Women are only as safe as their male partner allows them to be

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www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/02/08/women-safe-male-partner-allows-head-girls-school-body-says-emma/

A statement related to Emma Pattison from the chief executive of the Girls Day School Trust (a group of independent girls schools).

@lightspeeds I grew up watching my dm being mistreated by my f. So I swore I would never rely on a man for anything, and I haven't.

Worked my arse off through my 20s and 30s, had ds in my 40s when I had an established career and was a decade into a mortgage.

And actually, it's less expensive living without a man. They waste so much money on ego stuff.

It's sad women should have to adopt such a strategy but it means me & ds and safe, secure, happy, relaxed. No-one to pull the rug from under our feet.

What you are forgetting is that the main reason women are mostly at risk from men they know is ease of access. If you are a violent man, it is much easier to attack the women whose space you share, whose routine you know.

What misogynists are asking for in the name of trans activism amounts to giving ALL males (self ID) more access to women. By destroying both the social convention and the right for women to have single sex spaces at times they are vulnerable.

This is something long understood by feminists and the left wing but sadly we seem to be importing a US hyper individualistic, capitalist version of "feminism" that refuses to understand class analysis lest it result in having to treat marginalised people better.

Trans activists are asking our daughters to remove their spidery senses about men and accept them in women’s spaces. So yes it is highly appropriate to mention it here. My daughter has her spidery senses intact and will continue with them intact.

Well said.

That is not what I meant. Please don't put words in my mouth. No woman being abused is silly. That is not what I was getting at. I'm sorry if that's how it came across.

I don't want to belittle your experience but I really don't think it's that much easier now. My husband was one of those men who's true abusiveness came to the fore when I was pregnant. I can look back now and see all of the red flags before that but I back then I justified it and thought it wasn't really his fault. But it escalated off the charts once I was pregnant and when DS was newborn and I wouldn't allow DS to live like that, so I left him.

However I can't divorce him because he would get some amount of unsupervised custody and there is no way I'll ever risk going to court. Decades ago he would have been less likely to get that type of custody and he probably wouldn't have even gone to court. Repeatedly taking their exes to court for custody is currently a very common tactic for abusers. Courts are massively swayed by the argument of parental alienation and place children in the custody of dangerous parents all the time.

So while I get to live apart from my husband, I've spent over a decade, managing that relationship to keep my DS safe. I'm a generally happy person but that fact is that I live in a type of limbo because the court system would absolutely not protect my DS. If we had done all this 20 years before, I'd have been probably have been divorced before DS started school.

Absolutely this. And it ties into pickle's post about male inadequacy in relationships being the norm and therefore early warning behaviours being ignored. I used to judge my mum for not managing my dad's behaviour well enough and now I think that was my internalised misogyny.

Mumsnet and FDS are a wealth of resources on the signs of abusive behaviour but for it's often a case of too little, too late. Young women need more cultural, real life training on men, Lundy Bancroft style, in the same way that parents drum it into their children not to get into a car with a stranger.

Ah I get it, anti-trans people are moderators, that’s why there’s such a proliferation of anti-trans rhetoric on MN. Suddenly it all makes sense 🙄.

This is on the sex/gender forum. If you don't want mention of women's rights in relation to single sex spaces, and how these relate to Emma and Lettie Pattinson's murder, you should find a discussion on another forum.

This. We regulars didn't ask for the board split. But this is where women can talk about things that affect women based on sex.

Violent rhetoric against women online is rife. Some of the most openly graphic threats come from trans activists and the men who follow them. There is no respect for women and girls. It's perfectly expected that women protesting their rights can be openly threatened with violence in the street.

And of course you also have the rise of incel forums, men grouping together, supporting misogynists and bonding over hating women.

Two cheeks of the same arse.

Being pro women, and believing that TW are TW but still male is not anti trans. Accepting that current statistics indicate that TW offend in the same pattern and proportion as other men is not anti trans.

As with other men there are plenty of nice TW who aren't bad people. But whilst the statistics show that offending rates are similar, all males should be included in the risk assessment irrespective of presentation and identification. Eroding this is eroding women's rights and teaching people than women are not worthy of safe guarding

I remember my father telling me this years and years ago that a woman's ( and I'll add on heterosexual) most important choice in life was who she decides to have children with.
At the time it seemed ridiculous. I thought that there were so many others choices/factors/luck, who knows, along the line that would be more decisive, but now I agree with him.
Obviously this is on a broad scale, and obviously talking about women that do want children.

More ridiculous attempts to name call and shut down women I see.

I was objecting to your assessment of my critical thinking ability.

I'm more than capable of disagreeing with someone. You didn't need to get personal so you can fuck off again.

I repeat: You do not know me. You do not know about my personal or professional experience.
And you actually don't know my views on gender.
All you know is that I don't agree this needs to be brought into a discussion about this woman and her child.
I find it insulting and if I was their relative or friend I would be appalled.

Pro women. If you think being pro women is anti Trans then you know there is a clash of rights. You can keep on advocating for the men if you want but if I was you, I'd start thinking of excuses as to why you advocate for rapists in female prisons and a lifelong medical path for young people as people are waking to to it al.
We'll keep advocating against those things here.

True this. After being married to two men who turned on me I'll never live with another man. I cant bring myself to trust them when my gut says they are dangerous and uncontrolled.

The discussion of choices puts me in mind of something Caitlin Moran once wrote (back in the days when she was writing good stuff about actual feminism). She was talking about the physical differences between men and women, how much more powerful men are, and likened it to being surrounded by bears. So you go on a date with a bear, and you just have to hope you get a good one (I'm paraphrasing obviously!)

That's what it's like to be a woman. There isn't really any choice involved, apart from the choice to go out in the world. It's a leap of faith, every single day - we literally just have to hope we don't meet a bad one. And if you're straight and you choose to live with one, you hope you've got it right. What you can't do is choose to be safe - unless you avoid the bears completely (women’s commune maybe?)

‘We’ll keep advocating for those things here’ sounds awfully like there’s no room for dissenting opinion, which again, would explain why my inoffensive post defending trans rights got deleted.

How did you choose to be safe?
And in the awful event that your DH did hit you or abuse you, would you still be able to choose to be safe?

I think you are saying that your DH is not responsible for your safety, which I get, but it does leave a slightly bad taste for those who don't feel safe in their homes. And that shouldn't be their fault.

You're calling people transphobes because they care about women's rights. And you don't think that's offensive? You're advocating for men's rights over women's rights but you want to paint people who see the damage this does to women as the ones not allowing room for dissenting opinions? Your statements are one sided and worthless. They are just mud slinging dressed up.

BTW, if I was a relative or friend of this family, I would be disgusted if people were putting a lot of effort into presenting that gender ideology is no making women more vulnerable and trying to hide the fact that all men can be a danger to women regardless of identity.

‘We’ll keep advocating for those things here’ sounds awfully like there’s no room for dissenting opinion, which again, would explain why my inoffensive post defending trans rights got deleted.

Actually I typed that we'll keep advocating against those things. I notice that you haven't denied what you are advocating for though.

And what rights do Trans People not have? We keep asking this question but no one seems to be able to answer it.

I now see men as inherently predatory, I believe that the majority of them are capable of being decent but if they get too much of the taste for power and control they turn bad very easily.
It's too easy for them to get the upper hand in a relationship because they are physically able to dominate us and because society gives more licence to men to be dominant. Never let them get the upper hand never let them get in a situation where they have too much leverage because if they have it they will use it.