Looking at men differently now I know too much?

[clingfilmed]

In recent years I've seen so much in the news and online about men's abuse and violence towards women. A man who looks totally normal and pleasant and is perhaps in many ways a good man might still be going home and creating fake AI nudes of women he knows or watching extreme porn or abusing his wife or kids or using prostitutes or cam girls or has a fetish that degrades and dehumanises women or is a complete misogynist.

There is a post on the relationships board now where a married man is hoping that just because a mum of his sons friend has been friendly towards him she might fancy him and be up for it.

Then looking at many of the men I know day to day how they talk to and interact with their wives and families is depressing to see, almost like they don't care at all.

I know its not every man, I know some men who I do think are good. I do look back to the rose tinted days of my teens when I would idealise boys and think they were so amazing and now knowing what I do about general trends and some men in particular its quite a disappointment.

Those posts on this thread give a strong vibe of 'not like other girls', which I had a bad case of in my younger years but I got cured of it as I got older.

Edited: spelling

Family violence scholars from the United States, Canada and the U.K. were invited to conduct an extensive and thorough review of the empirical literature, in 17 broad topic areas. They were asked to conduct a formal search for published, peer-reviewed studies through standard, widely used search programs, and then catalogue and summarize all known research studies relevant to each major topic and its sub-topics. In the interest of thoroughness and transparency, the researchers agreed to summarize all quantitative studies published in peer-reviewed journals after 1990, as well as any major studies published prior to that time, and to clearly specify exclusion criteria. Included studies are organized in extended tables, each table containing summaries of studies relevant to its particular sub-topic.

In this unprecedented undertaking, a total of 42 scholars and 70 research assistants at 20 universities and research institutions spent two years or more researching their topics and writing the results. Approximately 12,000 studies were considered and more than 1,700 were summarized and organized into tables. The 17 manuscripts, which provide a review of findings on each of the topics, for a total of 2,657 pages, appear in 5 consecutive special issues of the peer-reviewed journal Partner Abuse. All conclusions, including the extent to which the research evidence supports or undermines current theories, are based strictly on the data collected.

Perpetration

• Overall, 25.3% of individuals have perpetrated IPV
• Rates of female-perpetrated violence higher than male-perpetrated (28.3% vs. 21.6%)
• Wide range in perpetration rates: 1.0% to 61.6% for males; 2.4% to 68.9% for women,
• Range of findings due to variety of samples and operational definitions of PV
• Among large population samples, 57.9% of IPV reported was bi-directional, 42% unidirectional; 13.8% of the unidirectional violence was male to female (MFPV), 28.3% was female to male (FMPV)

domesticviolenceresearch.org/domestic-violence-facts-and-statistics-at-a-glance/

Ummm so how do you explain other stats showing 90% of domestic violence is perpetrated by men. Your stats seem very errrr. Flawed. Those stats make absolutely no sense.

Yeah that website looks like it’s been compiled in some MRA’s mum’s basement.

I like to go with proper statistics -

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/articles/domesticabusevictimcharacteristicsenglandandwales/yearendingmarch2025

Stats are also skewed since male offenders have been able to have their crimes recorded as being ‘female’.

Well, you would say that. Using the formatting of a website to dismiss thorough analysis of peer reviewed studies by over 100 academics is a little disingenuous. And your 'proper statistics' are from a government that apparently don't know the difference between a man and a woman!

I did address the government statistics anomaly earlier. It's literally one of the very few data sources that repeatedly contradicts the consensus found by the vast majority of studies. It's been suggested that it's because men don't tend to officially report as much - Mankind have done much research on this and say men are 2.4x less likely to report than women.

There's loads of stuff about this on their website. It's also supported by the fact that more women admit to being abusers then men do to being victims - the numbers should be roughly equal, unless women have a propensity to abuse multiple partners to a much greater extent than men.

But of course you'd cherry pick your data and dismiss anything you don't like the conclusion of. I'm not saying I'm 100% right about everything as you can only look at the data and make intelligent guesses but it says a lot that you're so selective about what you choose to believe.

You'd be using this as evidence if the conclusion was the other way around. Some of the studies I've seen quoted on here are shockingly bad. Non peer reviewed and based on 50 high school students etc.

I got to ‘cherry pick’, rolled my eyes and clicked off.

All your posts you have cherry picked stats in some way or the other to defend males as being the main perpetrators of crime. Even the one about dogs. Come on now.

If Rates of female-perpetrated violence higher than male-perpetrated , according to the research quoted by GaIadriel, isn't it odd that male victims of domestic violence haven't spent the past 50 or so years organising themselves to set up hundreds of men's refuges?

Very odd.

This concerned me, as one more striking instance of rather unconvincing/selective reasoning from someone otherwise very focussed on the facts and stats. Maybe they weren't aware of this, but it's been widely reported: no Minority Report was needed - he already had a history of a type of sexual offending that comes with a recognised risk of escalation.

The subsumption of this key information into rather misleading generalisation reflects, I think, the essence of most posters' critiques of Galadriel's POV (and, indeed, the concerns in this corner of MN about so-called "trans-inclusion").

When flashing is seen as so insignificant that a jokey comment about "Minority Report technology" can be made, it suggests a failure to recognise the huge significance and impact of such crimes on women.

When "woman" itself has lost its meaning to become "inclusive" of males, with protests against this dismissed as mere "culture war", it suggests a lack of recognition of the huge significance and impact of navigating the world in a female body.

And when the noun "violence" is expanded to include the verbal and emotional without qualifiers in soundbite headlines, as in the meta-study of "domestic violence" linked, it too can disguise the significant imbalance between the sexes in the context and character of the "violence" perpetrated.

On quick skimming, this imbalance does seems to reflected to some degree in the small print.

• According to national samples, 0.2% of men and 4.5% of women have been forced to have sexual intercourse by a partner
• 4.1% to 8% of women and 0.5% to 2% of men report at least one incident of stalking during their lifetime
• ...One paper found that women were more motivated to perpetrate violence as a result of power/control than were men, and three found that men were more motivated...
• For non-perpetrator samples, the rates of self-defense reported by men ranged from 0% to 21%, and for women the range was 5% to 35%.
• When severe aggression has been perpetrated (e.g., punching, kicking, using a weapon), rates of injury are much higher among female victims than male victims, and those injuries are more likely to be life-threatening and require a visit to an emergency room or hospital.

Etc.

I THINK I FOUND IT!!!

(Ahem. Sorry. It's been bugging me on and off each time I see this thread).

Below: counter-arguments highlighting key distortions, fallacies and over-simplifications in the WATM argument.

This isn't to discount male victims.

It is to say that many posters countering Galadriel, above, have a point, and - as Galadriel herself argues - it's very, very complex, and the stats bear very close examination.

https://kareningalasmith.com/what-about-the-men-special-mens-section/

This one, in particular, is interesting.

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

And another I think is enlightening.

https://kareningalasmith.com/2015/03/14/sex-differences-and-domestic-violence-murders/

Many of her points are addressed though. They do look at instigation - e.g. the majority of one sided DV being female perpetrated. They also look at severity. There have been many studies looking at this stuff. I trust a large group of 100+ academics more than I do a popular feminist who will clearly have a strong bias.

Yes - from my quick skim the details on instigation and severity seem to support most posters' concerns above. KIS's analysis reinforces their - our - argument that "the devil is in the detail".

(It was, admittedly, a very quick skim).

But didn’t you say that this one one of the few sources that contradicts a consensus? So you’re saying everyone else is wrong but this one study is right? Nah mate. I don’t know where you found this er…. tat, but nice try. You’ll be saying the fact about 100% of rapists being men is wrong next.

Having skim read the summary page of Gad's study all of 30 mins ago, I just tried to find it to look at more closely later, and for some reason have totally lost it! I wanted to look more closely at its source. Too tired now, clearly, so off to rest, but will try to drop in again, and would be grateful if she could post it again. Sorry! 😩

Have, in my haphazard search, found another critical review of the literature on this, though, in good ol' Sage. After, again, far less skimming than it needs, the conclusion seems to be, basically, Uh, it's reeeeally complex and needs more research (not least bc terminology often conflates the different contexts to and types of abuse). This one also argues for more careful attention to gender as well as and as opposed to sex. I've mixed feelings here. I mean, relieved respect for distinguishing between the two, and attention needs to be given to all groups... but how one accurately quantifies the impact of "gender" (as opposed to eg. the more definitive "post-operative trans men" or similar), I really don't know...

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/15248380211043827

Men's emotional abuse of women is often a precursor to other forms of more serious abuse. Women's emotional abuse of men isn't. Women seldom put men in hospital and almost never in coffins. The converse is not true.

It hence makes sense to treat men's emotional abuse of women as a red flag that warns of future physical abuse. The rescue charities figured this out a long time ago. Had the police learned the comparable lesson about flashing being a red flag for later rape,
Wayne Couzins would have been suspended from police duties and Sara Everard might still be alive.

No, I'm saying the opposite. Most studies show the figures being close or women perpetrating more. That's how they reached this conclusion after analysing 10,000 studies.

It's only crime data that seems to be completely at odds, which may be down to the fact that men report much less than women according to the biggest DV charities.

But even gov data finds women perpetrating in 42% of cases, so men wouldn't need to be under-reporting by much. Funnily enough we only ever see crime data posted on here, never any of the many other studies. 🤔

Uh huh. Sure buddy sure. But what I don’t get is…. if women are so dangerous, why do men with a trans identity think they’ll be safer in women’s spaces? I mean, surely, if men are so innocent and no offending, they’d be safer with men.

This has got to be AI no. Women perpetrating more? Read what we’ve posted. Stop embarrassing yourself.

But @GaIadriel is obviously using the new definition of woman, so of course it looks like women are more violent. How many of those DV perpetrators are women and how many are males with a trans identity? So really the male perpetrator figure could be a lot higher.

What is AI no?

Good point.