I’m sorry, but I have a life too. I'm not public property.

Anyone unhappy with how things have proceeded is genuinely welcome to establish their own community, with…

I've…

if only I were paranoid enough to screenshoot my tweets from months ago I could show you something different. But hey, whatever makes you happy.

Ummm ...

Well actually quite a few of us here wouldn't, either not following or not the twitter type, so find this all confusing.
So, keep it on twitter eh?.

Public Address isn't a public utility and to have to spend my unpaid Friday night dealing with something…

I'd rather not. Does it matter?.

Please do note the gender of the target in every case.

Me too...and this is why I find this from(of all people) David Cameron, rather amusing.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2009/jul/29/david-cameron-apology-radio-twitter

and...OMG!!!...Stephen Hawking did the same...and called David C a pregnant goldfish. (sorry, but where I grew up this was the meaning of…

I don’t have to imagine confusion.
I’ll never have to remember the time when
my sciatica was playing up and your hands hurt,
that was the time that we first met.

I wasn't even looking at Twitter – imagine the confusion.

Nope.

Not true.

No.

No. I did no such thing.

would be pretty tragic, I have to say

Hmmm. It's not the first time that event's come up.

A habit which appals me. Bring it here, cowards.

I don't know if men were ever…

agreed.

I RTed a tweet by a (female) (Wellington) GP complaining that the 6pm TV news was running a non-story about Kim Kardashian. The declining state of our media was hardly a cold topic at the…

Ah. I thought it was the time he got piled on for saying “balls” (And I would stand by the description of that as a pile-on – it was an unpleasant…

I wonder if that’s a boot boy thing. Making a point of exercising authority seemed to work with them, as I remember it. I recall an uninvited group beating up David Mitchell…

I think there's a huge connection there – and one where we can actually draw a link with the Prime Ministerial ponytail-pulling and breakfast radio stunts. It's the cruelty.

He described how he'd seen a boot…

That is wonderful. Thank you. Recommended read.

I'd add that people who seek to control or attack others always do so out of feeling weak, not strong. That's why they are invariably cowardly bullies…

Cheers man. I didn't always do well either. Have a good weekend.

Am I right in thinking that there's a substantial link…

Heh. Sausage-heavy musical genre obsessed with virtuosity contains problematic lyrics about women? I'm shocked. SHOCKED I say. ;)

I've realised the instructions below are a bit geeky. If anyone wants to just put the whole address in like that, just paste it and the site will turn it into a link automatically.…

Fair point, and acknowledged.

One of my favourite/unfavourites is the Alan Parsons Project's album Eve, which as far as misogynist lyrics go is pretty revolting. Except I didn't know until I learned to speak enough English. I…

But when some men are more or less saying that they never really saw harassment, I'm guessing that at least in…

This is totally true, but is also the reason I have stopped commenting. Because I cannot find a way to say…

Not all hippies were bad. As far as I know there were only 4 of us, me, Dennis, George Harrison and a guy called Mick, not Mick Jagger, this one was Janet’s boyfriend.
We all had…

So it has…
I have been disowned by Gravatar…
sob..
why???
:-(

I see yours has turned all grey.

See what happens when you try to internalise a complex situation inside your head, eh girl?.
Just look at yer picture,
see?..
;-)

Now I'm all fucked up inside my head man. ;

http://rosie-writes.com/2016/02/04/dumb-ass-stuff-we-need-to-stop-saying-to-dads/

From what I've heard on this thread, we not only have to hold each other more…

You do recall the Beatles sang about burning a woman's apartment down because she invited the narrator home and sent him to bed in the bath rather than with her? Or Sting's "Every Move You Make"? Or Brown Sugar? Angel in the Centerfold? Dadrock is full…

I think in future, when I start quoting…

No, quite right, I gave myself a break.

As I noted, you and I…

If remarks made by society's blowhards make us uncomfortable, fair enough. But I quote them so that they can be deconstructed for what they really are. The point I was making was that when blowhards blame…

I would normally totally agree with you. Except the tone of that part of the conversation has shifted from discussion and trading of ideas to accusation and recrimination and is toxic.…

There have been some suggested.

Arguing about who is listening is not helping because it is driving people away – people who might be able to help with solutions.

I feel like I've been accused of something (the actual…

Alfie, I'm sorry…

I’d prefer to think that I picked up on the…

Always wear shoes you can run in.

The "fix"…

"Uncovered meat" or "bollocks"? If you mean the former, I was quoting the brain-fart of a religious fundy in Australia who blamed the victims of a gang rape in Sydney for their dress sense.

I guess that's going to come down to how that engagement is defined, and I can't see how that could ever be rigorous, given the…

Yes, yes! Sticking with a bunch of female friends, or making sure you attend something with a large defending dude by your side -…

Yes, 'tis a thorn in our side.

An aside if I may...
I found myself shouting "Get off my lawn" the other day, admittedly to the neighbour's dog but...

I’m not saying there could be an unterior motive but to be fair, the author of that piece has a mate who has an ongoing and long-standing dispute with the abuser in that case.

Damn… name suppression for __prominent…

You can also add a culture of materialistic crassness. Though I…

What was wrong with people having a conversation that should have included those who want to be there in their own capacity? Is their opinion not valid? I can't believe you thought someone was wrong on…

You know…

Laurie Penny in the New Statesman called out those who deny rape culture unless it's "people of…

Well, he can't be wrong all the time ;-)

This was about music events. Russell wrote about that. The conversation may have broadened but now it feels like bullying the one person who has raised our awareness of Jeans abuse.…

No, that's actually not what I'm saying. I'm talking about you, me and the people on this thread, this conversation. And I'm saying…

And also there's this weird way in which many of the "it wasn't like this in the past" stories actually describe phenomena that are consistent with women feeling unsafe. If not many women are at an event, or women are…

By coincidence, that's the name of my next single.

is the problem with ‘this thread’ then that men aren’t listening?

Uh, kind of? Like, it seems that the thread is filled with women saying "twas ever thus" and guys saying "but I've noticed it now so it…

No, it's not – and I do have the self-awareness to realise that with the best of intentions I was doing some particularly dudey haggling over detail there.

I've said enough for now and I'm busying myself…

The police honestly…

Perhaps the subsequent discussion would have had a different direction if the title and slant had just been "Fix up, men". Then again, perhaps not.

I don't think "men not talking" is a particular problem in this thread.

Practice makes 'perfect'.

Social reinforcement of bad behaviour ( the evolution from Benny Hill to Two and a half men ) and access to ever…

I honestly appreciate what you’re saying, but isn’t that exactly what the promoter you dismissed was doing? And not just making a speech about it, but undertaking to do something concrete – to literally reject…

Of course they do, Russell. It's the cloven hooves and horns that give us away every damn time. I'm going to do you the respect of assuming you…

What I'm getting at is that that's true of the much wider issue. It's not just cultural events – it's life in general.

The main theme of the post was how offensive the very idea of declaring cultural events…

One thing the Roastbusters business showed was that the schools involved failed badly to do that.

A friend’s daughter was caught up on the edges of that scene, and…

Done.

That may well be what’s changed, yes. That doesn’t seem insignificant.

Saying “it’s breaking our music festivals and we should be allowed to grieve” is some mighty…

I'm not and I'd be grateful if you could credit me with a little good…

And some, having discerned a cancer in the public breast, have happily set about nurturing it.

I agree, which is what irked me about the "something has changed" approach.The only thing…

Yes, and some of us are trying to change things for the better, and some of us are sitting back on our heels and making out like it's all some mysterious external force at work.

Where do young men learn to act like this towards women?

Where do young men learn that women's voices aren't relevant or worthwhile?

Young men learn to behave this way. They aren't born inherently…

[edit] Shit. Janis Ian shared it on FB and I read the comments:
Chaz Austin
College boys have to learn that acting out is NOT OKAY.
Like · Reply · 6…

Yes. We have not invested the energy into transforming men's understanding of ourselves as women have theirs.

as did all of us. #village

glib and wrong, for multiple reasons.

What strikes mne is that in so many ways the next generation is freaking awesome.

Their attitude to gender diversity is amazing.

Their care for the environment makes most of us old folks feel inadequate

But on this? What about this…

Me too. But I can't prove it. I can only quite subjectively compare people of roughly the same groups that I used to have good knowledge of, and even then, I'm not socializing with them, going to late night parties…

That's a bit glib. I'm not sure "I blame the parents" is a very good explanation.

My older son is a gentle, serious and often vulnerable aspie. I'm really proud of him and his decency and courage.

I actually think kids today in general are pretty awesome. The teens and twentysomethings I know are, and I’m grateful that my sons went through school when they did, and not to the schools that…

Why isn't the next generation better then us misogynist old white men?

What the hell did we do wrong that the next generation isn't better than us???

I think the main key is people who are respected. I remember talking a guy more than twice my age out of attempting to get into a romantic situation with his mate's 15 year old daughter. I was the President of a club we were…

Although this is horrific, this woman rang the Police and got a response. Yay. She called it and in Court,…

Please men. Step up.

Believe us when we tell you about the low level sexual harassment we endure regularly here in New Zealand. And please, when you see it happening call the perps out on their behaviour.

Because the guys who do this don't listen to us. But…

I had some suggestions a couple of years ago.

They'd planned to stay the whole three days, but shipped out as soon as they could, turned off by the spectacle. He said he was just glad they hadn't been placed in…

Which is both an improvement and a... disprovement. Fuck. Because yeah, one douchebag can reach so many more…

Also, I think in a reasonable number of cases, the perpetrators don't even really know. They either don't know that their attention is unwanted or their behaviour is beyond…

Agreed.

My experience and my only reason for bringing it up is to try and figure out what the hell is happening and how it can be stopped. I, by natural bent,…

The same goes for liberty…

If there is a difference, it's that the low-level (with potential for high-level) aggression women have experienced since forever can now be expressed near-instantly and "eloquently" via text rather than in person. If you want to disown the cishet man-portion of the human race entirely, read the…

That's a good description.

Real, but, and I mean this lovingly, much less relevant than any woman's who feels like sharing theirs. There is a massive asymmetry in this discussion that is not corrected by an ostensible equal treatment.

This.

This is what I wrote

I honestly don’t remember my mates as a teenager being so utterly horrible to women. As I write that i feel like I’m shouting “In my day…”

I…

None taken

I am just tired of seeing folks who would themselves strongly object to having their experiences invalidated quite happy to turn around and invalidate other people's experiences.

It's pretty clear there is a difference of experience being talked about here. As you say part of…

Damn.... you're good ;-)

To be…

And therein lies the danger. If the police don’t act then the blame is with them as far as I care.
They are rather busy right now though.
Protecting John Key's…

Kindness Breeds More Kindness, Study Shows
“Cooperative behavior cascades in human social networks.” By James H. Fowler and Nicholas A. Christakis. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 107 No. 10, March 9, 2010.
According to the the researchers, the explanation lies…

eh?

There's a very strong element of bullying in what those shows do.

Indeed no. We need to look at where this behavior comes from.
The media coverage of seemingly innocent fads, like "Planking" for instance elevates the acceptance of these actions, especially when…

Yes, of course, they must have been. Just like the people in the crowded beer hall during the 2014 election chanting Fuck John Key to a PM of Jewish descent at the urging of a German agitator . Agent provocateurs, of course. As, no…

Jarrod's blurt when he heard Kirsty was being attacked online was not his finest moment. I'm pretty sure he assumed it was men who were doing it. I don't…

There was a remarkable age-range – from teens to sixtysomethings – and a lot of women, including groups of middle-aged women enjoying themselves without male accompaniment.…

what would you like me to do?

Good question and I don't have all the answers. I think though that maybe a good starting point might be a little like "I didn't realise how offensive many people found Jarrod & Sacha reducing to women to genitals when I was championing their…

I guess I too am in the camp of 'this shit is getting worse' even though I'm only freshly 30. I just…

Do we know the…

Not being a concert goer, and looking from the outside inwards, I’d have to say my instinct on how to make sense of the dispute over whether there’s been a change of culture recently would be to weight far more heavily the testimony of the targets…

Oh Bart no, not this time.

A couple of times now I've sat down to type this story and decided not to, because it felt like a side-track. But I'm going to do it, and if it…

Didn't mean just women. I'm talking about crowd control so everyone could be using apps to help. Hell, if I see anything like being mentioned…

They pointed out that when we search the internet or use twitter or facebook or any of the social media tools, the algorithms in the background promote items that are similar to what you’ve recently looked at.

It’s a feedback…

I'm not ignoring anyone, Jo. I'm trying to get it right and I'm sorry if defending the older man upthread made you…

If only there was another kind of community you had more control over where women were…

I lived in Playa del Carmen for two years, mainly because I work…