Why do some blokes (and please god believe me that I know it’s not all blokes!) behave in this way?

Peer pressure (or a lack of peer rebuke), ‘cos it is only a bit of fun’, and so on.

I don’t know the answer, but supporting those who call it out is part of it. As is having more women in leadership positions, sports, etc. I am hopeful that many of the younger generation, of both sexes are getting angry and trying to do something about this and about other inequalities. Then I remember that I live in a middle class white bubble, and that plenty of people – of all ages – still seem to have limited empathy, and social attitudes from the 1970s.

Just to be clear, when I said ‘it’s not all men’ – I, speaking as a woman mean that, we know its not all men that behave in a way that you shouldn’t (to put it mildly).
Unfortunately, when we are in a situation, particularly when emotion, fear, adrenaline kicks in, do we know whether you’re one of the safe ones, a psychopath, a creep, seemingly harmless? No. Anymore than you do not.
Did I say that this can affect all and it is not just women who suffer, yes I did.

My point is that as a women it is a very conscious thing, a point well made by others that day to day, simple situations have to be considered, planned, prepared for whilst (mostly) if you are male, it is taken for granted and not even a consideration.

To those that have even asked, what is the answer, what can we do – Thank you. Just asking, engaging, thinking about it is the first step.
We, as women don’t have the answers, I’m not sure as society we do, yet. It isn’t a simple single action or answer but by being involved is a massive thing. Thank you

Just to add, I have experienced more actual violence from women than men.
But I have experienced far more fear of violence from men.

As for thanking men who are questioning what they can do, sorry but that doesn’t sit right with me. I’m not meaning to criticise anybody. It is just something that should never have needed thinking about.

Lots of things should never have needed thinking about, genocide being one – humans still do those things and don’t think about what they’ve done or the individuals and societies complicity in those actions.

So whilst I get the point that it shouldn’t require thanks, I don’t agree that these questions should have never needed thinking about.

Humans are violent **** with a penchant for justifying morally abhorrent actions. The sooner we wake up to that reality the better. We’re one rung up from shit hurling chimpanzees.

Personally, I think we are many rungs down from shit-hurling chimps. If the worst human beings did was to throw shit, we’d be good deal better than we are now.

Humans are violent **** with a penchant for justifying morally abhorrent actions.

And yet the vast majority of us live our lives in the exact opposite manner you describe. All you’re doing is excusing the abhorrent actions of a minority by saying ‘it’s human nature’. It’s not, it’s the nature of a few bullies who use their aggression and narcissism to make everyone think it’s normal.

and lets not go about negatively stereotyping our arboreal cousins:

“Primatologist Frans de Waal states bonobos are capable of altruism, compassion, empathy, kindness, patience, and sensitivity,[3] and described “bonobo society” as a “gynecocracy”

@BillMC There’s been a study of different dolphin pods looking after and feeding a disabled dolphin too who doesn’t swim with any pod as she/he is unable to do so but lives in a bay and is helped by different visiting pods.
And we imprison them in theme park pools and watch them do tricks for dead fish.
We are many many rungs down the ladder than so many other animals.

And yet the vast majority of us live our lives in the exact opposite manner you describe. All you’re doing is excusing the abhorrent actions of a minority by saying ‘it’s human nature’. It’s not, it’s the nature of a few bullies who use their aggression and narcissism to make everyone think it’s normal.

The history of human conflict suggests that it’s not a minority who are predisposed and can be co-opted into violence under the right conditions. It’s men and women in general.

If you “other” violence and claim that it’s a minority that take part in it, you excuse most men and if you think that it’s a tiny minority of narcissistic sociopaths who partake in violence – well you can’t cure evil so what’s the point of this discussion again?

Pilot, I heard a story about if a group of humans is in distress in the sea dolphins can pick up heartbeats and will save a pregnant woman first. It wasn’t a scientific source but a lovely account nevertheless.

Dolphins are bastards as well

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/03/animals-rape-murder-morality-humans/585049/

However

But we must be careful not to anthropomorphize their behavior, whether it be cute, smart, or horrid.

We’re hardwired to kill each other and compete for resources to get women.

No, this sort of Ultra-Darwinian bollocks is partly why we’re in the situation we find ourselves. Humans have not evolved to be like this, in fact co-operation is the main reason we dominant the planet. Blaming “evolution” for the fact that a good percentage of the people living in our societies today feel in danger because of it, seems the worse sort of “Nothing we can do about it” non-answer.

As a number of people have pointed out, calling out bad behaviour from men towards women can result in violence, lying dead or brain damaged from a punch achieves nothing, and the sort of individual who reacts like that is so hardwired in that behaviour that it’s difficult to see what can be done. I’ve been on the receiving end a couple of times, there was a couple leaning against my front fence one night, and I went out and asked them not to, because it wasn’t that sturdy and I didn’t want to see them lying in my front garden, and with no warning the bloke punched me in the face!
Another time I was in my regular pub and I was asking for my pint to be in a specific glass that I always had, a tankard style, and a bloke at the bar made a thing about it. He was quite aggressive, but I ignored him, got the drinks and went and sat down. Shortly afterwards, he got into a confrontation with another customer which resulted in the two of them crashing into other drinkers tables, drinks and the two of them on the floor! And also being thrown out and banned. It’s a mindset that’s difficult for me to understand, (except when Piers Morgan is involved😉), and I just have no answers as to how it can be changed.

oakleymuppet

do you really think yo are helping or are you just making excuses? the tone of your posts stinks quite honestly.

As regards intervening – beware the bystander effect. I have intervened in a couple of situations ( where other people were about) and although I was the first to intervene I did a lot of shouting and within a few seconds others were helping me.

Other things you can do to make inteveneing safer is the usual – make sure yo have got an escape route, make sure others are around and know you are going to intervene and so on

I’d hope most people would get involved if there was male on female violence happening.

What needs to change is getting involved when casual sexism and intimidation is heard, even if they’re your boss or your friend.

well you can’t cure evil so what’s the point of this discussion again?

Please define ‘evil’ in the context of your claim?

Having grown up with the majority of my friends being female I’ve seen a lot of them go through some absolute crap at the hands of men, strangers and people they know. I don’t claim to have any answers but I do have some observations.

How do we address it? Will it be made worse by lack of social contact over this last year? I have a lot of questions, no answers and little knowledge

It will be one giant ‘Lads on the pull’ for a few weeks when pubs and other venues reopen. There’s a lot of men who will have been starved of any kind of female interaction and their primeval part of their brains will take over with even a hint of alcohol in there so expect the return to inappropriate chatting up, wolf-whistles and the odd fight over a woman. The town and city centres will be a no-go for women for a while unfortunately. Hopefully it’ll settle down after a few weeks but if the behaviour of men pre-pandemic most weekends in Cardiff is anything to go by then it may not.

When you see it, call it out. Take steps to understand what you personally can do to help prevent it Teach the men (and specifically young men) around you that it’s unacceptable behaviour.

I’ve regularly had to call people out in inappropriate behaviour towards my female friends, from snide comments to unwanted physical contact. I’ve even called out people in the uplift queue at BPW for ogling up a female in the queue and making some pretty derogatory comments about her and what they’d do with her that night. They genuinely thought I’d join in with the banter but they looked shocked and called me out as Gay when I shot them down (I’m not just for the record).

…lets not forget 75% of violent crime is against men…

As someone who’s work was out and about the streets at all hours of the day and night I have a very good reason that will explain why this statistic actually helps hide the issue: women are far more likely to go out in numbers for the added safety in groups angle. They are also much more likely to stick to safer areas and even just not go out in some areas at certain times of the day or night. Some of my female friends have the automatic habit of not going to the local corner shop at night alone due to this purely down to not feeling safe then. Others drive during the day for the same reason. Back when I had just passed my driving test I would regularly get asked to pick some of them up after a night out that I wasn’t on down to them being fearful of men at night and the dangers of rogue taxi drivers (one was convicted locally of propositioning young ladies). Lots of women, especially young and attractive ones are conditioned by society to automatically do certain behaviours to avoid men’s attention. That’s completely wrong.

A woman is walking toward you, or worse in front of you, also alone.

She is likely thinking about whether you are a threat, does she cross the road?, is she gripping onto her keys in her pocket?, maybe she’ll get her phone out and call someone, maybe she’ll walk a little taller, head up, look confident, she may change direction so you don’t know where shes going. Her heart rate is likely increased, all sorts of scenarios running through her head, she perhaps can’t breathe, and all because you’re ‘there’ – you’ve done nothing wrong, just being, just your presence is enough. You are probably not even aware.

Sadly to some men they can also interpret those signals as a sign that’ she ‘likes you’ and is an invitation to talk to them, probably the worst thing they could do in that situation!

Its a bigger issue than just this, behaviour from some sections of society is just appalling, whether it’s this, violence, racism, general ignoring of the law right through to fly tipping and lockdown breaking at the other end of the scale.

Sadly this seems true too, it’s all inter-related. These is no one solution or cause, it’s a lot of issues caused by lots of historical attitudes, beliefs and prejudices. I have no idea what the solutions are but I am determined o not be part of the problem.

Please define ‘evil’ in the context of your claim?

The narcissistic sociopatjs that Daz mentioned.

Violence towards women is deeply intertwined with our species and societies ability to commit and justify violence against our-groups and their women and children.

More bullshit oakleymuppet. You are part of the problem.

When you see it, call it out. Take steps to understand what you personally can do to help prevent it Teach the men (and specifically young men) around you that it’s unacceptable behaviour.

One observation from me. Overall the tone of this thread gives me hope and its a long way from the STW of a few years ago where I got absolute pelters for objecting to the regular scantily clothed pictures of women threads.

The narcissistic sociopatjs that Daz mentioned.

We (as a species) aren’t likely to ‘wipe out’ narcissistic personality disorders and/or sociopathy, I agree. That much is agreed.

But I don’t get what you are saying here:

If you “other” violence and claim that it’s a minority that take part in it, you excuse most men

?? Am I right in understanding that you are claiming that ‘most men’ are intrinsically violent?

More bullshit oakleymuppet. You are part of the problem

Case in point.

?? Am I right in understanding that you are claiming that ‘most men’ are intrinsically violent?

Most humans are capable of being co-opted into or justifying violence, again – I can’t see the surprise in that to be honest considering humanities illustrious history. Which I guess isn’t actually surprising as only a small minority of westerners have ever witnessed conflict.

You are part of the problem oakley muppet and your postings are tone deaf

what you are saying is “its human nature, we can do nothing about it” which is utter nonsense. You have plenty of previous on here for this sort of shite. I don’t know if you think its being clever and provocative or why you are doing it but the attitudes you are expressing certainly makes you part of the problem.

And yes i will not be passive any more. I will call out this sort of bullshit everytime I see it.

Muppet by name, muppet by nature

One observation from me. Overall the tone of this thread gives me hope and its a long way from the STW of a few years ago where I got absolute pelters for objecting to the regular scantily clothed pictures of women threads.

When you take a longer term view it is quite surprising how much we’ve progressed in a relatively short space of time over things like page 3, gay rights, racism etc. There’s a long way to go, but soon enough the Brexit generation will be dead and our children can get on with dragging the UK into the 21st century.

You’re just serving to evidence my point there TJ, with that tone.

“muffled screams as banhammer descends for telling oaklymuppet just what I think of him”

We agree to disagree. This is a disagreement over the human condition, I think all of us are capable of dehumanising others and either subjecting them to violence, justifying it or standing by without saying anything – and that’s something we have to be mindful of.

You clearly have never dehumanised anyone, so we’ll leave it at that.

And I say you are talking utter bullshit and making excuses so you don’t have to accept you and attitudes like yours are a huge part of the problem.

Woosh.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/08/it-is-all-men-to-varying-degrees-mens-violence-against-women-is-a-systemic-crisis

According to the guardian, you’re part of the problem TJ.

I tend to agree.

Sorry to everyone else for getting in a spat with this contemptible excuse for a human. Its derailed the thread and I apologise for that.

I still think it important to call out such.

Said without any hint of irony there TJ.

My point is that as a women it is a very conscious thing, a point well made by others that day to day, simple situations have to be considered, planned, prepared for whilst (mostly) if you are male, it is taken for granted and not even a consideration.

I’m not entirely convinced you are right. All the things women are citing about safety on the streets – arming themselves with keys, going a different/longer route home, appearing to be on the phone, changing direction to see if you are being followed, crossing the road to avoid someone who makes you feel uncomfortable, are all things I’ve done in british cities, and I’m a bloke.

I’d love to know if I’m paranoid or other men are similarly uncomfortable.

The difference is, whilst I’ve actually been chased and hit by a baseball bat (for no reason) and threatened at knife point (to take my shitty jacket), nobody has ever rubbed their genitals against me in a bar, groped me, made suggestive sexual comments etc. So my fear is getting beaten up, maybe stabbed – but it’s extremely unlikely I will be raped or sexually abused. I know my son is far more likely to get attacked than my daughter but worry more about the impact on my daughter… in fact everyone I know personally who has ever been jumped (mugged, attacked etc by a stranger for no reason) is male. Perhaps women are more cautious or perhaps they don’t talk about it – but my gut feel is society somehow thinks it’s ok if guys get attacked but not if girls. That can’t be right, can it?

another significant difference is I’ve never felt intimidated by a woman or even group of women when walking alone at night, even in the roughest areas of Glasgow or Edinburgh, even if they are clearly a bit drunk/larey. That’s not to suggest that, especially when drunk is involved, women don’t attack each other – but they very rarely make unprovoked attacks on men, is that just a physical strength thing? Seems unlikely I’d lose a fight with most women…

Interestingly I don’t feel concerned at all walking around in the small town I live in after dark, and will even run through unlit woods etc; my wife won’t make the same journeys even though you can almost guarantee never meeting anyone. She’d rather go busier areas where she will actually see other strangers – when pubs are open I’ll actively avoid those areas because I perceive drunk men to be part of the issue. I think the problem is not just how can society make women safe, but how can society make them feel safe. Clearly some of that has to do with language/attitudes etc – but I think there’s probably more than that. Hopefully it will mean men feel safer too.

Controversially, I think there are probably models of male masculinity that *some* women promote which actually feed the belief that strong, aggressive types are attractive and thus lead men to pursuing that behaviour. There is already a change in attitudes in younger adults since I was young enough to be called a lad, but it’s certainly not universal.

@oakleymuppet – your link that you used to show that it’s natural for men to be above women is human nature actually provides clear evidence that it’s cultural conditioning that is the primary issue:

Gendered violence begins with the idea that you are entitled to obedience, sex, authority or a different set of freedoms because you are a man. That you have the intrinsic right to treat someone else in a way that you would not be treated. It is expressed in coercive control – exerting power over your partner’s finances, social life, clothing, career or otherwise reducing their individual agency.

I grew up in a religious environment that taught that men were the head of the house, that women couldn’t perform certain rituals, weren’t able to teach men or take leadership positions. When I was a child, my default image of engineers, pilots, football players and prime ministers was male. I said “policeman” instead of “police officer” and assumed my doctors would be men and my nurses would be women.

Every baby is born with no inbuilt knowledge of what a male or female is, the same way they don’t know the difference skin colour makes to a person. If you’ve ever seen little kids (6 months-1 year old) play with each other in a mixed sex or ethnicity scenario you will quickly notice that they take other kids mainly at face value. The white/black kid who is hesitant to play with the kid of the opposite is actually rather rare and can mostly be put down to the influence of their parents and family. Babies learn from the minute they are born and all of this learning influences their future behaviour far, far more than some primeval instinct. Those primeval instincts only ever tend to surface when there is a lack of knowledge to override them. Like being drunk or being in a completely new situation. The obvious example is the fight/flight reaction. If you put a person in a situation where they detect danger then they will do one or the other. IF you give that person the correct knowledge and skills to manage that situation once they have recognised it then they can mitigate the danger and increase their control over the situation. Military people being the obvious example, they are highly trained to be calm when faced with dangers that we, as a civilian, would crap ourselves in. It’s why there are (in normal times) lots of classes and courses about to teach women self-defence and how to mitigate getting into dangerous situations in the first place. It’s a mark against us that we don’t see the need to offer these courses to men don’t you think? Maybe we should offer courses to men to learn how to avoid putting women in these dangerous situations through our actions.

TL:DR you’re coming across as someone who s contributing to the problem. I agree with TJ on this.

When you take a longer term view it is quite surprising how much we’ve progressed in a relatively short space of time over things like page 3, gay rights, racism etc. There’s a long way to go, but soon enough the Brexit generation will be dead and our children can get on with dragging the UK into the 21st century.

Absolutely. If you could take someone from 1990 to now they wouldn’t recognise the world today, it would be even more extreme for someone from the 1970’s.

Every baby is born with no inbuilt knowledge of what a male or female is, the same way they don’t know the difference skin colour makes to a person.

Agree with a lot of that.

Humans are however, built in with an ability to dehumanise. As soon as you “other” women or minorities, you lay the foundations for violence.

Like anything, it’s a complex mix of nature vs nurture.

Society needs to gain a better understanding and awareness of dehumanisation and it’s use as a defence mechanism for the ego – eg “my life is shit – it must be the Jews, Women, Muslims, Romanians” etc and how we’re emotionally co-opted into state based violence that kills men, women and children.

There’s a lot of men who will have been starved of any kind of female interaction and their primeval part of their brains will take over with even a hint of alcohol in there so expect the return to inappropriate chatting up, wolf-whistles and the odd fight over a woman.

Hmmm…I think you are a bit off the mark there. As one of those sex starved men over last 12 months of lockdown I’m pretty sure I and others like me won’t be turning in to some sex crazed predator as soon as the pubs open. It’ll be as bad as it was before lockdown, but no worse imo

As for defending my female pals, I can remember 3 times I’ve had a word with guys in the pub who were making a pest of themselves, and every single time it resulted in a scrap. Luckily the guys that were doing it were pissed up weaklings, but would I be so confident about doing it when it involved a group of random blokes on the street..not so sure is honest answer.

?? Am I right in understanding that you are claiming that ‘most men’ are intrinsically violent?

Most humans are capable of being co-opted into or justifying violence

That is not the same thing as being ‘intrinsically violent’ is it?

I can be co-opted into baking or justifŷ having to bake. But I’m not intrinsically a baker.

*edit – not the best analogy. I think ‘potentially violent’ is more the case than ‘intrinsically violent’

If you’re justifying or have been co-opted into something, you’ve already gone wrong and you have lost or unburdened your own sense of self-responsibility.

A baker, is a baker whether they decided to do it for fun or not.

*edit – not the best analogy. I think ‘potentially violent’ is more the case than ‘intrinsically violent’

Agreed.