in the right place. Either way, please be gentle with me :)

I have a male friend, and often if I say stuff about women's experience or feminism, he'll say 'women can be controlling to men, too' or 'that happens to men as well' etc lines.

In part of a discussion of whether there were any political outcomes it was worth losing friends for, and whether we cared about any goal enough that if we knew it would lose us all our friends we would still rub the lamp and have a genie make it come true (this was at my instigation as friends are very important to me, I have a complex about it.) I said :-

'I suppose if it was 'end all violence against women on this earth' I'd probably still go for it.'

He said (yep you guessed it) 'End all violence against people on this earth, surely?'

Any tips on how to respond to stuff like this? (I still want to keep him as a friend.)

It strikes me as being a bit like when in response to 'Black Lives Matter,' someone says 'All lives matter.'

This is really interesting. The U.K. study included mothers boyfriends as “step fathers” within fathers. The BMJ study mentioned that as a weakness in the data as some countries reported mothers boyfriends as acquaintances.
I did find the country tables for the BMJ study and they match the data in the U.K. study you posted. Really interesting reading. Canada has a 50/50 exact split. Has to be socially driven to have so much difference between countries.
bmjpaedsopen.bmj.com/content/bmjpo/1/1/e000112/DC1/embed/inline-supplementary-material-1.pdf?download=true

I found the data by country too. Some reiterated my suspicions. Finland came as a shock.

I find the young babies stats a bit weird due to numbers. Some countries have like 4 homicides in 10 years (which is 4 too many in my view) but the stats look awful with really high percentages committed by mothers. Taken out of context i.e. 70% of young babies homicides are committed by mothers in x country sounds horrifying and paints a possibly distorted and more violent picture when it comes to women.

Every study I've seen based in England/Wales or the UK shows fathers more likely to kill their children, or equally likely as mothers.

Here's another study: For all neonaticides the mother was recorded as a suspect, 36% of these mothers were subsequently indicted, all but two were convicted of infanticide and all their convictions resulted in probation. For children over a day marginally more fathers than mothers were recorded as the prime suspect. Mother and father suspects were equally likely to be indicted and also equally likely to be convicted of a homicide offence

I feel looking a massive global studies muddies the waters somewhat, because of the differences between cultures/law/women's equality across so many various countries.

The U.K. study included mothers boyfriends as “step fathers” within fathers.

Yes. So a man (not the child's father) in a relationship with the mother was a risk to the child. The semantics over the word "stepfather" are not really relevant.

Thank you Plan - you've provided a strand of the evidence base my "hypothesis" is centred around and in so doing confirmed one of my inferences.

The clarity of the testosterone evidence is obscured by the folk wisdom - yes, exactly.

The subjective phenomenological experience is the same for both sexes.

All of our predictive models for delineating patterns have a male bias built in - in humans the male-pattern is more immediately identifiable than the female-pattern.

The evolution of the scientific methodology itself has a male bias, baked in along the vector of social reality.

The fundamental problem with the testosterone ->aggression model is that it's predicated on the assumption that it's an objectively established truth. It's not. The model is how men mask their own violence from themselves.

So compare it to how women mask violence. Intensity and severity of masking behaviour mirrors across the axis of individual sexually-dimorphic bodies.

By defining aggression as testosterone-linked we warp both the evidential data and our analysis of it.

and yet the notion that hormones affect moods persists.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3735473-To-ask-if-you-get-the-RAGE-when-ovulating

Tyro,

Who or where has anyone defined aggression as testosterone linked? It is a thesis but one with much evidence behind it.

The paper cited to disprove it gave a small sample of females small doses of testosterone over a short period. It is interesting (and evidence in the other direction) that aggression did not increase but it certainly does not disprove a link between testosterone and aggression conclusively (or even close to that level).

Personally I find the animal studies (where human bias is taken out of the equation) and the meta studies comparing testosterone levels in violent offenders compared to non violent ones far more compelling (as I struggle to see why humans should be different to our close ape ancestors and I cannot see a confounding factor with regard to the inmate study). However, I admit that I am bringing my own bias to bear (although trying hard to be objective) on mixed evidence.

On the other hand a study which starts with ‘folk wisdom says...’ in its abstract does not sound like it is being undertaken by purely objective researchers.

Larry, we differ from our ape 'ancestors' in our language capacities. Plural.

It begins with the lips. Vocalisation capacity differentiates: /muh/ becomes /mu/ & /h/ and becomes aware of the distinction; this functions as an evolutionary pressure on the vocalisation capacities.

Everyone who conceptually links the words 'testosterone' and 'aggression' links them. Literally, figuratively, metaphorically, objectively, quantum-ly, really. Everyone.

Who does it, /m.?/ demands.

A painful transitory period occurs; eventually the species-organism can collectively recognise and distinguish and surf the wave of recursion.

They're not our ancestors; they're our cousins, which is why you can't see it.

The obscured space becomes the question mark. This is the concept of bias. You has bias built in. In this instance it's manifesting in your definitional understanding of what constitutes evidence.

They told you /evidence/ is the realer end and you haven't spotted how they manipulated you yet.

You're a fascinating mirror though, I must say. And an illuminating example of the wood being unable to differentiate itself from the trees.

What about the men indeed. Poor little lamb.

metro.co.uk/2019/11/04/man-cleared-savage-attack-girlfriend-claims-injured-weird-sex-game-11039580/

Early doors Tyro ?

sawdust I don't know; I didn't quite catch your reference. But fundamentally yes, no doubt!

I just thought I would update. The bloke I posted the OP about turned out to be very nasty (have mentioned him in other threads.)

If a bloke is anti-feminist/ effectively an MRA (even while pretending to be left wing) I will not get involved with them much again.

There was also some pretty awful rape apologism he subjected me to at one point.

He turned out to be sexually coercive. I ended up blocking him on everything.

If any male 'friend' displays these sorts of attitudes to feminism/women in future, I'll block and go NC with them, as you don't know what they're capable of (well, maybe you do.)

Tell them how mature secure men recognise their position and do their best through self awareness to ensure others in less enviable positions dont feel oppressed, intimidated or threatened by them.

The few years itll take them to figure out you're equating them to lowly women might keep them quiet for a bit.

Is he enough of a friend that you can ask him to stop correcting you and trying to put his words in your mouth?
That would be the first step. He is entitled to his opinion but he is not entitled to contron yours.

I'm sorry you saw his true colours OP. Hope you're okay

@Sparklfairy I'm ok thanks mate.

@TehBewilderness Good point, I hadn't seen it like that. He made it sound like I was saying something wrong, and I found it hard to argue back. I could just've said 'Of course. I'm a feminist though, so it's women I'm particularly interested in.'

Also, the whole of society tends to claim men are lovelier than they actually are, so there's no need to read a forum saying men are lovely or something like that.

He always said that for people in general there's no such thing as 'should,' yet he thought there was a 'should' for what I should look at or believe.

Nowadays maybe I'd say 'I'll read what I want and think what I want, thanks' via messenger (I find it easier to communicate that way) or something.

I found this, and thought of you, @Interestedwoman

I'm glad you've got rid of him. Sounds like a nightmare. WATM enrages me to my very soul. They don't care about "mens issues" because it's only brought up when women are discussing things that only effect them. I can just imagine them sitting on their phones and living in their mothers basements, screaming about how unfair life is for them even though they want women to do all of the heavy lifting for them.

They refuse to set up mens shelters/charities and are attempting to portray women as the ones going around beating and raping them. Lol there's no point trying to find any logic in that because according to them we're the "weak" ones. If we're so weak, how come we're apparently going around beating and raping men?🤔 It's a DARVO tactic plain and simple. Best to ignore them.

So, so many men pay lip service to feminism where they must, but bitterly resent doing it. It's depressing, isn't it.

Glad you got shot of the fucker, and I'm sorry it was hard as a process.

If anyone wants to feel any more ragey, this article is good on how we don't frame support for men in terms of why it's lacking for women, but any support for women alone is seen as an insult to men.

victimfocus.wordpress.com/2018/01/03/stop-asking-me-what-about-men/

Sorry to hear he turned out to be a dick.

In general, if a man says "what about X?" then you as the woman do not have to provide his answer, do his research, his thinking etc.

You can say "Yeah, what about X?" then be silent so he does his own thinking and sets up the arguments for everyone else to argue against him not you. Turn everything into a question. Use expectant silence.

That's great advice, Tork.