Sexism, god help us (1 Viewer)

What a horrendous event.


I was also surprised at the number of "I go out running at 10pm and never once think of my safety” tweets. Well, maybe you should you numbskull. Should be in the back of everyone’s head.

In Belfast you always kept an eye open for groups of spides and assorted lunatics when walking anywhere. Is it really only dawning on these people that woman have it 1000 times worse.

Caveat, I would say I have definitely slacked off since moving to Dublin. And I’ve never been sucker punched here, which is nice.

Obviously I have no answers. That a woman can’t go out for a quiet drink without having to deal with unwanted advances (at the lower end of the scale) and has to fear for her life getting home is beyond not fair.

I guess ‘no means no’ is as good as any starting point to deal with this issue in society? If a women is having a drink leave her alone. If someone turns down your advances, be gracious about it and move on with your life.
 
it was quite eye-opening to talk to some female friends about this back in the day. it took me about a decade to finally understand that, when alone in public, men face occasional threats and danger but women face unending terror and dread, and that these are different things.
 
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.

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
it would have been the same for myself going out as a teenager in the midlands, Dublin, wherever. You were always told “be careful, make sure you don’t get beaten up etc.” I think over the last 10-15 years women started talking more (or maybe it’s more the case that they were finally being listened to) about how they how they felt unsafe on the streets. The initial reaction from a lot of guys, and I know I would have been guilty of this, was “sure we have to watch ourselves when we go out at night too”

I know for myself it took a long time for me to cop on and for the penny to drop as to how different things were for men and women. Some of them were little things, like I remember coming home from a night out with my friends and my wife asked me if I’d texted them to let them know I got home safe. It was something that never occurred to me to do before, but it was something that her and her friends felt they had to do. And also the slow realisation for myself that my wife won’t walk up to the shop after dark by herself, whereas it’s something that I’ve never felt any real danger in doing around here.

And of course there was other bigger events too, like watching the Belfast Rugby rape trial unfolding and listening to people’s reactions to that. I think that was a big education in realising how shitty things were for women.
 
over about 25 years I read about 150 different accounts of street harassment, sexual harassment and sexual assault women had experienced before I ever heard of Harvey Weinstein.

one woman who wrote a column for a music magazine I read seemed to be harassed several times every month to the point that I even did an image search on her to see why she might be getting targeted so much.

- harassment is very common. and often happens in public places.

consent classes for everyone starting with kids aged 11 or 12 at oldest, help massively but these only became common in recent years.

getting up to the level of a violent lunatic killing a woman. it is difficult to say what can be done?

constantly worrying about your safety has to be really stressful. sometimes if I am walking down a quiet street and if I meet a woman I'll cross the road just to avoid her.

I rarely went out at night until I was in my 40's so no one has been violent to me since I was 18 and I never had any problems on a night out.
alcohol seems to be guns of Irish nights out.
 
constantly worrying about your safety has to be really stressful. sometimes if I am walking down a quiet street and if I meet a woman I'll cross the road just to avoid her.
I do this always, but god forgive me I can't help but wonder if it's just making things worse - if we create the expectation that a "safe" guy (or group of guys) will keep his distance, then anyone who doesn't becomes a possible threat. You could end up with more to be afraid of instead of less
 
getting up to the level of a violent lunatic killing a woman. it is difficult to say what can be done?

It's sort of comforting to paint violent men as "lunatics" because it others them, they're not like us, the good lads.

But there's plenty of "normal" men who hurt women.

Edit: And plenty of men with mental health issues who aren't a danger to women, or at least not necessarily a greater danger to women then a man who doesn't have those issues. I saw people use the term "psychopath" about the killer, we don't know if he was, but we do know that he's a bad man.
 
I do this always, but god forgive me I can't help but wonder if it's just making things worse - if we create the expectation that a "safe" guy (or group of guys) will keep his distance, then anyone who doesn't becomes a possible threat. You could end up with more to be afraid of instead of less
i don't think so. i've talked to a couple of women who appreciate that, and saw a twitter thread about it a few years ago where i don't recall the point being brought up. but then, it's not something i've ever had to consider so really i'm probably just guessing.
 
It's sort of comforting to paint violent men as "lunatics" because it others them, they're not like us, the good lads.

But there's plenty of "normal" men who hurt women.

Edit: And plenty of men with mental health issues who aren't a danger to women, or at least not necessarily a greater danger to women then a man who doesn't have those issues. I saw people use the term "psychopath" about the killer, we don't know if he was, but we do know that he's a bad man.
I'm not 100% sure I understand what you're saying here - do you mean that for any random woman, her risk of experiencing violence from a member of the-set-of-mentally-ill-men is pretty much equivalent to her risk of experiencing violence from a member of the-set-of-all-men?
 
It's sort of comforting to paint violent men as "lunatics" because it others them, they're not like us, the good lads.

But there's plenty of "normal" men who hurt women.

Edit: And plenty of men with mental health issues who aren't a danger to women, or at least not necessarily a greater danger to women then a man who doesn't have those issues. I saw people use the term "psychopath" about the killer, we don't know if he was, but we do know that he's a bad man.
as I said on the previous page in unforeseen circumstances who knows what I might be capable of?
I have mental health problems for decades but they aren't the issue. a Donald Trump type psychopath is more my definition of a lunatic.
I don't really know anything about the man who killed Ashling other than the circumstances of her death.
 
But there's plenty of "normal" men who hurt women.
I'm only trying to form my thoughts about this, but i've been sorta background thinking - you know the way people talk about men calling out mens behavoir - like do they understand that unless we are close, we don't talk, and even then, men just don't know about these things. I've never had a male aquaintence tell me he was out groping women in the bar or up to stalking or whatever. It'd be a complete chance if i found out. These things are then open secrets among women because they have to protect each other, but generally i my (a bit limited) experience there is more chance of the women knowing who's doing what than the men. I was out with classmates once and they were comparing notes on getting groped in a bar. We were all classmates and it was a largely female group, if i'd not been an oddity in that venn diagram it 100% looked like a normal pub to me. Like i have no issue in calling things out, I've done it in practice this year when i knew about it, but generally i just don't know about it.


On the topic of being afraid in public - i would suggest that for men, there's a vicious cirle in that. being a border kid you learn that confrontation is largely about calling the others bluff, and if they don't move straight away, they are gonna wilt. A lot of intimidation is opportunity intimidation done by cowards, the second they feel it wont be easy they'll find someone else to buffer their tiny egos with.
 
I'm feeling very down about everything that's happening myself. I have some life experiences that make things like this feel kind of retraumatizing, but also since having a baby girl, I feel so sad that I'm going to have to talk to her about this as a child. All of the women I know are talking about it, crying over it, and just feeling fear, sadness, and anger. Its extremely tiring to constantly feel fear when you walk alone at night. I've had hundreds of hours of fake conversations on my phone with no one to make me feel safer because is he less likely to attack me if he knows someone knows where I am? I'm afraid to wear headphones when I walk alone in case I don't hear someone approaching me. I'm afraid to have pepper spray or something to protect myself because if I'm overpowered can that be used against me? And now I have to be afraid of being out alone in the day? And what are men going to do about it? Because women are doing literally everything we can to protect ourselves and each other, but what are men doing to address male violence? A friend told me about a girl who sends selfies of herself every time she goes on a run because she wants her friends to know what she was wearing if she goes missing. I'm just sad and angry as fuck.
 
maybe I am off course here, so ignore this if you want -

I just watched the RTE 1 pm News and it was just bizarre
the gardai and media suckered a lot of folks including myself (I apologise) into thinking the man they arrested was the killer and it was and open and shut case - simple as that.

they spoke about the man like it just a formality he would be found guilty.

then midday today I learned that suddenly last night he was released, cleared of having any involvement?!
the gardai and media having dropped the innocent man in it for 30 hours.

no apologies from the gardai and RTE hugely downplayed what happened to him with no sympathy or regrets about how the media treatment of him.
fuck that - I'll be a lot less likely to trust you next time.
whatever else that man has done no one deserves that.
shame on a lot of people including me.
 
maybe I am off course here, so ignore this if you want -

I just watched the RTE 1 pm News and it was just bizarre
the gardai and media suckered a lot of folks including myself (I apologise) into thinking the man they arrested was the killer and it was and open and shut case - simple as that.

they spoke about the man like it just a formality he would be found guilty.

then midday today I learned that suddenly last night he was released, cleared of having any involvement?!
the gardai and media having dropped the innocent man in it for 30 hours.

no apologies from the gardai and RTE hugely downplayed what happened to him with no sympathy or regrets about how the media treatment of him.
fuck that - I'll be a lot less likely to trust you next time.
whatever else that man has done no one deserves that.
shame on a lot of people including me.
I hadn't really been following the whole thing closely, but I automatically was quite suspicious when the first report I heard of it mentioned how the guards had 'caught a suspect not in the immediate area but a distance away' kind of thing. Auto-smacked of garda bullshit to try and give the impression they had a fucking clue about it when they didn't.
Also add to it that the stuff I've seen is usually Paul Reynolds on RTE and he basically just works for the Guards and is a total piece of shit, it did seem very possible that they were just putting out implied bullshit to deflect questions.
 
I'm only trying to form my thoughts about this, but i've been sorta background thinking - you know the way people talk about men calling out mens behavoir - like do they understand that unless we are close, we don't talk, and even then, men just don't know about these things. I've never had a male aquaintence tell me he was out groping women in the bar or up to stalking or whatever. It'd be a complete chance if i found out. These things are then open secrets among women because they have to protect each other, but generally i my (a bit limited) experience there is more chance of the women knowing who's doing what than the men. I was out with classmates once and they were comparing notes on getting groped in a bar. We were all classmates and it was a largely female group, if i'd not been an oddity in that venn diagram it 100% looked like a normal pub to me. Like i have no issue in calling things out, I've done it in practice this year when i knew about it, but generally i just don't know about it.


On the topic of being afraid in public - i would suggest that for men, there's a vicious cirle in that. being a border kid you learn that confrontation is largely about calling the others bluff, and if they don't move straight away, they are gonna wilt. A lot of intimidation is opportunity intimidation done by cowards, the second they feel it wont be easy they'll find someone else to buffer their tiny egos with.
So my thoughts on this is that men often witness or participate in "small" aggressions against women, sexist jokes, catcalling, not leaving girls the fuck alone in public, guys making shitty comments about girls when they're out, etc. These are not the same as killing a woman on a canal, but they create a culture that dehumanizes women.
 
I'm not 100% sure I understand what you're saying here - do you mean that for any random woman, her risk of experiencing violence from a member of the-set-of-mentally-ill-men is pretty much equivalent to her risk of experiencing violence from a member of the-set-of-all-men?

I suppose what I mean is that when you consider the gamut of things that are done to women by men that shouldn't be those things happening have less to do with the state of the man's mental health than they have to do with the culture they live in which makes bad behaviour towards women tolerated and makes them feel entitled and emboldened to do those things because they they'll get away with them without facing proper consequences.
 
I think it's interesting that when this topic came up, all us dick-swingers ended up talking about getting battered in Wexford or wherever.
And I must admit, I was going to talk about exactly that myself, but I just didn't.


Doesn't it kind of miss the point that it's just different for women? I guess we're trying to relate or empathise, but it's not the same thing.


And Jesus, we're the good guys.
 

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