I'm feeling overwhelmed about the world for women right now.

[NeverMindTheBackProblems]

I'm just reading a news article about the horrific case of Gisele Pelicot. I can't actually put into words how I feel about it, it's just beyond horrific.
Women's voices silenced in Afghanistan. Literally not allowed to speak.
Payton McNabb being paralysed and having brain damage from being hit in the face from a ball hit from a transgender male.
Imane Khelif wearing a groin guard and sitting on the shoulders of his crew despite supposedly being a muslim woman.
Valentino Petrillo and Caster Semenya being natal women despite having fathered children.
All of the "this never happens" sex offenders giving advice and guidance to governments.
And yes, let's do something about VAWG but never actually doing anything while women continue to die at the hands of men. The latest UN figures show that 137 women across the world are killed every day by a partner or member of their own family – a total of 50,000 women a year murdered by people they know and should be able to trust. 80% of murders were committed by men in 2017.
I'm fucking sick of it. And I'm so fucking angry.

I know. It's awful. What else can we do other than say no?

What can we do indeed? There must be something!

No there’s nothing to do that will ever change the nature of MEN

Globally things are better now for women than in the 90s.

Poverty is less, there are fewer wars. Both of these have huge effects on women globally.

Women's education is up with the birth rate going down.

But yes, in the west there haven't been the improvements there should have been. Domestic abuse and femicide are still normalised.

Porn is at the root of it.

Fight that and stop the rot.

I am feeling similarly OP. The Gisele Pelicot case has set me reeling. Absolutely screaming with rage inside.

My friend's 18 year old niece was battered black and blue by a "nice boy" she had a one night stand with.

Can we trust any man? Would they all do such things if given the opportunity?

I really fear for my daughter.

So depressing.

I just don't believe it will ever get better for women.

So many hurt, disabled and murdered by men. All the time.

I used to roll my eyes at that Greer quote about women having no idea about how much men hate us. I am genuinely terrified for my daughter, I keep giving her pep talks about not taking shit from people. I’m scared that there will come a point where I can’t keep her safe, I am actually genuinely terrified. Increasingly I bounce between rage and despair.

This is how I feel, apart from Germaine Greer. I knew she had it right early in my 20s.

it is getting worse on an individual level, I think porn is a big factor in allowing men space to grow these feelings towards women.

it may be more acceptable to vocalise hatred of women in some cultures, but I think that hatred is found equally amongst all colours and creeds. I also think many men don’t recognise their feelings as hatred or objectification. They say they ‘love’ women but they only love women who do what they want and act how they want. They don’t love women as autonomous human beings. NAMALT but Too many are

It's overwhelming isn't it? Looking at Afghanistan I can see just how easily women's rights can be completely taken away. It's hard not to contrast that with women being punched by men becoming an Olympic sport and all the erosions on women's rights over here in the West. With the Last Leg guys who are mainstream, cheering on on TV. It's quite disturbing.

Yes. It's terrifying and overwhelming, especially if one has daughters.

Along with the Pelicot story, the reminder that millions of men enjoyed watching videos of real girls being raped on Pornhub made me wonder about men.

How I forced Pornhub to take down child abuse videos

www.thetimes.com/article/9b172d12-984e-4faa-9be7-d9348aa9c4f1?shareToken=675deef42c22e12cdebf9a3b5d6c2680

Not to forget the many fake feminist or feminist ally men who use their good guy status as a cover to prey on women and girls.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/5150957-neil-gaiman-accused-of-sexual-assault-pt-ii

Let’s not forget:
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/article/2024/sep/03/ugandan-olympic-athlete-in-hospital-after-being-set-on-fire-by-boyfriend

It's relentless and depressing. See also the other thread about men hating us.

I try to articulate this to DH he just doesn't get it and will not engage if I push it. For eg when the young girls were murdered at the dance class I said more VAWG and he just said no it's just a mentally unwell person. I said no, the murderer is male. DH changed subject and said why must you always make it about that?

I was v mad at him that day. He just prefers not to think about it. I said to him; it's your sex class that's the problem, your sex class that needs to do something. The issue is this will never change because even good men like DH are not going to push to change the system. They'll shrug and say oh that's an awful story but won't make the overarching connection that we women do that this is, and always will be, a male problem.

I don’t think they want to change. It’s like an addict, you can’t force them.

It's just been announced that she has died. RIP Rebecca.

If you can get him to cooperate, ask him to go through the newspaper every day, and mark how many violent crimes are committed by women and how many are committed by men.

Every day the paper will have at least one or two, often loads more. After a week, it becomes fairly noticeable.

After two weeks, it's a no brainer. If he won't do it, you do it, and show him.

I think many men are resistant to accepting its a problem with their sex. For all the usual reasons. So I agree it's a bit of a task.

The only way is to not breed with the most violent ones. Breed it out of them.

Yes I know, easier said than done.

I am worried for our daughters and grand daughters. What's going to happen to them? I could weep.

Honestly I have a constant underlying feeling of dread for my daughter. She's 16, she's ambitious and driven and desperate to be a chef, she's taking the steps towards it now and has done it all on her own. I want to be proud of her but all I can think is that she's about to walk into what is very much a men's world - an aggressive, angry men's world at that. I'm so scared for her and wish I could just protect her forever.

It feels like that there was a moment where respect and equality was possible. Then the tech revolution arrived. Thanks to the internet we had the likes of FB, Snapchat etc developed by young deeply misogynistic men.

We have tech titians that are deeply misogynistic such as Gates, Musk, Altman, Thiel, etc and their views seep into the technology and platforms they’ve built not to mention the social and political power they’ve accumulated along with their billions.

This technology has created online porn deliberately made accessible to children and young teens. The likes of OF and Pornhub. So called influencers like Tate poisoning young men’s minds. Social media amplifying the worst of the world. Technology that creates life like robot sex dolls. And now we’re told AI will save the world. Right.

Men have always hated women but technology has made this much worse.

The patriarchy raises men in the expectation of power and when they don’t have the power to which they feel entitled they use their physical strength advantage in violence against women.
It’s that fundamental imbalance that needs to be addressed if anything is to change.

All men benefit from the actions of violent men. It restricts the lives of women. It allows men to perform the barest minimum and still feel good and even to be lauded for bare standards of decency.

Even on FWR, all too often, accepting that, at a social level, 'good men' indirectly gain from the actions of 'bad men' because of the the invisible and discounted impact of VAWG, will normally trigger

• demands to point out specific privilege
• accusations of overlooking the trauma of male family members in contemporaneous news stories.

I still find it baffling that this happens when it's clear that there is a relentless erosion of women's rights and clear demonstrations that they aren't rights because they can be removed with alarming speed and without our consent.

If you can get him to cooperate, ask him to go through the newspaper every day, and mark how many violent crimes are committed by women and how many are committed by men.

And this is despite the relative over-reporting of violent/serious crimes by women because they're relatively unusual.

I might do that @Datun thanks.

I have two sons, one severely autistic (who I worry about for lots of reasons, one major one being in Scotland and the land of mad gender ideology). So I want my sons to understand this as well, I mean, hopefully my autistic son will be able to, I think being so vulnerable it might not be on his radar really until he's much much older. I don't want to hammer it to the point they become sick of me and do the "oh mum's going on about this again". They are still v v young. Primary and nursery age.

My life has been dotted with experiences of misogyny and sexual assaults (thankfully never rape but nearly on 2 occasions). Low level misogyny (talked over in meetings, patronised, dismissed). High level misogyny (threats, slaps, gropes). Thankfully never from male family members, mainly strangers, work colleagues or shitty ex boyfriends. I'm just tired. I've reached my 40s and I'm tired of it all. I met a lovely man and I love him but it tires me that on this subject he just won't see it. He's horrified at the high level misogyny and he believes my stories thankfully, but getting him to that place where it all clicks in his head is hard. So the newspaper thing, yes, I will try.