Men’s violence against women and girls is a national emergency

[InArduisFouette]

As a multiply marginalised woman, it's a shame you feel the need to bully and ridicule other women here. And chop socky sounds somewhat racist.

most 'eastern martial arts ' are about as authentic as a Morrsison's ready meal sweet and sour.

Always interesting when someone who falls back on Gender Critical Talking points talks aobut people being bullies

 

[CNT36]

Massive downside to social media. Now boys can be constantly bombarded by imagery and advice about appearance, health, firness and this is incredibly harmful.

I try to be positive about exercise. I coach a sport and do not talk about appearance. Some of them have recently had a taste of success and want to push on to the next level and to do so have asked for homework. I have focused on the benefits of strength, fitness and skill of what they can do. I have told them it is good to do any exercise they enjoy then given them some specific options. I've tried to keep them away from the meat head and unrealistic standards of some Internet based fitness sites. Actually I'll have more of a think on this and see if there's anything useful I can do.

 

[existentialist]

most 'eastern martial arts ' are about as authentic as a Morrsison's ready meal sweet and sour.

Always interesting when someone who falls back on Gender Critical Talking points talks aobut people being bullies

But no-one's talking about authenticity - that's a red herring. The term being used was "martial arts", which makes no claim as to authenticity, and succeeds in not coming over as a bit sneery; I don't see why there was any necessity to start using silly terms for it.

 

[existentialist]

Not getting at you and this could be an in to maybe get someone thinking but it should be about her personal worth not just her worth to someone else who is probably a man.

I was thinking of taking it in easy stages.

 

[Rompipalle]

most 'eastern martial arts ' are about as authentic as a Morrsison's ready meal sweet and sour.

Always interesting when someone who falls back on Gender Critical Talking points talks aobut people being bullies

So, can you explain what this "chop socky" is that you referred to? It's not a term with which I am familiar.

 

[InArduisFouette]

So, can you explain what this "chop socky" is that you referred to? It's not a term with which I am familiar.

a generic term to refer martial arts and the mystical woo that surrounds them - not just necessarily of east asian origin , you find various people teaching unarmed combat techniques and citing the SAS / Delta Force / IDF/ Spetsnaz mythology around them

 

[existentialist]

a generic term to refer martial arts and the mystical woo that surrounds them - not just necessarily of east asian origin , you find various people teaching unarmed combat techniques and citing the SAS / Delta Force / IDF/ Spetsnaz mythology around them

I'm guessing you don't have very wide experience of martial arts.

 

[InArduisFouette]

I try to be positive about exercise. I coach a sport and do not talk about appearance. Some of them have recently had a taste of success and want to push on to the next level and to do so have asked for homework. I have focused on the benefits of strength, fitness and skill of what they can do. I have told them it is good to do any exercise they enjoy then given them some specific options. I've tried to keep them away from the meat head and unrealistic standards of some Internet based fitness sites. Actually I'll have more of a think on this and see if there's anything useful I can do.

this is always an interesting topic , especially as different sports / physical activities have such a set of assumptions and stereotypes built around them

and while it's alsmost a trope Rio Ferdinand 's time in ballet is always a good one to start discussions...

and the amount of rughty toughty 'fit' young men i've seen reduced to quivering , puking wrecks blowing out of their hoops by by an aerobics class or a proper 90 minute ballet or jazz class ...

‘I chose football over ballet’: Rio Ferdinand

The pundit, 45, on dance auditions, racism in football, and taking up boxing

www.theguardian.com

 

[Rimbaud]

What about the men on here who don’t even bother reading threads like this.
They’re right here and presumably find these threads not worth bothering with. Are they part of the problem too? How do we draw them into the conversation?

Can only speak for myself here, but I rarely take part in threads about gender and sexuality (although I do read them) but that isn't because I don't think they're worth bothering with.

The reason is simply that I don't feel I have much to add that hasn't already been said by others, and secondly I find online discussions about gender to be quite stressful as they are inherently personal in a way that other topics aren't. The discussion here has been fairly civil but in other spaces online it feels like you can get jumped on no matter what stance you take, and I don't really feel confident to express a viewpoint. E.g. there was some discussion of female only spaces earlier in this thread, and support for them can be said to be victim blaming and misogynistic, but on the other hand you could conceivably be accused of being blind to the threats women face for not supporting female only spaces. There's a lot of rhetoric like "well you think that because you're a man" that I've seen applied to opposite positions, which makes the whole thing confusing and makes me second guess myself to the extent that I don't feel confident enough to form a clear position beyond something trite like "violence and misogyny are bad".

I don't know how representative I am but that's why I seldom engage in gender related threads, I suspect I'm not alone in this - some of the nastiest threads on these boards have been over trans issues and I'd be surprised if other people didn't find the toxicity in those threads - as well as the highly sensitive and personal nature of them - too intimidating to wade into.

 

[InArduisFouette]

I'm guessing you don't have very wide experience of martial arts.

you only need to look at the kind of Shite that Baron Castleshortt spouted https://www.arrse.co.uk/wiki/The_Baron_of_Castleshort

or of course all the stuff that S Seagal spouts Steven Seagal, The Great Charlatan of the Martial Arts World

 

[Epona]

Can we please stop banging on about women learning martial arts to protect themselves (whatever terminology you use for whatever martial art).

It is along the same lines as don't go out after dark, don't wear a short skirt, it's your fault because you went out after dark in a short skirt and didn't know fucking martial arts that you got attacked - hello, hello, is there anyone with any basic sense here on this thread? Would you please listen to yourselves, saying that women should learn martial arts to be safe is the same sort of victim blaming bullshit as don't go out after dark and don't wear a short skirt.

Fuck the fuck off with that crap.

 

[story]

This is something I’m finding very difficult in schools at the moment.

There doesn’t seem to be one solution, but a myriad. Schools and teachers aren’t often given the time to be able to try and work out what those are in their specific contexts, and often don’t have deep relationships with home to be able to understand what’s going on in individual kids’ lives. And even if they do, often home doesn’t often know what’s going on either.

One thing we’re trying to do where I work is promoting the idea of therapy and self reflection. A few years ago we noticed a few 12 year olds getting quite stubbornly into the manosphere, rejecting therapeutic support and claiming they didn’t need help because they weren’t ‘broken’. We have done lessons, PHSE sessions and 1-2-1 support to try and break this down and a few of this group have accepted therapeutic support (though I has taken some big outbursts and a few punched walls!). They’re quite a dominant group, and we’re hoping that this leads to a bit of a culture shift, where talking about feelings, looking out for one another is seen as a positive thing for their year group and the wider school community.

The Sex Education (Relationships and Sex Education) course we have designed looks at (as well as all the classic things) social power dynamics in forming, maintaining and ending relationships. We were concerned by the classic manosphere response to rejection being defensiveness and potentially violence and abuse, so facilitated discussions between the students to encourage them to empathise with why rejection can be difficult, discomforting but also sometimes necessary and how to cope with it.

I think teenage boys feel a huge amount of shame and insecurity. I’ve noticed a trend of boys going to the gym to build muscle from very young ages (12/13). I was speaking with some teacher friends at the weekend who were complaining about boys not taking off their coats/jumpers/hoodies in the sweltering heat and i wonder if this is also a body image thing for them. Its only something i’ve noticed in the past few years but wouldn’t be surprised. As has been said upthread, Tate and that lot are a symptom, but a very powerful one, and one which harnesses the shame of boys and turns it into something vile and violent.

One of the newer stances i’ve learnt about this year is the male anti-pornography sentiment. That masturbating is unclean and porn is for ‘weak’ ‘betas’. This also often goes hand in hand with homophobic and transphobic bigotry and is (from my experience) expressed by those who are most likely to be using pornography and with very low self esteem. This is one of the reasons we’ve been working so hard on increasing the positive framing for therapy, and trying to support the boys (in particular, but other students as well) to talk to their friends about how they feel, and to hold one another to account when they fuck up.

Another aggravating factor I’ve noticed is undiagnosed/unsupported learning needs and mental health. The young men who express these thoughts loudly and (seemingly) confidently in my context have a lot of unmet needs either at home, at school or both. As always, funding for proper support is desperately needed, but I can’t seen the new government putting anywhere near enough money into this.

There is also the societal level and all the stuff we can’t control in school. The content on the internet can be bad, but I think that’s a bit of a cop out. I grew up with those awful comedy panel shows normalising people like Russel Brand, and Little Britain normalising racism, misogyny and transphobia. We didn’t have the option to like or share it online, but we’d endlessly repeat the jokes in the playground or when together. In some ways that feels worse. This is one of the things I don’t feel I know how to deal with. I hope all the stuff we do in school helps people to check/critique what they consume, but that’s not always going to be possible. There is no magic bullet. To all the men on here who have acted shocked or as though they aren’t the problem: it’s all of our problems. It has been time for men to sort our shit out for a long time. We have the tools and resources available, and we can create our own for our specific contexts.

I’ve posted it here before, but a few years back I was part of a men’s group discussing this, and how men could respond. We used resources from the 80s through to nowadays. It was uncomfortable and occasionally confronting, but also very powerful and productive. It helped a lot of us begin some deep unlearning and self reflection, whilst also being open about shame we felt. The resources are here and I’d encourage people to have a look through.

It must be exhausting and very time-consuming to try to stay ahead of the barrage of effects caused by the manosphere.

One of the things I’ve noticed is the scattergun approach from those trying to monetise their influencer status in the manosphere. (I actually dislike that term but I can’t think of another that encapsulates the phenomenon). As one niche gets filled up they try to create another one that they can lay exclusive or primary claim to.

As an example, this growing idea that masturbation is unclean or weak is a fairly recent one.

It must be like trying to create a defence against a hydra. Every time you identify, respond to, and minimise the effects of one danger, several more pop up to replace it.


Thank fuck some people are trying to tackle this shit.

 

[story]

Rimbaud

Thanks for that good post.

When I said the thing you quoted I left out the bit about assuming that there are also men who are reading and thinking and - for whatever reason - choosing not to post.

But we all know there are men on here who don’t read these threads at all, and those are most likely to be the ones who dismiss this issue as either not a big deal, or nothing to do with them. Those are the men who really do need to be engaged. They’re representative of the larger social issue we’re trying to get to grips with. But how? I guess it’s got to be a six monkeys thing : as things change, however slowly, a tipping point will be reached and they’ll find that it’s no longer possible to keep their head in the sand.

 

[tardigrade]

Can we please stop banging on about women learning martial arts to protect themselves (whatever terminology you use for whatever martial art).

It is along the same lines as don't go out after dark, don't wear a short skirt, it's your fault because you went out after dark in a short skirt and didn't know fucking martial arts that you got attacked - hello, hello, is there anyone with any basic sense here on this thread? Would you please listen to yourselves, saying that women should learn martial arts to be safe is the same sort of victim blaming bullshit as don't go out after dark and don't wear a short skirt.

Fuck the fuck off with that crap.

Funny seeing you here! You conveniently turn up just to have a go at my posts in this thread. How coincidental.

 

[QueenOfGoths]

Funny seeing you here! You conveniently turn up just to have a go at my posts in this thread. How coincidental.

I don't think that's fair and I don't think Epona is having a go just because it's you.

 

[story]

Funny seeing you here! You conveniently turn up just to have a go at my posts in this thread. How coincidental.

Stop.

InArduisFouette too.

Please stop opening up these stupid side passages that end in the yeah-but cul-de-sac.

We have infinities of space for new threads plus an enormous number of ongoing threads where these tussles can be worked out.

Please don’t do it here when the discussion is important and finally getting into the nuts and bolts of the discussion.

 

[danny la rouge]

Funny seeing you here! You conveniently turn up just to have a go at my posts in this thread. How coincidental.

Please don’t do this. If we keep to the subject matter, issues we disagree on will hopefully be points to discuss. If we make it about personality and individuals, then it takes on a different tone altogether.

 

[Epona]

Jesus fucking christ

 

[tardigrade]

I don't think that's fair and I don't think Epona is having a go just because it's you.

Stop.

InArduisFouette too.

Please stop opening up these stupid side passages that end in the yeah-but cul-de-sac.

We have an infinities amount of space for new threads plus an enormous number of ongoing threads where these tussles can be worked out.

Please don’t do it here when the discussion is important and finally getting into the nuts and bolts of the discussion.

Please don’t do this. If we keep to the subject matter, issues we disagree on will hopefully be points to discuss. If we make it about personality and individuals, then it takes on a different tone altogether.

I apologise. However it's interesting that you didn't have a go at her for her post deriding my comments. She's followed me from another thread. One rule for one....

 

[story]

I apologise. However it's interesting that you didn't have a go at her for her post deriding my comments. She's followed me from another thread. One rule for one....

Fucking stop it.

 

[story]

I’ve just “followed” you to another thread by clicking on New Posts and going to the first new post I was interested in.

 

[Epona]

I don't think that's fair and I don't think Epona is having a go just because it's you.

I hadn't even registered until he posted that, that it was the same person I'd had a disagreement with on a thread about equestrian sports and horse welfare tbf, am I expected to keep track of how many issues another poster is shit about?

 

[CNT36]

this is always an interesting topic , especially as different sports / physical activities have such a set of assumptions and stereotypes built around them

and while it's alsmost a trope Rio Ferdinand 's time in ballet is always a good one to start discussions...

and the amount of rughty toughty 'fit' young men i've seen reduced to quivering , puking wrecks blowing out of their hoops by by an arobics class or a proper 90 minute ballet or jazz class ...

‘I chose football over ballet’: Rio Ferdinand

The pundit, 45, on dance auditions, racism in football, and taking up boxing

www.theguardian.com

Yeah, us older ones do laugh at how pathetic we all are when trying to do things like yoga or when an 8 stone woman deadlifts our PBs like it is nothing.

 

[tardigrade]

I hadn't even registered until he posted that, that it was the same person I'd had a disagreement with on a thread about equestrian sports and horse welfare tbf, am I expected to keep track of how many issues another poster is shit about?

She

 

[Epona]

And I haven't followed anyone anywhere, I click on "New Posts" from time to time.

 

[Rompipalle]

a generic term to refer martial arts and the mystical woo that surrounds them - not just necessarily of east asian origin , you find various people teaching unarmed combat techniques and citing the SAS / Delta Force / IDF/ Spetsnaz mythology around them

Funny. I’ve been on this planet for 61 years and have never heard that expression before.

 

[Epona]

She

I am "they". Respect that too.

 

[danny la rouge]

However it's interesting that you didn't have a go at [them] for [their] post deriding my comments.

I pretty much agree with Epona ’s viewpoint.

Views here can often be expressed forcefully.

 

[Rompipalle]

Can we please stop banging on about women learning martial arts to protect themselves (whatever terminology you use for whatever martial art).

It is along the same lines as don't go out after dark, don't wear a short skirt, it's your fault because you went out after dark in a short skirt and didn't know fucking martial arts that you got attacked - hello, hello, is there anyone with any basic sense here on this thread? Would you please listen to yourselves, saying that women should learn martial arts to be safe is the same sort of victim blaming bullshit as don't go out after dark and don't wear a short skirt.

Fuck the fuck off with that crap.

Sorry, I probably shouldn’t even have asked the question…

 

[story]

Sorry, I probably shouldn’t even have asked the question…

Fwiw I thought you asking for clarity about the term was legitimate. I also agree that the term is disparaging at best, and probably worse

But imo I think we can leave that, and the stuff about whether or not martial arts is a real thing, for another time/thread.

Can we try to allow the current discussion to develop now please.