Can men really grasp women’s reality re safety?

[Ritascornershop]

I have a 19 year old son who is very compassionate and left-wing (I mention that as he’s been indoctrinated in TWAW) but who can’t grasp the discomfort many women feel at men in women’s private spaces.

And recently a friend was telling me that a family member of his (who he has quite the blind spot over) broke up with his girlfriend. The gf had, before she met his family member, been sexually assaulted. She was naturally quite traumatized by the rape but trying to heal and met this guy and got in a relationship with him. The way my friend tells it. his family member broke up with her after a few months (during an argument) & family member “got so uoset” he punched a hole in the wall and broke a chair. She called the police and called friends. My friend seemed to feel she over-reacted! I think any woman would be frightened and that a woman who’d been sexually assaulted would be particularly terrified.

It does not seem a tricky concept to me, but both these men seem to not be able to wrap their heads around how frightening it can be to be vulnerable around larger, stronger, angry males. Is this something most men don’t get or are these two not trying very hard?

What determines those people form distinct classes?

Their biological sex.

It's an analogy of how people say 'men have all the power', when in reality it's a tiny proportion of men at the top.

I think the male voices on this thread have answered the ops question of :

Can men really grasp women’s reality re safety?

They don't care, don't take it seriously and feel their self made problems are more important, and women should concentrate on them.

It's an analogy of how people say 'men have all the power', when in reality it's a tiny proportion of men at the top.

Depends how you define power

But then you must include all members of that class not just a selected few

But that's my point, Midgebabe.

People often focus on the small proportion of men who are CEOs and ignore all the homeless men and suicides.

Anyway, this is getting further and further off topic.

My point is that men suffer more from violence than us women and I've seen it having previously spent years working in an evidence based field, primarily on behalf of the police.

Of course, it's also men who are usually the perpetrators but I just don't understand the whole oh, poor menz, they should man up and start worrying about how I feel mentality.

Men who rape and commit sexual assault can come from any walk of life.

Yes there are poor men. Yes men can be victims. It's not about getting brownie points for how disadvantaged you are,,,that's really quite a patriarchal approach isn't it? Not considering all people as equals but trying to rank their degree of oppressed-ness. Rank them and try to gain advantage from the ranking.

I agree with your last point. I can't stand the 'persecution olympics' seen so often in identity politics.

I'm not on either 'side', so to speak, although I may have got a bit carried away in the heat of the argument. I just think that it's naive as a society to ignore men's reality of frequently poor mental health and lack of support networks and then be surprised when it manifests as violence and dysfunctional behaviour.

I think this thread in particular got me going because it was asking why men don't consider women's reality in regard to a problem they suffer from just as much. A bit like a white person accusing POC of not understanding racism against Caucasians.

Men were 4x more likely to be assaulted by a stranger so have more to fear when walking alone.
Are men 4x more likely to be walking alone, especially at night? If so the levels are equal. If men are 5x or 10x more likely to be walking alone at night the equivalent risk is higher for women.

I just think that it's naive as a society to ignore men's reality of frequently poor mental health and lack of support networks and then be surprised when it manifests as violence and dysfunctional behaviour.

That presumes that input X always results in output Y. Whereas women can have poor mental health and poor support networks (think displaced refugee women for example) with no increase in violent behaviour.

Men at all levels abuse women. Homeless men abuse homeless women, rich men abuse who they like, black men abuse black women, teenage boys abuse teenage girls, refugee men in camps abuse refugee women in those camps. So men's status relative to other men is no indicator of how he treats women, who are always conveniently one rung below him.

What's interesting is what Lundy Bancroft says about abusive men who have therapy - they are great at talking about their feelings but remain terrible at being interested in anyone else's.
Few Bancroft quotes here, I highly recommend the book: click

men who have therapy - they are great at talking about their feelings but remain terrible at being interested in anyone else's.

A somewhat ironic statement to make on a thread which complains about men not being interested in women's feelings on an issue which affects men more.

My friend is a doorman and tells me that a lot of trouble starts with the girlfriend saying 'what are you going to do about it....you're not going to let him say that, are you?'

First, the trouble started prior to the girlfriend saying anything. It started when the goady fucker said the goady thing to try to start a fight. It's... interesting... that both you and your door supervisor friend blame the woman for a chain of events actually started by a man. (First rule of misogyny: women are responsible for what men do.)

Second, what stops the boyfriend from saying to her "actually, I'm going to do nothing about it and I am going to, as you put it, 'let him say that' because I'm not risking injury and death for the sake of your hurt feelings"?

I'm as firm a believer in women's rights as any,

But blame women for men's actions.

but it seems that many women are woefully blind to the environment that men live in, which is a constant power play of dominance.

This is worse than the constant fear of rape how? This is women's problem to fix how?

Why should the average non-violent man give a shit about people who don't care about his sex being the principle victims of said issue (violence)?

"Meet me halfway", said the dishonest man. I stepped forwards and he stepped back. "Meet me halfway", he said again.

Men already don't care about women and they didn't care from birth. We had to overcome female socialisation not to care about them in order to focus on healing ourselves and each other from the harm they caused. Why should we offer the olive branch? We don't even need to care about men for them to stop hurting each other and us. They could, and indeed must, solve their use of violence themselves.

It's not like the average bloke is the one responsible

He benefits. Every time a woman leaves STEM, or construction, or any other male-dominated industry where misogyny is rife, it opens up a well-paid job for a man. Men systematically exclude women from well-paid jobs and sexual violence and harassment are part of the toolset used for that.

Homeless men abuse homeless women

And non-homeless women too:

• www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/oct/04/aaron-barley-homeless-man-who-murdered-woman-who-helped-him
• www.thesun.co.uk/news/2808058/homeless-man-raped-pregnant-woman-and-smashed-her-jaw-after-she-helped-him-put-up-his-tent/
• www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Woman-Says-She-Was-Raped-By-Homeless-Man-503930101.html

It's an analogy of how people say 'men have all the power', when in reality it's a tiny proportion of men at the top.

It's likely that Mary Queen of Scots was raped and impregnated by Bothwell, marrying him to avoid the dishonour of bearing a bastard. Her position as queen did not protect her. The power that all men hold over all women and girls is rape and forced pregnancy. Wealth/poverty is a different oppression axis and is irrelevant to a sex class analysis.

I think this thread in particular got me going because it was asking why men don't consider women's reality in regard to a problem they suffer from just as much. A bit like a white person accusing POC of not understanding racism against Caucasians.

You have both reversed and misused that analogy. First, men are comparable to white people, not people of colour, in such an analogy. Second, "reverse racism" isn't analogous to male-on-male violence, white-on-white violence is analogous. What you are expecting women to do for men is the equivalent of expecting people of colour to understand and prioritise ending white-on-white violence. Hopefully, the fixed analogy shows you how ludicrous that is.

A somewhat ironic statement to make on a thread which complains about men not being interested in women's feelings on an issue which affects men more.

Lundy is a world-class expert on male pattern abuse. I'm inclined to trust his observations on abusive men's lack of empathy.

I'm as firm a believer in women's rights as any

LOL

but it seems that many women are woefully blind to the environment that men live in, which is a constant power play of dominance.

Not blind, just very much aware that it's a male problem that it's up t men to solve.

The comically misogynistic argument that it's women who make men beat each other up is noted.

I second the request for a board for MRAs, if only because it might function as a sort of containment zone.

"Can men really grasp women’s reality re safety? "

Yeah. Just watch any gritty drama set in a men's prison. Put yourself in the place of a non-streetwise prisoner. There you have it.

Men already don't care about women and they didn't care from birth.

You cannot honestly believe this? What a ridiculous assertion.

Did you just present men as the discriminated against/oppressed group? Seriously?

A somewhat ironic statement to make on a thread which complains about men not being interested in women's feelings on an issue which affects men more.

That's stretching the definition of irony somewhat. Firstly this thread isn't about complaining, but discussing, whether men appreciate women's perspective on safety. Secondly it isn't an issue that affects men more, it's a different issue to male on male violence. So there's no irony.

And the statement is an observation made by Bancroft, who runs counselling services for abusive men. So again, no irony.

I do care about things like men's lack of access to support networks, to be honest.

But even if we solved the full MRA suite of fathers' access to estranged children, too many custodial sentences, not enough counselling for men, male only spaces, etc etc men would still be violent to each other and men would still be violent to women. There's nothing about fixing those things that will cure the issue with male entitlement and ego.

Men have been in charge for all of known history, they have plenty of practice at it. If the structures they have set up don't serve all men it's likely they were designed that way, to reinforce the pecking order that men are so used to. The fact that the men at the bottom of the pile always have women lower down than them to lash out against is again probably an intentional aspect of the structure itself.

I can care about men's issues and I can care about individual men without feeling that it is somehow my responsibility to make their game work better for them when I would rather it wasn't played at all.

Finally, it is annoying to have to even consider the emotional labour necessary to fix men and their problems just so we can discuss whether they are consciously aware of how women have to maintain a higher level of alertness for their own safety than men do.

Men systematically exclude women from well-paid jobs.

And yet we've been outearning men for over ten years now in both the US/UK. This trend only reverses around the approx age of motherhood (35yo) and female executives who don't have kids 'continue to be promoted more aggressively than their male counterparts' (according to a study by The Economist).

In light of the above, it wouldn't be unreasonable to suggest that motherhood, and not deliberate discrimination, is the cause of the gap in earnings (alongside men doing 40% more overtime and 25% of women only working part time).

Maternity reform could indeed be the answer, but then we have to ask the question of whether most of us actually want our husbands raising the baby. There are undoubtedly some who would rather their husband took the career hit (or shared it) but most couples I know have a joint bank account and see themselves as a partnership rather than splitting their earnings. If there is no net financial benefit to the couple then I firmly believe most women would want to be the one on maternity leave.

I agree with much of feminism thought, but some elements have me rolling my eyes tbh. There was a recent thread on AIBU called something like 'not working is a privilege', and there was post after post by women who were happy as housewives - "my husband is a high earner and I count myself lucky I can stay home and focus on my hobbies"....that type of thing.

I honestly think a lot of us experience a change in priorities once the kids come along and it isn't all about work and promotions. Some of the women in the above thread even stated that they (shock horror) preferred a traditional setup.

@Ritascornershop can women not equally face blind spots when it comes to their nearest and dearest? Statistics may tell you one thing but when it is your husband/son/father/brother being accused would you honestly be willing to damn him on just the accusation alone?

Concerning the scenario you outlined putting holes in walls and destroying furniture is the greater over reaction here. I wonder why that wasn’t highlighted?

we've been outearning men for over ten years now in both the US/UK
I can't find much to back that up.

www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2018/11/29/study-men-are-still-massively-outearning-women-in-the-u-s-infographic/

www.cnbc.com/2019/04/02/heres-how-much-men-and-women-earn-at-every-age.html

This mentions early-20s women outearning men in entry level jobs: fortune.com/2016/04/12/women-are-out-earning-men/
Women of all races start their careers making less than white men, but the growth rate of their wages tends to outpace that of white men early in their careers. This starts to change around the age of 29 and the growth rate of wages for women in their mid-thirties begins to be eclipsed by that of white men. From: www.payscale.com/data/peak-earnings

And finally www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-business/11832042/Women-earn-more-than-men-in-their-20s-until-the-pay-gap-hits-at-age-30.html

The £1000/yr extra appears to be it. And appears to apply to younger people in entry level jobs. Which could be simply down to girls having better academic grades, or choosing better paid entry level work (apprenticeship pay is very low, do more boys go into this?)
Also, and this is anecdotal - I know more NEET young men than women. If a proportion of men in their early twenties are sitting at home playing video games and having mum cook for them they will bring down the average, surely? Even if the unemployed ones are discounted the underemployed ones won't be.

I'm not sure why I even looked that up as it isn't relevant to the topic. Sorry.

It'll shut up the derailleur hopefully.

Fucking autocomplete..

Women outearn men until age 35 is just such an obvious attempt at spin that I can't be bothered to engage with it. Do most people's careers end at 35? Is that the retirement age? No? Then it doesn't make sense to only count what happens prior to that point.

Misogynists are exhausting.

And yet we've been outearning men for over ten years now in both the US/UK. This trend only reverses around the approx age of motherhood (35yo) and female executives who don't have kids 'continue to be promoted more aggressively than their male counterparts' (according to a study by The Economist).

PPs have explained how we outearn men by a small amount in early career and how that amount doesn't add up to how much men will outearn women by by retirement age.

In light of the above, it wouldn't be unreasonable to suggest that motherhood, and not deliberate discrimination, is the cause of the gap in earnings (alongside men doing 40% more overtime and 25% of women only working part time).

Let me fix that for you. "In light of the above, it wouldn't be unreasonable to suggest that female parents are structurally discriminated against on a massive scale compared to male parents."

Two people have a child. One of them reduces hours or stops working, becoming financially-dependant on, and hence vulnerable to abuse by, the other. And somehow the one who does this is almost always female. This phenomenon does not happen because millions of women make choices in isolation. This is a consequence of a lot of factors, the undervaluing of motherhood being one of them.

When a mother returns to work full-time, she won't get the same pay as her male peers because she's been "out of work" for several years and so her skills are allegedly out-of-date. Let's have a look at those skills.

She will have learned to manage tantruming toddlers and sulking teens. She will have managed budgets and purchasing for an age-diverse family, identifying and prioritising essentials to cope with limited funds. She will have planned and implemented the logistics required to get children to their after-school clubs and move infants around with the lorryload of stuff that babies seem to need. She will have learned time management skills to cope with children's unpredictability in terms of needing the loo or losing their homework just before they're due to leave. She will have learned proactive communication skills so that she doesn't get told an ingredients list for cookery class the night before the class, but instead she asked her DC for any ingredients before she did the weekly shop.

These skills would stand her in great stead working with many of the academics I have had the misfortune to work with, who tantrum, sulk, have no concept of how long work takes nor how much if will cost, and seem to think that their lack of planning constitutes my emergency.

Sadly, these skills are not regarded as relevant to the workplace, which is why they don't get recognition when negotiating returning mothers' salaries. If we valued motherhood, we'd value these skills learned and used in the home as much as we value them when learned and used in the workplace, and we'd pay returning mothers accordingly.