Speaker by Various Artists

Realise that not travelling alone or avoiding Tinder isn’t any real solution.

Here's one of the many, many things that really irritates me. People object to attempts to centre this discussion on men, and say women should just take "sensible precautions" like never leaving the house under any circumstances, and their reasoning always boils down to the thing they were objecting to in the first place: it's because Men are Trash.

Women shouldn't use dating apps, it's not safe. Why? Women shouldn't get drunk. They shouldn't be out alone. They shouldn't talk to strangers. Why? Because men will Get Them. If the problem was Tinder, then (straight) men would also be in danger using it.

I would really like to see the police and the media buy out of this narrative. If a woman is attacked, just don't ask "What should women do to protect themselves?" I would really appreciate it if 3News stopped running pieces on the Evils of Dating Sites. We don't need to be any more afraid. We really don't.

Oh to be minus those words of privilege used to justify the violence that is unjustifiable and blaming those who are at the receiving end. Oh to be minus the complacency of media articles that focus, rather in the manner of medieval theologians, on irrelevancies. Thanks for this piece- remarkably controlled in the writing of it.

It’s hard for commentators to admit to the gendered nature of the problem because to do so requires admitting that there is actually a difference in interests and abilities between men and women. It turns out that the humans with the greatest interest and ability at stalking and killing other humans are almost all male.

But we’re not allowed to have that conversation.

always boils down to the thing they were objecting to in the first place: it's because Men are Trash

That's the bit that gets me. "#notallmen but never ever let any man near you because you just don't know".... WTF?

And if you really want to have your mind blown and your gender preconceptions thrown out the window:

In a 2010 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study reporting on domestic violence in the U.S., 26% of gay men said that they experienced physical violence, stalking, or rape by their partners. 29% of heterosexual men reported similar violence in the same study.

The CDC also stated that 40% of lesbian women reported physical violence by their partners, and 44% reported experiencing physical violence, stalking, or rape by their partners. In contrast, 35% of heterosexual women reported physical violence, stalking, or rape by their partners in the same study.

Walters, Mikel L., Jieru Chen, and Matthew J. Breiding. "The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS): 2010 findings on victimization by sexual orientation."

Topic for discussion: the presence of a woman in a relationship increases the likelihood of domestic violence occurring. The safest relationship to be in is a gay male partnership; the most dangerous is a lesbian partnership.

The safest relationship to be in is a gay male partnership; the most dangerous is a lesbian partnership.

But that conclusion is premature, as the measure compared (probability of reporting of domestic violence) is not equivalent to the actual risk measure (probability of incidence of domestic violence)*(average impact of incident).
It's likely there is some differential bias in reporting domestic violence by gender and/or orientation; also, it’s a safe assumption that the average impact will be higher in cases with a male aggressor!

Indeed. I put that forward as a topic for discussion, not as the conclusion of the study. I daresay that DEATHS from domestic violence would most often be at male hands, regardless of who instigated it. We're better at killing.

It is certainly the case in suicide stats. Women attempt suicide more often than men but men kill themselves more often than women.

And the population-level statistics – while they may help set the optimal outreach targets, campaign designs, and policies – are possibly misleading in another way, too. Drill down deep enough, and really what you’re left with is: how safe do I feel right now in this relationship with this individual? Which is a perspective that may identify danger signs regardless of category membership.

men kill themselves more often than women.

Except in the PRC (26% of global suicides) and few other outlying countries.

It turns out that the humans with the greatest interest and ability at stalking and killing other humans are almost all male.

But we’re not allowed to have that conversation.

Something I feel I’m missing here is; isn’t that pretty much the *only* conversation we’ve had about gender and violence since pretty much forever; this lethality being *the* historical justification for everything from the make up of militaries worldwide for centuries to the segregation of modern sports?

Really enjoying the whataboutism here, not. And it always, always happens when it comes to discussions of violence against women.

Let's put it another way. How many women commit sexual assaults against complete strangers? How many non-femme men feel anxious walking along a quiet street at night?

Well, yes. But again, looking at characteristics of the victim distracts from the point that the aggressor is the problem. (And it turns out we're really easily distracted by characteristics of the victim.)

Actually, why do we keep falling down that particular rabbit-hole?
(i) It’s easier to sympathise with a victim, so that’s where our attention goes.
(ii) A surviving victim needs to recover some sense of agency, which often means seeking out something they can easily change.
(iii) The aggressor is (presumed to be) harder to change.
(iv) An aggressor is harder to identify as such than a victim (after the fact; but also before the fact, in the sense that aggressors are better at identifying potential victims than victims are at identifying a potential aggressor [and trivially, an aggressor is more likely to know in advance they’ll be an aggressor than a victim knows in advance they’ll be a victim]).
(Hence we're left with -- inaccurate, but predictive -- profiling, e.g. by gender.)

Men get murdered too. By men. Men use violence to controll the world, that's why the world is in such bad shape. Happy new year and love to all.

Really enjoying the whataboutism here, not

Something I feel I’m missing here; every commentator up to that point makes noises in concordance with the non-controversial premise that the biggest threat to our safety comes from men i.e the discussion is centered on men – So I can’t fathom the reasoning for jump starting the conversation to talking about women perps:

How many women commit sexual assaults against complete strangers?

and male victims:

How many non-femme men feel anxious walking along a quiet street at night?

In context, those questions are rhetorical (assumed answer “Bloody few”), and intended as an ironic comment on the rabbit-chasing away from the theme “Violence is mostly a male problem, yet impacts mostly on women”.

In retrospect it’s easy to understand the reaction “I don’t have any solutions to the problem as stated, so let’s talk about something else instead”, but it’s also easy to understand how that can get very frustrating.

Thanks for the clarification – I’d just assumed “stalking and killing other humans are almost all male.” in conjunction with “woman in a relationship increases the likelihood of domestic violence occurring” was a natural extension of “Violence is mostly a male problem, yet impacts mostly on women” - but I can now see how that's a pretty generous reading of SHG's latter point.

assuming all men are good until proven otherwise is a strategy that can get you killed.

When our lives are on the line, you all look the same. And quite frankly, I don’t care if that hurts your feelings

https://thespinoff.co.nz/society/15-12-2018/the-astonishing-selfishness-of-not-all-men/

How many non-femme men feel anxious walking along a quiet street at night?

Oh, that one is easy: most of them. Personally one reason that I ride a bike is that I'm much less likely to get attacked (albeit if I am I'm much more likely to die, since the attacker is extremely likely to be using a car as a weapon).

But the reason is the same as for women in many ways, they're afraid they'll meet a violent man. Or men. Because they realise that most violence by women occurs in the home, or while wearing gang insignia (police uniforms are a favourite).

I'm not sure this conversation is going anywhere useful wrt to the original post. I'll close it for the time being, thanks everyone.