Sexism, god help us (3 Viewers)

[Squiggle]

Yesterday really close to home, literally and figuratively for a friend of mine. That's "her" canal. She was walking 5 minutes from the spot that this happened with her daughter (same age as my son) when this happened. Talking to her this morning and she was feeling defiant that she was still going to go for a walk there this afternoon... I remember having conversations with some of you sounder-than-the-average-bloke guys after gigs, or outside having a smoke and realising that there's a significant gap in understanding... not blaming the men... but a lot just don't get the difference in risk. I'm not going to pull a jane and write an essay, just so happy to see that at least a few of you understand that it's not the same for women as for you.

 

[Cormcolash]

Not all men etc etc etc

 

[magicbastarder]

The last time someone randomly punched me - don't know, so long ago I can't remember if/when. Last time someone randomly punched my wife? About 4 years ago, she was walking through town and someone thought it'd be fun to randomly take a dig at her.

 

[seanc]

It's been drilled hard into my head in recent years that it's different for women.
I wouldn't have been aware of that 10 or 20 years ago. Not really.

 

[Unicron]

It's been drilled hard into my head in recent years that it's different for women.
I wouldn't have been aware of that 10 or 20 years ago. Not really.

We should have listened to Joe Jackson.

 

[ann post]

It's been drilled hard into my head in recent years that it's different for women.
I wouldn't have been aware of that 10 or 20 years ago. Not really.

Me neither - i couldn't pinpoint when i became aware of it either. Anywhoo chatting to lady in the background here and she's giving me a rundown of all the places in town she wont walk alone, and why.

 

[Cormcolash]

I wonder, like I mean I guess it's a bit different for me cause when I hit 'going-out' kind of age in Belfast, like it's Belfast so everybody would always have been 'you need to be much more careful and aware if you're in/near certain areas' to the point that you'd go to great lengths to never walk through certain areas if you could avoid it anyway.

 

[ann post]

I get that - I'd have the same kinda lines around derry and belfast over the years.

But like it goes a bit further - i have 2-3 female drinking buddies that i go for pints with when we can over the years, it only dawned on me after years of doing that that they basically cant go for a pint on their own and have anything like the experience i have. A pint like.

 

[nuke terrorist]

I'm sure everyone is horrified by what happened in Offally yesterday.

Something I've been thinking about today.

The dudes here who are in relationships. How confident are we that we will never physically hurt or harm our wives/partners/girlfriends/SOs. I imagine the stock answer would be "100%"

How confident are our wives/partners/girlfriends/SOs that they will never by physically hurt or harmed by us? I imagine we'd be discouraged by the answer if we asked them.

never had a girlfriend thankfully. in unforeseen circumstances I might turn into an absolutely vile person - same for nearly anyone? (most especially men)

the guy who killed Ashling Murphy seems insane and made it inevitable he would be caught. can you even legislate for someone like him? same as a parent having a crisis and killing their kids IMO.

the fear this put into women cannot be underestimated but -
people you know are those who would hurt or kill you. when a stranger does something like this we hear about it (e.g. Sarah Everard). the fear incidents like this cause is understandable but largely misplaced and we need to worry about the women who are repeatedly harmed in the own homes etc.
easy for me to say I know but if I am wrong take the opportunity to correct me.

only ever walked around a city on my own at night once until my late 30s but got then got used to it almost immediately.

 

[JohnnyRaz]

never had a girlfriend thankfully. in unforeseen circumstances I might turn into an absolutely vile person - same for nearly anyone? (most especially men)

the guy who killed Ashling Murphy seems insane and made it inevitable he would be caught. can you even legislate for someone like him? same as a parent having a crisis and killing their kids IMO.

the fear this put into women cannot be underestimated but -
people you know are those who would hurt or kill you. when a stranger does something like this we hear about it (e.g. Sarah Everard). the fear incidents like this cause is understandable but largely misplaced and we need to worry about the women who are repeatedly harmed in the own homes etc.
easy for me to say I know but if I am wrong take the opportunity to correct me.

only ever walked around a city on my own at night once until my late 30s but got then got used to it almost immediately.

I had a similar discussion with my wife last night -

it's similar in a way to the fact that the 'paedo stalker' trope can distract from the fact that most child abuse is perpetrated by people known to the victim.

However I think in this case adult women are subject to a risk of sexual and physical violence from strangers in general, and that campaigners are right to use this case to highlight the broader societal issue of violence against women. We can't control for every random case of extreme violence, but we can try to create a culture where in general violence against women (from use of language through to actual acts of violence) is not acceptable and is properly legislated against.

 

[Unknown Convict]

the guy who killed Ashling Murphy seems insane and made it inevitable he would be caught.

Arrested and released without charge.

 

[Unicron]

Arrested and released without charge.

Great day of racism on the ol; social media yesterday because it went around that the guy who has subsequently been released is rumoured to be from Romania.

 

[magicbastarder]

racism, god help us.

 

[egg_]

the guy who killed Ashling Murphy seems insane and made it inevitable he would be caught. can you even legislate for someone like him? same as a parent having a crisis and killing their kids IMO.

If by "legislate" you mean "pass laws" then yes - murder is illegal, like. You can't pre-emptively lock people up to stop them committing crimes though

 

[egg_]

I wonder, like I mean I guess it's a bit different for me cause when I hit 'going-out' kind of age in Belfast, like it's Belfast so everybody would always have been 'you need to be much more careful and aware if you're in/near certain areas' to the point that you'd go to great lengths to never walk through certain areas if you could avoid it anyway.

When I hit 'going out' age in Wexford town every night out carried the risk of getting started on, randomly punched, head kicked in, etc etc. The difference I guess was I didn't have enough sense to be afraid

 

[ann post]

Chatting to UTM about this last night, about this one time at bandcamp he knew the cousin of a murderer. He reckoned they had really similar minds and the main difference is that if one of them attacked you you would die, and if the other did, they were so small that you'd hold them at arms length and hurt them at will. The difference being while both had the same urges, one risked more harm to themselves than others - the kinda conclusion we were drawing is that a human isn't going to walk into something that they know will really fuck them up, so like not overnight, but in terms of sentencing, or culture or whatever, the background idea that you'lll end up 100x worse off for attacking someone could be a deterrent.

 

[ann post]

Also I saw all the romanian chat there too. Couldn't be fucked getting it into it on twitter but those folks who were jumping on the romanian things were essentially using nationality as a tiering system for how they judge people, pretty much the exact mechanism employed in objectifying women.

 

[Unknown Convict]

Great day of racism on the ol; social media yesterday because it went around that the guy who has subsequently been released is rumoured to be from Romania.

Regardless of nationality, we should be careful about jumping to conclusions and keep our knees unjerked.

 

[egg_]

in terms of sentencing, or culture or whatever, the background idea that you'lll end up 100x worse off for attacking someone could be a deterrent.

hmmm

I think this is probably more applicable to more minor shit - like if I'm going to have my hand cut off for theft I'm unlikely to shoplift. I very much doubt there's a rational weighing up of 15-versus-1500-years-in-jail when someone is considering murder

 

[pete]

Oh I don’t know. The death penalty has notably solved the murder problem in America.