Before writing anything about this dreadful case, and before you read my article, it is right to pause to think first about the terrible and entirely undeserved fate of Sarah Everard, and the agony those who loved her must now be suffering.
This tragedy has led me to get into a twitter spat with people who are promoting the line that “all men are potential rapists”. It started when I took issue with a tweet by Stella Duffy (whom I know slightly).
This led to some fierce reactions by feminists, both female and male, then to some more replies by me, and then to quite a few tweets attacking me. As usual when heated debate is precipitated by a single distressing event, passion has been more in evidence than logic.
I think the difficulty lies in an ambiguity of language. The phrase “All men are potential rapists”, or Duffy’s expression “it is what any man might do”, can be taken to mean:
“You cannot tell, by appearance, which man is a rapist” – which is evidently true
or
“Every man is liable to rape” – which I would argue strongly is not true. The large majority of men would never rape, nor commit any other heinous crime.
I suspect that in some of those arguing on twitter, this is not just ambiguity, this is a deliberate conflation of the two concepts. There does seem to be a strain of radical feminist thinking which is anxious to promote the notion that every man is indeed liable to rape. That plainly is misandry – a gross prejudice, in the most literal sense, against people on the basis of their sex.
More interesting have been a number of twitter responses from women stating that they do indeed need to treat every man they might meet as a potential rapist, for their own self-protection, and adopt strategies to avoid dangerous situations. These are interesting because I think the majority of them are genuine iterations of how the writers really feel.
A large proportion of those responses come back to the fact that you cannot tell by appearance who is a rapist. It seems a stock response, judging by my twitter feed, to state that a woman would feel scared of me if she came across me or heard my footsteps while walking alone in a dark place. That is certainly true, and not only women are scared in those circumstances, though I accept they have more cause to fear.
But I am more interested in the sometimes detailed claims it is normal for women to exercise extreme caution in their every day dealings with half of the human race, when not walking in dark streets. One woman on twitter told me, for example, she had long advised her daughters against going out on one on one dates with men.
I have to say, on an every day basis that simply has not been my experience. In 45 years of adulthood, I have genuinely never picked up any sense of a woman being scared of me. In my career in professional situations I frequently had meetings with women, sometimes in my own office or even over lunch, and as a diplomat sometimes over a drink, and I genuinely have almost no recollection of ever being refused or put off, let alone in circumstances where I suspected the person was worried about my intentions. Had I suspected that, it would very definitely have worried me a lot that I gave such an impression. I have always been over-sensitive to what others think of me, to the point of vanity. I have never felt myself suspected of having potential for sexual violence.
I would very frequently offer to escort someone back to their home or hotel if there was any reason to think protection might be helpful, and was seldom if ever refused. On the purely social level, in my younger days I never had the slightest feeling of anyone being scared of me on a date, or to go with me on a date. Every date I ever had was one on one. I just cannot recognise the claims that women routinely in their daily lives treat all mean as a threat, as true in my own experience. Nor does it seem to be true of the women now close to me, in their dealings with other men.
I quite accept that those women on twitter who have told me that they distrust every man, are telling me the truth of their own experience. But I have never found most women, or indeed any women I encountered, to be like that, and I am telling you the truth of my own experience.
It genuinely concerns me that society is now in such a schizophrenic state that it is acceptable to say, in effect, that one half of the human race must never repose trust in a member of the other half of the human race. It ought to be no more acceptable to say that every man must be viewed as a potential rapist, as it thankfully is now unacceptable to label every Roma as a potential thief or black person as potentially violent. People are people.
Of course sexual violence is a terrible problem. Of course conviction rates are worryingly low. That does not mean every man is liable to rape.
That some men are a threat is plainly true. The public shock that it may be the case that a figure of public trust, such as a policeman, would be a danger is entirely understandable. That merely reinforces the truism that you cannot tell who is a potential rapist just by looking at them. But there it ends. The large majority of men are very decent people. To say otherwise is nonsense. It in no way disrespects Sarah Everard to state that she was not negligent, just extremely unlucky. The odds of any woman in the UK being abducted off the street in any given year are one in many millions. Of course women walking alone at night should rightly be cautious; men out at night should be particularly vigilant to avoid situations that may alarm women, more so than ever at present. But there is no rational cause for a general state of fear or a general demonisation of the male sex.
I have never viewed the police as particularly like to be good people in their private lives (I naturally except both my brothers here!)
This may surprise you. When I was about six years old, a fairly senior policeman who was acting as a courier for my father, was caught when a bag of illegal money burst. This had quite profound ramifications for me, not least that my father fled the country and I did not see him again for the rest of my childhood. The Rolls Royce and the Mercedes disappeared (I learnt from an uncle only recently that my father’s share of the black money alone in 1965 had been over £1,500 per day, £25,000 a day in today’s money). After my father left, the rest of my childhood was spent in rural but very real poverty. It also meant I had the great fortune to be largely brought up by my maternal grandfather, a profoundly wise and intellectual old socialist. I often wonder what Craig Murray would have been like if that bag had not burst, and I had instead been brought up as the stinking rich heir to a very dodgy gambling empire. Possibly I would have become not a very nice person.
Anyway, I realised policemen were not all great even before I understood the terrible things they can do in an official capacity. Hearing Cressida Dick’s wavering tones over the alleged policeman’s involvement in the terrible death of Sarah Everard, naturally brought to mind that she was directly in charge of the police operation that murdered Brazilian electrician Jean Charles De Menezes, for the crime of looking a bit like an Arab.
It is also worth stating that everyone, including Cressida Dick, appears to be leaping to conclusions amid a blaze of publicity that is going to make a fair trial very difficult. We don’t know the evidence, or the defence, yet.
I am, I know, out of tune with the times. The politically correct repetition of the mantras of identity politics is the only kind of politics which is mainstream acceptable now. A terrible incident like the dreadful fate of Sarah Everard must be responded to by cries of “all men are potential rapists” and a determined effort to drive deeper the wedges between the two halves of the human race.
Not to quite see it that way may even make me socially unacceptable in some circles. I shall have to be stoical about that.
For me, the great gulf in society remains between rich and poor. In rather different ways, that gap in available resources kills millions across this globe every week. You can find gender components in poverty; much more is race a crucial component; but the prime cause of poverty is inequality.
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Tom Robertson
March 11, 2021 at 14:55
“Do these women who view all men as “potential rapists” view their fathers/grandfathers the same?
I very much doubt that …”
———————————————————-
I wouldn’t be surprised if they do Tom. Most child abuse; particularly sexual, is carried out within family settings; dads, grandads, uncles, cousins etc.
Many of “…these women…” as you describe them, have direct or indirect experience and knowledge of such abuse.
Male domination in every aspect of life throughout history needs to be seriously confronted to give women the equality they have always deserved but been denied (by men).
Maybe (just maybe) we men need a kick in the balls every now and then.
Most emotional abuse of children is carried out by schoolteachers.
If most child sexual abuse is carried out in family settings – which may be true – that doesn’t mean that most women (or men) were sexually abused as children by family members. The vast majority of people weren’t.
Guilt by association?
“dads, grandads, uncles, cousins etc.” I take it that etc covers mothers, sisters, grannies, aunties?
For goodness sake. Women are scared to walk alone, in the dark etc etc. Pedantic comments such as ALL of the comments on here do not detract from this fact . Listen to Jess Phillip’s today.
she is a thoroughly nasty piece of work who advocated knifing corbyn. (which is why the media promotes her all the time.)
Are men scared or doesn’t that matter? Gender bias is unjust any way you point it.
Speak for yourself.
Her family are speaking about her in the past tense: “She was kind and thoughtful, caring and dependable. She always put others first and had the most amazing sense of humour. She was strong and principled and a shining example to us all.”
That means the police have told the family that she is dead. And yet they haven’t said so publicly yet, even though the family are making it clear to the media that the police have already told them – so it’s not as if the family and media have been told to keep quiet about it.
You’d almost get the idea that national security is concerned and a coverup is underway.
This was a “job” all right.
There is a need for two simple questions to be answered.
1. Was an offical police car (marked or unmarked) used in the abduction?
2. Was an police warrant card misused to reassure the person who was then abducted?
I doubt if these easy questions will be officially answered – there is role for true journalists to investigate to counter any coverup.
so much time and energy is wasted on twitter, facebook and other such outlets.. yes, i can be argued you are speaking with real people who hold all sorts of crazy views that need to be challenged, but one could spend their whole life doing this… where does one draw the line?? my own is to not bother with these mediums.. aside from being large corporations that already wield too much power, they are essentially now a part of the state used to suppress or censor people when they are not busy spying and collecting data on them.. at what point do people wake up to this and move on?? thanks craig…
I agree. It is not worth the toll on your health. And our health is the most important thing we have. Arguing on the internet is a waste of time. It is not something I would want to get sucked into or even contemplate. Better to go for a walk. Get some fresh air. Let the loons argue among themselves. Just so long as these loons’ ideas do not spill over into real life where they can affect us – but, unfortunately sometimes they do.
Maggie,
I speak as a member of the Free Speech Union to tell you that it is now more important than it ever has been to assert your views on the internet. I used to take your laissez faire view but not now.
Scotland is becoming a deeply sinister totalitarian state – effectively a model for others – imposing “hate speech” censorship on everyday conversation and legitimising family members informing on other members, secret entrapment with covert surveillance and hidden recording devices, as well as a normalised and routine denial of due process under law to anyone accused of a crime they decide unilaterally is a crime which must always be punished mainly to uphold and enforce their restricted world view.
You can only go for a walk when you are able to post on here (they can’t go for a walk and get some fresh air in Belmarsh Prison) and free speech is actively and enthusiastically defended at all costs.
And yet here you are.
“so much time and energy is wasted on twitter, facebook and other such outlets..”
It’s what they were invented for.
“I am shocked and deeply saddened by the developments in the Sarah Everard investigation. Like the whole country my thoughts are with her family and friends. We must work fast to find all the answers to this horrifying crime.“
Those are the words that Boris Johnson’s officials sent to the US-based, 77th Brigade-friendly advertising company Twitter for publication in his name. Johnson is channelling the whole country’s response now, it seems. In other words, shut up, look to the front, and keep your hands where your jailer can see them. I wonder what questions – and Johnson implies there are so many of them, in other words that it’s a really big complicated story – he wants answered?
When the rulers or even their placemen talk like that, a coverup is already underway. Got to wonder why no media are wondering why Couzens hasn’t been charged yet. The cops have got until Saturday evening, assuming they applied for and got 96 hours. Presumably his wife will be remanded in custody on some charge or other… I doubt they’ll want her out and about. Her Facebook pagehas been taken down. Those who can stomach looking at FB stuff may be able to find a cache at archive.org.
Looks like I was wrong about his wife. She has been released on bail already, until April.
Identity politics is the latest iteration of divide and rule; this time a corporate smokescreen disguised as ‘right on’ liberal caring for the ‘other;’ long-standing principled stands on anti-racism, feminism, anti-imperialism, anti-semitism et al co-opted, scrambled and sold back to the eager liberal-minded as today’s lifestyle option . A horribly effective distraction from the present-day causes of inequality and violence.
“For me, the great gulf in society remains between rich and poor. In rather different ways, that gap in available resources kills millions across this globe every week. You can find gender components in poverty; much more is race a crucial component; but the prime cause of poverty is inequality.”
Good point. Thank you.
Anybody on twitter might be a software generated persona.
Or they might be, and in most cases really are, a little bit of meatspace that is allowed to feed off of cyberspace and then excrete back into it.
Feminism has long ceased to be about empowering women. It has morphed into denigrating men, and familial society. Our children suffer because of it.
So, are you saying there shouldn’t be feminism anymore?
Feminism is about making a world for girls where their ambitions need have no limits. My mother, on the other hand, knew that her “job” was to marry as well as she could, because her economic status, and that of her children, would be that of her husband. The women who now control their economic destinies, are the beneficiaries of those first feminists, whom I thank with all my heart.
Feminism is about telling girls that their primary function is not to seek the approval of men by the way they dress, speak, or behave. Meanwhile, we still live in a world where women are looked on as prey by many men. And we certainly live in a world where women, whether feminist or not, feel like prey.
Personally, I have always found it odd that feminists have attempted for so long to stand up and state their case and take their message forward while trying so very hard not to hurt the feelings of men. It is probably because most feminists have men in their lives, fathers, partners, sons, who are the first to hear their words. Nonetheless, any standing up on the part of women, any reach for empowerment, has resulted in a backlash of denigration, and often violence.
So, if women, after fifty years, have decided to stop trying to spare the feelings of men, by calling them out on their behavior, while forwarding the feminist agenda of empowering all women to the limit of their potential, and their sons and daughters into the bargain, then men, who are not killed at the rate of one every three days (in the UK) by their lovers/partners/husbands, may just have to bear up until we create a society where we all respect one another equally, in thought, word, and deed.
Misandry is blatant and foul in our culture and I am pleased to see Craig using his platform to highlight it though I fear that we are now merely defending ourselves because the narrative strand has legitimately become vindictive and perverted.
You will, of course, be barred from the BBC social club and membership of the SNP, if you have it, will be immediately summarily revoked.
Oh, and you won’t be able to go out after six unless dressed as a woman or self identifying as one.
I plan to declare myself pregnant so should be OK. I can feel the labour pains now. Yes, they are very strong, painful and disabling.
Absolutely agree with you Craig. As a staunch socialist and feminist of some 45 years I have always maintained that men are NOT the enemy. Class is.
What an astonishing story about your father.
Class doesn’t rape women, men do. From all backgrounds. That said, women may soon be raped by ‘self identified women’ too.
There was discussion above about how different the risk of being physically attacked is in the lower 50% of society than in the top 5%. That is of course very true.
It may surprise some who are in the top 5%, who typically look down their posh noses at the police, that most cops are very snobbish. They think themselves superior to those who live in the poorer parts of town, who live not necessarily even in slums but in tenements or packed-together houses and areas where there is on average a low educational level. For example cops might do things like compete with each other to find the house that’s decorated with the most Christmas lighting outside, because they think that’s really “chavvy”. That’s how snobbish they are. That is a typical kind of attitude that is rife in the police. This will also be reflected in the kind of clothes they wear when off-duty, the kind of wristwatches they have, where they go on holiday, the kind of cars they drive, the kind of food they eat, what alcohol they drink. Most of them think they are a “cut above the scum” and that’s a very important aspect of how they see themselves.
I am quite sure that the level of REPORTING of street attacks is FAR lower in poor areas than in rich ones. It is not actually so uncommon for a woman to be grabbed and taken somewhere against her will – by her boyfriend – in the poor areas of London. I mean actually pulled through the streets. Often nobody does anything, and the woman doesn’t call the cops. If she did call the cops, their attitude would be “what do you expect, living in an area like that”.
Whereas you don’t look down on anybody…
N_ is very ecumenical though, N_ looks down on everybody equally. It’s universal.
Do you remember John Cleese and the two Ronnies?
🙂
The “Class System” sketch from 1966 with Ronnie Barker & Ronnie Corbett. #johncleese #class
https://twitter.com/JohnCleese/status/1254130854462455813?s=20
Other women too.
And killed. A woman is killed every three days in the UK by her love/husband/partner.
True, but then the figure for men killed by their partners is about one every nine days. So yes, rather more women, but the numbers are not exactly orders of magnitude different. Total silence from media and politicians (and for that matter groups like Femininista).
The numbers of cases of abduction and murder by strangers, which is what we are talking about here is of course much much less.
Neither figure (deaths for men or women caused by partners) is in fact very high. If you live in a town of 100,000 people (roughly the size of a Westminster constituency) on average that is about one woman killed every six years, one man every 18 years. Both figures are dwarfed by the numbers of suicides. From memory around 6000 suicides a year, 3/4 of the men.
Women murder 158,000+ babies a year but that’s legal so it doesn’t matter.
BS. It’s a baby once it’s born, otherwise you might as well call it a pensioner.
You’re all for enforced motherhood, I take it.
I am probably coming in to this too late. class the enemy.
More men than women have been murdered by Class. Just think of all the deaths in wars in which men were sent to be butchered by their upper class overlords as soldiers. Women didn’t escape wars either, but men were the major casualties. Yes probably men were the overlords but it was the class rather than the sex that was the driving force.
After the Wars of German Reunification, Moltke the Elder wrote that recruiting the urban proletariat would be difficult unless they were motivated by an appeal to a great principle (like overthrowing the slaving bastards in the US or a great fear like an existential “threat”). This pretty much defines the internecine wars and the wars of colonial repression of the Euro-American boss classes ever since.
Perhaps I am being cynical but, like the egregious nonsense about the royals, the noise that is surrounding a case about which we know very little except the fact that a young woman has tragically died, is media frenzy to divert people from the preoccupations with Covid – 19, which is fast becoming less dramatic and even boring.
Covid is here to stay and the Royal soap opera will run on a while. This heinous disappearance of a woman, very likely murdered is a sign of the times and the twatter storm is a manifestation that the proliferation of social media and the accompanying advertising takes much of our time up, which should ideally be used for work and or gardening.
Sea levels by 2100 will rise by at least 1.3 meter, my grandson will be an old man or deceased by then and humans, if still in existence, will have failed to run away to another planet.
My best wishes to Lady Dorian and a fast recuperation from her bad illness, if that’s what is keeping these gatekeepers from making a judgement.
No wonder some 40.000 cases are unable to get even heard, if fleecing an individual, because they can, is takes their undivided attention.
Do they not realise Craig has got an event to organise and a new son to swaddle?
“This heinous disappearance of a woman, very likely murdered is a sign of the times “
It’s not a sign of the times this kind of thing has been going on for centuries, men have murdered women and vice versa since the beginning of time, and unfortunately it will continue, the difference now is the media particularly social media have latched on such murders especially those where women are the victims.
As usual the media take a stance on a subject and then sit back and wait for fireworks from social media and radio call-ins.
From a guardian article 2016, quote:
Half the aggressive tweets using the words slut and whore analysed by social thinktank Demos came from women and girls, research indicates.
The suggestion that women and girls as well as men are responsible for the use of misogynistic words in an abusive manner on Twitter came in research over a three-week period from the end of April.
———–
The research analysed 213,000 tweets which were deemed to have been sent aggressively. This just illustrates how seriously out of sync/ skewed against the reality much of the debate around misogyny is. Today it’s reported there are plans to make misogyny a hate crime, alongside things like racial / religious discrimination. Although how that’d be possible without doing likewise for misandry, I don’t know? Some seem to be trying create a society where any form of criticism is potentially criminal.
Plans to make misogyny a hate crime…
That makes me think of Bertolt Brecht’s saying that “When the rulers talk of peace, war is already being prepared”.
Yes. The fact that many of the oppressed identify with their oppressors and that most identify with the “values” of the dominant culture in which they live is, sadly, hardly news. Women will tell you that male rule is, on the whole, enforced on women by the women who bring them up and with whom they socialise.
Amazing how tolerant society is of open misandry.
Thousands of years of male dominator culture & ‘the patriarchy’ means some feel permitted to talk in highly misandric terms. There’s the ‘sisterhood’ and how women must all vote for a certain female candidate, whom they may or may not agree with politically, out of pure gender loyalty an example being .M. Albright’s ‘special place in hell’ comments in relation to not supporting Hillary Clinton. Imagine the outcry if men talked about voting loyalty being to the brotherhood, to defeat a high-profile feminist female politician.
For some it’s as if fighting the patriarchy and culture wars have become more important than politics that actually improve people’s lives (all citizens). I don’t like all female shortlists either, or any kind of minority quotas aka .positive discrimination, because this ‘hostile’ tribal-like thinking is ultimately behind that.
Law enforcement/military organs have always been safe havens for racists and assorted evildoers. All bojo needs to do is profile all south London coppers and sack the devils the exercise will throw up. Unless they prefer to have another Steven Lawrence or the latest gross indecency type cover up with disastrous consequences again. Some of the devil’s may have risen up quite high in the hierarchy so the profiling needs to be comprehensive.
I think you are cherry picking some more extreme reactions while not understanding the underlying reasons for women’s fear. Although being kidnapped and murdered is thankfully extremely rare, other forms of assault, harassment and threatening behaviour are sadly common experiences for the vast majority of women. As a child, a man followed me and tried to grab me and drag me into his car when I was on the way to a friend’s house. A friend of my parent’s tried to molest me (age 8) as well as a teacher on a separate occasion (age 5). I was stalked by several men in my 20s (knew none of them to begin with!) which in one case prevented me from attending classes at my university for a period. When I reported this stalker to the police, the police officer began stalking me and indeed showed up in my student room uninvited and without a warrant! I was drugged and raped by a stranger in graduate school. I have experience frequent harassment in the street – bizarrely enough most often when visibly pregnant. I could go on and on including serious incidents of sexual harassment in the workplace. I like men and lovely relationships with many – I am a naturally open and friendly person but have learned to be cautious through hard experience.
The Covid 19 ‘ pandemic’ has certainly been put to good use by the PTB.
This undeserved negative attitude towards men is getting out of control.
The Independent @Independent
This politician wants a 6pm curfew for men after Sarah Everard’s disappearance
https://twitter.com/Independent/status/1370350748077334530
I once slept on Jenny Jones floor for want of a cheaper nights rest, when she was still living in Camberwell road,rising in the ranks of the GP. I would not have thought that her suggestion is thought through and I do not agree with it.
Aside from the fact that men have as much right to be out at night as anybody else and that many need to be out after six for work the majority of murdered women are victims of domestic violence and killed in their homes. She should campaign for men to be banned from the house and dispatched to the pub immediately after they’ve had dinner.
Some people mentioned it before and I assumed it was malicious claim.
BTW should ex military man and policeman be striped of UK citizenship after allegedly committing such a crime like Shamima Begum?
What, then, are we to make of historical studies such as Christopher Browning’s Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland, and the psychological studies which inspired and followed them?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Browning#Ordinary_Men
Given conducive environments/conditioning/events, it seems likely that most people are capable of heinous crimes, even if no predilection was ever noted.
And of course, what constitutes legal or moral crimes can be ambiguous or contested. A Pope grants heavenly favour for killing infidels, a King rewards on a pyramid scheme those who help conquer France, a majority in the Labour Party vote in favour of keeping nuclear weapons pointed at cities full of people who have never done them any harm.
Anyway, obliviousness to other people’s fears is not evidence that such fears do not exist.
You don’t need to cast your net that wide, just at the Abortion Act 1967 and its amendments.
Sleeping Dog: ‘…a majority in the Labour Party vote in favour…’ I think you mean a majority in the Parliamentary Labour Party.
@Coldish, I mean the overwhelming majority against debating and putting the question to a further vote at the 2015 Labour Party Conference:
“The rejection of a debate and vote on Trident means that Labour is still officially committed to renewing the deterrent. This means that, in the absence of a move to change the policy at Labour’s national policy forum, shadow cabinet members who favour its renewal, led by Watson and the shadow foreign secretary, Hilary Benn, will say they have the right to vote in favour of Trident.”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/sep/27/corbyn-trident-vote-rejected-labour-party-conference
Although I believe that Scottish Labour voted against Trident renewal months later.
“For me, the great gulf in society remains between rich and poor. In rather different ways, that gap in available resources kills millions across this globe every week. You can find gender components in poverty; much more is race a crucial component; but the prime cause of poverty is inequality.”
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/03/09/thomas-piketty-goes-global
An interesting piece on inequality that some may find worth a read. I stumbled across that from another link from this piece:
https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/why-the-french-fear-american-ideas which is currently topical.
I’d not come across middleeasteye before but again stumbled upon it looking for the video of Israeli solders arresting Palestinian children, a search provoked by a tweet from CM.
That video is:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIphclfjT8Q
Damned rabbit holes making me learn stuff…………….
Btw, Thanks Mary for that sketch, made me laugh.
I put this here to further illustrate the maelstrom which we already know too well.
‘ Odey… nodded briefly at the district judge on Thursday after being read the verdict, ‘
‘ Returning his verdict at Westminster magistrates court on Thursday, Rimmer said: “I am left unsure of [the complainant’s account] because despite the strength of her emotion and tears, her credibility has been thrown into question and her evidence is riddled with troubling inconsistencies.”
He added: “Where there is any doubt in a criminal case, given the high standard of proof, it must be resolved in favour of the defendant. I cannot dismiss the possibility that no more than your unwanted verbal advance or proposition to the complainant occurred on the evening in question.”’
https://www.theguardian.com/law/2021/mar/11/hedge-fund-boss-crispin-odey-not-guilty-of-indecent-assault-judge-rules
———— —
As further meta illustration , the above article published yesterday evening, is not at all easily seen in the website today.
The double standards are very obviously real, at which point do we get a bit collectively peeved and register serious disapproval?
What part of the verdict don’t you like?
Did you not bother reading it?
There was no verdict.
It was a judgement, by a male district judge.
There was no jury.
That’s what I don’t like.
Or the single male magistrate determining that HE didn’t believe the complainant.
It is the agenda of a super rich white male seemingly having a ‘friendly’ process.
The Guardians agenda is therefore also clear, it’s giving that case a by, whilst Ms Hyde gets all ‘me too’ on our derrières.
“I am left unsure of [the complainant’s account] because despite the strength of her emotion and tears, her credibility has been thrown into question and her evidence is riddled with troubling inconsistencies.”
Is this mere anti-woman bias or doubt about her testimony? “…riddled with troubling inconsistencies” seems pretty objective.
A he said, she said, from 23 years ago. The CPS responding to topicality, which is always suspect, or a CPS staffed by the Woke who have lost sight of the chance of winning equation, as the late James Randi would have said, ‘You Decide’ 🙂
I revile what happened to Sarah Everard as much as anyone. But the problem here is intrinsic to the human condition, and is not easily resolved. Men are as much affected by hormonal urges as women. As in the saying “God gave men a brain and a penis, but not enough blood supply for the two at the same time”. Some control their urges better than others. The video “10 hours walking in NY” referenced earlier was a good example.
Men controlling their urges is necessary for civilised society. It has been said that civilisation was invented for women. In the historical past, women were kept secluded at home, protected from abuse, given away in marriage without choice. It was not only a question of knowing who the father of the child was, but also to protect women from abuse. Today that is not a goer. So a new solution has to be found. Professional relief, such as prostitutes, is also no longer accepted.
Domestic violence, and murder of women, such as Everard, is a substrate, because men are physically stronger. It’s interesting that outside the mammalian world, it is females who are dominate more than males, e.g. queen bees.
I’m sure I’m about to be attacked as sexist, misogynist, any sort of evil….
PS I should mention that I’m a sub-dominant male, not an alpha, nor a beta, maybe a gamma male, who’s observed the urges, but not actually done anything.
The more I read about ancient human history, the more I begin to discover that women played an equal or even dominant role in the hierarchies of the past.
This role appears to disappear steadily with the rise of organised religion.
Or I might be reading too much into this?
Laguerre
” Men are just as affected by hormonal changes as women “
Yes, hormones can be synthesized and administered orally, progesterone testosterone and many other things. Hormones don’t make you kill. Rage at being lied to by a sexual partner while simultaneously lied to by Politicians might make some people flip. Humans can only take so much.
We live in an age where it’s considered absolutely normal for women to pay for universityby sex working.
Because our society has determined that women have absolute right to sexual freedom, whether or not they are in a steady relationship with someone or not, the law tells women they can do what they like while men are socialised into the constraints of relationship, old fashioned things like fidelity, financial and emotional support.
The state, in its unparalleled, scientifically expert and morally relative wisdom has stored a big pile of agricultural fertiliser in the same warehouse as some expired fireworks and weaponry. Result: explosion.
On the scale of a nuclear bomb.
So what do those same feminilesdecide to do when the bomb exploded? Demonstrate against psychiatrists and politicians for getting it wrong?
Or demonstrate men for being men? However one thing is certain, those same politicians who decided to pump up the world economy with massively leveraged debt have not meekly owned up to their massive stupidity.
So those same politicians are not going to admit that Thatcherite criminalization of males for being males is wrong. Males abide by the rules while women have long abandoned them. Explosion.
Meanwhile, how many old, sick and vulnerable people has Johnson’s far-right government murdered this year with his lockdowns? Let’s keep the spotlight where it belongs, on the Tory establishment run by and for the 1%, rather letting ‘debates’ on the Twitter spy network try to distract and divide people.
Think of how many would have been murdered by the virus had he not (belatedly and with half measures) ordered a lockdown. Oh right, you can only look at one side of an equation, I remember now.
Of course a certain degree of wariness is pragmatic in any early entanglement between people albeit an overt distrust against people on the basis of their sex is unconscionable and becoming out of control in my opinion.
The same logic Craig outlines here can be applied to Involvement with children which has also become delicate and risky. I remember my grand-father was known to buy sweets as well as his newspaper and treat the local kids playing in the street. Today this friendly gesture is taboo. We have become jittery and gripped with a certain fear.
When I established ‘Children of Iraq’ Association in 1994 I was sent by email images of dead Iraqi children and asked for my response. These emails were I believe sent by the security services and I concluded they were an attempt to stain me with having a perverse and morbid attraction to dead children rather than the agony, pain and heartbreak I felt after Baghdad was set on fire and many children incinerated at breakfast time.
Iraq in 1994 was a question of sanctions. That and subsequent actions were the act of politicians lightly taking decisions for suffering without thinking of the consequences, and thinking it would not affect them. Well they were wrong. Now there are hundreds of thousands, nay millions, of refugees launching themselves on Europe as a consequence. The story last week of a Kurdish woman who lost her baby while trying to cross the channel in a dinghy is an example. She and her family would not have left without these light policy decisions, where nothing mattered other than the political demands of the moment, different tomorrow.
What Kurdish woman last week? There was the story from last October of the Kurdish Iranian family who drowned – and if they fled Iran it had zero to do with the Iraq war did it. Moreover, as Kurds, they could have simply sought refuge in the Kurdish region of Iraq which is inherently safe (I’ve worked there since 2004).
I have deleted my Instagram account today because I’ve been increasingly angered by the barrage of man-hating posts on that site. Today I scrolled through one post after another about the evil patriarchy, rape and male violence, and I finally snapped and decided enough was enough. I can’t help being male and shouldn’t have to apologise for it, and I won’t.
Imagine if it was the other way around, and men were constantly going on in internet posts about how horrible and evil women are? Of course we can’t imagine that, because it doesn’t happen. I am sure most men love and admire women, see them as their equals and want there to be as much equality between the sexes as is humanly possible.
This has gone way beyond demanding equality and respect for women. It now looks like simple hatred of men.
I have been suspended by a Facebook group for querying the huge discrepancy between my personal experience (i.e. I know of very few actual cases of violence against women) and the ‘official narrative’, and for asking for some statistical evidence. I was roundly set upon for being ‘offensive’, and I was told that all women have suffered multiple instances of violence. I found many of the comments personally offensive to me – but I was the one who was suspended. I looked up some official statistics, which I can’t find now. What I recall is that in a lifetime, 1 in 4 will suffer domestic violence (in other words 75% will not), and 1 in 5 sexual harassment (in other words 80% will not). Both those figures look a bit low to me, and are perhaps the ‘tip of the iceberg’, but my point is well made, I think. I doubt I will be rejoining that group.
Domestic violence is not admissible in any circumstances. Sexual harassment is probably inevitable, bearing in mind the sex hormones, and the lack of control some men have.
“Domestic violence is not admissible in any circumstances.“
Given the absolute character of that claim, you need to say what you mean by domestic violence.
Does it include verbal violence, breaking an object during an argument, blocking someone’s path, grabbing someone’s arm?
Words can and often do hurt more than physical pain, as almost everyone can understand from their own life: we often remember the hurt we felt that was caused by words in a stronger way than we remember physical pain.
The infliction of mental pain is OK in our society: you can subject a child to mental torture that damages them for the rest of their lives, invisibly, but you must never hit them or cause them physical pain.
I think your 1 in 4 statistic is of women being raped. So, about 8 million women in the UK.
When I was in college, I did an informal survey (for 4 years) among the women I met about sexual assault. I only met one woman who, by the age of 22, had not been sexually assaulted, and she said, “Unless you count . . . ” Sexual assault doesn’t necessarily mean rape, it includes unwanted sexual touching, groping, backing you into a corner, etc.
As for me, a 14-year old I met on a playground tried to rape me when I was 9. My friend down the street was being serially raped by her stepfather at the time (she told me decades later). So I would be surprised to meet a woman who has never been sexually assaulted in any manner, unless she grew up and lives in a convent.
A (US) national poll found that 77% of women report having been sexually harassed, and 51% sexually assaulted. And 70% of women in the military (in a survey) report having been sexually assaulted.
So, in my world, sexual assault is ubiquitous. In your world, nearly non-existent. And that’s an interesting view on the female-male divide in worldview.
No, the 1 in 4 was for domestic violence.
About 88000 women are raped in this country each year. In 90% of cases it is by someone they know; most cases are coercive rather than forcible.
Don’t misunderstand me on this. I think these numbers are horrific and I have no wish to downplay them or make light of them.
But it’s not exactly about ‘reclaim the streets’. City streets have been unsafe at night for a least a thousand years. And they are equally unsafe for men – far more men than women are murdered.
That would be my estimate too – about 1 in 5 raped, mostly by someone they know, and practically every woman has been sexually assaulted, even closer to 100% if we want a figure for sexual harassment which may not include actual assault. Most women have been sexually harassed many MANY times. (Some men are actually aware of this, and we are just as male as those who aren’t.)
Domestic violence defined as the causing of actual physical harm – I dunno – maybe 1 in 3 or 4 women have experienced it at least once?? Proportion of men who have committed such an act against a woman? Maybe 10%??
Though I do not wish to play down the appallingness of rape, the figure I gave represents 1 in about 400.
TS: “[…] unless she grew up and lives in a convent”
You have to be joking. Nuns are among the worst for sexually abusing girls in their care.
Is it not predictable that the wider your definition of sexual harassment, the number of instances increases exponentially? Did you make a similar list of male victims? Victims harassed by the same gender? Impressionistic surveys are not reliable.
Spea, for yousel
Can we have that in English, please?
I’d rather have it in Scottish, thanks. And, for the hard of interpreting, Speak for yourself.
“Reclaim These Streets” are planning a “vigil” in Clapham, thereby helping push the state’s line that the Everard murder (the police having now confirmed that they have found Sarah Everard’s body) was not, and did not even involve, any kind of “job”.
They are not the same as Reclaim The Streets.
They seem to be fronted by Anna Birley, a Labour councillor in Lambeth. As a councillor in Lambeth presumably she knows a thing or two about local Home Office committees and rapid responses to keep the lid on things. She’s also the policy officer for the Co-operative Party.
For goodness sake. Women are scared to walk alone, in the dark etc etc. Pedantic comments such as ALL of the comments on here do not detract from this fact . Listen to Jess Phillip’s today.
Have you actually read “ALL of the comments” on this post? I have, and they don’t fit your simplistic and patronising picture. But you would probably consider it “pedantic” to actually read the thoughts of the large number of people you are presuming to criticise en masse.
Also, do you really regard Jess “I would knife Jeremy Corbyn in the front” Phillips as an authority (on any subject other than Jess Phillips)?
Twirlip
Jess “I would knife Jeremy Corbyn in the front” Phillips
She’d never have got away with saying that in Humza Yousaf’s barmie Scotland.Not referring to anybody else’s bonnie Scotland. Just the Justice Minister of the SNP, W.O.N.K. { Weird oppressive nasty and kafkaesque } Unless she meant it literally in which that’s fine.
I think you put that rather well, Twirlip.
Hey. As a man I’d think twice about walking 50 mins through the streets of south London at night so why wouldn’t and didn’t a lone female, particularly if we live in such a threatening society for women? Moreover, during this lockdown what was she doing at someone else’s home 50 mins away from her own? We have to take responsibility for our own actions and better choices would not have landed her in the position to become a victim to begin with.
“As a [joke of a] man ..”
So if we all just stay at home and behave ourselves like obedient little boys and girls, we won’t have to worry about being mugged, or attacked, or raped, or murdered. Possibly.
What an utterly fatuous point of view.
“Man up” and get out on the streets, then. You might even be able to put off someone thinking of perpetrating violence by making the streets more populated. God forbid you should help someone out if they appear to be in trouble though, by the sounds of it.
Woke is not really concerned with producing real solutions to social or political problems, it is about people trying to feel morally superior by making others feel bad about who they are, typically because they are at the wrong end of the relevant victimhood hierarchy.
In other words your membership of an identity group is more important than your qualities as a person – more or less exactly the opposite of Martin Luther King’s aspiration to “look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”
That may be the case with Guardian journalists and the like, but I think generally it goes deeper than that. My daughter is “woke” – belongs to several minority groups at once, and has her head filled with politically correct nonsense – but she is certainly sincere, and not trying to act morally superior. I don’t understand what’s going on (in her case, or more generally), but perhaps Anonish’s comment about the relative novelty of the Internet (https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2021/03/what-can-we-learn-from-the-terrible-fate-of-sarah-everard/comment-page-2/#comment-981770) provides a clue – I’m still mulling it over.
Curious to see this as the first “suggested” link in the random, fluffy MSM nonsense listed below the search box, when I opened my browser this morning in Vietnam:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/media-advisory-notice-disappearance-of-sarah-everard
Good to hear that he will get a jury trial. With the initial current crescendo of comments on social media making this a women vs. men issue, rather than realising the massive deficiencies of the state, i.e. not enough judges and or police who would convict rape and or domestic violence, i very much hope that the jury will be genderbalanced.
I also hope that the cell were the suspect is held has CCTV as to ascertain how the charged suspect has been injured, or has injured himself twice.
Gender balance is less important than class balance.
Wayne Couzens has now been charged. He also suffered a second head injury in custody, for which once again he was taken to hospital for treatment.
According to the Evening Standard, and this is an exact quote:
“Regarding the second head injury, a Met Police spokesman said Couzens was being ‘monitored by officers’ when he sustained the wound.“
Does “monitor” have some strange meaning nowadays?
The Attorney General has issued a “Media Advisory Notice” regarding this case.
He says don’t publish “any material that could create a substantial risk that the course of justice in these proceedings could be seriously impeded or prejudiced” and continues “This includes publishing information online. Publishing this information could amount to contempt of court and could affect the fairness of any future trial”.
“The Attorney General also wishes to remind journalists and members of the public that it can amount to contempt of court to publish information relating to untested and unconnected allegations against the suspect, and matters adverse to his character, the admissibility of which a Judge in due course may need to determine.”
He may well have in mind something other than the indecent exposure allegation. That allegation may well be false anyway. I’m not at all convinced that an armed officer in the PaDP who is known recently to have got his chopper out and waved it at everyone in a restaurant would be welcome to work the next day as if nothing had happened. And if the allegation is true it is probably NOT evidence of murder and should be ruled inadmissible in court. In any case, of course Mr Couzens is entitled to a fair trial.
Bearing in mind some of the possibilities in the Lee Harvey Oswald case I would be open to the idea that it was not Mr Couzens but a “double” did the chopper-waving. Perhaps a valiant investigator from IOPC (they are real witness-tamperers, paid by the state) will bring Mr Couzens a “cup of coffee” à la Michele Sindona?
“The Attorney General’s Office is monitoring the coverage of this investigation.”
Is it known yet who Sarah Everard spent time with immediately before she started her walk home?
Looking at the wall to wall media coverage on this case it’s hardly surprising that the Attorney General has issued a warning to the media. After the Christopher Jeffries case you’d have though they’d be more careful.
I wouldn’t like to think that the indecent exposure allegations weren’t followed through because the guy was a serving police officer. The Met have ‘previous’ when it comes to closing ranks to protect their own.
N_
BBC’s Bodyguard. A layperson’s guide to the workings of the PTB.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06crnq6
Does that not translate as “Don’t publish anything online that goes against the narrative which we will be pursuing through the MSM, or we’ll get you for contempt of court”, Once again, Scotland leads the way!
This was sent to me by a good friend regarding her experiences. A rather more balanced view and worthy of consideration.
“As a member of the sugar and spice and all things nice gender, I can confirm that I have, throughout my life, lived with an awareness that danger is a constant, and that situations should be safe-proofed… or avoided.
I’ve suffered 3 unprovoked attacks, including having my face smashed in by strangers, and I’ve felt each time that I’d put myself in that danger purely through living and being outside…somewhere that I love.
It’s important to recognise that women do genuinely live like this. We are not exaggerating. We avoid walking alone, not just at night but also on country lanes during full daylight. Our behaviours are curtailed. If we choose to visit nature we do so at places we know to be popular, as numbers reassure us, or we go in groups, or we ‘take a risk and hope for the best’.
We welcome the front door.
Women are taught, by society and by situations, to limit themselves… in many ways…
That said, it is also vitally important that we stand up for our male friends and our brothers who exist under a different umbrella of fear. Fear that they are incorrectly perceived as a danger. Fear that they are all thought to be unable to control their instincts.
Today, in this climate of the necessary recognition of our fears as women, I would also like to add that I stand by all the lads I’ve gathered throughout my life: friends, boyfriends, colleagues or relatives, to say that none of you have ever frightened me; on the contrary, you’ve enabled me. You’ve driven me, escorted me, walked me, saved me, checked in on me, shared jackets with me, provided pillions on your motorbikes (not a metaphor) and shown care, concern and respect for me. It seems ridiculous to say that I have been lucky in that the attacks I’ve suffered were all at the hands and feet of strangers rather than those known to me, but I do feel that.
I honestly don’t think that we are going to change any of these issues, because the majority doesn’t require change and the minority doesn’t recognise a need for it, so for now I want to tell a small story which has enabled me.
In 1996, just days before my University finals, my money was demanded in a subway in Birmingham. A large group of strangers rounded the corner of the subway at the bottom of New Street. They appeared from nowhere… My friend ran. I didn’t. I fought as I was grabbed. I even managed a punch before my face and head was punched from my left and I smashed down against a wall of the subway and blacked out…
I have no idea of the timescale, but my next memory is of climbing the steps from the subway, my vision blurred, head sore, and my face cut and smashed in. Teeth had cut through the space between my lip and nose and my nose was swollen, cut and bruised. I was disorientated but relieved to find my purse even though I’d only had a fiver in the first place. The perpetrators, a big group of big girls, had fled.
Suddenly two lads were there. I was wrapped in one of their coats, comforted with an arm around my shoulder and offered low soothing words, while a taxi was hailed, paid for and the driver instructed to get me to a hospital.
As I was about to get into the taxi, one of the lads reached and held my hand and said, “Love. You’ve been really unlucky tonight. You’ve met some absolute bastards, but don’t let that stop you living and getting out, because look, you’ve met good people like us too.”
I’d love to list all you boys who have made me feel safer over the years, but there are too many, and I know that each of you already has the sensitivity to know that I’m grateful, and that I love you. Don’t feel demonised; you are the majority.”
That was very moving.
RT had a bit on today of a Lordess advocating a curfew for men after 6:00 p.m. Nice to know that I’m dangerous to women outside but not to my wife and the two female cats indoors. I’m a shift worker too….
Jennifer Jones’s comment wasn’t really a push for legislation to introduce that particular type of curfew. (See my comments on it here.)
What Jones says is utterly ludicrous – no dispute about that – but it is no more ridiculous than making everybody stay in their homes for months, banning people from going within 2 metres of each other, stopping people meeting their families, stopping people dating, banning street protests, etc. etc., and taking 6% (at least) off of the entire world economy, supposedly because of a virus that has a case fatality rate not greatly higher than influenza and which mainly affects people aged over 75.