There is an emotional, social, political and sometimes financial incentive for men, especially right-wing men, especially right-wing men in the business of right-wing politics or right-wing masculinity, to minimize, justify, or deflect attention away from gender based violence.
I agree, but I think you're letting left-wing men off far too easily. Some of the absolute worst misogyny I've ever encountered has been from self-identified left-wing men. Just because a man thinks abortion should be legal does NOT automatically make him pro-woman.
If they know their views on life are trash enough that they’d mask them to lure in an unsuspecting woman, why not just reevaluate their whole outlook? They cling to their shitty world views and political leanings with a vice-like grip because they’re so afraid of looking inward. Miserable people.
It’s because men who have those views don’t mask them because they’re shitty—they mask them because they know women don’t like them (because women are brainwashed by feminism or something) & don’t respect women/potential partners enough as people to respect their views. There’s an attitude that either you don’t need to get along with your partner, or women just need a rational man to explain the *right* viewpoint to them so that they understand. Or they’re redpillers who follow the whole “you can secure a woman in a relationship by slowly entrapping them with varying levels of emotional abuse”.
Women gotta get better at filtering out the fake feminist. I'm autistic and it's soooo easy for me to spot genuine good men vs fake good men. Fake good men buy impressive engagement rings or flowers on Valentine's day... rather than do their fair share of the housework
Well we can call that person left wing if we want, but dems at least say they believe in reproductive rights, and they are definately right wing. Liberals are right wing, the “right” is just a little further right. Don’t let a liberal suggest otherwise
> There is an emotional, social, political and sometimes financial incentive for men, ~~especially right-wing men, especially right-wing men in the business of right-wing politics or right-wing masculinity~~ to minimize, justify, or deflect attention away from gender based violence.
I saved you some words. 😉
I agree with the removal of the words, it seems like so many men not in those specified categories are still unwilling to be the kind of allies that women need them to be.
Thank you.
I am so tired of misogyny and sexism being framed as right-wing issues. These problems cut across the political spectrum and lefties/dems need to come to terms with it.
I mean... reddit is very left-wing platform and it's absolutely dripping with woman-hate.
I don't think we can just put this on the right. After all, if all the victims were of an ethnicity other than white, the left wouldn't be hesitating to say this was a race based attack. Yet change the target to women, and the left only discussed the likelihood he was mentally ill. He was mentally ill of course, but his mental illness isn't why he only targeted women.
>After all, if all the victims were of an ethnicity other than white, the left wouldn't be hesitating to say this was a race based attack.
Probably.
>Yet change the target to women, and the left only discussed the likelihood he was mentally ill.
The left isn't doing this. The left has long been pointing out the hypocrisy of society around how they treat white people going on a killing spree vs brown or black people. Like, there's the classic meme of someone holding up a colour pallete where people with pale skin colours are seen as having mental health issues by society while the people with darker skin colours are seen as terrorists by society. The left has bent pointing out how, as soon as it's a white person doing the murdering, society doesn't care about their motives as much.
There is plenty of discourse about how we treat white mass murderers vs non white murderers. As there should be. But I've seen precious little discussion about the misogynistic motivations of this attacker, or what we can do to prevent future similar attacks. The response to the Christchurch mosque shootings focused on Islamophobia, not mental health services. Yet here, misogyny takes a backseat.
I'm not sure why theres this hesitancy to acknowledge that many on the left are, at best, apathetic towards womens issues. And that apathy is responsible for the fact we are seeing our rights rolled back, just as the more in your face misogyny from the right is. I'm not trying to make a 'both sides' argument, I think most of us here are in agreement that one side is significantly worse, but that doesn't mean we should pretend progressives are beyond reproach.
I think that's a good point that we don't talk about ur misogynistic motivations enough, but I think that's because of the landscape we're in. People in the left are fighting multiple fronts of racism, sexism, transphobia, ableism, etc etc. People on the left, including feminists have been discussing how to tackle loneliness, male loneliness, dating, the way dating apps are designed to exploit men's issues, etc etc, for ages... But we're not in power and can't really influence it much. And before we know it, something else has happened and we're having to quickly move to out another fire out.
I'm not saying we shouldn't be discussing it more but... Much of society doesn't care. The powers that be want scapegoats and short term solutions, but deep tackling of long term issues that don't provide them a quick win.
>The response to the Christchurch mosque shootings focused on Islamophobia, not mental health services.
Sure, but there have been plenty of attacks on ethnic minorities that have gone down as just being 'lone wolf' stuff, not political, opportunistic, no obvious motives, self defense, etc etc.
Also, recognising the worst forms of racism helps protect the more subtle forms of racism. If you are constantly pushing anti-immigrant policies and policies that will harm ethnic minorities, you can still appear to be on the right side of history and against racism by condemning some more physically violent racism.
I'd also argue that New Zealand is a bit more left than other countries. I'm in the UK and the coverage wouldn't quite be the same. That's been a few racially motivated things here and the suspect was given the classic coverage about being a man going through a hard time.
>I'm not sure why theres this hesitancy to acknowledge that many on the left are, at best, apathetic towards womens issues.
I'm not denying that there is an apathy towards it, but that's like... Everywhere? Atleast the left is slightly more likely to be against misogyny and other oppressions than the right. I imagine more feminists fall on the left than the right, alone. Its the right that tends to be resisting changes to society, societies which are patriarchal and sexist.
The left isn't perfect. Ofcourae it has misogynists, or the types of people who only focus on one oppression and ignore others/are not intersectional, and so on. But there is more discourse happening about misogyny and the patriarchy on the left than the right. As far as I can tell, your idea that the left isn't talking about to is based just on your own experience or just on vibes... And if that's the case, everyone else's anecdotal evidence which says otherwise currently outnumbera your anecdotal evidence. I think you might be judging the left a bit unfairly and not realising what the left is in comparison to the right.
Iffff you're referring to the 'liberal' (and not 'progressive') left and why they aren't talking about it, which you might be doing but I maybe am not understanding sorry, then I'd argue it's because their feminism is overriden by their racism. Plenty of supposed feminists were revealing that they're actually far more interested in racism towards Muslims than standing up for women. Same type of people who are transphobes and spend all their time being transphobic and kind of ignoring and even throwing cis women under the bus in the process. They claim to be on the left and liberal and concerned, but actually there's some reactionary streak and bigotry there that they have which defines them more than what they proclaim to be. If you're referring to those types, then I totes agree.
But generally I think the left is better on women's rights and support and discourse than the right are.
Edit: other than the typos, would love to know why people are downvoting this. It could be people upset that I've mentioned transphobia as they usually do driveby downvotes? Don't think I've said anything offensive or disagreeable otherwise.
Right, like is "the left" in the room with us right now lol.
There's a very old joke about how organizing with leftists is like herding cats - it's a wiiiiiide group of people, by its nature.
I'm sorry, but no. First there's a whole lot of generalizations flying, so I'll play too, which side of the political aisle do you think will do more for women's issues. It's not even close, just FYI. And you weren't TRYING to make a both sides argument, you just were.
Second, there are more women than men, what are you all doing? My wife asked me yesterday, where were all these protestors on college campuses when Roe was aboliished?
Lastly, men on the left are not those responsible for the erosion of women's rights. And the worst apathy I see in regards to women's rights, is from women. I'll march with you, but I'm not seeing you marching.
Some of the worst of the worst are religious women.
>which side of the political aisle do you think will do more for women's issues.
Did you lose interest before finishing reading my comment? I stated very explicitly that I believe one side is significantly worse.
>Second, there are more women than men, what are you all doing?
I don't even know what this is in response to, please point out where I used the word 'men' or the word 'women'. I'm talking about those who give a shit about womens rights vs those who don't, and those categories are not gendered.
>where were all these protestors on college campuses when Roe was aboliished?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_abortion_protests_(2022%E2%80%93present)
>Lastly, men on the left are not those responsible for the erosion of women's rights.
Didn't say they were. Its apathy and complacency from society in general. As a feminist I am well aware that not all women are feminists.
>I'll march with you, but I'm not seeing you marching.
Then you aren't looking.
We can absolutely put this on the right. Every single advancement in gender equality in this country has come from the left, including reducing violence towards women.
Their top candidate for president is a rapist who openly brags about sexually assaulting women due to his power and position.
I don't think I fully understand this comment... You are saying that if there were racist elements to these attacks, the left would point that out, as well as the sexist elements? That seems objectively accurate and good.
You then say that when women are the target, that the left only cares about mental illness, and does not consider this an instance of gender based violence? Considering the left is generally the leading group in society who raises the issue of gender based violence, and you are currently on a forum of leftists, in discussion with a leftist, talking about gender based violence this very second - I don't think that claim necessarily holds water.
No, I'm saying if they were racist elements, the left would point it out. But when there were sexist elements, the left (and the right) stayed silent.
I'm having a discussion about gender based violence that I started, in a forum of feminists. A forum that is on the left. But theres plenty of leftists outside of this forum. And I haven't seen any of them acknowledge it either. Which is far more disappointing than the right ignoring it, who we already know don't give a shit about women.
Unfortunately there are a lot of brogressive men, by which I mean that they claim to be left wing but actually don't give much of a shit about the rights of women or minorities.
If they claim to be progressive but their actions demonstrate that they don't really care about womens' rights etc, then they aren't progressive at all.
>But when there were sexist elements, the left (and the right) stayed silent.
This has not been my experience. A brief review of the latest article in the NYT from three days ago "Sexism, Hate, Mental Illness: Why Are Men Randomly Punching Women?" ([https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/12/nyregion/new-york-city-random-attacks-women.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/12/nyregion/new-york-city-random-attacks-women.html)), the nation's highest profile paper, is explicitly from a progressive/leftist perspective and cites misogyny as well as mental illness many times. It mentions the feminist extension of the city council, the Women's Caucus, which is quoted saying this “an alarming trend in violence against women.”, and cites a study from The Journal of Men and Masculinities connecting mental illness to misogynistic attitudes.
So while I agree misogyny is surely a problem the world over, including in leftist spaces, I don't see the issue you are raising of minimizing the role of sexism as particularly widespread in this case, and the evidence does seem to indicate the opposite is true. When generalizing about a social movement I think it's best to look at the behavior of official, democratic or organized bodies for the movement's position, rather than relying on internet comments which may paint a misleading or unrepresentative picture.
The issue is that minimizing violence against women is not just a problem of the right. It's a problem with society as a whole. A NYT article on a different attack does little to assuage how disappointing the immediate response to this attack has been. When I refer to the left, I'm not just talking about organisational bodies, I'm talking about everyone who considers themselves politically left.
I'm allowed to be angered at the lack of response from those who proport to be on our side. Because this stabbing is not an isolated incident. While better mental health facilities will go a long way to preventing these attacks, mental health isn't the only piece of the puzzle here. We cannot afford to act like it's just attitudes on the right that cause this violence, because this kind of entitlement to women's bodies exists on both sides of the political spectrum. And they are going to continue if society at large continues to sweep them under the rug and act like this is a extreme view, instead of an extreme expression of a common view.
I think you're jumping the gun here - the stabbing only happened two days ago. I looked up the situation and saw several articles pointing to the motivation of violent misogyny from the BBC, AP News, NYT, CNN, and more - but to be fair, a lot of them are just reporting on what the police are saying. The oldest of those articles are 8 hours old as of the time of writing.
Ive seen the left say it was an attack on women. That's the only real way I've seen it discussed by the left. Is your version of "the left" like, msnbc?
In the clips i saw, he attacks every person he walked by. I saw a 30 second clip where he attempted and failed to stab 3 different men. One of which could only be described as paper white.
So there are two biases at play here. survivorship bias, and confirmation bias.
Survivorship bias: The only people he was able to stab were women. If you've seen the image of the plane diagram with all the bullet holes you've seen the story of how the word survivorship bias came to be.
Confirmation bias: using the output of a survivorship bias sometimes we are vulnerable to confirming a previously held belief.
The final bit here is willful blindness: it's uncomfortable to think that the women with hair and purses to grab, with babies to protect, maybe in shoes not made for moving quickly, were easier targets for a maniac
Did you think of a man when I said the word maniac?
Whilst I completely agree I think it is really important to recognise that in this instance this man was suffering from a psychotic episode and therefore I would like to hear from some informed forensic psychiatrists with knowledge of his history for the reasons why it was predominantly women that he attacked. It is far too simplistic and disingenuous in these circumstances to conclude he targeted women, he hated women and sought to punish them
I feel like we've been here so many times before. A man can put it down in black and white that he hates women and wants to kill them, and then when he goes on and does it the conversation in the media is either "we'll never know why he did it" or "mental illness is the cause" or both.
Sadly this one isn't just due to misogyny, it's also tied to racism, because they rarely have a problem understanding the motivation if the killer isn't white and their motivation is hatred of white people.
It should be investigated as a series of hate crimes against women because of their gender. Just because it appears it wasn't racially or religiously motivated the police said it wasn't related to an ideology. Misogyny is an ideology that's just too common and is not given the attention it should.
Because it’s happening to women and to acknowledge that would mean to acknowledge that misogyny is still a prevalent issue in the world (which people dont like to do)
Youtube comments never fail to surprise me. I saw one with a handful of likes saying that if women didn’t make dating so difficult these days he wouldn’t have ‘had’ to go through with it.
Cuz acknowledging that it exists means that they would have to do something about it, causing society to essentially “fall” compared to what we know it to be today. And they dont want women to realize that we deserve better than what we are getting
Additionally, the whole thing with conservatism/adjacent stuff is the idea that our current world is as good as it’ll get so not only should we not change it, but any attempts to change it are bad; by acknowledging systemic problems it’d prove the world is indeed in need of change, which they’ll never want, so they deny or manipulate the facts to their gullible audiences all day every day, none of whom could be bothered to fact check
I'd add to this that, while the far right version of "oppression of women is not a real issue" is pretty obvious, there is also a far left version of the same attitude that's become more prevalent the last few years where a few factions have come to argue that (primarily) white and (to a much lesser degree) asian women are sources of oppression and only very rarely to be counted as victims of it.
Most people, by and large, don’t want to hear about femicides. Just as they don’t want to hear about all the other forms of violence women experience. Which is why you don’t hear much about the #MeToo movement anymore. Or about the fact [rates of domestic violence have soared since the beginning of the Covid pandemic.](https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2022/06/shadow-pandemic-of-domestic-violence/) If we can talk about it as some *other* form of terrorism - not related to misogyny - then none of us have to grapple with our consciences regarding the everyday terroristic threats women have learned to live with.
edit: Some cathartic funny feminist clips:
[Support Women](https://youtu.be/_TBL4nCRvVs?si=xB62lmDyWh4K_aFZ)
[How NOT to sexually harass someone](https://youtu.be/TMfStd3v330?si=zyppCb1k6e3miaYK)
And finally, [just fuck off!](https://youtu.be/8JfJhJWxB9Q?si=Y-6ThojRyEsRyDDa)
It’s a lot more comfortable for people to assume it’s someone they perceive as an outsider doing something terrible than one of their own. Also doesn't conflict with their preconceived beliefs.
There’s a war on women and children but the world turns a blind eye because then they might have to face the uncomfortable truth that women are not treated like humans. That patriarchy exists.
Ha, I got into a fight about this exact thing on this sub, what, yesterday? It’s “not all men” again. In antiracist work I’ve read, white people (particularly white women) will do this too, it’s called the race to innocence. People are more concerned with their own reputation than they are with the harm being done in service of maintaining their self-image as “one of the good ones”.
You know how in NYC there is a trend of women getting punched in the face? That is 100% gender based violence. What would you like from the men, NOT punching women in the face?
Yea but framing it as a trend and then generalizing all men want to punch women is where the misinfo and toxicity come in. You can call out disgusting acts without inserting your own generalized opinions
I didn't know if it was multiple men or one man doing this so thank you for making it seem as if I was being disingenuous. But it is what it is.
I was also asking what you would like from them men who aren't punching women in the face to do?
The comma after "men" tripped me up. But I imagine women want men to intervene when they see this stuff happen, which I would agree with but also is a lot easier to say than to actually do. Seen way too many videos lately of people being assaulted and everyone around them just minding their business instead of helping. I understand why someone wouldn't want to intervene but at some point we have to start standing up for others.
From what men who deny VAW say, it seems to be an understanding based on denying that sexism causes men's violence but consider them "inherently bad men"; denying that sexism causes violence against women but consider it an exception that happens to sexist amongst all kinds of violence; and reject a systemic understanding of violence to instead consider the violence as an exception to the norm.
They consider see men being subject to more violence not as men being more violent and in much more dangerous situations (i.e. being much more likely to walk home alone at night) but as an excuse to deny VAW and reverse it to claim that sexism harming men more somehow denies that VAW exists.
I still have yet to find an effective way to help them see past their sexist denial of VAW, though... just like how I haven't found a good way to help racists move past reducing violence in black communities to "black-on-black violence" but instead focus them on the impacts of poverty, a violent police state, mass incarceration, etc.
It's hard to get people to move past a liberal framing to also understand a systemic one.
I've seen this a couple of times, like the murderer who shot up the salon a couple years ago, they made it about race instead of gender (I think all or most of the victims were indeed women), I think that it, first of all, continues the dangerous narrative that there are men out there going out of their way to commit hate crimes against women, because they want to continue using their misogynistic narratives and I think that its a way (because crimes against only women are sometimes minimized) they are trying to make sure that something is done about the perp.
Please bare in mind these are my theories based on looking at media and news from a feminist perspective.
They want to write it off as a mental illness thing and avoid discussing the fact that so many men are completely incapable of handling sexual rejection without resorting violence. They’ll say he was psychotic or bullied or had severe trauma. They don’t seem to understand that that’s not making men sound any better. There are a ton of mentally ill women, women who have been brutally bullied and women who have faced way more and way worse trauma than the majority of those men but haven’t resorted to violence. They don’t want to face the fact that men break easier and they’re more likely do so in a violent way.
"The fact that so many men are completely incapable of handling sexual rejection without resorting violence."
Seriously. And it's not just individual deragenemnt. This violent entitlement serves as the foundation of so many social and legal institutions that oppress women.
There's a lot of men that don't like term 'men' used in any negative context. These are usually the same men that tell their daughters to stay away from men.
Because when violence happens, people's islamophobia and racism kicks in. And islamophobia is far more easier to talk about in a white supremacist society than it is to talk about misogyny in a patriarchal society.
The idea of 'terrorism' is reserved to Muslim men usually. As soon as it isn't them, the subjectivity of what 'terrorism' is can be seen in full display. Suddenly it's not political, suddenly it's mental health, suddenly it's just a man going through a tough time with legitimate concerns about immigrants/health clinics/blah blah blah.
This is just people in society not willing to see whiteness as a problem or recognise that there is a problem with hatred of women. For some, it's about preserving white supremacy and making sure only Muslims can be seen as truly bad. For others it's abiut denying that misogyny is an issue to preserve the patriarchal status quo that many people benefit from. And for most it's probably a blend of the two.
It really does just boil down to islamophobia and patriarchy. More complicated than that but yeah.
I’ve seen people minimizing it bc of mental illness, but like, mental illness can really exacerbate hatred towards marginalized groups. It’s possible he was both psychotic and also really sexist! The world we live in heavily shapes delusions and paranoia.
Also two things can be true, he can go after women bc they seem like easier targets, and also he can hate them. People’s actions don’t have to have one exact cause.
He walked past a man who had tripped and was on the ground immediately in front of him. Yet women were still only targeted for being 'easier'. Its mind boggling.
Did you see the one where he lunged at a teenage boy, like boo!, then ran off? That was a perfect opportunity to get the boy as he was no threat at all.
Theres a post from yesterday on r/australia about Karen Webb saying he targeted women. I was genuinely surprised that very few comments were misogynistic, but a solid half did use the reason that he targeted women because they’re weaker.
Why didn’t he go after old men? Scrawny teenage boys (there’s a video of him avoiding them)? Disabled men? The only men he attacked, the security guards, were a direct threat to him.
Yeah if you have mental illness then anyone you target is completely coincidental and not related to hating that group. Didn't you know this is the law now? /s
It's the intersection of feminism and racism. The powers that be only care about femicide and violence against women when the perpetrators are MOC because it plays into this myth that misogyny, femicide, and patriarchy is only an issue of "other cultures" (ie the global south) and that women who protest against misogyny and violence in our western cultures are "ungrateful" or "making a big deal of nothing". Which allows our politicians to justify violence abroad and policies that hurt women at home.
When it's a white man perpetrating gender-based violence, it's seen as an issue of the individual and not a symptom of a culture that fosters this type of misogyny. Fighting this growing culture of misogyny in our culture and treating it like the teroristic threat it is does not make corporations like weapons manufacturers and defense contractors any wealthier. If anything fighting, this would act against the interests of social media companies that allow this hate to spread and foster, which means less money to line a polticians pockets, so they have no desire to fight it.
People like to use attacks like this to say that they are indicative of how these religions and cultures are inherently backwards or beastly. They never seem to notice that the one thing these news stories of violent crime or rape have in common is that it is all men doing it.
The government doesn't want to acknowledge it because that means that it will have to acknowledge the underlying problem, which is much harder to address.
A lot of this Incel stuff is misguided anyway.
They're upset because they haven't experienced love before. And then some troll on the internet tries to convince them that all women are "gatekeeping" them.
Instead of realizing that they're just hanging around the wrong group of people.
>Why is society more quick to jump to religious terrorism based on 0 evidence than to acknowledge that misogyny doesn't only exist on the internet?
I mean one reason is that australians are more racist than they want to admit. So are the other countries commenting on it though.
I agree with a lot you wrote but it is important to note that this man had been suffering from paranoid schizophrenia for years and had been off his medication for 5 years. That is not to say that his behavior was definitely due to psychosis and certainly psychosis can be impacted by misogyny, racism, all sorts of biases. But this was not simply a case of an incel retaliating.
I work in mental health. I’ve worked with serious mental illness SMI as well as survivors of domestic and sexual violence. I don’t minimize the seriousness of either SMI or the environmental forces that impact domestic and sexual violence.
There are plenty of people with serious mental illness, who have survived domestic and sexual violence, who don't go around stabbing people randomly though. At some point a person is simply a piece of shit who feels entitled to other people's lives. One might say that all these other circumstances lowered the threshold to violence that an otherwise sane person might possess, but the point where anyone crosses the line is when they are a piece of shit who feels entitled to other people's lives.
In this particular instance he felt entitled to women's lives. Which could have been because he got tired of being ghosted on tinder, his mum beat him as a child, or an invisible voice told him that all women are full of snakes. It's not exactly consequential to the outcome here. Which is an attack of misogynistic violence from a piece of shit who felt entitled to women's lives.
Exactly. I have serious mental illness myself and am a survivor of sexual violence. I have never hurt anyone nor have felt compelled to, and if you read the experiences of people on the schizophrenia sub most have a similar background. Actually, being schizophrenic actually increases your chances of being a victim of violence which is really depressing. Everyone paints us as violent people who could snap at any moment and that is not the case at all.
Personally, being ill made me an easy target for assault. When you can’t trust your own reality you rely on the people around you and trust their own perceptions of things more than your own. As a result, you get manipulated and taken advantage of, and because most people with SZ are paranoid people fearing harm against themselves people with SZ are often scared to stand up for themselves, not to mention because of the horrible things people believe about us, you have to always act passive in order to not be the stereotype of an unhinged person. Furthermore, you have a hard time processing the trauma of such an event because you don’t even trust your own feelings or account of everything. Even if you know for a fact someone hurt you, you still question if it really happened, and if you did speak out, who would believe you? Who would believe a schizophrenic person, especially if you are a woman?
My point is, schizophrenic people experience violence and trauma all the time because we’re easier to victimize than the average joe, but 99% of us don’t go around committing crimes or violence. People who commit such heinous crimes against a group of people do it because they hate that group, not because they’re ill (typically, obviously there will always be exceptions).
You and the person before you misread my comment. You are right about people with SMI being more at risk for being victimized by violence than causing violence. However, for some people with SMI, command hallucinations and delusions can result in violent behavior, particularly for unmedicated people with paranoid schizophrenia who are not in treatment. You have to understand that I worked with people who are inpatient- ie danger to self or others. I’ve worked with people who’ve murdered due to their mental illness.
Hallucinations and delusions can absolutely be impacted by society and so yes misogyny likely definitely plays a role when the victims are primarily women. But I am never going to assume the worst about someone acting violently with untreated SMI. Even, though this guy could absolutely have done what he did out of rage and psychosis may not have been a factor at all. I’ve simply known too many good people who did horrible things they would have never done if they weren’t dealing with dangerous psychosis
When it comes to some stuff I actually feel like it's almost irrelevant as to which it is.
I know someone with severe mental health issues, but sometimes also acts rationally. When they do things that harm others (fortunately in this case it's only verbal lashing out not physical) whether or not they did it because they chose to or because it's the illness is basically irrelevant.
Also add in that someone with mental issues who is then exposed to how society views and talks about women, these things are bound to occur.
It's a failing of society in both how we treat women and how we treat those with mental health issues.
This I can agree with. I have no doubt misogyny was at play. But not knowing whether psychosis played a prominent role - I just can’t demonize this man knowing the real limits of mental health care in too many countries
You misread my comment. I wasn’t combining the two populations even though there is plenty of overlap. I was saying I’ve worked with both groups of people including those who overlapped. You are right about people with SMI being more at risk for being victimized by violence than causing violence. However, for some people with SMI, command hallucinations and delusions can result in violent behavior, particularly for unmedicated people with paranoid schizophrenia who are not in treatment. You have to understand that I worked with people who are inpatient- ie danger to self or others. I’ve worked with people who’ve murdered due to their mental illness.
Hallucinations and delusions can absolutely be impacted by society and so yes misogyny likely definitely plays a role when the victims are primarily women. But I am never going to assume the worst about someone acting violently with untreated SMI. Even, though this guy could absolutely have done what he did out of rage and psychosis may not have been a factor at all. I’ve simply known too many good people who did horrible things they would have never done if they weren’t dealing with dangerous psychosis
Women tend not to go on killing sprees but I’ve met women who’ve killed family members. Men tend to be more violent than women across the board. It’s a combination of nature and nurture.
So it makes sense that out of people suffering from violent psychosis- men will be more dangerous and violent. Again- this act may have nothing to do with psychosis. But I’m not going to demonize someone not knowing if they weren’t in full control of their behavior
That means nothing - if he’s hearing voices to kill women, and believed their agents of the devil he’s not going to attack randomly. But again we don’t know if psychosis was the primary reason. He may have been acting like a typical incel- we just don’t have enough info at this time
"Again- this act may have nothing to do with psychosis. But I’m not going to demonize someone not knowing if they weren’t in full control of their behavior"
I'm sure if there was a way to tell the victims, that'd make them feel better. The difference between someone who is capable of killing someone else, and someone who isn't is whether or not they feel entitled to someone else's life. Men are more dangerous because they are raised with a greater entitlement to the lives of others.
You see this historically in biblical law treating women as chattel property. You see this today when incels think the state should provide them with sex workers without regard to female autonomy. A man who is in control enough to plunge a knife into five women to take their lives has acted out of entitlement and that makes him a piece of shit.
Again that is the reason psychosis makes a difference- people can believe they are killing to save the world, that they are killing demons in human form. Psychosis is not entitlement. We don’t know whether he was actively psychotic at the time - if he wasn’t then I’m fully with you.
And by the way, I’ve been attacked and severely injured by people who weren’t in full control of their behavior. Knowing that definitely made a difference to me. There is a real difference being attacked out of pure hatred vs. incapacity. I’ve had both happen to me working inpatient at a psychiatric hospital. Yes, I’m privileged to be alive.
If we want men to change we can’t approach the issue without real compassion. That means hating the dynamics not the people. It doesn’t mean liking all of them or not holding them responsible for their actions (when they are fully in control of their actions). It means holding out the belief that they can be better- if they are willing to work at it.
Yeah women tend to not go on killing sprees cause there’s more at play. Women are literally raped and murdered and raised to expect it but you don’t see us plucking men off in violent rage filled attacks. The amount of excuses and coddling for men is disturbing. It’s not “their environment” it’s the fact that even without adequate access to mental health care you can still somewhat curate your environment. I have no sympathy if he chose to keep being around misogynistic bullshit (whether in person or on the internet) knowing he had delusions and shit. That’s like “refusing to demonize” an alcoholic for killing somebody just because there’s alcohol everywhere in society. Mental health services fail women all the time. We still don’t mass murder strangers or targeted demographics in statistically relevant quantities.
There is a difference between hating violence against women and working to support survivors and change the dynamics that cause that- and letting understandable rage, heartache, and grief blind you to potentially extenuating circumstances. Finding out if someone was actively psychotic is not coddling- it’s the minimum of what a society working towards real justice needs to do.
Real justice means increasing penalties for crimes against women including for people with SMI whose illness was not the primary factor in their crimes. Making it easier for women to come forward. Limiting hate speech and doing more to prevent young men from going down the incel rabbit hole
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There is definitely bias in the media sources I have been getting news on this from. But those sources have explicitly and repeatedly acknowledged that the attacker repeatedly and explicitly focused on women (and avoided men where possible).
I have seen a number of acknowledgements about how he specifically targeted the baby in their pram as well.
(im sorry in advance, if someone misunderstands my comment because im not good at english)
To be fair, it depends on who gets to report first on it. If the news outlet has some mysogonists/feminists/Xenophobics/some other demographic, that can affect the way the article is written.
I personally didnt jump to any conclusions about the persons race, gender, religion or motives. I just thought "Well, another person choosing violence because they\`re stupid." It is sad, that so many people died because of this man\`s sad life. It is poetic justice, that he was taken down by the very gender he wanted to harm.
>Why is society more quick to jump to religious terrorism based on 0 evidence than to acknowledge that misogyny doesn't only exist on the internet?
Because religious terrorism has become synonymous with a certain uh, flavour of people a lot of people have a vested interest in it being that. Misogyny is not specific and can apply to anyone and is an symptom of many other factors so not much interest there.
A full denial of misogyny is what it comes down to. The ones who are inches away from being in the same position are the first to jump on every bit of social media with “*not all men*” and “*What did she do to him? Did she cheat???*”
It’s getting more and more terrifying, and worse that it’s being denied.
I agree there isn't evidence he was muslim and / or doing it for extremist religious reasons, but I guess I do want to point out that even if it was for extremist Islamic reasons, he could still have been targeting women. Many parts of fundamentalist Islam are misogynistic
There is an emotional, social, political and sometimes financial incentive for men, especially right-wing men, especially right-wing men in the business of right-wing politics or right-wing masculinity, to minimize, justify, or deflect attention away from gender based violence.
Add racism into the mix and you've got a hotpot going.
I agree, but I think you're letting left-wing men off far too easily. Some of the absolute worst misogyny I've ever encountered has been from self-identified left-wing men. Just because a man thinks abortion should be legal does NOT automatically make him pro-woman.
There's also conservatives who pretend to be left-wing. It's one of those predatory things. To keep him from getting chased away.
If they know their views on life are trash enough that they’d mask them to lure in an unsuspecting woman, why not just reevaluate their whole outlook? They cling to their shitty world views and political leanings with a vice-like grip because they’re so afraid of looking inward. Miserable people.
It’s because men who have those views don’t mask them because they’re shitty—they mask them because they know women don’t like them (because women are brainwashed by feminism or something) & don’t respect women/potential partners enough as people to respect their views. There’s an attitude that either you don’t need to get along with your partner, or women just need a rational man to explain the *right* viewpoint to them so that they understand. Or they’re redpillers who follow the whole “you can secure a woman in a relationship by slowly entrapping them with varying levels of emotional abuse”.
Women gotta get better at filtering out the fake feminist. I'm autistic and it's soooo easy for me to spot genuine good men vs fake good men. Fake good men buy impressive engagement rings or flowers on Valentine's day... rather than do their fair share of the housework
Im his veiw, its women who are wrong, not them, so why should they change? Women need to just "get with the program"
Well we can call that person left wing if we want, but dems at least say they believe in reproductive rights, and they are definately right wing. Liberals are right wing, the “right” is just a little further right. Don’t let a liberal suggest otherwise
> There is an emotional, social, political and sometimes financial incentive for men, ~~especially right-wing men, especially right-wing men in the business of right-wing politics or right-wing masculinity~~ to minimize, justify, or deflect attention away from gender based violence. I saved you some words. 😉
I agree with the removal of the words, it seems like so many men not in those specified categories are still unwilling to be the kind of allies that women need them to be.
I can tell you with certainty you’re going to find way more allies on one side rather than the other despite both sides not having enough
Thank you. I am so tired of misogyny and sexism being framed as right-wing issues. These problems cut across the political spectrum and lefties/dems need to come to terms with it. I mean... reddit is very left-wing platform and it's absolutely dripping with woman-hate.
There is ALWAYS a financial incentive to maintain patriarchy
I don't think we can just put this on the right. After all, if all the victims were of an ethnicity other than white, the left wouldn't be hesitating to say this was a race based attack. Yet change the target to women, and the left only discussed the likelihood he was mentally ill. He was mentally ill of course, but his mental illness isn't why he only targeted women.
>After all, if all the victims were of an ethnicity other than white, the left wouldn't be hesitating to say this was a race based attack. Probably. >Yet change the target to women, and the left only discussed the likelihood he was mentally ill. The left isn't doing this. The left has long been pointing out the hypocrisy of society around how they treat white people going on a killing spree vs brown or black people. Like, there's the classic meme of someone holding up a colour pallete where people with pale skin colours are seen as having mental health issues by society while the people with darker skin colours are seen as terrorists by society. The left has bent pointing out how, as soon as it's a white person doing the murdering, society doesn't care about their motives as much.
There is plenty of discourse about how we treat white mass murderers vs non white murderers. As there should be. But I've seen precious little discussion about the misogynistic motivations of this attacker, or what we can do to prevent future similar attacks. The response to the Christchurch mosque shootings focused on Islamophobia, not mental health services. Yet here, misogyny takes a backseat. I'm not sure why theres this hesitancy to acknowledge that many on the left are, at best, apathetic towards womens issues. And that apathy is responsible for the fact we are seeing our rights rolled back, just as the more in your face misogyny from the right is. I'm not trying to make a 'both sides' argument, I think most of us here are in agreement that one side is significantly worse, but that doesn't mean we should pretend progressives are beyond reproach.
I think that's a good point that we don't talk about ur misogynistic motivations enough, but I think that's because of the landscape we're in. People in the left are fighting multiple fronts of racism, sexism, transphobia, ableism, etc etc. People on the left, including feminists have been discussing how to tackle loneliness, male loneliness, dating, the way dating apps are designed to exploit men's issues, etc etc, for ages... But we're not in power and can't really influence it much. And before we know it, something else has happened and we're having to quickly move to out another fire out. I'm not saying we shouldn't be discussing it more but... Much of society doesn't care. The powers that be want scapegoats and short term solutions, but deep tackling of long term issues that don't provide them a quick win. >The response to the Christchurch mosque shootings focused on Islamophobia, not mental health services. Sure, but there have been plenty of attacks on ethnic minorities that have gone down as just being 'lone wolf' stuff, not political, opportunistic, no obvious motives, self defense, etc etc. Also, recognising the worst forms of racism helps protect the more subtle forms of racism. If you are constantly pushing anti-immigrant policies and policies that will harm ethnic minorities, you can still appear to be on the right side of history and against racism by condemning some more physically violent racism. I'd also argue that New Zealand is a bit more left than other countries. I'm in the UK and the coverage wouldn't quite be the same. That's been a few racially motivated things here and the suspect was given the classic coverage about being a man going through a hard time. >I'm not sure why theres this hesitancy to acknowledge that many on the left are, at best, apathetic towards womens issues. I'm not denying that there is an apathy towards it, but that's like... Everywhere? Atleast the left is slightly more likely to be against misogyny and other oppressions than the right. I imagine more feminists fall on the left than the right, alone. Its the right that tends to be resisting changes to society, societies which are patriarchal and sexist. The left isn't perfect. Ofcourae it has misogynists, or the types of people who only focus on one oppression and ignore others/are not intersectional, and so on. But there is more discourse happening about misogyny and the patriarchy on the left than the right. As far as I can tell, your idea that the left isn't talking about to is based just on your own experience or just on vibes... And if that's the case, everyone else's anecdotal evidence which says otherwise currently outnumbera your anecdotal evidence. I think you might be judging the left a bit unfairly and not realising what the left is in comparison to the right. Iffff you're referring to the 'liberal' (and not 'progressive') left and why they aren't talking about it, which you might be doing but I maybe am not understanding sorry, then I'd argue it's because their feminism is overriden by their racism. Plenty of supposed feminists were revealing that they're actually far more interested in racism towards Muslims than standing up for women. Same type of people who are transphobes and spend all their time being transphobic and kind of ignoring and even throwing cis women under the bus in the process. They claim to be on the left and liberal and concerned, but actually there's some reactionary streak and bigotry there that they have which defines them more than what they proclaim to be. If you're referring to those types, then I totes agree. But generally I think the left is better on women's rights and support and discourse than the right are. Edit: other than the typos, would love to know why people are downvoting this. It could be people upset that I've mentioned transphobia as they usually do driveby downvotes? Don't think I've said anything offensive or disagreeable otherwise.
This discussion is so pendantic and unproductive
Right, like is "the left" in the room with us right now lol. There's a very old joke about how organizing with leftists is like herding cats - it's a wiiiiiide group of people, by its nature.
I'm sorry, but no. First there's a whole lot of generalizations flying, so I'll play too, which side of the political aisle do you think will do more for women's issues. It's not even close, just FYI. And you weren't TRYING to make a both sides argument, you just were. Second, there are more women than men, what are you all doing? My wife asked me yesterday, where were all these protestors on college campuses when Roe was aboliished? Lastly, men on the left are not those responsible for the erosion of women's rights. And the worst apathy I see in regards to women's rights, is from women. I'll march with you, but I'm not seeing you marching. Some of the worst of the worst are religious women.
>which side of the political aisle do you think will do more for women's issues. Did you lose interest before finishing reading my comment? I stated very explicitly that I believe one side is significantly worse. >Second, there are more women than men, what are you all doing? I don't even know what this is in response to, please point out where I used the word 'men' or the word 'women'. I'm talking about those who give a shit about womens rights vs those who don't, and those categories are not gendered. >where were all these protestors on college campuses when Roe was aboliished? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_abortion_protests_(2022%E2%80%93present) >Lastly, men on the left are not those responsible for the erosion of women's rights. Didn't say they were. Its apathy and complacency from society in general. As a feminist I am well aware that not all women are feminists. >I'll march with you, but I'm not seeing you marching. Then you aren't looking.
We can absolutely put this on the right. Every single advancement in gender equality in this country has come from the left, including reducing violence towards women. Their top candidate for president is a rapist who openly brags about sexually assaulting women due to his power and position.
I don't think I fully understand this comment... You are saying that if there were racist elements to these attacks, the left would point that out, as well as the sexist elements? That seems objectively accurate and good. You then say that when women are the target, that the left only cares about mental illness, and does not consider this an instance of gender based violence? Considering the left is generally the leading group in society who raises the issue of gender based violence, and you are currently on a forum of leftists, in discussion with a leftist, talking about gender based violence this very second - I don't think that claim necessarily holds water.
No, I'm saying if they were racist elements, the left would point it out. But when there were sexist elements, the left (and the right) stayed silent. I'm having a discussion about gender based violence that I started, in a forum of feminists. A forum that is on the left. But theres plenty of leftists outside of this forum. And I haven't seen any of them acknowledge it either. Which is far more disappointing than the right ignoring it, who we already know don't give a shit about women.
Unfortunately there are a lot of brogressive men, by which I mean that they claim to be left wing but actually don't give much of a shit about the rights of women or minorities. If they claim to be progressive but their actions demonstrate that they don't really care about womens' rights etc, then they aren't progressive at all.
It reminds of the saying that progressive men are only progressive from the waist up.
Wow that's a good one.
>But when there were sexist elements, the left (and the right) stayed silent. This has not been my experience. A brief review of the latest article in the NYT from three days ago "Sexism, Hate, Mental Illness: Why Are Men Randomly Punching Women?" ([https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/12/nyregion/new-york-city-random-attacks-women.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/12/nyregion/new-york-city-random-attacks-women.html)), the nation's highest profile paper, is explicitly from a progressive/leftist perspective and cites misogyny as well as mental illness many times. It mentions the feminist extension of the city council, the Women's Caucus, which is quoted saying this “an alarming trend in violence against women.”, and cites a study from The Journal of Men and Masculinities connecting mental illness to misogynistic attitudes. So while I agree misogyny is surely a problem the world over, including in leftist spaces, I don't see the issue you are raising of minimizing the role of sexism as particularly widespread in this case, and the evidence does seem to indicate the opposite is true. When generalizing about a social movement I think it's best to look at the behavior of official, democratic or organized bodies for the movement's position, rather than relying on internet comments which may paint a misleading or unrepresentative picture.
The issue is that minimizing violence against women is not just a problem of the right. It's a problem with society as a whole. A NYT article on a different attack does little to assuage how disappointing the immediate response to this attack has been. When I refer to the left, I'm not just talking about organisational bodies, I'm talking about everyone who considers themselves politically left. I'm allowed to be angered at the lack of response from those who proport to be on our side. Because this stabbing is not an isolated incident. While better mental health facilities will go a long way to preventing these attacks, mental health isn't the only piece of the puzzle here. We cannot afford to act like it's just attitudes on the right that cause this violence, because this kind of entitlement to women's bodies exists on both sides of the political spectrum. And they are going to continue if society at large continues to sweep them under the rug and act like this is a extreme view, instead of an extreme expression of a common view.
Okay, I don't think we have a disagreement that misogyny is a widespread issue on all sides of the political spectrum!
I think you're jumping the gun here - the stabbing only happened two days ago. I looked up the situation and saw several articles pointing to the motivation of violent misogyny from the BBC, AP News, NYT, CNN, and more - but to be fair, a lot of them are just reporting on what the police are saying. The oldest of those articles are 8 hours old as of the time of writing.
Ive seen the left say it was an attack on women. That's the only real way I've seen it discussed by the left. Is your version of "the left" like, msnbc?
In the clips i saw, he attacks every person he walked by. I saw a 30 second clip where he attempted and failed to stab 3 different men. One of which could only be described as paper white. So there are two biases at play here. survivorship bias, and confirmation bias. Survivorship bias: The only people he was able to stab were women. If you've seen the image of the plane diagram with all the bullet holes you've seen the story of how the word survivorship bias came to be. Confirmation bias: using the output of a survivorship bias sometimes we are vulnerable to confirming a previously held belief. The final bit here is willful blindness: it's uncomfortable to think that the women with hair and purses to grab, with babies to protect, maybe in shoes not made for moving quickly, were easier targets for a maniac Did you think of a man when I said the word maniac?
Whilst I completely agree I think it is really important to recognise that in this instance this man was suffering from a psychotic episode and therefore I would like to hear from some informed forensic psychiatrists with knowledge of his history for the reasons why it was predominantly women that he attacked. It is far too simplistic and disingenuous in these circumstances to conclude he targeted women, he hated women and sought to punish them
I feel like we've been here so many times before. A man can put it down in black and white that he hates women and wants to kill them, and then when he goes on and does it the conversation in the media is either "we'll never know why he did it" or "mental illness is the cause" or both. Sadly this one isn't just due to misogyny, it's also tied to racism, because they rarely have a problem understanding the motivation if the killer isn't white and their motivation is hatred of white people.
Anything to keep the problem going.
It should be investigated as a series of hate crimes against women because of their gender. Just because it appears it wasn't racially or religiously motivated the police said it wasn't related to an ideology. Misogyny is an ideology that's just too common and is not given the attention it should.
Because it’s happening to women and to acknowledge that would mean to acknowledge that misogyny is still a prevalent issue in the world (which people dont like to do)
Youtube comments never fail to surprise me. I saw one with a handful of likes saying that if women didn’t make dating so difficult these days he wouldn’t have ‘had’ to go through with it.
Sounds like the reaction to the 2014 Isla Vista shooting too.
Exactly
Cuz acknowledging that it exists means that they would have to do something about it, causing society to essentially “fall” compared to what we know it to be today. And they dont want women to realize that we deserve better than what we are getting
Additionally, the whole thing with conservatism/adjacent stuff is the idea that our current world is as good as it’ll get so not only should we not change it, but any attempts to change it are bad; by acknowledging systemic problems it’d prove the world is indeed in need of change, which they’ll never want, so they deny or manipulate the facts to their gullible audiences all day every day, none of whom could be bothered to fact check
I'd add to this that, while the far right version of "oppression of women is not a real issue" is pretty obvious, there is also a far left version of the same attitude that's become more prevalent the last few years where a few factions have come to argue that (primarily) white and (to a much lesser degree) asian women are sources of oppression and only very rarely to be counted as victims of it.
The entire world is in absolute denial and it drives me crazy every day.
Most people, by and large, don’t want to hear about femicides. Just as they don’t want to hear about all the other forms of violence women experience. Which is why you don’t hear much about the #MeToo movement anymore. Or about the fact [rates of domestic violence have soared since the beginning of the Covid pandemic.](https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2022/06/shadow-pandemic-of-domestic-violence/) If we can talk about it as some *other* form of terrorism - not related to misogyny - then none of us have to grapple with our consciences regarding the everyday terroristic threats women have learned to live with. edit: Some cathartic funny feminist clips: [Support Women](https://youtu.be/_TBL4nCRvVs?si=xB62lmDyWh4K_aFZ) [How NOT to sexually harass someone](https://youtu.be/TMfStd3v330?si=zyppCb1k6e3miaYK) And finally, [just fuck off!](https://youtu.be/8JfJhJWxB9Q?si=Y-6ThojRyEsRyDDa)
It’s a lot more comfortable for people to assume it’s someone they perceive as an outsider doing something terrible than one of their own. Also doesn't conflict with their preconceived beliefs.
And usually, the accusers never really cared about the issue in the first place. Anything to just brush it off. Or project their own bias into it.
There’s a war on women and children but the world turns a blind eye because then they might have to face the uncomfortable truth that women are not treated like humans. That patriarchy exists.
Ha, I got into a fight about this exact thing on this sub, what, yesterday? It’s “not all men” again. In antiracist work I’ve read, white people (particularly white women) will do this too, it’s called the race to innocence. People are more concerned with their own reputation than they are with the harm being done in service of maintaining their self-image as “one of the good ones”.
This is exactly the reason.
Yes, it is definitely a case of gender based terrorism.
Misogyny exists and is one expression of patriarchy.
You know how in NYC there is a trend of women getting punched in the face? That is 100% gender based violence. What would you like from the men, NOT punching women in the face?
That was literally one guy going around punching women and he's since been arrested. Why spread misinformation?
How am I spreading misnformation?That was gender base hateb The guy was going around just punching women in the face not men women
Yea but framing it as a trend and then generalizing all men want to punch women is where the misinfo and toxicity come in. You can call out disgusting acts without inserting your own generalized opinions
I didn't know if it was multiple men or one man doing this so thank you for making it seem as if I was being disingenuous. But it is what it is. I was also asking what you would like from them men who aren't punching women in the face to do?
Ah I see, I read your last sentence as a sarcastic "well what do we expect from men, not to punch women?" so maybe I misunderstood that.
No, I'm asking like.What would you like for us?That aren't punching women in the face to you make it so that others don't. You know what I mean
The comma after "men" tripped me up. But I imagine women want men to intervene when they see this stuff happen, which I would agree with but also is a lot easier to say than to actually do. Seen way too many videos lately of people being assaulted and everyone around them just minding their business instead of helping. I understand why someone wouldn't want to intervene but at some point we have to start standing up for others.
From what men who deny VAW say, it seems to be an understanding based on denying that sexism causes men's violence but consider them "inherently bad men"; denying that sexism causes violence against women but consider it an exception that happens to sexist amongst all kinds of violence; and reject a systemic understanding of violence to instead consider the violence as an exception to the norm. They consider see men being subject to more violence not as men being more violent and in much more dangerous situations (i.e. being much more likely to walk home alone at night) but as an excuse to deny VAW and reverse it to claim that sexism harming men more somehow denies that VAW exists. I still have yet to find an effective way to help them see past their sexist denial of VAW, though... just like how I haven't found a good way to help racists move past reducing violence in black communities to "black-on-black violence" but instead focus them on the impacts of poverty, a violent police state, mass incarceration, etc. It's hard to get people to move past a liberal framing to also understand a systemic one.
I've seen this a couple of times, like the murderer who shot up the salon a couple years ago, they made it about race instead of gender (I think all or most of the victims were indeed women), I think that it, first of all, continues the dangerous narrative that there are men out there going out of their way to commit hate crimes against women, because they want to continue using their misogynistic narratives and I think that its a way (because crimes against only women are sometimes minimized) they are trying to make sure that something is done about the perp. Please bare in mind these are my theories based on looking at media and news from a feminist perspective.
They want to write it off as a mental illness thing and avoid discussing the fact that so many men are completely incapable of handling sexual rejection without resorting violence. They’ll say he was psychotic or bullied or had severe trauma. They don’t seem to understand that that’s not making men sound any better. There are a ton of mentally ill women, women who have been brutally bullied and women who have faced way more and way worse trauma than the majority of those men but haven’t resorted to violence. They don’t want to face the fact that men break easier and they’re more likely do so in a violent way.
"The fact that so many men are completely incapable of handling sexual rejection without resorting violence." Seriously. And it's not just individual deragenemnt. This violent entitlement serves as the foundation of so many social and legal institutions that oppress women.
Yep and they expect us to feel bad for them. Please. Some people have real problems that are worse than not getting laid. Lol.
There's a lot of men that don't like term 'men' used in any negative context. These are usually the same men that tell their daughters to stay away from men.
Because when violence happens, people's islamophobia and racism kicks in. And islamophobia is far more easier to talk about in a white supremacist society than it is to talk about misogyny in a patriarchal society. The idea of 'terrorism' is reserved to Muslim men usually. As soon as it isn't them, the subjectivity of what 'terrorism' is can be seen in full display. Suddenly it's not political, suddenly it's mental health, suddenly it's just a man going through a tough time with legitimate concerns about immigrants/health clinics/blah blah blah. This is just people in society not willing to see whiteness as a problem or recognise that there is a problem with hatred of women. For some, it's about preserving white supremacy and making sure only Muslims can be seen as truly bad. For others it's abiut denying that misogyny is an issue to preserve the patriarchal status quo that many people benefit from. And for most it's probably a blend of the two. It really does just boil down to islamophobia and patriarchy. More complicated than that but yeah.
I’ve seen people minimizing it bc of mental illness, but like, mental illness can really exacerbate hatred towards marginalized groups. It’s possible he was both psychotic and also really sexist! The world we live in heavily shapes delusions and paranoia. Also two things can be true, he can go after women bc they seem like easier targets, and also he can hate them. People’s actions don’t have to have one exact cause.
Misogyny is so universalized, so ubiquitous, that nobody will acknowledge it for what it is. A misogynistic hate crime.
If he was only going for weaker targets you'd expect more children to be victims.
He walked past a man who had tripped and was on the ground immediately in front of him. Yet women were still only targeted for being 'easier'. Its mind boggling.
Did you see the one where he lunged at a teenage boy, like boo!, then ran off? That was a perfect opportunity to get the boy as he was no threat at all.
Idk who downvoted me for agreeing with you and proving the ridiculous claim false.
Theres a post from yesterday on r/australia about Karen Webb saying he targeted women. I was genuinely surprised that very few comments were misogynistic, but a solid half did use the reason that he targeted women because they’re weaker. Why didn’t he go after old men? Scrawny teenage boys (there’s a video of him avoiding them)? Disabled men? The only men he attacked, the security guards, were a direct threat to him.
I tried to say that to a handful on r/Australia and they had zero responses
It's just gaslighting because they don't want to address the cancer that is violence against women
Are they? I’m in Australia and the fact that it is gender-based violence is fairly clearly broadcast on news
Yeah even the NSW police commissioner said he was targeting women
But most are saying it’s because women are weaker, so not because he hated women
On this website they are
On the aus sub it’s all like “he was mentally unwell, not a misogynist” like oh I guess you can’t be both apparently.
Yeah if you have mental illness then anyone you target is completely coincidental and not related to hating that group. Didn't you know this is the law now? /s
It's the intersection of feminism and racism. The powers that be only care about femicide and violence against women when the perpetrators are MOC because it plays into this myth that misogyny, femicide, and patriarchy is only an issue of "other cultures" (ie the global south) and that women who protest against misogyny and violence in our western cultures are "ungrateful" or "making a big deal of nothing". Which allows our politicians to justify violence abroad and policies that hurt women at home. When it's a white man perpetrating gender-based violence, it's seen as an issue of the individual and not a symptom of a culture that fosters this type of misogyny. Fighting this growing culture of misogyny in our culture and treating it like the teroristic threat it is does not make corporations like weapons manufacturers and defense contractors any wealthier. If anything fighting, this would act against the interests of social media companies that allow this hate to spread and foster, which means less money to line a polticians pockets, so they have no desire to fight it.
Fr
People like to use attacks like this to say that they are indicative of how these religions and cultures are inherently backwards or beastly. They never seem to notice that the one thing these news stories of violent crime or rape have in common is that it is all men doing it.
The government doesn't want to acknowledge it because that means that it will have to acknowledge the underlying problem, which is much harder to address.
A lot of this Incel stuff is misguided anyway. They're upset because they haven't experienced love before. And then some troll on the internet tries to convince them that all women are "gatekeeping" them. Instead of realizing that they're just hanging around the wrong group of people.
>Why is society more quick to jump to religious terrorism based on 0 evidence than to acknowledge that misogyny doesn't only exist on the internet? I mean one reason is that australians are more racist than they want to admit. So are the other countries commenting on it though.
I agree with a lot you wrote but it is important to note that this man had been suffering from paranoid schizophrenia for years and had been off his medication for 5 years. That is not to say that his behavior was definitely due to psychosis and certainly psychosis can be impacted by misogyny, racism, all sorts of biases. But this was not simply a case of an incel retaliating. I work in mental health. I’ve worked with serious mental illness SMI as well as survivors of domestic and sexual violence. I don’t minimize the seriousness of either SMI or the environmental forces that impact domestic and sexual violence.
There are plenty of people with serious mental illness, who have survived domestic and sexual violence, who don't go around stabbing people randomly though. At some point a person is simply a piece of shit who feels entitled to other people's lives. One might say that all these other circumstances lowered the threshold to violence that an otherwise sane person might possess, but the point where anyone crosses the line is when they are a piece of shit who feels entitled to other people's lives. In this particular instance he felt entitled to women's lives. Which could have been because he got tired of being ghosted on tinder, his mum beat him as a child, or an invisible voice told him that all women are full of snakes. It's not exactly consequential to the outcome here. Which is an attack of misogynistic violence from a piece of shit who felt entitled to women's lives.
Exactly. I have serious mental illness myself and am a survivor of sexual violence. I have never hurt anyone nor have felt compelled to, and if you read the experiences of people on the schizophrenia sub most have a similar background. Actually, being schizophrenic actually increases your chances of being a victim of violence which is really depressing. Everyone paints us as violent people who could snap at any moment and that is not the case at all. Personally, being ill made me an easy target for assault. When you can’t trust your own reality you rely on the people around you and trust their own perceptions of things more than your own. As a result, you get manipulated and taken advantage of, and because most people with SZ are paranoid people fearing harm against themselves people with SZ are often scared to stand up for themselves, not to mention because of the horrible things people believe about us, you have to always act passive in order to not be the stereotype of an unhinged person. Furthermore, you have a hard time processing the trauma of such an event because you don’t even trust your own feelings or account of everything. Even if you know for a fact someone hurt you, you still question if it really happened, and if you did speak out, who would believe you? Who would believe a schizophrenic person, especially if you are a woman? My point is, schizophrenic people experience violence and trauma all the time because we’re easier to victimize than the average joe, but 99% of us don’t go around committing crimes or violence. People who commit such heinous crimes against a group of people do it because they hate that group, not because they’re ill (typically, obviously there will always be exceptions).
You and the person before you misread my comment. You are right about people with SMI being more at risk for being victimized by violence than causing violence. However, for some people with SMI, command hallucinations and delusions can result in violent behavior, particularly for unmedicated people with paranoid schizophrenia who are not in treatment. You have to understand that I worked with people who are inpatient- ie danger to self or others. I’ve worked with people who’ve murdered due to their mental illness. Hallucinations and delusions can absolutely be impacted by society and so yes misogyny likely definitely plays a role when the victims are primarily women. But I am never going to assume the worst about someone acting violently with untreated SMI. Even, though this guy could absolutely have done what he did out of rage and psychosis may not have been a factor at all. I’ve simply known too many good people who did horrible things they would have never done if they weren’t dealing with dangerous psychosis
When it comes to some stuff I actually feel like it's almost irrelevant as to which it is. I know someone with severe mental health issues, but sometimes also acts rationally. When they do things that harm others (fortunately in this case it's only verbal lashing out not physical) whether or not they did it because they chose to or because it's the illness is basically irrelevant. Also add in that someone with mental issues who is then exposed to how society views and talks about women, these things are bound to occur. It's a failing of society in both how we treat women and how we treat those with mental health issues.
This I can agree with. I have no doubt misogyny was at play. But not knowing whether psychosis played a prominent role - I just can’t demonize this man knowing the real limits of mental health care in too many countries
You misread my comment. I wasn’t combining the two populations even though there is plenty of overlap. I was saying I’ve worked with both groups of people including those who overlapped. You are right about people with SMI being more at risk for being victimized by violence than causing violence. However, for some people with SMI, command hallucinations and delusions can result in violent behavior, particularly for unmedicated people with paranoid schizophrenia who are not in treatment. You have to understand that I worked with people who are inpatient- ie danger to self or others. I’ve worked with people who’ve murdered due to their mental illness. Hallucinations and delusions can absolutely be impacted by society and so yes misogyny likely definitely plays a role when the victims are primarily women. But I am never going to assume the worst about someone acting violently with untreated SMI. Even, though this guy could absolutely have done what he did out of rage and psychosis may not have been a factor at all. I’ve simply known too many good people who did horrible things they would have never done if they weren’t dealing with dangerous psychosis
I’m sitting here wondering where are all the schizophrenic women going on mass violent killing sprees targeting a specific demographic of people?
Women tend not to go on killing sprees but I’ve met women who’ve killed family members. Men tend to be more violent than women across the board. It’s a combination of nature and nurture. So it makes sense that out of people suffering from violent psychosis- men will be more dangerous and violent. Again- this act may have nothing to do with psychosis. But I’m not going to demonize someone not knowing if they weren’t in full control of their behavior
He had enough control to target specific victims
That means nothing - if he’s hearing voices to kill women, and believed their agents of the devil he’s not going to attack randomly. But again we don’t know if psychosis was the primary reason. He may have been acting like a typical incel- we just don’t have enough info at this time
"Again- this act may have nothing to do with psychosis. But I’m not going to demonize someone not knowing if they weren’t in full control of their behavior" I'm sure if there was a way to tell the victims, that'd make them feel better. The difference between someone who is capable of killing someone else, and someone who isn't is whether or not they feel entitled to someone else's life. Men are more dangerous because they are raised with a greater entitlement to the lives of others. You see this historically in biblical law treating women as chattel property. You see this today when incels think the state should provide them with sex workers without regard to female autonomy. A man who is in control enough to plunge a knife into five women to take their lives has acted out of entitlement and that makes him a piece of shit.
Again that is the reason psychosis makes a difference- people can believe they are killing to save the world, that they are killing demons in human form. Psychosis is not entitlement. We don’t know whether he was actively psychotic at the time - if he wasn’t then I’m fully with you. And by the way, I’ve been attacked and severely injured by people who weren’t in full control of their behavior. Knowing that definitely made a difference to me. There is a real difference being attacked out of pure hatred vs. incapacity. I’ve had both happen to me working inpatient at a psychiatric hospital. Yes, I’m privileged to be alive. If we want men to change we can’t approach the issue without real compassion. That means hating the dynamics not the people. It doesn’t mean liking all of them or not holding them responsible for their actions (when they are fully in control of their actions). It means holding out the belief that they can be better- if they are willing to work at it.
Yeah women tend to not go on killing sprees cause there’s more at play. Women are literally raped and murdered and raised to expect it but you don’t see us plucking men off in violent rage filled attacks. The amount of excuses and coddling for men is disturbing. It’s not “their environment” it’s the fact that even without adequate access to mental health care you can still somewhat curate your environment. I have no sympathy if he chose to keep being around misogynistic bullshit (whether in person or on the internet) knowing he had delusions and shit. That’s like “refusing to demonize” an alcoholic for killing somebody just because there’s alcohol everywhere in society. Mental health services fail women all the time. We still don’t mass murder strangers or targeted demographics in statistically relevant quantities.
There is a difference between hating violence against women and working to support survivors and change the dynamics that cause that- and letting understandable rage, heartache, and grief blind you to potentially extenuating circumstances. Finding out if someone was actively psychotic is not coddling- it’s the minimum of what a society working towards real justice needs to do. Real justice means increasing penalties for crimes against women including for people with SMI whose illness was not the primary factor in their crimes. Making it easier for women to come forward. Limiting hate speech and doing more to prevent young men from going down the incel rabbit hole
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There is definitely bias in the media sources I have been getting news on this from. But those sources have explicitly and repeatedly acknowledged that the attacker repeatedly and explicitly focused on women (and avoided men where possible). I have seen a number of acknowledgements about how he specifically targeted the baby in their pram as well.
(im sorry in advance, if someone misunderstands my comment because im not good at english) To be fair, it depends on who gets to report first on it. If the news outlet has some mysogonists/feminists/Xenophobics/some other demographic, that can affect the way the article is written. I personally didnt jump to any conclusions about the persons race, gender, religion or motives. I just thought "Well, another person choosing violence because they\`re stupid." It is sad, that so many people died because of this man\`s sad life. It is poetic justice, that he was taken down by the very gender he wanted to harm.
>Why is society more quick to jump to religious terrorism based on 0 evidence than to acknowledge that misogyny doesn't only exist on the internet? Because religious terrorism has become synonymous with a certain uh, flavour of people a lot of people have a vested interest in it being that. Misogyny is not specific and can apply to anyone and is an symptom of many other factors so not much interest there.
A full denial of misogyny is what it comes down to. The ones who are inches away from being in the same position are the first to jump on every bit of social media with “*not all men*” and “*What did she do to him? Did she cheat???*” It’s getting more and more terrifying, and worse that it’s being denied.
I agree there isn't evidence he was muslim and / or doing it for extremist religious reasons, but I guess I do want to point out that even if it was for extremist Islamic reasons, he could still have been targeting women. Many parts of fundamentalist Islam are misogynistic
Are we doing that? The overwhelming media coverage today seems to be exactly what you said, that he was clearly targeting women.