It is entirely true that there should not be violence against women. It’s also true that all lives matter, not just those pink and frilly so we should be aiming for no violence against anyone. But, clearly, given current events that’s not an attitude that’s going to get much air play at present.
To stick with the idea of none against women:
‘Society as a whole can tackle violence against women and girls via legislation and education’
While we have come a long way, tragic cases like Sarah Everard’s remind us there is still a way to go
That’s an odd claim. Or, perhaps, an incomplete one. For we used to have a system of at least trying to prevent violence against women. That was the idea that one simply never did hit a woman – used here as a catch all for that patriarchal system whereby men saw it as their duty to protect women. The same thing that had the ladies and kiddies taking the lifeboats while the men deckchaired it to the orchestra playing as the Titanic sank.
This is not, not at all, a clarion call for a return to such days. It is, rather, to note that we did have a societally agreed system by which the desired aim was at least attempted. Women were protected from violence because it was beaten into that society as a whole that that’s just not what was done.
We have changed society. Largely for the better too. The economic liberation of women is an undoubted boon. Their sexual liberty – which is clearly the sexual liberty of all – is on balance a benefit even as there are downsides to it. What we’ve not as yet done is found a similar societal solution to violence against women. That’s the very complaint being made.
Again, this is not to say that the old ways were better. Now is it to try and insist that we must return to them. It is just to note that we used to have a largely stable agreement on how things should be. Currently we do not. We have a number of insistences about how things should be, true, but again the complaint here is that not all have signed on to it.
We are, that is, looking for the new equilibrium solution that will be generally agreed and thereby generally enforced.
One of the problems with reaching such agreement is that as with near all crime there needs to be adjustment along many boundaries. We agree that people should not steal cars for example, but we also agree that leaving a car with the keys in is going to increase the opportunity to steal a car – and thus the incidence of car stealing. We do not buy door locks because all agree that burglary is criminal. We buy door locks to make burglary more difficult.
That is, we need adjustment along the boundary of female behaviour as well as along that one of beating the snot out of any man who dares be violent. Which is, of course, one of our problems in trying to reach this new equilibrium, that first is the very thing that some insist should not have to happen.
That is, we need adjustment along the boundary of female behaviour as well as along that one of beating the snot out of any man who dares be violent. Which is, of course, one of our problems in trying to reach this new equilibrium, that first is the very thing that some insist should not have to happen. That’s a very brave thing to suggest in the depths of cancel culture. The “womxn” have firmly insisted that it is men that need to learn not to rape and if a strong, empowered and independent womxn wishes to wander the streets… Read more »
Yep. There’s a lot of talk about safe spaces for women. But what we really need are safe spaces for men. In the good old days – I’ve mentioned my hair colour before haven’t I – men had special schools, special jobs, special clubs. There were plenty of places where they weren’t tempted, bothered, or harassed by women. But now they can’t avoid them anywhere. And has been pointed out, even if there aren’t any women, a bloke can always turn into one and make a nuisance of him —– oops herself. But perhaps salvation awaits when the RoPers take… Read more »
Possibly beating the c**p out of people gratuitously violent towards others has decreased as Plod has begun to act more vigorously against individual enforcement of social norms.
Talk to me in four years! The US has entered a period of coddling all misbehavior and of passing beyond “women’s rights” and proclaiming the rights of men pretending to be women! (A state legislative hearing this week to save women’s sports mostly gave reps hell for phrasing things as I just did.)
By the way, this is why millions of us are aching for a return of Trump despite the famous distractions. He alone would have “called BS” on trans “rights,” as everyone else in his party sought clever compromises.
It seems that a woman has been murdered, which is without doubt a heinous crime; however, it is men who are more at risk, almost three times as many men are murdered in the UK as are women. Admittedly, with a few notable exceptions, the perpetrators are in the large majority men. Or are they? Many would have us believe that men and women can morph into each other, yet very possibly those who hold such beliefs are likely to be those most incensed by this woman’s murder by a man; a man who according to their belief system might… Read more »
BJ’s suggestion does not go far enough. As in Nazi Germany, the whole should be punished for the sins of the part.
For every one woman murdered, a thousand men should be executed.
Heil the JennyStazi.
The bint in the foreground with the blue wrap looks adequately muscled. Perhaps she was really a bloke in drag, so the superhero with the green cape may get a surprise!
I find it interesting the two women in the foreground share the same left arm. Although on the one on the right, it doesn’t appear to be so well attached
Painting by numbers? Or maybe ‘clip art’?
As I was listening with half an ear to the calls of “boys grow up without being taught this is wrong” my thoughts were “yeah, haven’t you noticed the “normal” household nowadays is a single mother? Maybe that has something to do with it”.
The reason it’s “normal” is that, most places, welfare pays more when Dad sleeps away! Your legislature, seeking to “target to need” the loot, and thereby rewarding the worst in us.
Which parent in a fully gendered family mainly brings up the boys who become such pariahs?
The problem cited by many of the young women that write for our national newspapers appears to be the physical disparity, that men will always be bigger and stronger. Given the majority of female fatalities are at the hand of their partners, marrying a weedy sort – the male equivalent of a Chihuahua or French Bulldog – could be one answer.
On the radio this morning they were commenting that women fear walking the streets and ask each other to text when they get home and asked whether men had to do that.
I thought they could ask the families of the countless men who have died in violence on the streets. All the families of stabbing and shooting victims might have a view.
More than people being told not to hit girls (and I don’t ever remember being told that, more that I learned not to hit anyone by the age of 12), I think the lack of protector is a significant change. Lots of women used to get passed from father to husband without a gap. And that for women outside of that, they often lived in boarding houses like a family. Women would marry younger, which meant that at their most attractive years they were pumping out babies, so being at home, cooking and cleaning, going to nearby shops in the… Read more »
On a distantly related point, the early suffragettes cared nothing for mail suffrage. They were only worried about getting the same privileges as their middle class husbands. It was almost a decade after middle class women got the vote that full female suffrage was a achieved.
Ah yes, the good old days when men hitting each other meant they didn’t hit women.
Except they did. A lot. Probably a lot more than they do now… which is still, obviously, far too much.
What a spectacularly bad take this is. Superficially clever for anyone grasping for ways to blame those damn progressives for whatever ails them this week.. but anyone thinking about it for three seconds and then still piling in is an idiot.
Yeah. Men just aren’t as manly as they used to be and that’s why women shouldn’t walk alone at night. Gothcha. Thanks.
Disparagement and shame is all you lefties have, and it isn’t “progressive.” There are actual phenomena and trends here to study, beyond whether we (or these straw men of yours) are, well, “Neanderthal.” The trends include blurring of boundaries and treating those who flout customs as the victims.
No matter, you’ll show your post to everyone at your salon and say, See? I showed them!
Yeah tourists aren’t to blame for walking around poor countries with Rolexes and Nikons and being too busy on their iPhones to notice the guy lifting their wallet. Hikers should be able to walk in nature without worrying about things like rattlesnakes and undomesticated cats. Provocative behavior provokes,who knew?
But I gave you a vote up anyway.