Feminism and violence again women

[8ball]

That's not how it works though. People don't necessarily verbally express or even consciously conceive the biases they have, that doesn't mean they aren't present to some extent in every social interaction.

The post referred to narratives society holds, not unconscious biases.

 

[Oula]

I met up with a friend who works in the probation service the other day. She would have lots of opinions on all this. A couple of things she mentioned briefly were these (some might be a bit controversial):

Domestic violence is often about control. Perps often felt they didn't have any control themselves as a child and as adults will use anything, including violence against their partner, to maintain control.

Professional involvement in domestic violence used to focus entirely on the perp and their behaviour but now it is looked at more as an unhealthy dynamic between two people. The perp is given support to stop offending, the victim is given support so that they don't end up in another similar relationship.

They now allow the perps to maintain a pretence of innocence (that's not exactly the phrase she used but basically what she meant). For example, they used to insist that a sex offender was honest about their guilt to members of their family/partners. But that has the possibility of the person being ostracised. They have discovered that re-offending is less likely if someone has a support network and more likely if they are isolated. The example she used was that if someone has sexually assaulted someone else on the bus and tells those close to them their partner might leave them, their mother and sister might break off contact with them. If they don't tell anyone, or pretend that they have been wrongly accused, their support network remains intact and they are less likely to reoffend. She said that she really struggles with this as it means that more people might not realise they are living with sex offenders, but that is has been decided on as a policy to reduce overall harm.

 

[Oula]

One other thing she said once that I found interesting, was how much violence happens when people are hungry. So much so that they now say things to their clients like "If you know you are the type of person who gets road rage, always eat a sandwich before you get in your car.". Apparently it makes a difference. This makes sense to me because in AA they say something like "Never let yourself get too hungry, lonely or tired " - because that can lead to bad choices.

Edited to add - just looked it up. It's HALT. Don't let yourself get too Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired.

 

[8ball]

Wow, that’s a really difficult one.

(I mean the first of the posts)

 

[bluescreen]

I met up with a friend who works in the probation service the other day. She would have lots of opinions on all this. A couple of things she mentioned briefly were these (some might be a bit controversial):

Domestic violence is often about control. Perps often felt they didn't have any control themselves as a child and as adults will use anything, including violence against their partner, to maintain control.

Professional involvement in domestic violence used to focus entirely on the perp and their behaviour but now it is looked at more as an unhealthy dynamic between two people. The perp is given support to stop offending, the victim is given support so that they don't end up in another similar relationship.

They now allow the perps to maintain a pretence of innocence (that's not exactly the phrase she used but basically what she meant). For example, they used to insist that a sex offender was honest about their guilt to members of their family/partners. But that has the possibility of the person being ostracised. They have discovered that re-offending is less likely if someone has a support network and more likely if they are isolated. The example she used was that if someone has sexually assaulted someone else on the bus and tells those close to them their partner might leave them, their mother and sister might break off contact with them. If they don't tell anyone, or pretend that they have been wrongly accused, their support network remains intact and they are less likely to reoffend. She said that she really struggles with this as it means that more people might not realise they are living with sex offenders, but that is has been decided on as a policy to reduce overall harm.

I can understand her struggling with this. Is there any evidence that it actually works to reduce offending? Or does it just keep the justice system from getting even more comprehensively overwhelmed?

 

[Oula]

I can understand her struggling with this. Is there any evidence that it actually works to reduce offending? Or does it just keep the justice system from getting even more comprehensively overwhelmed?

I guess they only know about offending that comes to their attention, but I believe there is both theory and evidence.

She values honesty very highly and currently has a difficult situation where her partner has lied to her and eroded her trust (completely non violent issue so not relevant to this thread) so feels very conflicted allowing other men to lie to their partners about even more serious issues.

 

[8ball]

One other thing she said once that I found interesting, was how much violence happens when people are hungry. So much so that they now say things to their clients like "If you know you are the type of person who gets road rage, always eat a sandwich before you get in your car.". Apparently it makes a difference. This makes sense to me because in AA they say something like "Never let yourself get too hungry, lonely or tired " - because that can lead to bad choices.

Edited to add - just looked it up. It's HALT. Don't let yourself get too Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired.

This surprises me less. Inhibitory centres and all that. Applies to alcohol too, obv, but that’s kind of taken as read with AA.

Also may explain part of what happens to DV rates when the home team actually wins.

 

[Athos]

I just turned 50. I wonder if the increasing presence of 'desirable' middle-aged women on TV and film has extended the range of potential objects of unwanted attention

I wonder if the ubiquity of MILF porn isn't a factor, too. It was something the porn industry pushed so that they could exploit more women for longer, and could well have changed 'tastes' and further eroded respect for/objectified older women.

 

[dessiato]

I wonder if the ubiquity of MILF porn isn't a factor, too. It was something the porn industry pushed so that they could exploit more women for longer, and could well have changed 'tastes' and further eroded respect for/objectified older women.

If this is true, and I suspect it is, there's likely to be an upturn in abuse of older women due to the increase in GILF porn. It's a never ending cycle of abuse.

 

[Dystopiary]

I hadn’t really thought before about the headspace this takes: The Cost of Managing Men's Anger

Even that picture put me on edge. A picture of a furious, shouting man ffs, just shows how deeply affected we can be by stuff.

 

[Pickman's model]

One other thing she said once that I found interesting, was how much violence happens when people are hungry. So much so that they now say things to their clients like "If you know you are the type of person who gets road rage, always eat a sandwich before you get in your car.". Apparently it makes a difference. This makes sense to me because in AA they say something like "Never let yourself get too hungry, lonely or tired " - because that can lead to bad choices.

Edited to add - just looked it up. It's HALT. Don't let yourself get too Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired.

Those are triggers for drinking or other addict activity, smoking or drugs or whatnot.

 

[8ball]

Those are triggers for drinking or other addict activity, smoking or drugs or whatnot.

Aye, all things that the pre-frontal cortex needs to expend resources to control, meaning less in reserve for suppressing other demands relating to reward, threat, strong emotions or psychological / chemical dependencies.

 

[Oula]

Those are triggers for drinking or other addict activity, smoking or drugs or whatnot.

I know. Because I learned it in AA. I was just noting that hunger is an issue in addiction and in battering people. Maybe some of the others are too.

 

[ice-is-forming]

I went to a really interesting seminar once about the neuroscience of dv. The lecturer spoke about the dopamine hits that both the abuser & the abused get, which adds another layer of complexity to stopping.

 

[kabbes]

I went to a really interesting seminar once about the neuroscience of dv. The lecturer spoke about the dopamine hits that both the abuser & the abused get, which adds another layer of complexity to stopping.

As I understand it, dopamine pathways in the brain form when you establish a habit. Their job is effectively to automate that habit. Contrary to a lot of common misunderstanding, dopamine pathways don’t induce “pleasure”, they induce “motivation” — the motivation to repeat the pattern. So I would never be surprised to find that something established as a habit also has a corresponding dopamine pathway associated with it.

At the end of the day, all human behaviour and cognition comes down to the meat in the head (unless you believe in some kind of religious soul), so there has to be some kind of plumbing going on in the noggin that makes the meat think the thoughts and cause the behaviours that we then observe. I wouldn’t read too much into the fact that the plumbing turns out to be this particular thing.

(I am aware that I am flying in the face of a lot of excitable neuroscientists with this view!)

 

[8ball]

(I am aware that I am flying in the face of a lot of excitable neuroscientists with this view!)

You're correct in terms of the more recent neuroscience. Dopamine is about "wanting/craving/hunting". It is not the reward itself, which can be a mixture of endogenous opioids / endocannabinoids / oxytocin, depending on the situation. Which makes some intuitive sense when you think how people on cocaine are active / engaged whereas people on opiates are happy to sit and chill / blissed out.

With the way dysfunctional relationships work, I'd guess there is an oxytocin element with DV in terms of payoff, though this is speculation.

 

[friendofdorothy]

I hadn’t really thought before about the headspace this takes: The Cost of Managing Men's Anger

Thanks for that link trashpony

“Get the fuck out of here,” he says. And she does, likely recognizing that his anger was quickly becoming dangerous. She took stock of the situation and made a decision, like so many of us have done before.

Girls are barely out of childhood when they learn the ins and outs of men’s moods: What sets them off, how much we can safely talk back to them, and how to calm them when it’s necessary. It’s a survival skill, one we have to master early.

I often wonder if the stereotype that women have more ‘emotional intelligence’ is true or if we’re just trying not to be killed. Of course we’re attuned to the world around us, we have to be.

This rings very true - women rarely stand their ground when faced with such male anger.

Even that picture put me on edge. A picture of a furious, shouting man ffs, just shows how deeply affected we can be by stuff.

yes

FB keeps suggesting random reels to me - one labelled 'funniest thing I've seen' was filmed by a man running down a street laughing at an older woman who was running away from him despite having a walking stick. The bastard actually ran arround a corner after her and laughed at her shrieks to 'get away from me' replying 'why are you running away from me?' as if this was inexplicable and funny. How can young men be so ignorant of the fear that all women feel when they hear footsteps following them?

 

[Dystopiary]

Thanks for that link trashpony

This rings very true - women rarely stand their ground when faced with such male anger.


yes

FB keeps suggesting random reels to me - one labelled 'funniest thing I've seen' was filmed by a man running down a street laughing at an older woman who was running away from him despite having a walking stick. The bastard actually ran arround a corner after her and laughed at her shrieks to 'get away from me' replying 'why are you running away from me?' as if this was inexplicable and funny. How can young men be so ignorant of the fear that all women feel when they hear footsteps following them?

That's awful. I think being older as well as a woman can make someone especially vulnerable in some ways. I'd say people must have been sharing that video a lot for it to have shown up as a suggestion, isn't it shit that people couldn't see her humanity at all?

It still needs to be pointed out that women might actually be affected by things that are supposedly benign or funny. (Course, you're gonna get really horrible bastards who don't care, but they need to be told, by other men, instead of laughed along with or tolerated.) Like that "I'm Ronnie Pickering" thing for example. Every time I see that video, all I can see is the woman sitting next to the eponymous dickhead, quietly sitting back in her seat, while he carries on his "isn't he hilarious" ego trip, and the reasonable guy on the bike prolongs it all, oblivious to her. They just have this stupid back-and-forth right across the woman, as though she doesn't exist, while she sits in silence. She looks uncomfortable, I wonder if she was scared. But it's exactly the sort of thing that gets shared round and made into a meme without a second thought.

We always have to be the ones to say, that's not ok. It's so tiring.
But oh, she never said anything.
Yet when a woman does object to that shit, she gets told she's making something out of nothing, or being a drama queen, or being a humourless kiljoy.
That's if it doesn't extend to violence of course.

 

[friendofdorothy]

Haven't seen much of this stuff as I'm not really up with social media. Reels offered me something about a woman scared to walk down a dark alleyway too - will watching one misogenistic vid mean the algorithms offer me endless amounts of this shit? I don't interact much on fb so I'm not sure how it works I dont know if I can 'dislike' or register some objection to these things without entering into an online conversation with dickheads.
I read somewhere that algorithms can start pushing extreme hate content very easily and quickly.

Dystopiary Yes, humour is a weapon. Women were so always so commonly the butt of jokes - feminists were always portrayed as sexless, dour, humourless women. The cliched silly women, nagging wives and horrid mother in law jokes were the mainstay of male standup before 'alternative comedy' in the 80s.
Yet men are enraged by the idea of being laughed at.

 

[frogwoman]

I used walk around in the dark without a seconds thought when I was younger and I've started doing this again, I don't want to let this shit dictate my life. The biggest danger is in the home, i kinda feel like all this emphasis on safety can just become another means of control. Much more to say but don't really know how to say it tbh x

There's some gross and very casual misogyny online that I feel has got a lot more acceptable in the last few years that I feel wouldn't have been OK a few years ago. That's why (except on here) I often interact in places like twitter etc with not obviously feminine names

 

[Edie]

The pacification of men really perpetuates stuff as well. The third time I’d met my current man, three years ago, my ex flung my youngest son across his kitchen so hard the kid skidded into the bottom of the oven and bashed his head. He (my ex) then rung me up ranting about how unbearable his behaviour was and I could hear my son bawling in the background.

In that situation you have to quickly prioritise what the most important thing is, which was to get my son out of there as quickly as possible with no further violence. To do that, I needed my ex to a) calm down and b) let him out the door. The worst possible thing to do would be to escalate things further by challenging or arguing with him. So instead I agreed with him, pacified him, before suggesting that he needed a break and to let my lad run to mine. Which worked. All I wanted was my son in my arms so I could calm him (he was hysterical), make him safe, and guard him.

Two weeks of agonising later I went to the police but they “non crimed” it. Oh god I’m so glad that was the last time tho. I’m still glad I did that as the main reason was to send a message to my sons that you couldn’t act like that. My youngest stopped going to his Dads a couple of months later, altho they’re on good terms and their Dad has now stopped drinking and gone back to how he was when I met him.

Anyway, my current man who listened to that pacifying phone call said later he thought my submissive reaction was part of the problem- which it was but I won’t accept responsibility for that.

 

[friendofdorothy]

I used walk around in the dark without a seconds thought when I was younger and I've started doing this again, I don't want to let this shit dictate my life. The biggest danger is in the home. Much more to say but don't really know how to say it tbh x

I have refused to be curfewed too - I've always walked in the dark when I need to. I went on reclaim the night marches in my youth. I've always been alert, stride purposely, negotiate the safer parts of any pavement, avoid dark alleyways, make a fist with my keys etc. It has become second nature over the decades but I'm always aware of potential danger.

 

[Poot]

I have refused to be curfewed too - I've always walked in the dark when I need to. I went on reclaim the night marches in my youth. I've always been alert, stride purposely, negotiate the safer parts of any pavement, avoid dark alleyways, make a fist with my keys etc. It has become second nature over the decades but I'm aware of potential danger.

I read somewhere the phrase "they keep their children inside so that their cars can play safely on the street." It's the same sort of logic that means women end up staying in. We should really be diluting the number of dickheads with more women going out at night (if they want to.) Although I hate letting my teenagers (male and female) out at night because of male violence and try to dissuade them, even though I know I shouldn't.

Also Edie I don't know what to say to that except you had zero choice and of course it's not your fault. What were you supposed to do, go round there and fight him?!

 

[friendofdorothy]

The pacification of men really perpetuates stuff as well. The third time I’d met my current man, three years ago, my ex flung my youngest son across his kitchen so hard the kid skidded into the bottom of the oven and bashed his head. He (my ex) then rung me up ranting about how unbearable his behaviour was and I could hear my son bawling in the background.

In that situation you have to quickly prioritise what the most important thing is, which was to get my son out of there as quickly as possible with no further violence. To do that, I needed my ex to a) calm down and b) let him out the door. The worst possible thing to do would be to escalate things further by challenging or arguing with him. So instead I agreed with him, pacified him, before suggesting that he needed a break and to let my lad run to mine. Which worked. All I wanted was my son in my arms so I could calm him (he was hysterical), make him safe, and guard him.

Two weeks of agonising later I went to the police but they “non crimed” it. Oh god I’m so glad that was the last time tho. I’m still glad I did that as the main reason was to send a message to my sons that you couldn’t act like that. My youngest stopped going to his Dads a couple of months later, altho they’re on good terms and their Dad has now stopped drinking and gone back to how he was when I met him.

Anyway, my current man who listened to that pacifying phone call said later he thought my submissive reaction was part of the problem- which it was but I won’t accept responsibility for that.

sounds like you instinctively acted in the safest way you knew. And well done on getting your son out of there without further injury.

Might it be that your ex phoning to complain while your son was still bawling, that his anger/violence was directed at you (and your new partner?) How else could this have played out - you and or your new partner return the anger/violence? How could that have not esculated the situation?
or if you phoned police straight away - would official intervention have helped, I'm not sure which side they would take in parental argument situation which could have ended with putting your son in more danger.

Horrified by the idea of non-crime but as a woman and a queer person I'm used to hearing about crimes being treated like this. I thought the police might have improved in their reaction to violence and hate crime over the years but the recent treatment of the Sarah Everard case would suggest they have not changed.

Passivity or submission is a tactic against MV and often the only one women can use.

 

[friendofdorothy]

I read somewhere the phrase "they keep their children inside so that their cars can play safely on the street." It's the same sort of logic that means women end up staying in. We should really be diluting the number of dickheads with more women going out at night (if they want to.) Although I hate letting my teenagers (male and female) out at night because of male violence and try to dissuade them, even though I know I shouldn't.

Its a bit like our towns, streets and public outdoor spaces were designed by men in cars for men in cars.

 

[trashpony]

The pacification of men really perpetuates stuff as well. The third time I’d met my current man, three years ago, my ex flung my youngest son across his kitchen so hard the kid skidded into the bottom of the oven and bashed his head. He (my ex) then rung me up ranting about how unbearable his behaviour was and I could hear my son bawling in the background.

In that situation you have to quickly prioritise what the most important thing is, which was to get my son out of there as quickly as possible with no further violence. To do that, I needed my ex to a) calm down and b) let him out the door. The worst possible thing to do would be to escalate things further by challenging or arguing with him. So instead I agreed with him, pacified him, before suggesting that he needed a break and to let my lad run to mine. Which worked. All I wanted was my son in my arms so I could calm him (he was hysterical), make him safe, and guard him.

Two weeks of agonising later I went to the police but they “non crimed” it. Oh god I’m so glad that was the last time tho. I’m still glad I did that as the main reason was to send a message to my sons that you couldn’t act like that. My youngest stopped going to his Dads a couple of months later, altho they’re on good terms and their Dad has now stopped drinking and gone back to how he was when I met him.

Anyway, my current man who listened to that pacifying phone call said later he thought my submissive reaction was part of the problem- which it was but I won’t accept responsibility for that.

You needed to get B out of there. When you’ve lived with male violence you are VERY aware of how to de-escalate and pacify in order to keep your children safe. My dad was kicking off big time on holiday once and my mum was talking him down while frantically trying to get me and my sister into the other room. She eventually backed into the room and we managed to lock him out. He was banging and swearing he was going to kill us. When I woke up the next morning, she’d gone back into his room which I was furious and uncomprehending about but as an adult I know (and we’ve talked about it) that it was the best way of keeping us - her kids - safe.

I don’t think men realise how much women do this kind of negotiation with violent men. Women should probably be hostage negotiators. A lot of us have a lot of experience of managing unreasonable behaviour and calming it down.

 

[Koknbul]

Feminism and violence again women is wrong.

 

[Sue]

Feminism and violence again women is wrong.

Say what?

 

[mojo pixy]

Oh goody, a new poster to help set us all straight

 

[Cloo]

Its a bit like our towns, streets and public outdoor spaces were designed by men in cars for men in cars.

An interesting response to that issue here: City with a female face: how modern Vienna was shaped by women

Also, I've just finished reading The Authority Gap , which is really interesting (and infuriating!). Sieghart mentions a lot the double standard whereby women are seen as not leadership material because we don't act as assertively as men, but of course when we are assertive, we're out of line and 'unlikable'. It also mentions a thing I've noticed a lot in my life which is being challenged more by men on the 'facts' of what we state, and then feeling not certain enough of yourself to back it up - because we've grown up with a picture of 'expertise' that is male, and we've not been encouraged as much as boys are to believe ourselves. I think sometimes male violence comes from knowing a woman is right, and the man feeling angered that an 'unauthoritative' woman is daring to be correct, so he acts with violence, either physical or psychological - as seen on twitter etc. And then backed up by the fact you can always brush off a woman's word because people won't take her as seriously as you.