I have never spent this much time writing a Substack update, but this idea won’t leave me alone.
I want to write about men, our role in society and how I still manage to believe the vast majority of men are good, kind, gentle people.
I know discussion around this subject is a tinderbox, a minefield, a razors edge topic and treading lightly, being honest and as clear as possible is critically important. And the topic is central to all out lives, regardless of our background, our opinions, our attitudes.
So here I go.
As someone living outside the USA who is constantly sucked into the American news vortex, it’s been a joy to witness the rapid series of events leading to the adoption of Kamala Harris as potential Democrat nominee for the coming presidential election.
I think she will be genuine threat to the global dominance of a very old, doddery and confused orange bigot. He’s so OLD.
It definitely lightened the mood with me. I happily admit I know next to nothing about American politics, I have no idea who might win, but at least there’s someone who can really go for the jugular and belittle the old bully.
Then last week, just for balance, a report was released by the National Police Chief’s Council in the UK. It highlighted some truly horrific and shameful statistics.
More than one million violent crimes against women and girls were recorded by British police in the year 2022/23. Around three thousand women and young girls report a violent crime or sexual assault, every day.
I repeat, three thousand reports a day. And there’s no getting around it, these crimes are committed by men.
Sadly I’m old and experienced enough not to be surprised that this is happening, but the horrendous number of assaults did shock me. So horrific for any and all women to live in a world where this happens, so shameful for all men, regardless.
I know from spending time in male company that it is common for some men to view women as less than human, to talk about them in vile, aggressive, hateful and derogatory tones and it’s very difficult, as a man, to stand up to that. To call it out, to go against the prevailing mood.
“I was joking, get over it you tosser.’ has been the response on the rare occasion I have tried to counter the hate-rant.
This vile situation isn’t new, but maybe the level of reporting has increased. I also have no idea what the solution is, how we manage to raise so many boys who will carry out this tidal wave of assaults.
And it’s obvious, but bears repeating, the vile men who commit these crimes often have sisters, they all have mothers, they were all raised solely or partly by women.
What might be missing here? Their fathers?
Can it really be true that the lack of a positive father figure can lead to a young man behaving so despicably? Does the lack of a positive, non rapist role model mean all those boys are going to grow up to be vile sexual assault perpetrators?
Surely not.
There are countless examples of men, brought up by a single mother, who do not go on to commit sexual assaults. There are countless examples of men brought up by two loving parents in a happy and secure home who DO go on to be sexual assault perpetrators.
Could it be the easy availability of incredibly explicit and free pornography on every tablet, phone and laptop? Maybe, I can no longer tell.
I know the pornography available to me when I was a young man was so unimaginably tame in comparison to the online offerings today, it possibly had a less caustic effect.
It’s hard not to think that prolonged exposure to what we would have called ‘ultra hardcore porn’ back in the 1980’s might play a part.
Could it be the fault of feminism as violent thugs like Andrew Tate whine about? Could it be that since woman have demanded equal rights and stopped taking the slurs and idiocy of men in silence as they have done historically, could this pose a threat to frightened little boy-men like Tate and his hordes of deluded and increasingly dangerous followers?
Of course it could be any and all of those things, but I want to state this. Men don’t sexually assault women, they don’t rape women, they don’t send dick pics, they don’t ‘grab ‘em by the pussy’ because they are sexually frustrated and can’t find an outlet for that.
They do this because they feel angry, and with slimeballs like Tate they are repeatedly told that being angry and full of hate is good. That women deserve it, that being a misogynist is cool and manly.
We must be bringing up a lot of boys who cannot deal with their own failings, inadequacy and weakness so they always, always punch down. They find someone weaker and blame them for all their own failings.
A man who assaults a woman, leers at a woman, tries to coerce an unwilling woman, stalks, hassles and threatens a woman is, by definition, a weak coward.
A man has to be living in a very angry and fear filled world to think it’s okay to shout obscenities at woman in the street, or to make a quiet threat to them to be more intimidating, or to openly stare at them on public transport.
And surely you’ve got to be a tragic idiot to send someone a picture of your erect penis. Just writing that makes me feel a bit sick, what a strange thing to do.
I’m no wallflower but I have never even contemplated doing such a thing. To be fair to myself and the contemporary dick pic sender, back in the 1970’s I would have had to use a camera that had a roll of film in it. I’d then have to drop it in at Snappy Snaps to get it processed, then go back a week later to pick up the slightly out of focus dick pics.
I genuinely don’t understand what the hoped for reaction is but I’m confident a positive response to receiving some slightly tragic dick pic from a man you don’t know is rare.
As I combed through the articles about this report today, in amongst the endless heart breaking stories, there was very little mention of the source of this horror show.
Men, heterosexual men.
There’s no other way around it. What has gone so hopelessly wrong with the way we raise boys, as the report stated, the number of young men committing these crimes is so high it’s a chunky percentage of the whole.
And I really don’t want to mention what has just happened in Southport but it is very much connected to this topic I started writing about a few days ago. A gut wrenching tragedy that also involves a very young man.
Then to compound the horror, heartbreak and baffling loss, another bunch of, it has to be stated, very stupid and deliberately misinformed angry men went to the town and made everything worse.
It would be very easy to despair and walk away shaking your head, there is so much evidence that all men are angry, filled with hate, violence and destructive instincts.
And yet this morning, after a night of rioting, destruction and serious violence, the people who actually live in Southport have been working together to clean up. Men, helping each other and the local community by doing something that actually helps repair things.
I will stick with my battered belief that most men are decent, empathetic and caring people who don’t always hate people who aren’t like them, who don’t hate and attack women. I’ll go further, these men are brave, courageous and need to be encouraged and acknowledged just as much as we should reject and admonish the pitiful cowardly weaklings that perpetrate these gross acts.
And just to return to the USA for a moment, there has recently been an online rally of white men in America. They weren’t all wearing camouflage gear and waving confederate flags, they weren’t shouting racial slurs, basically for the rest of the world, they weren’t weird.
Just regular white men getting together for this was the first meeting of “White Dudes for Harris” campaign and through donations and sales of trucker hats emblazoned with the White Dudes log, they raised over $4 million for the Harris campaign.
Of course the little skidmark Trump junior called these men ‘cucks,’ which as many pointed out, was an attempt at slander that felt a bit dated in 2005.
Enough! My next Substack update is going to be all jolly, happy and full of hope. I promise,
Isn’t there a possible flaw in your musings, Robert? What is it that makes you think violence against women and girls by men is increasing? A lot of your thoughts revolve around how things have changed to make men so dangerous. Isn’t it at least worth considering that it’s actually the same or even less than in times past.
I don’t believe men have changed that much - and perhaps the world is a little more transparent than it has ever been with digital evidence everywhere.
I’m not saying the situation is not bad, BTW - but looking for causes might be a distraction. We need to make sure there are serious, very visible, consequences for perpetrators and that women and girls are encouraged to speak up ASAP.
I like what you say. And as someone who's been on the wrong end if male attention since the 1960s it is different.
What is different I'd the overt, and very nasty, stuff from people like Andrew Tate and also incel culture. My current go to blame is the algorithms which feed this stuff to disaffacted lads and steers them dolwn the wrong road.
On the other hand my son is on 6 months parental leave while his wife, who also had 6 months leave, is back at work. That they can choose this shows that some things are better.
Most men are good. The question is how do we stop the vulnerable being dragged down a rabbit hole?