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One Woman’s Perspective – politicalbetting.com

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  • LeonLeon Posts: 45,700

    Leon said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Cyclefree said:

    I don't paint all men as part of the problem. And you clearly have not read the last paragraph.

    "To change a culture for the better, all must play their part. Men have a vital role to play to change the world in which women live – as allies, as champions, as teachers, as exemplars, as defenders – so that, whether they are 18 or 80, women can live their lives to the fullest and without fear of men behaving badly."

    Which bit of this do you have a problem with?
    Hmm. I think yesterday @MarqueeMark posted some reservations about painting all men as part of the problem.

    You weren't on the thread much but suddenly popped up and went for him with both barrels posting a polemic in response starting with "Oh, do stop whining.."

    Not surprisingly, that turned him off. And it got close to turning me off too.

    I think we all want this unfair skewing of risk and responsibility against women to end. But the words and language you use to mobilise your allies is important, and needs to be measured - not uncompromising.
    Let me try and respond without getting everyone would up again. And let me make it clear that none of this is personally addressed to you or the lovely
    @MarqueeMark.

    You see this feels to me like men expecting women to tiptoe around their feelings. But our feelings - well that's us giving both barrels and putting people off and all the rest of it. And that exemplifies in a small way part of the problem. Perhaps for a change men could consider our feelings first and understand why women feel so bloody furious about it all.

    At a time when a woman was abducted off the streets and murdered, one of the first reactions on here by some of our eminent posters was to say that they weren't to blame. Well of course they aren't. But timing is everything in life. Is that really the time to make this point?

    As opposed to perhaps asking oneself some tough questions about why - if the majority of men aren't horrible sex pests - so much sexual harassment is happening. Why - if schools are teaching respect - are so many young men behaving and talking about women in a way that suggests they never attended any of those lessons?

    I mention the middle aged clients making obscene suggestions at breakfast. That happened to me. The men were fathers and grandfathers, successful professionals. Together they behaved like a bunch of dirty-minded 13 year olds. When spoken to individually they spoke with pride and love about their wives and daughters. They were ordinary men, much like many others. And yet they still behaved appallingly to me - a young barrister. Presumably I was not someone's loved daughter or wife. Just a girl who had to sit and endure and could not answer back.

    Or the traders who wrote vile stuff about what childbirth does to a certain part of a woman's autonomy - in workplace chats about a colleague then on maternity leave. When challenged and asked whether they would like this said about their wives one said they'd punch anyone doing that. They looked at me blankly until the penny dropped when I asked why then they thought it ok for them to write that about someone else's wife, about someone they worked with.

    Where does all this vileness come from? And how can we reduce or, ideally, stop it?

    There is I think a bit of cognitive dissonance in some men who do not realise how they are behaving, how they appear to women. It is easy for us all to think our behaviour impeccable when it really may not be as good as we like to think. And I include myself in that.

    Ms Cyclefree, we both know I am lovely - and I take no personal offence. But what I see is you trying to get acceptance that many men are awful - but with no acceptance in return that yes, to many guys they they are seen as arseholes too. The "jock" mentality of the "pussy-grabbing" Trump really is alien to most guys. Those that engage in such sexual braggadocio have a sixth sense about who their fellow pussy-grabbers are. It's not talk I have been party to, because they instinctively know they would be told where to go.


    I worked for a company that was rare in having a female CFO in a FTSE250 company, back in the day. Far less worthy of comment now. Some men might still feel weirdly threatened by a female boss. Women may feel that is still the norm. You have had the misfortune to work in areas of business where the shit floats upwards. But reality is, they are few and getting fewer. There is likely a big overlap between those remaining people who have a problem with a female boss and those who have authority issues with a male boss too.

    Most guys already DO learn respect towards women at school - and exercise that respect, throughout their lives. There is perhaps an issue that is a subset of the problem - those who now see no real distinction in how they behave as between men and women. Treat the ladies as one of the lads. Those boundaries around equality and equals don't always come with nice clear dividing lines, despite many women still wanting the "equal but different" to be respected more.

    My real issue is that your frustration/anger comes without agenda items on how to change anything. "Just think on how bad some men are." We know. But the problem guys aren't us is a fair response, when nothing more concrete is listed, no behavioural changes set out.

    I flagged an idea on the previous thread that would be controversial, but would send a distinct message that male sexual violence towards women needs special measures to help end it. It would cut across centuries of gender equality under the law. But perhaps, to get more prosecutions of men for sexual violence towards women, we need differing standards of proof. I suggested that perhaps for accused men, the standard of proof should be reduced from beyond all reasonable doubt to balance of probabilities. That doesn't come without some risk of injustice to men, but it would provoke a real debate.
    A truly, truly appalling idea. That’s worse than the 6pm curfew. ‘Sorry you’re a man so you have a much bigger chance of being jailed unjustly. That’s because we’re trying to be fair’.
    Someone of your acquaintance might have especially firm views on it. But we have a huge problem in getting convictions for sexual assaults by men on women. Come up with something else then, to level that playing field. Because it isn't working as is.

    This is a myth. We don’t have a problem getting convictions for, say, rape. About 55-60% of rape trials end in conviction. I can’t find the UK stats but here’s Northern Ireland - there the conviction rate is even higher.

    https://www.nisra.gov.uk/news/pps-publishes-annual-statistics-sexual-offences

    The problem is ‘attrition’ - reported rapes that don’t make court. But this can happen for any number of reasons, the complainant withdraws, there is no corroboration so it is no-crimed, the allegation is clearly false, and so on.

    We have now made many alterations to the law/procedure to make rape easier to report and convict, from video evidence to complainant anonymity to restrictions on evidence referencing prior sexual history. We’ve gone about as far as we can within the realms of natural justice. Any further and we risk grave INjustice to innocent men.

    I accept there is a problem but further warping the law is not the answer.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,760

    "Caution" is one of the aspects of English (and Scots?) law that many Americans are familiar with from literature, movies, TV, etc., etc., but about which most of us (yours truly included) really know nothing. That is, what does it really mean and how is it really used?

    Wiki tells me that "Accepting a caution requires an admission of guilt" which enough for me to be en garde.

    It means you get a criminal record but avoid a trial.

    Which causes all sorts of problems down the line such with future employers who carrying out DBS checks on you, checks which show you have a criminal record.
    But gets sold to the perps (esp. the young and semi-innocent) as a soft option?
    Nephew, as a tree surgeon, carries a knife in his car (very useful in his profession). He made the mistake of watching a thunderstorm with some weed on top of a hill, parked up. Local plod knocked him, lots of pressure to take the caution, which he did, mostly due to the knife. Local plod got to record it as knife crime. My father, the ex (30 years) copper, was incensed, and would have made several phone calls, and expected no action. However I found out later that my sister (nephews mother) had not fully informed my dad ( no mention of what he still to this day calls ‘wacky baccy’...
    In the circs was the caution the right thing? The element of knife crime was highly controversial. I believe it was shorter than the legal definition, but I’m no expert.
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 8,545

    Leon said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Cyclefree said:

    I don't paint all men as part of the problem. And you clearly have not read the last paragraph.

    "To change a culture for the better, all must play their part. Men have a vital role to play to change the world in which women live – as allies, as champions, as teachers, as exemplars, as defenders – so that, whether they are 18 or 80, women can live their lives to the fullest and without fear of men behaving badly."

    Which bit of this do you have a problem with?
    Hmm. I think yesterday @MarqueeMark posted some reservations about painting all men as part of the problem.

    You weren't on the thread much but suddenly popped up and went for him with both barrels posting a polemic in response starting with "Oh, do stop whining.."

    Not surprisingly, that turned him off. And it got close to turning me off too.

    I think we all want this unfair skewing of risk and responsibility against women to end. But the words and language you use to mobilise your allies is important, and needs to be measured - not uncompromising.
    Let me try and respond without getting everyone would up again. And let me make it clear that none of this is personally addressed to you or the lovely
    @MarqueeMark.

    You see this feels to me like men expecting women to tiptoe around their feelings. But our feelings - well that's us giving both barrels and putting people off and all the rest of it. And that exemplifies in a small way part of the problem. Perhaps for a change men could consider our feelings first and understand why women feel so bloody furious about it all.

    At a time when a woman was abducted off the streets and murdered, one of the first reactions on here by some of our eminent posters was to say that they weren't to blame. Well of course they aren't. But timing is everything in life. Is that really the time to make this point?

    As opposed to perhaps asking oneself some tough questions about why - if the majority of men aren't horrible sex pests - so much sexual harassment is happening. Why - if schools are teaching respect - are so many young men behaving and talking about women in a way that suggests they never attended any of those lessons?

    I mention the middle aged clients making obscene suggestions at breakfast. That happened to me. The men were fathers and grandfathers, successful professionals. Together they behaved like a bunch of dirty-minded 13 year olds. When spoken to individually they spoke with pride and love about their wives and daughters. They were ordinary men, much like many others. And yet they still behaved appallingly to me - a young barrister. Presumably I was not someone's loved daughter or wife. Just a girl who had to sit and endure and could not answer back.

    Or the traders who wrote vile stuff about what childbirth does to a certain part of a woman's autonomy - in workplace chats about a colleague then on maternity leave. When challenged and asked whether they would like this said about their wives one said they'd punch anyone doing that. They looked at me blankly until the penny dropped when I asked why then they thought it ok for them to write that about someone else's wife, about someone they worked with.

    Where does all this vileness come from? And how can we reduce or, ideally, stop it?

    There is I think a bit of cognitive dissonance in some men who do not realise how they are behaving, how they appear to women. It is easy for us all to think our behaviour impeccable when it really may not be as good as we like to think. And I include myself in that.

    Ms Cyclefree, we both know I am lovely - and I take no personal offence. But what I see is you trying to get acceptance that many men are awful - but with no acceptance in return that yes, to many guys they they are seen as arseholes too. The "jock" mentality of the "pussy-grabbing" Trump really is alien to most guys. Those that engage in such sexual braggadocio have a sixth sense about who their fellow pussy-grabbers are. It's not talk I have been party to, because they instinctively know they would be told where to go.


    I worked for a company that was rare in having a female CFO in a FTSE250 company, back in the day. Far less worthy of comment now. Some men might still feel weirdly threatened by a female boss. Women may feel that is still the norm. You have had the misfortune to work in areas of business where the shit floats upwards. But reality is, they are few and getting fewer. There is likely a big overlap between those remaining people who have a problem with a female boss and those who have authority issues with a male boss too.

    Most guys already DO learn respect towards women at school - and exercise that respect, throughout their lives. There is perhaps an issue that is a subset of the problem - those who now see no real distinction in how they behave as between men and women. Treat the ladies as one of the lads. Those boundaries around equality and equals don't always come with nice clear dividing lines, despite many women still wanting the "equal but different" to be respected more.

    My real issue is that your frustration/anger comes without agenda items on how to change anything. "Just think on how bad some men are." We know. But the problem guys aren't us is a fair response, when nothing more concrete is listed, no behavioural changes set out.

    I flagged an idea on the previous thread that would be controversial, but would send a distinct message that male sexual violence towards women needs special measures to help end it. It would cut across centuries of gender equality under the law. But perhaps, to get more prosecutions of men for sexual violence towards women, we need differing standards of proof. I suggested that perhaps for accused men, the standard of proof should be reduced from beyond all reasonable doubt to balance of probabilities. That doesn't come without some risk of injustice to men, but it would provoke a real debate.
    A truly, truly appalling idea. That’s worse than the 6pm curfew. ‘Sorry you’re a man so you have a much bigger chance of being jailed unjustly. That’s because we’re trying to be fair’.
    Someone of your acquaintance might have especially firm views on it. But we have a huge problem in getting convictions for sexual assaults by men on women. Come up with something else then, to level that playing field. Because it isn't working as is.
    I suggested that civil prosecutions were the answer, those are done on the balance of probabilities. We really don't want to be in the position we are jailing people because the balance of probabilities is they are guilty which frankly will come down often to who the jury believes more
  • MaxPB said:

    Floater said:

    "Caution" is one of the aspects of English (and Scots?) law that many Americans are familiar with from literature, movies, TV, etc., etc., but about which most of us (yours truly included) really know nothing. That is, what does it really mean and how is it really used?

    Wiki tells me that "Accepting a caution requires an admission of guilt" which enough for me to be en garde.

    It means you get a criminal record.

    Which causes all sorts of problems down the line such with future employers who carrying out DBS checks on you, checks which show you have a criminal record.
    Potentially not just future employers - I am aware of employers in my industry doing background checks on current employees
    Yup, I get DBS'd every two years, and credit checked every 12 months.
    Yes, same here. Isn't it standard in financial services?
    It is, depends on the role, I think some of the traders get quarterly credit checks, I know some who get checked monthly.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 35,755
    MaxPB said:

    "Caution" is one of the aspects of English (and Scots?) law that many Americans are familiar with from literature, movies, TV, etc., etc., but about which most of us (yours truly included) really know nothing. That is, what does it really mean and how is it really used?

    Wiki tells me that "Accepting a caution requires an admission of guilt" which enough for me to be en garde.

    It means you get a criminal record but avoid a trial.

    Which causes all sorts of problems down the line such with future employers who carrying out DBS checks on you, checks which show you have a criminal record.
    I find the system completely ridiculous. Also the hate incident record should be dumped. Anyone who isn't convicted of a crime shouldn't have their details in the criminal justice system at any level. The mission creep of these "public safety" databases which now routinely store DNA, fingerprints and other data on people who aren't criminals is something that needs to be addressed. Unfortunately we have a disgraceful Home Secretary who is likely to go in the other direction and ramp up data retention of innocent people.
    Agreed. Either something is a crime or it isn't. The job of the police should be law enforcement, not policing morals.
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 8,545
    MaxPB said:

    "Caution" is one of the aspects of English (and Scots?) law that many Americans are familiar with from literature, movies, TV, etc., etc., but about which most of us (yours truly included) really know nothing. That is, what does it really mean and how is it really used?

    Wiki tells me that "Accepting a caution requires an admission of guilt" which enough for me to be en garde.

    It means you get a criminal record but avoid a trial.

    Which causes all sorts of problems down the line such with future employers who carrying out DBS checks on you, checks which show you have a criminal record.
    I find the system completely ridiculous. Also the hate incident record should be dumped. Anyone who isn't convicted of a crime shouldn't have their details in the criminal justice system at any level. The mission creep of these "public safety" databases which now routinely store DNA, fingerprints and other data on people who aren't criminals is something that needs to be addressed. Unfortunately we have a disgraceful Home Secretary who is likely to go in the other direction and ramp up data retention of innocent people.
    Even worse is enhanced dbs where they can reveal what the police think you are probably guilty of or what allegations have been made unfounded or not
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 39,699
    Foxy said:

    Been out this afternoon walking in the rain so just catching up on this thread.

    Once again to join with other contributors, an excellent piece and nothing I can disagree with in there.

    I think the key point to be understood is education of boys and young men. Never has Aristotle's aphorism been more true than in the treatment of women.

    Give me a child until he is seven and I will show you the man.

    There certainly seem to be a lot of emotionally stunted blokes forever frozen at the age of seven on twitter.
    Not just on twitter.

    I have mused on @Cyclefree header whilst pottering in the garden. The problem seems intractable, and while better education and police who are competent are clearly good things, they do have a rather apple pie appeal. Who doesn't favour these things?

    The problem is men, and while only a minority behave physically violently, it is a big problem for women. While fear of random street violence is legitimate in men, the threat is violence or robbery rather than sexual assault, so of a different order.

    There is a lot of male anger out there, and part of that is that for many men anger is the only permissable emotional outlet. It is the goto for any stress or difficulty. The threat to status from female equality and emancipation brings it to the fore.

    I work in a majority female workplace, and cannot recall seeing any misogyny, but at a recent pre-pandemic team day the subject #metoo came up.

    I was the only male at a lunchtable with a half dozen female colleagues aged from mid twenties to mid fifties. I asked them to tell me of their #metoo stories. Everyone of them had several, mostly inappropriate behaviour from male patients. Indeed they had devised a way of marking notes for certain patients to be never be seen without a witness.

    Perhaps the most important thing for men to do is to listen to the women in their lives and workplace, without interrupting or arguing. These experiences are very common, only yesterday Mrs Foxy told me of an incident where a van driver cut her up, blocked the road in front of her, got out and pounded on her car window swearing at her and accusing her of dangerous driving. These incidents are so common that all women seem able to tell similar tales. So my advice to men is to raise the issue, and listen, just listen.

    Pretty much it.

    Being a pinko wokist I hope I'm constantly monitoring my own attitudes, but I did have a bit of a moment during the Brett Kavanaugh hearings; the gap between how one (not very sympathetic) party perceived his actions and how various others remembered their own experience seemed so stark that it did make me wonder about my own history, and if I was quite the clean potato I thought I was. After due consideration unsurprisingly the High Court of Divvy found me innocent, but my main conclusion was that it wasn't really down to me whether my behaviour was always acceptable, and short of contacting previous partners (which would be extremely creepy) I would never know for sure. All I can say is stay alert, be open minded and as you say, listen.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,745

    Wales now has over 10% fully vaccinated after receiving their second dose. They've overtaken every EU member state on second doses.

    Drakeford is the true Prince of Wales.

    The Welsh are so lucky to have him.
    The Great Drakeford is mentioned ... and coincidentally just as we are talking about the importance of the upbringing and education of young men in the matters of sexual consent. Something in which the Great Drakeford was less conspicuously successful.

    [The median age of the Welsh population is 2.5 years larger than the median age of the English population. So, if you are vaccinating according to age cohorts from the oldest first, a greater proportion of Wales will be vaccinated as compared to England. It is simple arithmetic.]
    Don't undersell Boris and RT please. The official line is Johnson procured for, and managed the vaccination programme in Wales, whilst Drakeford mismanaged the lockdowns.
    Yes. That bodged "circuit breaker". Has there ever been such a sad and shameful thing?
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 48,775
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Cyclefree said:

    I don't paint all men as part of the problem. And you clearly have not read the last paragraph.

    "To change a culture for the better, all must play their part. Men have a vital role to play to change the world in which women live – as allies, as champions, as teachers, as exemplars, as defenders – so that, whether they are 18 or 80, women can live their lives to the fullest and without fear of men behaving badly."

    Which bit of this do you have a problem with?
    Hmm. I think yesterday @MarqueeMark posted some reservations about painting all men as part of the problem.

    You weren't on the thread much but suddenly popped up and went for him with both barrels posting a polemic in response starting with "Oh, do stop whining.."

    Not surprisingly, that turned him off. And it got close to turning me off too.

    I think we all want this unfair skewing of risk and responsibility against women to end. But the words and language you use to mobilise your allies is important, and needs to be measured - not uncompromising.
    Let me try and respond without getting everyone would up again. And let me make it clear that none of this is personally addressed to you or the lovely
    @MarqueeMark.

    You see this feels to me like men expecting women to tiptoe around their feelings. But our feelings - well that's us giving both barrels and putting people off and all the rest of it. And that exemplifies in a small way part of the problem. Perhaps for a change men could consider our feelings first and understand why women feel so bloody furious about it all.

    At a time when a woman was abducted off the streets and murdered, one of the first reactions on here by some of our eminent posters was to say that they weren't to blame. Well of course they aren't. But timing is everything in life. Is that really the time to make this point?

    As opposed to perhaps asking oneself some tough questions about why - if the majority of men aren't horrible sex pests - so much sexual harassment is happening. Why - if schools are teaching respect - are so many young men behaving and talking about women in a way that suggests they never attended any of those lessons?

    I mention the middle aged clients making obscene suggestions at breakfast. That happened to me. The men were fathers and grandfathers, successful professionals. Together they behaved like a bunch of dirty-minded 13 year olds. When spoken to individually they spoke with pride and love about their wives and daughters. They were ordinary men, much like many others. And yet they still behaved appallingly to me - a young barrister. Presumably I was not someone's loved daughter or wife. Just a girl who had to sit and endure and could not answer back.

    Or the traders who wrote vile stuff about what childbirth does to a certain part of a woman's autonomy - in workplace chats about a colleague then on maternity leave. When challenged and asked whether they would like this said about their wives one said they'd punch anyone doing that. They looked at me blankly until the penny dropped when I asked why then they thought it ok for them to write that about someone else's wife, about someone they worked with.

    Where does all this vileness come from? And how can we reduce or, ideally, stop it?

    There is I think a bit of cognitive dissonance in some men who do not realise how they are behaving, how they appear to women. It is easy for us all to think our behaviour impeccable when it really may not be as good as we like to think. And I include myself in that.

    Ms Cyclefree, we both know I am lovely - and I take no personal offence. But what I see is you trying to get acceptance that many men are awful - but with no acceptance in return that yes, to many guys they they are seen as arseholes too. The "jock" mentality of the "pussy-grabbing" Trump really is alien to most guys. Those that engage in such sexual braggadocio have a sixth sense about who their fellow pussy-grabbers are. It's not talk I have been party to, because they instinctively know they would be told where to go.


    I worked for a company that was rare in having a female CFO in a FTSE250 company, back in the day. Far less worthy of comment now. Some men might still feel weirdly threatened by a female boss. Women may feel that is still the norm. You have had the misfortune to work in areas of business where the shit floats upwards. But reality is, they are few and getting fewer. There is likely a big overlap between those remaining people who have a problem with a female boss and those who have authority issues with a male boss too.

    Most guys already DO learn respect towards women at school - and exercise that respect, throughout their lives. There is perhaps an issue that is a subset of the problem - those who now see no real distinction in how they behave as between men and women. Treat the ladies as one of the lads. Those boundaries around equality and equals don't always come with nice clear dividing lines, despite many women still wanting the "equal but different" to be respected more.

    My real issue is that your frustration/anger comes without agenda items on how to change anything. "Just think on how bad some men are." We know. But the problem guys aren't us is a fair response, when nothing more concrete is listed, no behavioural changes set out.

    I flagged an idea on the previous thread that would be controversial, but would send a distinct message that male sexual violence towards women needs special measures to help end it. It would cut across centuries of gender equality under the law. But perhaps, to get more prosecutions of men for sexual violence towards women, we need differing standards of proof. I suggested that perhaps for accused men, the standard of proof should be reduced from beyond all reasonable doubt to balance of probabilities. That doesn't come without some risk of injustice to men, but it would provoke a real debate.
    A truly, truly appalling idea. That’s worse than the 6pm curfew. ‘Sorry you’re a man so you have a much bigger chance of being jailed unjustly. That’s because we’re trying to be fair’.
    Someone of your acquaintance might have especially firm views on it. But we have a huge problem in getting convictions for sexual assaults by men on women. Come up with something else then, to level that playing field. Because it isn't working as is.

    This is a myth. We don’t have a problem getting convictions for, say, rape. About 55-60% of rape trials end in conviction. I can’t find the UK stats but here’s Northern Ireland - there the conviction rate is even higher.

    https://www.nisra.gov.uk/news/pps-publishes-annual-statistics-sexual-offences

    The problem is ‘attrition’ - reported rapes that don’t make court. But this can happen for any number of reasons, the complainant withdraws, there is no corroboration so it is no-crimed, the allegation is clearly false, and so on.

    We have now made many alterations to the law/procedure to make rape easier to report and convict, from video evidence to complainant anonymity to restrictions on evidence referencing prior sexual history. We’ve gone about as far as we can within the realms of natural justice. Any further and we risk grave INjustice to innocent men.

    I accept there is a problem but further warping the law is not the answer.
    There was one PBer, I think his name was SeanT, who said he was once on remand for rape, but had the charges subsequently dropped.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,607
    edited March 2021

    AP (via New Haven Register) - Merkel's party suffers defeats in 2 German state elections

    "Amid discontent over a sluggish start to Germany’s vaccination drive, with coronavirus restrictions easing only gradually and infections rising again, Merkel’s Union bloc has been hit over the past two weeks by allegations that two lawmakers profited from deals to procure masks early in the coronavirus pandemic.

    Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union already faced a challenging task against the states' well-liked governors. Projections for ARD and ZDF public television, based on exit polls and a partial count of votes, indicated that those governors’ parties -- the environmentalist Greens in Baden-Wuerttemberg and the center-left Social Democrats in Rhineland-Palatinate -- were set to finish first, 7 to 9 percentage points ahead of the CDU. The CDU's showings of about 23% and 26%, respectively, would be the party's worst since World War II in both states.

    “To say it very clearly, this isn't a good election evening for the CDU,” said the party's general secretary, Paul Ziemiak. “We would have liked different, better results.” . . . .

    In Baden-Wuerttemberg, Germany's only Green party governor, Winfried Kretschmann, has become popular with centrist . . . Kretschmann, 72, a fatherly figure with a conservative image, featured on Green election posters with the slogan “You know me.” That was a slogan Merkel famously once used in a pre-election debate to underline her own largely ideology-free appeal.

    The Greens' success bolstered their confidence for the national election campaign, in which the traditionally left-leaning environmentalist party is expected to make its first bid for the chancellery. . . . .

    The center-left Social Democrats have led Rhineland-Palatinate for 30 years — currently under governor Malu Dreyer, whose personal popularity has kept her party’s support above its dismal national ratings. The Greens are a junior partner in her three-party governing coalition that also includes the pro-business Free Democrats, and looked set to improve somewhat on their showing five years ago.

    The far-right Alternative for Germany party appeared to have lost some support in both states, though still polled 10% or a bit more. . . . .

    Many people had already voted by mail, so it’s unclear how far the scandal over lawmakers in the CDU and its Bavaria-only sister party, the Christian Social Union, allegedly enriching themselves through mask deals impacted Sunday’s vote. . . .

    “What we see today is that forming a government is possible without the CDU,” said the Social Democrats' candidate for chancellor, current Finance Minister Olaf Scholz. “And that is what we are aiming for in the federal election campaign.”

    https://www.nhregister.com/news/article/German-election-year-opens-with-tough-test-for-16024419.php

    On the Rhineland Palatinate results at least the SPD would still need the CDU, the SPD and Green and Linke combined vote there still less than the CDU and FDP and AfD and FW combined vote. In Baden Wurttemberg neck and neck between the 2 blocks
    https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1371173013182427137?s=20
    https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1371175994053300224?s=20
  • Sean_F said:

    MaxPB said:

    "Caution" is one of the aspects of English (and Scots?) law that many Americans are familiar with from literature, movies, TV, etc., etc., but about which most of us (yours truly included) really know nothing. That is, what does it really mean and how is it really used?

    Wiki tells me that "Accepting a caution requires an admission of guilt" which enough for me to be en garde.

    It means you get a criminal record but avoid a trial.

    Which causes all sorts of problems down the line such with future employers who carrying out DBS checks on you, checks which show you have a criminal record.
    I find the system completely ridiculous. Also the hate incident record should be dumped. Anyone who isn't convicted of a crime shouldn't have their details in the criminal justice system at any level. The mission creep of these "public safety" databases which now routinely store DNA, fingerprints and other data on people who aren't criminals is something that needs to be addressed. Unfortunately we have a disgraceful Home Secretary who is likely to go in the other direction and ramp up data retention of innocent people.
    Agreed. Either something is a crime or it isn't. The job of the police should be law enforcement, not policing morals.
    Blame Ian Huntley.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 45,700
    Cyclefree said:

    Leon said:

    Foxy said:

    Been out this afternoon walking in the rain so just catching up on this thread.

    Once again to join with other contributors, an excellent piece and nothing I can disagree with in there.

    I think the key point to be understood is education of boys and young men. Never has Aristotle's aphorism been more true than in the treatment of women.

    Give me a child until he is seven and I will show you the man.

    There certainly seem to be a lot of emotionally stunted blokes forever frozen at the age of seven on twitter.
    Not just on twitter.

    I have mused on @Cyclefree header whilst pottering in the garden. The problem seems intractable, and while better education and police who are competent are clearly good things, they do have a rather apple pie appeal. Who doesn't favour these things?

    The problem is men, and while only a minority behave physically violently, it is a big problem for women. While fear of random street violence is legitimate in men, the threat is violence or robbery rather than sexual assault, so of a different order.

    There is a lot of male anger out there, and part of that is that for many men anger is the only permissable emotional outlet. It is the goto for any stress or difficulty. The threat to status from female equality and emancipation brings it to the fore.

    I work in a majority female workplace, and cannot recall seeing any misogyny, but at a recent pre-pandemic team day the subject #metoo came up.

    I was the only male at a lunchtable with a half dozen female colleagues aged from mid twenties to mid fifties. I asked them to tell me of their #metoo stories. Everyone of them had several, mostly inappropriate behaviour from male patients. Indeed they had devised a way of marking notes for certain patients to be never be seen without a witness.

    Perhaps the most important thing for men to do is to listen to the women in their lives and workplace, without interrupting or arguing. These experiences are very common, only yesterday Mrs Foxy told me of an incident where a van driver cut her up, blocked the road in front of her, got out and pounded on her car window swearing at her and accusing her of dangerous driving. These incidents are so common that all women seem able to tell similar tales. So my advice to men is to raise the issue, and listen, just listen.

    It would be nice if these angry metropolitan women had marched in the name of the THOUSANDS of girls systematically groomed, raped, abused and sometimes killed - with the connivance of police and politicians - across the north and Midlands in the last 30 years, but maybe I am over-optimistic about human nature.

    Ahem: Anne Cryer MP, various female social workers and female police officers (Maggie Oliver whistle blew over Rochdale) did raise the issue. And were shut down. By male MPs and senior male police officers, as it happens.
    Wouldn’t argue with that. There were few heroes in that awful story, but there were some. Like those women. A lot of men behaved grotesquely, and I don’t just mean the actual villains
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 48,775
    HYUFD said:

    alex_ said:

    Wales now has over 10% fully vaccinated after receiving their second dose. They've overtaken every EU member state on second doses.

    Drakeford is the true Prince of Wales.

    The Welsh are so lucky to have him.
    You dare suggest the title of Prince is sufficient for him?


    TSE clearly just wants to promote him to knock him down, such is his instinctive dislike of monarchy ;)

    MONARCHY = SOCIALISM! :innocent:
    No, state control of the economy =socialism, socialist Labour voters are far more likely to oppose having a monarchy than conservative Tories

    https://twitter.com/Survation/status/1371057919610007561?s=20
    Note: the subject HYUFD responds to the stimulus as predicted!
  • alex_alex_ Posts: 7,518
    HYUFD said:

    alex_ said:

    Wales now has over 10% fully vaccinated after receiving their second dose. They've overtaken every EU member state on second doses.

    Drakeford is the true Prince of Wales.

    The Welsh are so lucky to have him.
    You dare suggest the title of Prince is sufficient for him?


    TSE clearly just wants to promote him to knock him down, such is his instinctive dislike of monarchy ;)

    MONARCHY = SOCIALISM! :innocent:
    No, state control of the economy =socialism, socialist Labour voters are far more likely to oppose having a monarchy than conservative Tories

    https://twitter.com/Survation/status/1371057919610007561?s=20
    What about Socialist Tories?
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,760

    Andy_JS said:

    How would defunding the police help protect women against criminals?

    Defunding isn't what you think it means.
    Then they should use a clearer term...
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,607
    alex_ said:

    HYUFD said:

    alex_ said:

    Wales now has over 10% fully vaccinated after receiving their second dose. They've overtaken every EU member state on second doses.

    Drakeford is the true Prince of Wales.

    The Welsh are so lucky to have him.
    You dare suggest the title of Prince is sufficient for him?


    TSE clearly just wants to promote him to knock him down, such is his instinctive dislike of monarchy ;)

    MONARCHY = SOCIALISM! :innocent:
    No, state control of the economy =socialism, socialist Labour voters are far more likely to oppose having a monarchy than conservative Tories

    https://twitter.com/Survation/status/1371057919610007561?s=20
    What about Socialist Tories?
    There are none, social democratic Tories at most
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 113,837
    edited March 2021

    Andy_JS said:

    How would defunding the police help protect women against criminals?

    Defunding isn't what you think it means.
    Then they should use a clearer term...
    I think 'reallocate funds' would be a better and more accurate term.
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 48,775
    HYUFD said:

    alex_ said:

    HYUFD said:

    alex_ said:

    Wales now has over 10% fully vaccinated after receiving their second dose. They've overtaken every EU member state on second doses.

    Drakeford is the true Prince of Wales.

    The Welsh are so lucky to have him.
    You dare suggest the title of Prince is sufficient for him?


    TSE clearly just wants to promote him to knock him down, such is his instinctive dislike of monarchy ;)

    MONARCHY = SOCIALISM! :innocent:
    No, state control of the economy =socialism, socialist Labour voters are far more likely to oppose having a monarchy than conservative Tories

    https://twitter.com/Survation/status/1371057919610007561?s=20
    What about Socialist Tories?
    There are none, social democratic Tories at most
    Tories who believe in Monarchy are Socialists!
  • BromBrom Posts: 3,760
    HYUFD said:

    alex_ said:

    Wales now has over 10% fully vaccinated after receiving their second dose. They've overtaken every EU member state on second doses.

    Drakeford is the true Prince of Wales.

    The Welsh are so lucky to have him.
    You dare suggest the title of Prince is sufficient for him?


    TSE clearly just wants to promote him to knock him down, such is his instinctive dislike of monarchy ;)

    MONARCHY = SOCIALISM! :innocent:
    No, state control of the economy =socialism, socialist Labour voters are far more likely to oppose having a monarchy than conservative Tories

    https://twitter.com/Survation/status/1371057919610007561?s=20
    Another nightmare for Labour. Split on every issue of the day.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 45,700

    Leon said:

    Foxy said:

    Been out this afternoon walking in the rain so just catching up on this thread.

    Once again to join with other contributors, an excellent piece and nothing I can disagree with in there.

    I think the key point to be understood is education of boys and young men. Never has Aristotle's aphorism been more true than in the treatment of women.

    Give me a child until he is seven and I will show you the man.

    There certainly seem to be a lot of emotionally stunted blokes forever frozen at the age of seven on twitter.
    Not just on twitter.

    I have mused on @Cyclefree header whilst pottering in the garden. The problem seems intractable, and while better education and police who are competent are clearly good things, they do have a rather apple pie appeal. Who doesn't favour these things?

    The problem is men, and while only a minority behave physically violently, it is a big problem for women. While fear of random street violence is legitimate in men, the threat is violence or robbery rather than sexual assault, so of a different order.

    There is a lot of male anger out there, and part of that is that for many men anger is the only permissable emotional outlet. It is the goto for any stress or difficulty. The threat to status from female equality and emancipation brings it to the fore.

    I work in a majority female workplace, and cannot recall seeing any misogyny, but at a recent pre-pandemic team day the subject #metoo came up.

    I was the only male at a lunchtable with a half dozen female colleagues aged from mid twenties to mid fifties. I asked them to tell me of their #metoo stories. Everyone of them had several, mostly inappropriate behaviour from male patients. Indeed they had devised a way of marking notes for certain patients to be never be seen without a witness.

    Perhaps the most important thing for men to do is to listen to the women in their lives and workplace, without interrupting or arguing. These experiences are very common, only yesterday Mrs Foxy told me of an incident where a van driver cut her up, blocked the road in front of her, got out and pounded on her car window swearing at her and accusing her of dangerous driving. These incidents are so common that all women seem able to tell similar tales. So my advice to men is to raise the issue, and listen, just listen.

    It would be nice if these angry metropolitan women had marched in the name of the THOUSANDS of girls systematically groomed, raped, abused and sometimes killed - with the connivance of police and politicians - across the north and Midlands in the last 30 years, but maybe I am over-optimistic about human nature.

    On your larger point, I agree, but I fear misogyny and male violence - clearly very real problems - are likely to get WORSE before they get better. Why? Involuntary celibacy. Incels. More and more young men are getting less and less sex, for various reasons - apps like Tinder, inequality, declining employment prospects for young men, and so on.

    Young men deprived of sex quite quickly turn to violence. See the rise of Islamism in sexually suppressive societies.

    Eventually this problem will probably be solved by technology. Sex bots. GPT3 with fake boobs.

    But we could be in for a rocky decade or three before then. It’s a major issue, not really acknowledged
    Except.

    Plenty of those sleazeballs are in high status roles, like policemen, bankers or politicians. They have money and partners.

    They just get greedy; they assume that because they are bursting with spunk (to take a phrase I must have picked up from someone famous) they can take without asking. Biologically, that's what males do, but civilisation is turning away from pure biological urges, because they lead to nasty, brutish and short lives.

    But some men don't bother with that. Because they're alphas, dontchaknow?
    And yet we ARE making progress there. After MeToo. Powerful men are much less likely to abuse that power, sexually, because society is much less tolerant. That’s good.

    It’s the powerLESS men we should be worried about. The incels. They are already one of the biggest terror threats in the USA
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,607
    Brom said:

    HYUFD said:

    alex_ said:

    Wales now has over 10% fully vaccinated after receiving their second dose. They've overtaken every EU member state on second doses.

    Drakeford is the true Prince of Wales.

    The Welsh are so lucky to have him.
    You dare suggest the title of Prince is sufficient for him?


    TSE clearly just wants to promote him to knock him down, such is his instinctive dislike of monarchy ;)

    MONARCHY = SOCIALISM! :innocent:
    No, state control of the economy =socialism, socialist Labour voters are far more likely to oppose having a monarchy than conservative Tories

    https://twitter.com/Survation/status/1371057919610007561?s=20
    Another nightmare for Labour. Split on every issue of the day.
    Note 2019 Labour voters back a republic, so Starmer has attracted a few monarchists to Labour but the cost of bringing Labour closer to the monarchist, centrist majority is more division within Labour with the far left
  • alex_alex_ Posts: 7,518
    I'm assuming from all this that the UK are completely safe from the EU going nuclear and blocking exports (there was some suggestion that the quoted 8 million "exports" to the UK figure represented vaccines manufactured in the UK but bottled in the EU). Anyone know what the real situation is? If the UK suddenly starts doing 1 million a day then certain individuals in the EU might lose it completely.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 45,700
    Floater said:
    So AZ actually REDUCES the chance of blood clots. It is positively therapeutic. Another genius move by our European friends and neighbours.

    When the tragic history of Covid-19 is written, the chapter on the European Reaction to the Vaccines will at least provide some surreal comic relief. I wonder if people will believe it
  • alex_alex_ Posts: 7,518
    Floater said:
    The amusing outcome from all this (but extremely depressing for the ordinary citizens of the EU being subjected to this nonsense in the name of "precaution") would be if the investigations conclude that there is a causal link between AZ and lower levels of blood clotting...

    After all, if blood clotting is a feature of Covid...
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 11,059
    This is a point that maybe should have been raised earlier but, now the Duke of Sussex is gone for good, who is going to defend the county from the marauding hordes of Kent, Surrey and Hampshire?
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,745
    Andy_JS said:

    How would defunding the police help protect women against criminals?

    It doesn't. Neither does asking that question.
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,932
    Leon said:

    Floater said:
    So AZ actually REDUCES the chance of blood clots. It is positively therapeutic. Another genius move by our European friends and neighbours.

    When the tragic history of Covid-19 is written, the chapter on the European Reaction to the Vaccines will at least provide some surreal comic relief. I wonder if people will believe it
    They've quite literally gone insane.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,465
    HYUFD said:

    alex_ said:

    HYUFD said:

    alex_ said:

    Wales now has over 10% fully vaccinated after receiving their second dose. They've overtaken every EU member state on second doses.

    Drakeford is the true Prince of Wales.

    The Welsh are so lucky to have him.
    You dare suggest the title of Prince is sufficient for him?


    TSE clearly just wants to promote him to knock him down, such is his instinctive dislike of monarchy ;)

    MONARCHY = SOCIALISM! :innocent:
    No, state control of the economy =socialism, socialist Labour voters are far more likely to oppose having a monarchy than conservative Tories

    https://twitter.com/Survation/status/1371057919610007561?s=20
    What about Socialist Tories?
    There are none, social democratic Tories at most
    Come, come. Johnson and Sunak's brand of economic socialism would make the likes of Corbyn and McDonnell wince with incredulous envy.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,799
    HYUFD said:

    AP (via New Haven Register) - Merkel's party suffers defeats in 2 German state elections

    "Amid discontent over a sluggish start to Germany’s vaccination drive, with coronavirus restrictions easing only gradually and infections rising again, Merkel’s Union bloc has been hit over the past two weeks by allegations that two lawmakers profited from deals to procure masks early in the coronavirus pandemic.

    Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union already faced a challenging task against the states' well-liked governors. Projections for ARD and ZDF public television, based on exit polls and a partial count of votes, indicated that those governors’ parties -- the environmentalist Greens in Baden-Wuerttemberg and the center-left Social Democrats in Rhineland-Palatinate -- were set to finish first, 7 to 9 percentage points ahead of the CDU. The CDU's showings of about 23% and 26%, respectively, would be the party's worst since World War II in both states.

    “To say it very clearly, this isn't a good election evening for the CDU,” said the party's general secretary, Paul Ziemiak. “We would have liked different, better results.” . . . .

    In Baden-Wuerttemberg, Germany's only Green party governor, Winfried Kretschmann, has become popular with centrist . . . Kretschmann, 72, a fatherly figure with a conservative image, featured on Green election posters with the slogan “You know me.” That was a slogan Merkel famously once used in a pre-election debate to underline her own largely ideology-free appeal.

    The Greens' success bolstered their confidence for the national election campaign, in which the traditionally left-leaning environmentalist party is expected to make its first bid for the chancellery. . . . .

    The center-left Social Democrats have led Rhineland-Palatinate for 30 years — currently under governor Malu Dreyer, whose personal popularity has kept her party’s support above its dismal national ratings. The Greens are a junior partner in her three-party governing coalition that also includes the pro-business Free Democrats, and looked set to improve somewhat on their showing five years ago.

    The far-right Alternative for Germany party appeared to have lost some support in both states, though still polled 10% or a bit more. . . . .

    Many people had already voted by mail, so it’s unclear how far the scandal over lawmakers in the CDU and its Bavaria-only sister party, the Christian Social Union, allegedly enriching themselves through mask deals impacted Sunday’s vote. . . .

    “What we see today is that forming a government is possible without the CDU,” said the Social Democrats' candidate for chancellor, current Finance Minister Olaf Scholz. “And that is what we are aiming for in the federal election campaign.”

    https://www.nhregister.com/news/article/German-election-year-opens-with-tough-test-for-16024419.php

    On the Rhineland Palatinate results at least the SPD would still need the CDU, the SPD and Green and Linke combined vote there still less than the CDU and FDP and AfD and FW combined vote. In Baden Wurttemberg neck and neck between the 2 blocks
    https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1371173013182427137?s=20
    https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1371175994053300224?s=20
    Point of order. You are constructing "blocs" based on your own left/right ideas.
    Outgoing governments were
    BW Green with CDU.
    RP SPD with Green and FDP.
  • FloaterFloater Posts: 14,195
    RobD said:

    Leon said:

    Floater said:
    So AZ actually REDUCES the chance of blood clots. It is positively therapeutic. Another genius move by our European friends and neighbours.

    When the tragic history of Covid-19 is written, the chapter on the European Reaction to the Vaccines will at least provide some surreal comic relief. I wonder if people will believe it
    They've quite literally gone insane.
    But they have solidarity or something
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 11,059
    RobD said:

    Leon said:

    Floater said:
    So AZ actually REDUCES the chance of blood clots. It is positively therapeutic. Another genius move by our European friends and neighbours.

    When the tragic history of Covid-19 is written, the chapter on the European Reaction to the Vaccines will at least provide some surreal comic relief. I wonder if people will believe it
    They've quite literally gone insane.
    Will anyone want to write the history anytime soon? If 1918-20 is anything to go by everyone will just want to forget about it.
  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 15,110
    DougSeal said:

    This is a point that maybe should have been raised earlier but, now the Duke of Sussex is gone for good, who is going to defend the county from the marauding hordes of Kent, Surrey and Hampshire?

    Only hope is for Tories to form a coalition with Cornish Nationalist Party, then cede all of England south & west of Shepard's Bush roundabout all the way to the Tamar, to create the Greater East Cornwall Co-Prosperity.

    Best way to keep this riff-raff (Kentish, Hampish, Suxish AND Cornish) under reasonable restraint.
  • Time_to_LeaveTime_to_Leave Posts: 2,547
    DougSeal said:

    This is a point that maybe should have been raised earlier but, now the Duke of Sussex is gone for good, who is going to defend the county from the marauding hordes of Kent, Surrey and Hampshire?

    The Earls need to step up.
  • CatManCatMan Posts: 2,688
    alex_ said:

    HYUFD said:

    alex_ said:

    Wales now has over 10% fully vaccinated after receiving their second dose. They've overtaken every EU member state on second doses.

    Drakeford is the true Prince of Wales.

    The Welsh are so lucky to have him.
    You dare suggest the title of Prince is sufficient for him?


    TSE clearly just wants to promote him to knock him down, such is his instinctive dislike of monarchy ;)

    MONARCHY = SOCIALISM! :innocent:
    No, state control of the economy =socialism, socialist Labour voters are far more likely to oppose having a monarchy than conservative Tories

    https://twitter.com/Survation/status/1371057919610007561?s=20
    What about Socialist Tories?
    Are they like Commie Nazis?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kGtIJxAH3A
  • LeonLeon Posts: 45,700
    RobD said:

    Leon said:

    Floater said:
    So AZ actually REDUCES the chance of blood clots. It is positively therapeutic. Another genius move by our European friends and neighbours.

    When the tragic history of Covid-19 is written, the chapter on the European Reaction to the Vaccines will at least provide some surreal comic relief. I wonder if people will believe it
    They've quite literally gone insane.
    It’s the Irish reaction that is most baffling, to me, at the moment (with many rivals). Suspending AZ for ‘one week’. Why? What possible rationale do they have? What do they expect to happen in that week??
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 47,650
    DougSeal said:

    This is a point that maybe should have been raised earlier but, now the Duke of Sussex is gone for good, who is going to defend the county from the marauding hordes of Kent, Surrey and Hampshire?

    Perhaps we should be more worried about another Norman invasion.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 54,971
    Can someone talk me through this love for Drakeford, please? Is it just because the vaccine rate in Wales has been impressive the last 4-5 weeks?

    Because 2 months ago absolutely everyone thought he was a total pillock, and the absurdity of him locking down supermarket shelves was widely derided.
  • FloaterFloater Posts: 14,195
    Leon said:

    RobD said:

    Leon said:

    Floater said:
    So AZ actually REDUCES the chance of blood clots. It is positively therapeutic. Another genius move by our European friends and neighbours.

    When the tragic history of Covid-19 is written, the chapter on the European Reaction to the Vaccines will at least provide some surreal comic relief. I wonder if people will believe it
    They've quite literally gone insane.
    It’s the Irish reaction that is most baffling, to me, at the moment (with many rivals). Suspending AZ for ‘one week’. Why? What possible rationale do they have? What do they expect to happen in that week??
    Headlines - putting people off having vaccines they don't have?

    Very short sighted if true
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 43,870
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Foxy said:

    Been out this afternoon walking in the rain so just catching up on this thread.

    Once again to join with other contributors, an excellent piece and nothing I can disagree with in there.

    I think the key point to be understood is education of boys and young men. Never has Aristotle's aphorism been more true than in the treatment of women.

    Give me a child until he is seven and I will show you the man.

    There certainly seem to be a lot of emotionally stunted blokes forever frozen at the age of seven on twitter.
    Not just on twitter.

    I have mused on @Cyclefree header whilst pottering in the garden. The problem seems intractable, and while better education and police who are competent are clearly good things, they do have a rather apple pie appeal. Who doesn't favour these things?

    The problem is men, and while only a minority behave physically violently, it is a big problem for women. While fear of random street violence is legitimate in men, the threat is violence or robbery rather than sexual assault, so of a different order.

    There is a lot of male anger out there, and part of that is that for many men anger is the only permissable emotional outlet. It is the goto for any stress or difficulty. The threat to status from female equality and emancipation brings it to the fore.

    I work in a majority female workplace, and cannot recall seeing any misogyny, but at a recent pre-pandemic team day the subject #metoo came up.

    I was the only male at a lunchtable with a half dozen female colleagues aged from mid twenties to mid fifties. I asked them to tell me of their #metoo stories. Everyone of them had several, mostly inappropriate behaviour from male patients. Indeed they had devised a way of marking notes for certain patients to be never be seen without a witness.

    Perhaps the most important thing for men to do is to listen to the women in their lives and workplace, without interrupting or arguing. These experiences are very common, only yesterday Mrs Foxy told me of an incident where a van driver cut her up, blocked the road in front of her, got out and pounded on her car window swearing at her and accusing her of dangerous driving. These incidents are so common that all women seem able to tell similar tales. So my advice to men is to raise the issue, and listen, just listen.

    It would be nice if these angry metropolitan women had marched in the name of the THOUSANDS of girls systematically groomed, raped, abused and sometimes killed - with the connivance of police and politicians - across the north and Midlands in the last 30 years, but maybe I am over-optimistic about human nature.

    On your larger point, I agree, but I fear misogyny and male violence - clearly very real problems - are likely to get WORSE before they get better. Why? Involuntary celibacy. Incels. More and more young men are getting less and less sex, for various reasons - apps like Tinder, inequality, declining employment prospects for young men, and so on.

    Young men deprived of sex quite quickly turn to violence. See the rise of Islamism in sexually suppressive societies.

    Eventually this problem will probably be solved by technology. Sex bots. GPT3 with fake boobs.

    But we could be in for a rocky decade or three before then. It’s a major issue, not really acknowledged
    Except.

    Plenty of those sleazeballs are in high status roles, like policemen, bankers or politicians. They have money and partners.

    They just get greedy; they assume that because they are bursting with spunk (to take a phrase I must have picked up from someone famous) they can take without asking. Biologically, that's what males do, but civilisation is turning away from pure biological urges, because they lead to nasty, brutish and short lives.

    But some men don't bother with that. Because they're alphas, dontchaknow?
    And yet we ARE making progress there. After MeToo. Powerful men are much less likely to abuse that power, sexually, because society is much less tolerant. That’s good.

    It’s the powerLESS men we should be worried about. The incels. They are already one of the biggest terror threats in the USA
    Incels are an example of the sort of of entitled male anger that is the problem. Men who make no concessions to being pleasant or respectful to women who believe they are entitled to sex. Too much time on the Internet watching porn, I suppose.

    It is not women who are to blame for their behaviour, nor their parents or teachers. They taught themselves to hate women, down a rabbit hole of their own choice.
  • alex_alex_ Posts: 7,518
    Leon said:

    RobD said:

    Leon said:

    Floater said:
    So AZ actually REDUCES the chance of blood clots. It is positively therapeutic. Another genius move by our European friends and neighbours.

    When the tragic history of Covid-19 is written, the chapter on the European Reaction to the Vaccines will at least provide some surreal comic relief. I wonder if people will believe it
    They've quite literally gone insane.
    It’s the Irish reaction that is most baffling, to me, at the moment (with many rivals). Suspending AZ for ‘one week’. Why? What possible rationale do they have? What do they expect to happen in that week??
    Some conspiratorial suggestions that they don't actually have the vaccine to distribute to all those currently booked in, and need an excuse to cancel...
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 10,227
    HYUFD said:

    AP (via New Haven Register) - Merkel's party suffers defeats in 2 German state elections

    "Amid discontent over a sluggish start to Germany’s vaccination drive, with coronavirus restrictions easing only gradually and infections rising again, Merkel’s Union bloc has been hit over the past two weeks by allegations that two lawmakers profited from deals to procure masks early in the coronavirus pandemic.

    Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union already faced a challenging task against the states' well-liked governors. Projections for ARD and ZDF public television, based on exit polls and a partial count of votes, indicated that those governors’ parties -- the environmentalist Greens in Baden-Wuerttemberg and the center-left Social Democrats in Rhineland-Palatinate -- were set to finish first, 7 to 9 percentage points ahead of the CDU. The CDU's showings of about 23% and 26%, respectively, would be the party's worst since World War II in both states.

    “To say it very clearly, this isn't a good election evening for the CDU,” said the party's general secretary, Paul Ziemiak. “We would have liked different, better results.” . . . .

    In Baden-Wuerttemberg, Germany's only Green party governor, Winfried Kretschmann, has become popular with centrist . . . Kretschmann, 72, a fatherly figure with a conservative image, featured on Green election posters with the slogan “You know me.” That was a slogan Merkel famously once used in a pre-election debate to underline her own largely ideology-free appeal.

    The Greens' success bolstered their confidence for the national election campaign, in which the traditionally left-leaning environmentalist party is expected to make its first bid for the chancellery. . . . .

    The center-left Social Democrats have led Rhineland-Palatinate for 30 years — currently under governor Malu Dreyer, whose personal popularity has kept her party’s support above its dismal national ratings. The Greens are a junior partner in her three-party governing coalition that also includes the pro-business Free Democrats, and looked set to improve somewhat on their showing five years ago.

    The far-right Alternative for Germany party appeared to have lost some support in both states, though still polled 10% or a bit more. . . . .

    Many people had already voted by mail, so it’s unclear how far the scandal over lawmakers in the CDU and its Bavaria-only sister party, the Christian Social Union, allegedly enriching themselves through mask deals impacted Sunday’s vote. . . .

    “What we see today is that forming a government is possible without the CDU,” said the Social Democrats' candidate for chancellor, current Finance Minister Olaf Scholz. “And that is what we are aiming for in the federal election campaign.”

    https://www.nhregister.com/news/article/German-election-year-opens-with-tough-test-for-16024419.php

    On the Rhineland Palatinate results at least the SPD would still need the CDU, the SPD and Green and Linke combined vote there still less than the CDU and FDP and AfD and FW combined vote. In Baden Wurttemberg neck and neck between the 2 blocks
    https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1371173013182427137?s=20
    https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1371175994053300224?s=20
    The Holy Roman Empire holds elections with votes for people other than Electors? Whatever will they think of next?

  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 47,650
    Leon said:

    RobD said:

    Leon said:

    Floater said:
    So AZ actually REDUCES the chance of blood clots. It is positively therapeutic. Another genius move by our European friends and neighbours.

    When the tragic history of Covid-19 is written, the chapter on the European Reaction to the Vaccines will at least provide some surreal comic relief. I wonder if people will believe it
    They've quite literally gone insane.
    It’s the Irish reaction that is most baffling, to me, at the moment (with many rivals). Suspending AZ for ‘one week’. Why? What possible rationale do they have? What do they expect to happen in that week??
    I think Ireland is starting to feel the pressure over Brexit in a new way.
    https://twitter.com/RSylvesterTimes/status/1370665879344668678
  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 15,110
    Leon said:

    RobD said:

    Leon said:

    Floater said:
    So AZ actually REDUCES the chance of blood clots. It is positively therapeutic. Another genius move by our European friends and neighbours.

    When the tragic history of Covid-19 is written, the chapter on the European Reaction to the Vaccines will at least provide some surreal comic relief. I wonder if people will believe it
    They've quite literally gone insane.
    It’s the Irish reaction that is most baffling, to me, at the moment (with many rivals). Suspending AZ for ‘one week’. Why? What possible rationale do they have? What do they expect to happen in that week??
    Politico might surmise, that the Micks are wanting to show solidarity with the EU, without unduly pissing off the Brits?

    Medico might think (perhaps?) that they (and rest of them) are waiting for some more scientific evidence?

    And could truth (at least small-t) be somewhere in between?
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 54,971
    edited March 2021
    Leon said:

    RobD said:

    Leon said:

    Floater said:
    So AZ actually REDUCES the chance of blood clots. It is positively therapeutic. Another genius move by our European friends and neighbours.

    When the tragic history of Covid-19 is written, the chapter on the European Reaction to the Vaccines will at least provide some surreal comic relief. I wonder if people will believe it
    They've quite literally gone insane.
    It’s the Irish reaction that is most baffling, to me, at the moment (with many rivals). Suspending AZ for ‘one week’. Why? What possible rationale do they have? What do they expect to happen in that week??
    Showing a bit of solidarity love/leg to the EU, whilst secreting knowing it's bollocks?
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,932

    Leon said:

    RobD said:

    Leon said:

    Floater said:
    So AZ actually REDUCES the chance of blood clots. It is positively therapeutic. Another genius move by our European friends and neighbours.

    When the tragic history of Covid-19 is written, the chapter on the European Reaction to the Vaccines will at least provide some surreal comic relief. I wonder if people will believe it
    They've quite literally gone insane.
    It’s the Irish reaction that is most baffling, to me, at the moment (with many rivals). Suspending AZ for ‘one week’. Why? What possible rationale do they have? What do they expect to happen in that week??
    I think Ireland is starting to feel the pressure over Brexit in a new way.
    https://twitter.com/RSylvesterTimes/status/1370665879344668678
    Is he serious? Why should the EU care what trade deals the UK does.
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,932

    Leon said:

    RobD said:

    Leon said:

    Floater said:
    So AZ actually REDUCES the chance of blood clots. It is positively therapeutic. Another genius move by our European friends and neighbours.

    When the tragic history of Covid-19 is written, the chapter on the European Reaction to the Vaccines will at least provide some surreal comic relief. I wonder if people will believe it
    They've quite literally gone insane.
    It’s the Irish reaction that is most baffling, to me, at the moment (with many rivals). Suspending AZ for ‘one week’. Why? What possible rationale do they have? What do they expect to happen in that week??
    Politico might surmise, that the Micks are wanting to show solidarity with the EU, without unduly pissing off the Brits?

    Medico might think (perhaps?) that they (and rest of them) are waiting for some more scientific evidence?

    And could truth (at least small-t) be somewhere in between?
    The EMA have already said there is no reason to stop. That and the millions of doses already administered in the UK showing that there is no correlation (and the same number of Pfizer recipients getting clots). What more evidence do they need?
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,053

    Cyclefree said:
    You have had the misfortune to work in areas of business where the shit floats upwards. But reality is, they are few and getting fewer.

    [Snipped]

    My real issue is that your frustration/anger comes without agenda items on how to change anything. "Just think on how bad some men are." We know. But the problem guys aren't us is a fair response, when nothing more concrete is listed, no behavioural changes set out.

    I flagged an idea on the previous thread that would be controversial, but would send a distinct message that male sexual violence towards women needs special measures to help end it. It would cut across centuries of gender equality under the law. But perhaps, to get more prosecutions of men for sexual violence towards women, we need differing standards of proof. I suggested that perhaps for accused men, the standard of proof should be reduced from beyond all reasonable doubt to balance of probabilities. That doesn't come without some risk of injustice to men, but it would provoke a real debate.
    I came up with a number of possible practical solutions in the header. So your criticism of me on that score is unfair.

    I have repeatedly said and believe that (a) men need to understand that this has something to do with them. It is not simply women's problem; and (b) they need to be part of the solution.

    As I put it in response to @Ishmael_Z here-

    "If men want things to change they have to play their part.

    I have seen this in banking. Lots of people behaved impeccably and were, rightly, furious that their good name and hard work and reputation and professionalism were damaged - in they eyes of others - by the crooks. Of course it was unfair.

    But you know what: when it came to doing the hard work to change the culture it was those people who had to do it, who had to think about what they were doing right and how to share it and spread it amongst others. They had to think about what was wrong and why it was wrong and how they could stop it. They had to realise that silence isn't enough, that you have to intervene and call out bad behaviour.

    And that's what I'm suggesting that decent men, of which I expect you are one, need to do. If we want to improve our society for the better."

    The problem is not declining. It exists in politics. In the City. In law. In cinema & TV. And don't get me started on what Daughter says about how young female publicans get treated - by both customers & businesses. Until they see that she takes no shit from anyone. I think it's more widespread than you assume.

    Of course there has been improvement. But not enough. I am glad that I went into the City when I was middle aged because many of the young women I have spoken to who have gone in have found it hard.

    I do not claim to speak for all women. This is my perspective and experience after a lifetime. But a valuable one I think. And one I wrote specifically to challenge what is an overwhelmingly male forum. Many men try to do the right thing themselves. Not quite so many call out those who don't. That takes a bit more courage, which is rarer than one would like.

    One thing I have found is that many of the people who become leaders, both men and sometimes women, often lack the sort of emotional intelligence which is needed to lead people well and to effect long-lasting behavioural change. One reason is perhaps that the sort of self-confidence needed to get to such positions does not always make it easy to take challenge or to ask difficult questions of oneself. And behavioural change is not really what CEO's are appointed to do.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 54,971
    The Sunday Times carries an interesting article about the German Greens.

    Essentially, they have adopted a more pro-business, economically liberal approach (stripping off CDU voters) whilst also maintaining their counter-cultural/radical vibe too, and thus stripping off SDP, so they get enough votes to win.

    A bit of a textbook case of "AND" politics; riding two horses at once.
  • FloaterFloater Posts: 14,195
    RobD said:

    Leon said:

    RobD said:

    Leon said:

    Floater said:
    So AZ actually REDUCES the chance of blood clots. It is positively therapeutic. Another genius move by our European friends and neighbours.

    When the tragic history of Covid-19 is written, the chapter on the European Reaction to the Vaccines will at least provide some surreal comic relief. I wonder if people will believe it
    They've quite literally gone insane.
    It’s the Irish reaction that is most baffling, to me, at the moment (with many rivals). Suspending AZ for ‘one week’. Why? What possible rationale do they have? What do they expect to happen in that week??
    I think Ireland is starting to feel the pressure over Brexit in a new way.
    https://twitter.com/RSylvesterTimes/status/1370665879344668678
    Is he serious? Why should the EU care what trade deals the UK does.
    Because we can't succeed if the EU hasn't
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 10,227
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Cyclefree said:

    I don't paint all men as part of the problem. And you clearly have not read the last paragraph.

    "To change a culture for the better, all must play their part. Men have a vital role to play to change the world in which women live – as allies, as champions, as teachers, as exemplars, as defenders – so that, whether they are 18 or 80, women can live their lives to the fullest and without fear of men behaving badly."

    Which bit of this do you have a problem with?
    Hmm. I think yesterday @MarqueeMark posted some reservations about painting all men as part of the problem.

    You weren't on the thread much but suddenly popped up and went for him with both barrels posting a polemic in response starting with "Oh, do stop whining.."

    Not surprisingly, that turned him off. And it got close to turning me off too.

    I think we all want this unfair skewing of risk and responsibility against women to end. But the words and language you use to mobilise your allies is important, and needs to be measured - not uncompromising.
    Let me try and respond without getting everyone would up again. And let me make it clear that none of this is personally addressed to you or the lovely
    @MarqueeMark.

    You see this feels to me like men expecting women to tiptoe around their feelings. But our feelings - well that's us giving both barrels and putting people off and all the rest of it. And that exemplifies in a small way part of the problem. Perhaps for a change men could consider our feelings first and understand why women feel so bloody furious about it all.

    At a time when a woman was abducted off the streets and murdered, one of the first reactions on here by some of our eminent posters was to say that they weren't to blame. Well of course they aren't. But timing is everything in life. Is that really the time to make this point?

    As opposed to perhaps asking oneself some tough questions about why - if the majority of men aren't horrible sex pests - so much sexual harassment is happening. Why - if schools are teaching respect - are so many young men behaving and talking about women in a way that suggests they never attended any of those lessons?

    I mention the middle aged clients making obscene suggestions at breakfast. That happened to me. The men were fathers and grandfathers, successful professionals. Together they behaved like a bunch of dirty-minded 13 year olds. When spoken to individually they spoke with pride and love about their wives and daughters. They were ordinary men, much like many others. And yet they still behaved appallingly to me - a young barrister. Presumably I was not someone's loved daughter or wife. Just a girl who had to sit and endure and could not answer back.

    Or the traders who wrote vile stuff about what childbirth does to a certain part of a woman's autonomy - in workplace chats about a colleague then on maternity leave. When challenged and asked whether they would like this said about their wives one said they'd punch anyone doing that. They looked at me blankly until the penny dropped when I asked why then they thought it ok for them to write that about someone else's wife, about someone they worked with.

    Where does all this vileness come from? And how can we reduce or, ideally, stop it?

    There is I think a bit of cognitive dissonance in some men who do not realise how they are behaving, how they appear to women. It is easy for us all to think our behaviour impeccable when it really may not be as good as we like to think. And I include myself in that.

    Ms Cyclefree, we both know I am lovely - and I take no personal offence. But what I see is you trying to get acceptance that many men are awful - but with no acceptance in return that yes, to many guys they they are seen as arseholes too. The "jock" mentality of the "pussy-grabbing" Trump really is alien to most guys. Those that engage in such sexual braggadocio have a sixth sense about who their fellow pussy-grabbers are. It's not talk I have been party to, because they instinctively know they would be told where to go.


    I worked for a company that was rare in having a female CFO in a FTSE250 company, back in the day. Far less worthy of comment now. Some men might still feel weirdly threatened by a female boss. Women may feel that is still the norm. You have had the misfortune to work in areas of business where the shit floats upwards. But reality is, they are few and getting fewer. There is likely a big overlap between those remaining people who have a problem with a female boss and those who have authority issues with a male boss too.

    Most guys already DO learn respect towards women at school - and exercise that respect, throughout their lives. There is perhaps an issue that is a subset of the problem - those who now see no real distinction in how they behave as between men and women. Treat the ladies as one of the lads. Those boundaries around equality and equals don't always come with nice clear dividing lines, despite many women still wanting the "equal but different" to be respected more.

    My real issue is that your frustration/anger comes without agenda items on how to change anything. "Just think on how bad some men are." We know. But the problem guys aren't us is a fair response, when nothing more concrete is listed, no behavioural changes set out.

    I flagged an idea on the previous thread that would be controversial, but would send a distinct message that male sexual violence towards women needs special measures to help end it. It would cut across centuries of gender equality under the law. But perhaps, to get more prosecutions of men for sexual violence towards women, we need differing standards of proof. I suggested that perhaps for accused men, the standard of proof should be reduced from beyond all reasonable doubt to balance of probabilities. That doesn't come without some risk of injustice to men, but it would provoke a real debate.
    A truly, truly appalling idea. That’s worse than the 6pm curfew. ‘Sorry you’re a man so you have a much bigger chance of being jailed unjustly. That’s because we’re trying to be fair’.
    Someone of your acquaintance might have especially firm views on it. But we have a huge problem in getting convictions for sexual assaults by men on women. Come up with something else then, to level that playing field. Because it isn't working as is.

    This is a myth. We don’t have a problem getting convictions for, say, rape. About 55-60% of rape trials end in conviction. I can’t find the UK stats but here’s Northern Ireland - there the conviction rate is even higher.

    https://www.nisra.gov.uk/news/pps-publishes-annual-statistics-sexual-offences

    The problem is ‘attrition’ - reported rapes that don’t make court. But this can happen for any number of reasons, the complainant withdraws, there is no corroboration so it is no-crimed, the allegation is clearly false, and so on.

    We have now made many alterations to the law/procedure to make rape easier to report and convict, from video evidence to complainant anonymity to restrictions on evidence referencing prior sexual history. We’ve gone about as far as we can within the realms of natural justice. Any further and we risk grave INjustice to innocent men.

    I accept there is a problem but further warping the law is not the answer.
    There can't be a decent general solution in what are generally one to one encounters where the prosecution have to prove beyond reasonable doubt and the defence have to prove nothing at all but can rely on any degree of lurking doubt. It can't be a level playing field, and nothing can make it one.

  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603

    DougSeal said:

    This is a point that maybe should have been raised earlier but, now the Duke of Sussex is gone for good, who is going to defend the county from the marauding hordes of Kent, Surrey and Hampshire?

    Perhaps we should be more worried about another Norman invasion.
    Just wait until Novavax start delivering vaccines in a few weeks. Apparently the first big batch of doses are set to come from Czechia and the UK manufacturing will supply the ongoing doses.
  • FairlieredFairliered Posts: 3,837
    Too few boys have a positive male role model. Not only at home. How many male primary school teachers do you know?
  • LeonLeon Posts: 45,700
    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Foxy said:

    Been out this afternoon walking in the rain so just catching up on this thread.

    Once again to join with other contributors, an excellent piece and nothing I can disagree with in there.

    I think the key point to be understood is education of boys and young men. Never has Aristotle's aphorism been more true than in the treatment of women.

    Give me a child until he is seven and I will show you the man.

    There certainly seem to be a lot of emotionally stunted blokes forever frozen at the age of seven on twitter.
    Not just on twitter.

    I have mused on @Cyclefree header whilst pottering in the garden. The problem seems intractable, and while better education and police who are competent are clearly good things, they do have a rather apple pie appeal. Who doesn't favour these things?

    The problem is men, and while only a minority behave physically violently, it is a big problem for women. While fear of random street violence is legitimate in men, the threat is violence or robbery rather than sexual assault, so of a different order.

    There is a lot of male anger out there, and part of that is that for many men anger is the only permissable emotional outlet. It is the goto for any stress or difficulty. The threat to status from female equality and emancipation brings it to the fore.

    I work in a majority female workplace, and cannot recall seeing any misogyny, but at a recent pre-pandemic team day the subject #metoo came up.

    I was the only male at a lunchtable with a half dozen female colleagues aged from mid twenties to mid fifties. I asked them to tell me of their #metoo stories. Everyone of them had several, mostly inappropriate behaviour from male patients. Indeed they had devised a way of marking notes for certain patients to be never be seen without a witness.

    Perhaps the most important thing for men to do is to listen to the women in their lives and workplace, without interrupting or arguing. These experiences are very common, only yesterday Mrs Foxy told me of an incident where a van driver cut her up, blocked the road in front of her, got out and pounded on her car window swearing at her and accusing her of dangerous driving. These incidents are so common that all women seem able to tell similar tales. So my advice to men is to raise the issue, and listen, just listen.

    It would be nice if these angry metropolitan women had marched in the name of the THOUSANDS of girls systematically groomed, raped, abused and sometimes killed - with the connivance of police and politicians - across the north and Midlands in the last 30 years, but maybe I am over-optimistic about human nature.

    On your larger point, I agree, but I fear misogyny and male violence - clearly very real problems - are likely to get WORSE before they get better. Why? Involuntary celibacy. Incels. More and more young men are getting less and less sex, for various reasons - apps like Tinder, inequality, declining employment prospects for young men, and so on.

    Young men deprived of sex quite quickly turn to violence. See the rise of Islamism in sexually suppressive societies.

    Eventually this problem will probably be solved by technology. Sex bots. GPT3 with fake boobs.

    But we could be in for a rocky decade or three before then. It’s a major issue, not really acknowledged
    Except.

    Plenty of those sleazeballs are in high status roles, like policemen, bankers or politicians. They have money and partners.

    They just get greedy; they assume that because they are bursting with spunk (to take a phrase I must have picked up from someone famous) they can take without asking. Biologically, that's what males do, but civilisation is turning away from pure biological urges, because they lead to nasty, brutish and short lives.

    But some men don't bother with that. Because they're alphas, dontchaknow?
    And yet we ARE making progress there. After MeToo. Powerful men are much less likely to abuse that power, sexually, because society is much less tolerant. That’s good.

    It’s the powerLESS men we should be worried about. The incels. They are already one of the biggest terror threats in the USA
    Incels are an example of the sort of of entitled male anger that is the problem. Men who make no concessions to being pleasant or respectful to women who believe they are entitled to sex. Too much time on the Internet watching porn, I suppose.

    It is not women who are to blame for their behaviour, nor their parents or teachers. They taught themselves to hate women, down a rabbit hole of their own choice.
    Clearly a man who shoots people because he’s not getting laid is an evil, unhinged murderer. And the misogyny of these guys online has to be seen to be believed. And I’ve seen it, which is why I worry. It would be funny, in a dark way, if it wasn’t an actual menace - to women and to social stability

    But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a real problem. Young men are not having sex. The stats are astonishing. This phenomenon nearly always leads to violence - either from the men, or from the state suppressing or subverting male anger.
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,053

    Leon said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Cyclefree said:

    I don't paint all men as part of the problem. And you clearly have not read the last paragraph.

    "To change a culture for the better, all must play their part. Men have a vital role to play to change the world in which women live – as allies, as champions, as teachers, as exemplars, as defenders – so that, whether they are 18 or 80, women can live their lives to the fullest and without fear of men behaving badly."

    Which bit of this do you have a problem with?
    Hmm. I think yesterday @MarqueeMark posted some reservations about painting all men as part of the problem.

    You weren't on the thread much but suddenly popped up and went for him with both barrels posting a polemic in response starting with "Oh, do stop whining.."

    Not surprisingly, that turned him off. And it got close to turning me off too.

    I think we all want this unfair skewing of risk and responsibility against women to end. But the words and language you use to mobilise your allies is important, and needs to be measured - not uncompromising.
    Let me try and respond without getting everyone would up again. And let me make it clear that none of this is personally addressed to you or the lovely
    @MarqueeMark.

    You see this feels to me like men expecting women to tiptoe around their feelings. But our feelings - well that's us giving both barrels and putting people off and all the rest of it. And that exemplifies in a small way part of the problem. Perhaps for a change men could consider our feelings first and understand why women feel so bloody furious about it all.

    At a time when a woman was abducted off the streets and murdered, one of the first reactions on here by some of our eminent posters was to say that they weren't to blame. Well of course they aren't. But timing is everything in life. Is that really the time to make this point?

    As opposed to perhaps asking oneself some tough questions about why - if the majority of men aren't horrible sex pests - so much sexual harassment is happening. Why - if schools are teaching respect - are so many young men behaving and talking about women in a way that suggests they never attended any of those lessons?

    I mention the middle aged clients making obscene suggestions at breakfast. That happened to me. The men were fathers and grandfathers, successful professionals. Together they behaved like a bunch of dirty-minded 13 year olds. When spoken to individually they spoke with pride and love about their wives and daughters. They were ordinary men, much like many others. And yet they still behaved appallingly to me - a young barrister. Presumably I was not someone's loved daughter or wife. Just a girl who had to sit and endure and could not answer back.

    Or the traders who wrote vile stuff about what childbirth does to a certain part of a woman's autonomy - in workplace chats about a colleague then on maternity leave. When challenged and asked whether they would like this said about their wives one said they'd punch anyone doing that. They looked at me blankly until the penny dropped when I asked why then they thought it ok for them to write that about someone else's wife, about someone they worked with.

    Where does all this vileness come from? And how can we reduce or, ideally, stop it?

    There is I think a bit of cognitive dissonance in some men who do not realise how they are behaving, how they appear to women. It is easy for us all to think our behaviour impeccable when it really may not be as good as we like to think. And I include myself in that.

    Ms Cyclefree, we both know I am lovely - and I take no personal offence. But what I see is you trying to get acceptance that many men are awful - but with no acceptance in return that yes, to many guys they they are seen as arseholes too. The "jock" mentality of the "pussy-grabbing" Trump really is alien to most guys. Those that engage in such sexual braggadocio have a sixth sense about who their fellow pussy-grabbers are. It's not talk I have been party to, because they instinctively know they would be told where to go.


    I worked for a company that was rare in having a female CFO in a FTSE250 company, back in the day. Far less worthy of comment now. Some men might still feel weirdly threatened by a female boss. Women may feel that is still the norm. You have had the misfortune to work in areas of business where the shit floats upwards. But reality is, they are few and getting fewer. There is likely a big overlap between those remaining people who have a problem with a female boss and those who have authority issues with a male boss too.

    Most guys already DO learn respect towards women at school - and exercise that respect, throughout their lives. There is perhaps an issue that is a subset of the problem - those who now see no real distinction in how they behave as between men and women. Treat the ladies as one of the lads. Those boundaries around equality and equals don't always come with nice clear dividing lines, despite many women still wanting the "equal but different" to be respected more.

    My real issue is that your frustration/anger comes without agenda items on how to change anything. "Just think on how bad some men are." We know. But the problem guys aren't us is a fair response, when nothing more concrete is listed, no behavioural changes set out.

    I flagged an idea on the previous thread that would be controversial, but would send a distinct message that male sexual violence towards women needs special measures to help end it. It would cut across centuries of gender equality under the law. But perhaps, to get more prosecutions of men for sexual violence towards women, we need differing standards of proof. I suggested that perhaps for accused men, the standard of proof should be reduced from beyond all reasonable doubt to balance of probabilities. That doesn't come without some risk of injustice to men, but it would provoke a real debate.
    A truly, truly appalling idea. That’s worse than the 6pm curfew. ‘Sorry you’re a man so you have a much bigger chance of being jailed unjustly. That’s because we’re trying to be fair’.
    Someone of your acquaintance might have especially firm views on it. But we have a huge problem in getting convictions for sexual assaults by men on women. Come up with something else then, to level that playing field. Because it isn't working as is.

    As for your proposal I disagree.

    Rape and assault are such serious crimes that men should not be found guilty of them on a lower standard. Creating injustice for men (remember I have sons) is not the way to get justice for women.

    Effective investigation and early trials are absolutely essential. But as my header yesterday pointed out no-one cares about the criminal justice system so we won't spend the money it needs while wailing - and I include women in this - that women don't get justice. If we want justice - and I do - then an effective criminal justice system is essential.

    We need to put our money where our mouths are.
  • alex_alex_ Posts: 7,518

    Leon said:

    RobD said:

    Leon said:

    Floater said:
    So AZ actually REDUCES the chance of blood clots. It is positively therapeutic. Another genius move by our European friends and neighbours.

    When the tragic history of Covid-19 is written, the chapter on the European Reaction to the Vaccines will at least provide some surreal comic relief. I wonder if people will believe it
    They've quite literally gone insane.
    It’s the Irish reaction that is most baffling, to me, at the moment (with many rivals). Suspending AZ for ‘one week’. Why? What possible rationale do they have? What do they expect to happen in that week??
    I think Ireland is starting to feel the pressure over Brexit in a new way.
    https://twitter.com/RSylvesterTimes/status/1370665879344668678
    It has to be said that this thing seemed bizarre - apparently the EU has no current plans to get involved in re-opening trade negotiations with the US.

    Given the disaster that is EU-UK trade, they can hardly expect the UK not to attempt to make up some ground elsewhere.
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 13,981
    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Foxy said:

    Been out this afternoon walking in the rain so just catching up on this thread.

    Once again to join with other contributors, an excellent piece and nothing I can disagree with in there.

    I think the key point to be understood is education of boys and young men. Never has Aristotle's aphorism been more true than in the treatment of women.

    Give me a child until he is seven and I will show you the man.

    There certainly seem to be a lot of emotionally stunted blokes forever frozen at the age of seven on twitter.
    Not just on twitter.

    I have mused on @Cyclefree header whilst pottering in the garden. The problem seems intractable, and while better education and police who are competent are clearly good things, they do have a rather apple pie appeal. Who doesn't favour these things?

    The problem is men, and while only a minority behave physically violently, it is a big problem for women. While fear of random street violence is legitimate in men, the threat is violence or robbery rather than sexual assault, so of a different order.

    There is a lot of male anger out there, and part of that is that for many men anger is the only permissable emotional outlet. It is the goto for any stress or difficulty. The threat to status from female equality and emancipation brings it to the fore.

    I work in a majority female workplace, and cannot recall seeing any misogyny, but at a recent pre-pandemic team day the subject #metoo came up.

    I was the only male at a lunchtable with a half dozen female colleagues aged from mid twenties to mid fifties. I asked them to tell me of their #metoo stories. Everyone of them had several, mostly inappropriate behaviour from male patients. Indeed they had devised a way of marking notes for certain patients to be never be seen without a witness.

    Perhaps the most important thing for men to do is to listen to the women in their lives and workplace, without interrupting or arguing. These experiences are very common, only yesterday Mrs Foxy told me of an incident where a van driver cut her up, blocked the road in front of her, got out and pounded on her car window swearing at her and accusing her of dangerous driving. These incidents are so common that all women seem able to tell similar tales. So my advice to men is to raise the issue, and listen, just listen.

    It would be nice if these angry metropolitan women had marched in the name of the THOUSANDS of girls systematically groomed, raped, abused and sometimes killed - with the connivance of police and politicians - across the north and Midlands in the last 30 years, but maybe I am over-optimistic about human nature.

    On your larger point, I agree, but I fear misogyny and male violence - clearly very real problems - are likely to get WORSE before they get better. Why? Involuntary celibacy. Incels. More and more young men are getting less and less sex, for various reasons - apps like Tinder, inequality, declining employment prospects for young men, and so on.

    Young men deprived of sex quite quickly turn to violence. See the rise of Islamism in sexually suppressive societies.

    Eventually this problem will probably be solved by technology. Sex bots. GPT3 with fake boobs.

    But we could be in for a rocky decade or three before then. It’s a major issue, not really acknowledged
    Except.

    Plenty of those sleazeballs are in high status roles, like policemen, bankers or politicians. They have money and partners.

    They just get greedy; they assume that because they are bursting with spunk (to take a phrase I must have picked up from someone famous) they can take without asking. Biologically, that's what males do, but civilisation is turning away from pure biological urges, because they lead to nasty, brutish and short lives.

    But some men don't bother with that. Because they're alphas, dontchaknow?
    And yet we ARE making progress there. After MeToo. Powerful men are much less likely to abuse that power, sexually, because society is much less tolerant. That’s good.

    It’s the powerLESS men we should be worried about. The incels. They are already one of the biggest terror threats in the USA
    Incels are an example of the sort of of entitled male anger that is the problem. Men who make no concessions to being pleasant or respectful to women who believe they are entitled to sex. Too much time on the Internet watching porn, I suppose.

    It is not women who are to blame for their behaviour, nor their parents or teachers. They taught themselves to hate women, down a rabbit hole of their own choice.
    With a side order of seeing sleazeballs like Trump get away with it.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,303

    Leon said:

    RobD said:

    Leon said:

    Floater said:
    So AZ actually REDUCES the chance of blood clots. It is positively therapeutic. Another genius move by our European friends and neighbours.

    When the tragic history of Covid-19 is written, the chapter on the European Reaction to the Vaccines will at least provide some surreal comic relief. I wonder if people will believe it
    They've quite literally gone insane.
    It’s the Irish reaction that is most baffling, to me, at the moment (with many rivals). Suspending AZ for ‘one week’. Why? What possible rationale do they have? What do they expect to happen in that week??
    Politico might surmise, that the Micks are wanting to show solidarity with the EU, without unduly pissing off the Brits?

    Medico might think (perhaps?) that they (and rest of them) are waiting for some more scientific evidence?

    And could truth (at least small-t) be somewhere in between?
    But the balance of risks from the very minor number of alleged deadly reactions is heavily weighted to not halting any amount of vaccination. 'Waiting for more evidence' is not always as reasonable as it sounds, indeed it is well recognised as a tactic of delay in many situations, when such new evidence that might emerge would not reasonably change the fundamental position.

    Now I don't think they do have any interest in delay, so it seems like an over abundance of caution, disguised as abundance of caution.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,303
    Cyclefree said:

    Leon said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Cyclefree said:

    I don't paint all men as part of the problem. And you clearly have not read the last paragraph.

    "To change a culture for the better, all must play their part. Men have a vital role to play to change the world in which women live – as allies, as champions, as teachers, as exemplars, as defenders – so that, whether they are 18 or 80, women can live their lives to the fullest and without fear of men behaving badly."

    Which bit of this do you have a problem with?
    Hmm. I think yesterday @MarqueeMark posted some reservations about painting all men as part of the problem.

    You weren't on the thread much but suddenly popped up and went for him with both barrels posting a polemic in response starting with "Oh, do stop whining.."

    Not surprisingly, that turned him off. And it got close to turning me off too.

    I think we all want this unfair skewing of risk and responsibility against women to end. But the words and language you use to mobilise your allies is important, and needs to be measured - not uncompromising.
    Let me try and respond without getting everyone would up again. And let me make it clear that none of this is personally addressed to you or the lovely
    @MarqueeMark.

    You see this feels to me like men expecting women to tiptoe around their feelings. But our feelings - well that's us giving both barrels and putting people off and all the rest of it. And that exemplifies in a small way part of the problem. Perhaps for a change men could consider our feelings first and understand why women feel so bloody furious about it all.

    At a time when a woman was abducted off the streets and murdered, one of the first reactions on here by some of our eminent posters was to say that they weren't to blame. Well of course they aren't. But timing is everything in life. Is that really the time to make this point?

    As opposed to perhaps asking oneself some tough questions about why - if the majority of men aren't horrible sex pests - so much sexual harassment is happening. Why - if schools are teaching respect - are so many young men behaving and talking about women in a way that suggests they never attended any of those lessons?

    I mention the middle aged clients making obscene suggestions at breakfast. That happened to me. The men were fathers and grandfathers, successful professionals. Together they behaved like a bunch of dirty-minded 13 year olds. When spoken to individually they spoke with pride and love about their wives and daughters. They were ordinary men, much like many others. And yet they still behaved appallingly to me - a young barrister. Presumably I was not someone's loved daughter or wife. Just a girl who had to sit and endure and could not answer back.

    Or the traders who wrote vile stuff about what childbirth does to a certain part of a woman's autonomy - in workplace chats about a colleague then on maternity leave. When challenged and asked whether they would like this said about their wives one said they'd punch anyone doing that. They looked at me blankly until the penny dropped when I asked why then they thought it ok for them to write that about someone else's wife, about someone they worked with.

    Where does all this vileness come from? And how can we reduce or, ideally, stop it?

    There is I think a bit of cognitive dissonance in some men who do not realise how they are behaving, how they appear to women. It is easy for us all to think our behaviour impeccable when it really may not be as good as we like to think. And I include myself in that.

    Ms Cyclefree, we both know I am lovely - and I take no personal offence. But what I see is you trying to get acceptance that many men are awful - but with no acceptance in return that yes, to many guys they they are seen as arseholes too. The "jock" mentality of the "pussy-grabbing" Trump really is alien to most guys. Those that engage in such sexual braggadocio have a sixth sense about who their fellow pussy-grabbers are. It's not talk I have been party to, because they instinctively know they would be told where to go.


    I worked for a company that was rare in having a female CFO in a FTSE250 company, back in the day. Far less worthy of comment now. Some men might still feel weirdly threatened by a female boss. Women may feel that is still the norm. You have had the misfortune to work in areas of business where the shit floats upwards. But reality is, they are few and getting fewer. There is likely a big overlap between those remaining people who have a problem with a female boss and those who have authority issues with a male boss too.

    Most guys already DO learn respect towards women at school - and exercise that respect, throughout their lives. There is perhaps an issue that is a subset of the problem - those who now see no real distinction in how they behave as between men and women. Treat the ladies as one of the lads. Those boundaries around equality and equals don't always come with nice clear dividing lines, despite many women still wanting the "equal but different" to be respected more.

    My real issue is that your frustration/anger comes without agenda items on how to change anything. "Just think on how bad some men are." We know. But the problem guys aren't us is a fair response, when nothing more concrete is listed, no behavioural changes set out.

    I flagged an idea on the previous thread that would be controversial, but would send a distinct message that male sexual violence towards women needs special measures to help end it. It would cut across centuries of gender equality under the law. But perhaps, to get more prosecutions of men for sexual violence towards women, we need differing standards of proof. I suggested that perhaps for accused men, the standard of proof should be reduced from beyond all reasonable doubt to balance of probabilities. That doesn't come without some risk of injustice to men, but it would provoke a real debate.
    A truly, truly appalling idea. That’s worse than the 6pm curfew. ‘Sorry you’re a man so you have a much bigger chance of being jailed unjustly. That’s because we’re trying to be fair’.
    Someone of your acquaintance might have especially firm views on it. But we have a huge problem in getting convictions for sexual assaults by men on women. Come up with something else then, to level that playing field. Because it isn't working as is.

    As for your proposal I disagree.

    Rape and assault are such serious crimes that men should not be found guilty of them on a lower standard. Creating injustice for men (remember I have sons) is not the way to get justice for women.

    Effective investigation and early trials are absolutely essential. But as my header yesterday pointed out no-one cares about the criminal justice system so we won't spend the money it needs while wailing - and I include women in this - that women don't get justice. If we want justice - and I do - then an effective criminal justice system is essential.

    We need to put our money where our mouths are.
    I find it baffling. I noted earlier it seems to be properly resourcing the criminal justice so there is faster, more effective justice seems to be a no brainer, even if arguments about 'bad' people getting legal aid or the like will get poor headlines.
  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 15,110
    RobD said:

    Leon said:

    RobD said:

    Leon said:

    Floater said:
    So AZ actually REDUCES the chance of blood clots. It is positively therapeutic. Another genius move by our European friends and neighbours.

    When the tragic history of Covid-19 is written, the chapter on the European Reaction to the Vaccines will at least provide some surreal comic relief. I wonder if people will believe it
    They've quite literally gone insane.
    It’s the Irish reaction that is most baffling, to me, at the moment (with many rivals). Suspending AZ for ‘one week’. Why? What possible rationale do they have? What do they expect to happen in that week??
    I think Ireland is starting to feel the pressure over Brexit in a new way.
    https://twitter.com/RSylvesterTimes/status/1370665879344668678
    Is he serious? Why should the EU care what trade deals the UK does.
    Because due to Brexit, the UK is now a competitor? With terms of trade with US being major potential competitive advantage OR disadvantage?

    As for the Irish, reckon they see themselves both as a likely victim in future trade wars AND also a natural bridge between EU and UK, as well as between both and US.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603

    The Sunday Times carries an interesting article about the German Greens.

    Essentially, they have adopted a more pro-business, economically liberal approach (stripping off CDU voters) whilst also maintaining their counter-cultural/radical vibe too, and thus stripping off SDP, so they get enough votes to win.

    A bit of a textbook case of "AND" politics; riding two horses at once.

    That lasts until you get into power, look at what happened to the Lib Dems here. They had to choose which policies to push and which to give up and voters haven't forgiven them for that. Even Boris is threading a very small needle with keeping blue wallers and shire Tories in the same coalition. He's waved goodbye to fiscally dry, social liberals like myself but we were never a huge part of the voting coalition and we're unlikely to vote Labour so it's not very damaging. How he will ride the working class Tory horse and keep the shire Tories happy will be interesting to see if Labour doesn't fall into any major trap that allows Boris to get the leave band back together.
  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 15,110
    MaxPB said:

    The Sunday Times carries an interesting article about the German Greens.

    Essentially, they have adopted a more pro-business, economically liberal approach (stripping off CDU voters) whilst also maintaining their counter-cultural/radical vibe too, and thus stripping off SDP, so they get enough votes to win.

    A bit of a textbook case of "AND" politics; riding two horses at once.

    That lasts until you get into power, look at what happened to the Lib Dems here. They had to choose which policies to push and which to give up and voters haven't forgiven them for that. Even Boris is threading a very small needle with keeping blue wallers and shire Tories in the same coalition. He's waved goodbye to fiscally dry, social liberals like myself but we were never a huge part of the voting coalition and we're unlikely to vote Labour so it's not very damaging. How he will ride the working class Tory horse and keep the shire Tories happy will be interesting to see if Labour doesn't fall into any major trap that allows Boris to get the leave band back together.
    Note that the German Greens ARE in power in several German states.
  • alex_alex_ Posts: 7,518
    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    RobD said:

    Leon said:

    Floater said:
    So AZ actually REDUCES the chance of blood clots. It is positively therapeutic. Another genius move by our European friends and neighbours.

    When the tragic history of Covid-19 is written, the chapter on the European Reaction to the Vaccines will at least provide some surreal comic relief. I wonder if people will believe it
    They've quite literally gone insane.
    It’s the Irish reaction that is most baffling, to me, at the moment (with many rivals). Suspending AZ for ‘one week’. Why? What possible rationale do they have? What do they expect to happen in that week??
    Politico might surmise, that the Micks are wanting to show solidarity with the EU, without unduly pissing off the Brits?

    Medico might think (perhaps?) that they (and rest of them) are waiting for some more scientific evidence?

    And could truth (at least small-t) be somewhere in between?
    But the balance of risks from the very minor number of alleged deadly reactions is heavily weighted to not halting any amount of vaccination. 'Waiting for more evidence' is not always as reasonable as it sounds, indeed it is well recognised as a tactic of delay in many situations, when such new evidence that might emerge would not reasonably change the fundamental position.

    Now I don't think they do have any interest in delay, so it seems like an over abundance of caution, disguised as abundance of caution.
    It is also completely at odds with the initial approval of vaccines. Why spend ages waiting for the EMA to approve, if you are now going to over-rule their advice on a national basis? Why accept the principle of "emergency authorisation", guided by balance of relative risk against a comprehensive guarantee of safety, if you are then going to start expressing doubts as a third wave takes root? And, as others have pointed out, why concentrate on AZ whilst adverse effects from Pfizer/Moderna are being conveniently glossed over?
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,799

    The Sunday Times carries an interesting article about the German Greens.

    Essentially, they have adopted a more pro-business, economically liberal approach (stripping off CDU voters) whilst also maintaining their counter-cultural/radical vibe too, and thus stripping off SDP, so they get enough votes to win.

    A bit of a textbook case of "AND" politics; riding two horses at once.

    Further reading. Here is a profile of Kretschmann. Who looks to have increased his vote after 10 years as the Green Premier of Baden Wurttemburg. 11 million people of a wealthy region.
    https://m.dw.com/en/winfried-kretschmann-germanys-baby-boomer-green-party-wunderkind/a-56825373
  • LeonLeon Posts: 45,700
    Some good articles on the rise of the incel, and how a lot of it is driven by tech like Tinder. A few alpha men get all the sex, huge numbers get none. At all


    ‘In the past decade there has been a three-fold increase in the number of men who have not had sex in the past year.‘

    https://unherd.com/2020/02/why-incels-are-the-losers-in-the-age-of-tinder/

    https://www.newstatesman.com/science-tech/social-media/2020/01/how-she-ghosted-me-men-being-radicalised-tinder-data
  • TazTaz Posts: 10,533
    Cyclefree said:

    Leon said:

    Foxy said:

    Been out this afternoon walking in the rain so just catching up on this thread.

    Once again to join with other contributors, an excellent piece and nothing I can disagree with in there.

    I think the key point to be understood is education of boys and young men. Never has Aristotle's aphorism been more true than in the treatment of women.

    Give me a child until he is seven and I will show you the man.

    There certainly seem to be a lot of emotionally stunted blokes forever frozen at the age of seven on twitter.
    Not just on twitter.

    I have mused on @Cyclefree header whilst pottering in the garden. The problem seems intractable, and while better education and police who are competent are clearly good things, they do have a rather apple pie appeal. Who doesn't favour these things?

    The problem is men, and while only a minority behave physically violently, it is a big problem for women. While fear of random street violence is legitimate in men, the threat is violence or robbery rather than sexual assault, so of a different order.

    There is a lot of male anger out there, and part of that is that for many men anger is the only permissable emotional outlet. It is the goto for any stress or difficulty. The threat to status from female equality and emancipation brings it to the fore.

    I work in a majority female workplace, and cannot recall seeing any misogyny, but at a recent pre-pandemic team day the subject #metoo came up.

    I was the only male at a lunchtable with a half dozen female colleagues aged from mid twenties to mid fifties. I asked them to tell me of their #metoo stories. Everyone of them had several, mostly inappropriate behaviour from male patients. Indeed they had devised a way of marking notes for certain patients to be never be seen without a witness.

    Perhaps the most important thing for men to do is to listen to the women in their lives and workplace, without interrupting or arguing. These experiences are very common, only yesterday Mrs Foxy told me of an incident where a van driver cut her up, blocked the road in front of her, got out and pounded on her car window swearing at her and accusing her of dangerous driving. These incidents are so common that all women seem able to tell similar tales. So my advice to men is to raise the issue, and listen, just listen.

    It would be nice if these angry metropolitan women had marched in the name of the THOUSANDS of girls systematically groomed, raped, abused and sometimes killed - with the connivance of police and politicians - across the north and Midlands in the last 30 years, but maybe I am over-optimistic about human nature.

    Ahem: Anne Cryer MP, various female social workers and female police officers (Maggie Oliver whistle blew over Rochdale) did raise the issue. And were shut down. By male MPs and senior male police officers, as it happens.
    Anne Cryer was treated dreadfully by, mostly,male, colleagues and accused of being a racist and BNP enabler. A similar thing happened to Sarah Chanpion.

    This simply allowed the far right to own the issue as mainstream politicians were too scared to tackle it. It’s shameful. Girls were raped and molested on an industrial scale and many in positions of peer main concern were the optics not the victims. One victim was even arrested for abusing in the street one of her abusers. It’s insane.

    https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/ann-cryer-and-fight-expose-child-grooming-gangs-yorkshire-1751079
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 47,650
    alex_ said:

    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    RobD said:

    Leon said:

    Floater said:
    So AZ actually REDUCES the chance of blood clots. It is positively therapeutic. Another genius move by our European friends and neighbours.

    When the tragic history of Covid-19 is written, the chapter on the European Reaction to the Vaccines will at least provide some surreal comic relief. I wonder if people will believe it
    They've quite literally gone insane.
    It’s the Irish reaction that is most baffling, to me, at the moment (with many rivals). Suspending AZ for ‘one week’. Why? What possible rationale do they have? What do they expect to happen in that week??
    Politico might surmise, that the Micks are wanting to show solidarity with the EU, without unduly pissing off the Brits?

    Medico might think (perhaps?) that they (and rest of them) are waiting for some more scientific evidence?

    And could truth (at least small-t) be somewhere in between?
    But the balance of risks from the very minor number of alleged deadly reactions is heavily weighted to not halting any amount of vaccination. 'Waiting for more evidence' is not always as reasonable as it sounds, indeed it is well recognised as a tactic of delay in many situations, when such new evidence that might emerge would not reasonably change the fundamental position.

    Now I don't think they do have any interest in delay, so it seems like an over abundance of caution, disguised as abundance of caution.
    It is also completely at odds with the initial approval of vaccines. Why spend ages waiting for the EMA to approve, if you are now going to over-rule their advice on a national basis? Why accept the principle of "emergency authorisation", guided by balance of relative risk against a comprehensive guarantee of safety, if you are then going to start expressing doubts as a third wave takes root? And, as others have pointed out, why concentrate on AZ whilst adverse effects from Pfizer/Moderna are being conveniently glossed over?
    Yes, one thing that hasn't received much attention (because there have been so many other screw ups) is the complete breakdown in the EU's regulatory model.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,607
    edited March 2021
    dixiedean said:

    HYUFD said:

    AP (via New Haven Register) - Merkel's party suffers defeats in 2 German state elections

    "Amid discontent over a sluggish start to Germany’s vaccination drive, with coronavirus restrictions easing only gradually and infections rising again, Merkel’s Union bloc has been hit over the past two weeks by allegations that two lawmakers profited from deals to procure masks early in the coronavirus pandemic.

    Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union already faced a challenging task against the states' well-liked governors. Projections for ARD and ZDF public television, based on exit polls and a partial count of votes, indicated that those governors’ parties -- the environmentalist Greens in Baden-Wuerttemberg and the center-left Social Democrats in Rhineland-Palatinate -- were set to finish first, 7 to 9 percentage points ahead of the CDU. The CDU's showings of about 23% and 26%, respectively, would be the party's worst since World War II in both states.

    “To say it very clearly, this isn't a good election evening for the CDU,” said the party's general secretary, Paul Ziemiak. “We would have liked different, better results.” . . . .

    In Baden-Wuerttemberg, Germany's only Green party governor, Winfried Kretschmann, has become popular with centrist . . . Kretschmann, 72, a fatherly figure with a conservative image, featured on Green election posters with the slogan “You know me.” That was a slogan Merkel famously once used in a pre-election debate to underline her own largely ideology-free appeal.

    The Greens' success bolstered their confidence for the national election campaign, in which the traditionally left-leaning environmentalist party is expected to make its first bid for the chancellery. . . . .

    The center-left Social Democrats have led Rhineland-Palatinate for 30 years — currently under governor Malu Dreyer, whose personal popularity has kept her party’s support above its dismal national ratings. The Greens are a junior partner in her three-party governing coalition that also includes the pro-business Free Democrats, and looked set to improve somewhat on their showing five years ago.

    The far-right Alternative for Germany party appeared to have lost some support in both states, though still polled 10% or a bit more. . . . .

    Many people had already voted by mail, so it’s unclear how far the scandal over lawmakers in the CDU and its Bavaria-only sister party, the Christian Social Union, allegedly enriching themselves through mask deals impacted Sunday’s vote. . . .

    “What we see today is that forming a government is possible without the CDU,” said the Social Democrats' candidate for chancellor, current Finance Minister Olaf Scholz. “And that is what we are aiming for in the federal election campaign.”

    https://www.nhregister.com/news/article/German-election-year-opens-with-tough-test-for-16024419.php

    On the Rhineland Palatinate results at least the SPD would still need the CDU, the SPD and Green and Linke combined vote there still less than the CDU and FDP and AfD and FW combined vote. In Baden Wurttemberg neck and neck between the 2 blocks
    https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1371173013182427137?s=20
    https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1371175994053300224?s=20
    Point of order. You are constructing "blocs" based on your own left/right ideas.
    Outgoing governments were
    BW Green with CDU.
    RP SPD with Green and FDP.
    CDU or FDP still needed then
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 8,545
    Taz said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Leon said:

    Foxy said:

    Been out this afternoon walking in the rain so just catching up on this thread.

    Once again to join with other contributors, an excellent piece and nothing I can disagree with in there.

    I think the key point to be understood is education of boys and young men. Never has Aristotle's aphorism been more true than in the treatment of women.

    Give me a child until he is seven and I will show you the man.

    There certainly seem to be a lot of emotionally stunted blokes forever frozen at the age of seven on twitter.
    Not just on twitter.

    I have mused on @Cyclefree header whilst pottering in the garden. The problem seems intractable, and while better education and police who are competent are clearly good things, they do have a rather apple pie appeal. Who doesn't favour these things?

    The problem is men, and while only a minority behave physically violently, it is a big problem for women. While fear of random street violence is legitimate in men, the threat is violence or robbery rather than sexual assault, so of a different order.

    There is a lot of male anger out there, and part of that is that for many men anger is the only permissable emotional outlet. It is the goto for any stress or difficulty. The threat to status from female equality and emancipation brings it to the fore.

    I work in a majority female workplace, and cannot recall seeing any misogyny, but at a recent pre-pandemic team day the subject #metoo came up.

    I was the only male at a lunchtable with a half dozen female colleagues aged from mid twenties to mid fifties. I asked them to tell me of their #metoo stories. Everyone of them had several, mostly inappropriate behaviour from male patients. Indeed they had devised a way of marking notes for certain patients to be never be seen without a witness.

    Perhaps the most important thing for men to do is to listen to the women in their lives and workplace, without interrupting or arguing. These experiences are very common, only yesterday Mrs Foxy told me of an incident where a van driver cut her up, blocked the road in front of her, got out and pounded on her car window swearing at her and accusing her of dangerous driving. These incidents are so common that all women seem able to tell similar tales. So my advice to men is to raise the issue, and listen, just listen.

    It would be nice if these angry metropolitan women had marched in the name of the THOUSANDS of girls systematically groomed, raped, abused and sometimes killed - with the connivance of police and politicians - across the north and Midlands in the last 30 years, but maybe I am over-optimistic about human nature.

    Ahem: Anne Cryer MP, various female social workers and female police officers (Maggie Oliver whistle blew over Rochdale) did raise the issue. And were shut down. By male MPs and senior male police officers, as it happens.
    Anne Cryer was treated dreadfully by, mostly,male, colleagues and accused of being a racist and BNP enabler. A similar thing happened to Sarah Chanpion.

    This simply allowed the far right to own the issue as mainstream politicians were too scared to tackle it. It’s shameful. Girls were raped and molested on an industrial scale and many in positions of peer main concern were the optics not the victims. One victim was even arrested for abusing in the street one of her abusers. It’s insane.

    https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/ann-cryer-and-fight-expose-child-grooming-gangs-yorkshire-1751079
    Simply put, the victims were lower down the "victim hierarchy" than the perpetrators. I experienced the same when reporting my girlfriend being spat on and called a white whore in the street over several occasions, the police didn't want to know.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,607
    Leon said:

    Some good articles on the rise of the incel, and how a lot of it is driven by tech like Tinder. A few alpha men get all the sex, huge numbers get none. At all


    ‘In the past decade there has been a three-fold increase in the number of men who have not had sex in the past year.‘

    https://unherd.com/2020/02/why-incels-are-the-losers-in-the-age-of-tinder/

    https://www.newstatesman.com/science-tech/social-media/2020/01/how-she-ghosted-me-men-being-radicalised-tinder-data

    There are plenty of websites for longer term commitments not short term hookups where inevitably the best looking males will get most success (though even there the plain girls will still also be looking for some action, leave the beautiful girls to the handsome men)
  • maaarshmaaarsh Posts: 3,391
    Leon said:

    Some good articles on the rise of the incel, and how a lot of it is driven by tech like Tinder. A few alpha men get all the sex, huge numbers get none. At all


    ‘In the past decade there has been a three-fold increase in the number of men who have not had sex in the past year.‘

    https://unherd.com/2020/02/why-incels-are-the-losers-in-the-age-of-tinder/

    https://www.newstatesman.com/science-tech/social-media/2020/01/how-she-ghosted-me-men-being-radicalised-tinder-data

    Yes, think Foxy's 'analysis' rather suffers from a confusion between cause and effect. The end result is indisputably terrible, but it's only the demographic of the people involved which causes there to be little to no sympathy as to how they got there.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 45,700
    Taz said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Leon said:

    Foxy said:

    Been out this afternoon walking in the rain so just catching up on this thread.

    Once again to join with other contributors, an excellent piece and nothing I can disagree with in there.

    I think the key point to be understood is education of boys and young men. Never has Aristotle's aphorism been more true than in the treatment of women.

    Give me a child until he is seven and I will show you the man.

    There certainly seem to be a lot of emotionally stunted blokes forever frozen at the age of seven on twitter.
    Not just on twitter.

    I have mused on @Cyclefree header whilst pottering in the garden. The problem seems intractable, and while better education and police who are competent are clearly good things, they do have a rather apple pie appeal. Who doesn't favour these things?

    The problem is men, and while only a minority behave physically violently, it is a big problem for women. While fear of random street violence is legitimate in men, the threat is violence or robbery rather than sexual assault, so of a different order.

    There is a lot of male anger out there, and part of that is that for many men anger is the only permissable emotional outlet. It is the goto for any stress or difficulty. The threat to status from female equality and emancipation brings it to the fore.

    I work in a majority female workplace, and cannot recall seeing any misogyny, but at a recent pre-pandemic team day the subject #metoo came up.

    I was the only male at a lunchtable with a half dozen female colleagues aged from mid twenties to mid fifties. I asked them to tell me of their #metoo stories. Everyone of them had several, mostly inappropriate behaviour from male patients. Indeed they had devised a way of marking notes for certain patients to be never be seen without a witness.

    Perhaps the most important thing for men to do is to listen to the women in their lives and workplace, without interrupting or arguing. These experiences are very common, only yesterday Mrs Foxy told me of an incident where a van driver cut her up, blocked the road in front of her, got out and pounded on her car window swearing at her and accusing her of dangerous driving. These incidents are so common that all women seem able to tell similar tales. So my advice to men is to raise the issue, and listen, just listen.

    It would be nice if these angry metropolitan women had marched in the name of the THOUSANDS of girls systematically groomed, raped, abused and sometimes killed - with the connivance of police and politicians - across the north and Midlands in the last 30 years, but maybe I am over-optimistic about human nature.

    Ahem: Anne Cryer MP, various female social workers and female police officers (Maggie Oliver whistle blew over Rochdale) did raise the issue. And were shut down. By male MPs and senior male police officers, as it happens.
    Anne Cryer was treated dreadfully by, mostly,male, colleagues and accused of being a racist and BNP enabler. A similar thing happened to Sarah Chanpion.

    This simply allowed the far right to own the issue as mainstream politicians were too scared to tackle it. It’s shameful. Girls were raped and molested on an industrial scale and many in positions of peer main concern were the optics not the victims. One victim was even arrested for abusing in the street one of her abusers. It’s insane.

    https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/ann-cryer-and-fight-expose-child-grooming-gangs-yorkshire-1751079

    The fact it was left to the odious Nick Griffin to first speak the truth (and the fact he was was then nearly silenced by the Establishment) should shame us all. One of the most bleakly depressing episodes in postwar British history
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 8,545
    maaarsh said:

    Leon said:

    Some good articles on the rise of the incel, and how a lot of it is driven by tech like Tinder. A few alpha men get all the sex, huge numbers get none. At all


    ‘In the past decade there has been a three-fold increase in the number of men who have not had sex in the past year.‘

    https://unherd.com/2020/02/why-incels-are-the-losers-in-the-age-of-tinder/

    https://www.newstatesman.com/science-tech/social-media/2020/01/how-she-ghosted-me-men-being-radicalised-tinder-data

    Yes, think Foxy's 'analysis' rather suffers from a confusion between cause and effect. The end result is indisputably terrible, but it's only the demographic of the people involved which causes there to be little to no sympathy as to how they got there.
    What Leon doesn't mention of course is yes incels aren't getting sex because the women are selecting the cream of the alpha males but also the view of the alpha males are being reinforced that plentiful sex is their right.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    alex_ said:

    Leon said:

    RobD said:

    Leon said:

    Floater said:
    So AZ actually REDUCES the chance of blood clots. It is positively therapeutic. Another genius move by our European friends and neighbours.

    When the tragic history of Covid-19 is written, the chapter on the European Reaction to the Vaccines will at least provide some surreal comic relief. I wonder if people will believe it
    They've quite literally gone insane.
    It’s the Irish reaction that is most baffling, to me, at the moment (with many rivals). Suspending AZ for ‘one week’. Why? What possible rationale do they have? What do they expect to happen in that week??
    I think Ireland is starting to feel the pressure over Brexit in a new way.
    https://twitter.com/RSylvesterTimes/status/1370665879344668678
    It has to be said that this thing seemed bizarre - apparently the EU has no current plans to get involved in re-opening trade negotiations with the US.

    Given the disaster that is EU-UK trade, they can hardly expect the UK not to attempt to make up some ground elsewhere.
    There's been a few rumours that the EU are threatening to cut off trade talks with Australia if the UK is allowed to join the CPTPP. I didn't put much stock in the idea until Australia were singled out with the vaccine export ban. It shows just how paranoid the EU is about the UK's success outside of it, joining the CPTPP would be a huge vindication of leaving and at the same time we'd get a lot more leverage to address the deficiencies in the EU deal in 2026 as we'd be in a much stronger position to actually walk away.
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 11,059

    Leon said:

    RobD said:

    Leon said:

    Floater said:
    So AZ actually REDUCES the chance of blood clots. It is positively therapeutic. Another genius move by our European friends and neighbours.

    When the tragic history of Covid-19 is written, the chapter on the European Reaction to the Vaccines will at least provide some surreal comic relief. I wonder if people will believe it
    They've quite literally gone insane.
    It’s the Irish reaction that is most baffling, to me, at the moment (with many rivals). Suspending AZ for ‘one week’. Why? What possible rationale do they have? What do they expect to happen in that week??
    Politico might surmise, that the Micks are wanting to show solidarity with the EU, without unduly pissing off the Brits?

    Medico might think (perhaps?) that they (and rest of them) are waiting for some more scientific evidence?

    And could truth (at least small-t) be somewhere in between?
    They have to be seen to be taking the reports (or maybe think they have to be seen to be) seriously because just ignoring them would perhaps make matters worse. I don’t know. They will get there in the end. If we can put a lid on this thing by July and hunker down on our own island for 12 months nor so while they catch up that’s fine by me. Ireland is a special case given the CTA but, if reports are to be believed, we are soon to be vaccinating the population equivalent of the entire island of Ireland every 10 days. That will not go unnoticed over there.
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 7,419
    edited March 2021
    MaxPB said:

    The Sunday Times carries an interesting article about the German Greens.

    Essentially, they have adopted a more pro-business, economically liberal approach (stripping off CDU voters) whilst also maintaining their counter-cultural/radical vibe too, and thus stripping off SDP, so they get enough votes to win.

    A bit of a textbook case of "AND" politics; riding two horses at once.

    That lasts until you get into power, look at what happened to the Lib Dems here. They had to choose which policies to push and which to give up and voters haven't forgiven them for that. Even Boris is threading a very small needle with keeping blue wallers and shire Tories in the same coalition. He's waved goodbye to fiscally dry, social liberals like myself but we were never a huge part of the voting coalition and we're unlikely to vote Labour so it's not very damaging. How he will ride the working class Tory horse and keep the shire Tories happy will be interesting to see if Labour doesn't fall into any major trap that allows Boris to get the leave band back together.
    I think that's right. It's often commented on that Labour does/will struggle to form an electoral coalition of 'metropolitan liberals' and the northern/midlands white working class that they need to win back from the Tories, and that's true. But I think the Tories will also struggle to hold together their alliance of the white w/c with the traditional, more affluent rural/small town Tories; that will become a fragile coalition once the pandemic is over and 'normal' politics and economics returns.
  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 15,110
    Election Bulletin - Western Australia 2021 State Election

    Here is commentary I found on a reddit blog (map porn) by "erinthecute"

    Yesterday's Western Australian state election delivered a historic landslide, unprecedented in Australian history. In the 59-seat Legislative Assembly, the Labor Party government won 53, while the opposition Liberal Party was reduced to just two. The National Party, which won less than 5% of the vote compared to the Liberals' 21%, is now the second largest party with 4 seats.

    The Labor Party won 59% of first preference votes, beating out their previous best of 53% in 1983. The Liberal Party suffered their worst ever result, collapsing almost ten percentage points compared to their previous worst - 31% in the previous election just four years ago. The overall two-party-preferred result is estimated to be somewhere around 68-69%, beating out the 2011 New South Wales state election, which previously held the record as the most lopsided two-party-preferred result in Australian history.

    Labor was in a strong position from the start. In 2017, they won a landslide victory from opposition, winning the largest majority in their history with 41 out of 59 seats. The Liberal Party was reduced to 13 seats. In the intervening years, the economy has boomed, infrastructure projects progressed, and most importantly, the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Or more accurately, it hit everywhere except WA. Premier Mark McGowan, who has taken a hard line on border controls and successfully kept the virus almost completely out of the state, has become incredibly popular. Polling indicates his approval rating is around 90%.

    Meanwhile, the Liberal Party struggled to pull itself together after its landslide 2017 defeat. It has gone through three opposition leaders since then, with the second, Liza Harvey, making a series of unforced errors during 2020, including opposing aspects of the government's pandemic strategy and temporarily siding with billionaire and two-time failed politician Clive Palmer in his attempt to overturn the border closure.

    Harvey resigned in November 2020, making way for 34-year-old freshman MP Zak Kirkup, who the Liberals hoped would revive their chances. With polling looking increasingly grim, Kirkup made a series of interesting decisions throughout the campaign, including promising to phase out coal power by 2025 and, even more bizarrely, conceding the election 16 days before it took place. He said that, although Labor's victory was inevitable, voters should support a strong Liberal opposition to keep them accountable. Apparently, the public didn't find this very inspiring. The opposition leader lost his seat in a landslide on election night, with Labor candidate Lisa Munday winning 65% of the two-party-preferred vote to Kirkup's 35%.
  • TazTaz Posts: 10,533
    Leon said:

    Taz said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Leon said:

    Foxy said:

    Been out this afternoon walking in the rain so just catching up on this thread.

    Once again to join with other contributors, an excellent piece and nothing I can disagree with in there.

    I think the key point to be understood is education of boys and young men. Never has Aristotle's aphorism been more true than in the treatment of women.

    Give me a child until he is seven and I will show you the man.

    There certainly seem to be a lot of emotionally stunted blokes forever frozen at the age of seven on twitter.
    Not just on twitter.

    I have mused on @Cyclefree header whilst pottering in the garden. The problem seems intractable, and while better education and police who are competent are clearly good things, they do have a rather apple pie appeal. Who doesn't favour these things?

    The problem is men, and while only a minority behave physically violently, it is a big problem for women. While fear of random street violence is legitimate in men, the threat is violence or robbery rather than sexual assault, so of a different order.

    There is a lot of male anger out there, and part of that is that for many men anger is the only permissable emotional outlet. It is the goto for any stress or difficulty. The threat to status from female equality and emancipation brings it to the fore.

    I work in a majority female workplace, and cannot recall seeing any misogyny, but at a recent pre-pandemic team day the subject #metoo came up.

    I was the only male at a lunchtable with a half dozen female colleagues aged from mid twenties to mid fifties. I asked them to tell me of their #metoo stories. Everyone of them had several, mostly inappropriate behaviour from male patients. Indeed they had devised a way of marking notes for certain patients to be never be seen without a witness.

    Perhaps the most important thing for men to do is to listen to the women in their lives and workplace, without interrupting or arguing. These experiences are very common, only yesterday Mrs Foxy told me of an incident where a van driver cut her up, blocked the road in front of her, got out and pounded on her car window swearing at her and accusing her of dangerous driving. These incidents are so common that all women seem able to tell similar tales. So my advice to men is to raise the issue, and listen, just listen.

    It would be nice if these angry metropolitan women had marched in the name of the THOUSANDS of girls systematically groomed, raped, abused and sometimes killed - with the connivance of police and politicians - across the north and Midlands in the last 30 years, but maybe I am over-optimistic about human nature.

    Ahem: Anne Cryer MP, various female social workers and female police officers (Maggie Oliver whistle blew over Rochdale) did raise the issue. And were shut down. By male MPs and senior male police officers, as it happens.
    Anne Cryer was treated dreadfully by, mostly,male, colleagues and accused of being a racist and BNP enabler. A similar thing happened to Sarah Chanpion.

    This simply allowed the far right to own the issue as mainstream politicians were too scared to tackle it. It’s shameful. Girls were raped and molested on an industrial scale and many in positions of peer main concern were the optics not the victims. One victim was even arrested for abusing in the street one of her abusers. It’s insane.

    https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/ann-cryer-and-fight-expose-child-grooming-gangs-yorkshire-1751079

    The fact it was left to the odious Nick Griffin to first speak the truth (and the fact he was was then nearly silenced by the Establishment) should shame us all. One of the most bleakly depressing episodes in postwar British history


    Yes, it was. You had the far right using it as an excuse to bash all Muslims, the left simply responding with whataboutery about other perpetrators. It became a political football mainstream people feared to tread in for fear of being labelled racists by one mob or paedophile defenders by another and all the time while this went on children were being raped. Nasir Afzal deserves a great deal of credit along Anne Cryer and the policewoman who helped bring them down.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 45,700
    MaxPB said:

    alex_ said:

    Leon said:

    RobD said:

    Leon said:

    Floater said:
    So AZ actually REDUCES the chance of blood clots. It is positively therapeutic. Another genius move by our European friends and neighbours.

    When the tragic history of Covid-19 is written, the chapter on the European Reaction to the Vaccines will at least provide some surreal comic relief. I wonder if people will believe it
    They've quite literally gone insane.
    It’s the Irish reaction that is most baffling, to me, at the moment (with many rivals). Suspending AZ for ‘one week’. Why? What possible rationale do they have? What do they expect to happen in that week??
    I think Ireland is starting to feel the pressure over Brexit in a new way.
    https://twitter.com/RSylvesterTimes/status/1370665879344668678
    It has to be said that this thing seemed bizarre - apparently the EU has no current plans to get involved in re-opening trade negotiations with the US.

    Given the disaster that is EU-UK trade, they can hardly expect the UK not to attempt to make up some ground elsewhere.
    There's been a few rumours that the EU are threatening to cut off trade talks with Australia if the UK is allowed to join the CPTPP. I didn't put much stock in the idea until Australia were singled out with the vaccine export ban. It shows just how paranoid the EU is about the UK's success outside of it, joining the CPTPP would be a huge vindication of leaving and at the same time we'd get a lot more leverage to address the deficiencies in the EU deal in 2026 as we'd be in a much stronger position to actually walk away.
    That would be utterly extraordinary. Outright hostility and a blatant attempt to harm us, out of nothing but spite.

    The EU has done so many mad things recently I suppose it might be true, but it would still astonish me
  • alex_alex_ Posts: 7,518
    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    Some good articles on the rise of the incel, and how a lot of it is driven by tech like Tinder. A few alpha men get all the sex, huge numbers get none. At all


    ‘In the past decade there has been a three-fold increase in the number of men who have not had sex in the past year.‘

    https://unherd.com/2020/02/why-incels-are-the-losers-in-the-age-of-tinder/

    https://www.newstatesman.com/science-tech/social-media/2020/01/how-she-ghosted-me-men-being-radicalised-tinder-data

    There are plenty of websites for longer term commitments not short term hookups where inevitably the best looking males will get most success (though even there the plain girls will still also be looking for some action, leave the beautiful girls to the handsome men)
    Are there? ;)
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 7,419
    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    Some good articles on the rise of the incel, and how a lot of it is driven by tech like Tinder. A few alpha men get all the sex, huge numbers get none. At all


    ‘In the past decade there has been a three-fold increase in the number of men who have not had sex in the past year.‘

    https://unherd.com/2020/02/why-incels-are-the-losers-in-the-age-of-tinder/

    https://www.newstatesman.com/science-tech/social-media/2020/01/how-she-ghosted-me-men-being-radicalised-tinder-data

    There are plenty of websites for longer term commitments not short term hookups where inevitably the best looking males will get most success (though even there the plain girls will still also be looking for some action, leave the beautiful girls to the handsome men)
    Gosh, it's almost as if Cyclefree's header had never been written.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,179

    Meanwhile, back at the ranch (or rather golf course) . . .

    Politico.com - Trump was supposed to be a political Godzilla in exile. Instead, he’s adrift.
    Even allies say the president is lacking an apparatus and direction as he sorts out just what he wants to do in his post-presidency....

    This must also be somewhat depressing to him.
    And gives an interesting context to Republican cries of fiscal indiscipline.

    How Trump’s team amassed a $1 trillion war chest for Biden to deploy
    Despite concerns that markets will be flooded with new U.S. government debt, the Treasury might not have to change its borrowing plans much at all.
    https://www.politico.com/news/2021/03/14/covid-relief-package-federal-debt-475622
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,179
    Cyclefree said:

    Leon said:

    Foxy said:

    Been out this afternoon walking in the rain so just catching up on this thread.

    Once again to join with other contributors, an excellent piece and nothing I can disagree with in there.

    I think the key point to be understood is education of boys and young men. Never has Aristotle's aphorism been more true than in the treatment of women.

    Give me a child until he is seven and I will show you the man.

    There certainly seem to be a lot of emotionally stunted blokes forever frozen at the age of seven on twitter.
    Not just on twitter.

    I have mused on @Cyclefree header whilst pottering in the garden. The problem seems intractable, and while better education and police who are competent are clearly good things, they do have a rather apple pie appeal. Who doesn't favour these things?

    The problem is men, and while only a minority behave physically violently, it is a big problem for women. While fear of random street violence is legitimate in men, the threat is violence or robbery rather than sexual assault, so of a different order.

    There is a lot of male anger out there, and part of that is that for many men anger is the only permissable emotional outlet. It is the goto for any stress or difficulty. The threat to status from female equality and emancipation brings it to the fore.

    I work in a majority female workplace, and cannot recall seeing any misogyny, but at a recent pre-pandemic team day the subject #metoo came up.

    I was the only male at a lunchtable with a half dozen female colleagues aged from mid twenties to mid fifties. I asked them to tell me of their #metoo stories. Everyone of them had several, mostly inappropriate behaviour from male patients. Indeed they had devised a way of marking notes for certain patients to be never be seen without a witness.

    Perhaps the most important thing for men to do is to listen to the women in their lives and workplace, without interrupting or arguing. These experiences are very common, only yesterday Mrs Foxy told me of an incident where a van driver cut her up, blocked the road in front of her, got out and pounded on her car window swearing at her and accusing her of dangerous driving. These incidents are so common that all women seem able to tell similar tales. So my advice to men is to raise the issue, and listen, just listen.

    It would be nice if these angry metropolitan women had marched in the name of the THOUSANDS of girls systematically groomed, raped, abused and sometimes killed - with the connivance of police and politicians - across the north and Midlands in the last 30 years, but maybe I am over-optimistic about human nature.

    Ahem: Anne Cryer MP, various female social workers and female police officers (Maggie Oliver whistle blew over Rochdale) did raise the issue. And were shut down. By male MPs and senior male police officers, as it happens.
    The Times also deserves great credit for their reporting at a time when the rest of the media simply wasn’t paying attention.
  • AnneJGPAnneJGP Posts: 2,869
    DougSeal said:

    Leon said:

    RobD said:

    Leon said:

    Floater said:
    So AZ actually REDUCES the chance of blood clots. It is positively therapeutic. Another genius move by our European friends and neighbours.

    When the tragic history of Covid-19 is written, the chapter on the European Reaction to the Vaccines will at least provide some surreal comic relief. I wonder if people will believe it
    They've quite literally gone insane.
    It’s the Irish reaction that is most baffling, to me, at the moment (with many rivals). Suspending AZ for ‘one week’. Why? What possible rationale do they have? What do they expect to happen in that week??
    Politico might surmise, that the Micks are wanting to show solidarity with the EU, without unduly pissing off the Brits?

    Medico might think (perhaps?) that they (and rest of them) are waiting for some more scientific evidence?

    And could truth (at least small-t) be somewhere in between?
    They have to be seen to be taking the reports (or maybe think they have to be seen to be) seriously because just ignoring them would perhaps make matters worse. I don’t know. They will get there in the end. If we can put a lid on this thing by July and hunker down on our own island for 12 months nor so while they catch up that’s fine by me. Ireland is a special case given the CTA but, if reports are to be believed, we are soon to be vaccinating the population equivalent of the entire island of Ireland every 10 days. That will not go unnoticed over there.
    If we just keep supplying NI with vaccines once the NI population is dealt with, the vaccination centres can simply go on jabbing anyone who cares to cross the border and show up, surely.
  • isamisam Posts: 40,660
    ...

    For anyone who hasn't seen goal by Spurs then here it is, even Arsenal supporters needed a cigarette after seeing it.

    https://twitter.com/SkySportsPL/status/1371145719067906049

    Lovely skill
  • TazTaz Posts: 10,533
    Pagan2 said:

    Taz said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Leon said:

    Foxy said:

    Been out this afternoon walking in the rain so just catching up on this thread.

    Once again to join with other contributors, an excellent piece and nothing I can disagree with in there.

    I think the key point to be understood is education of boys and young men. Never has Aristotle's aphorism been more true than in the treatment of women.

    Give me a child until he is seven and I will show you the man.

    There certainly seem to be a lot of emotionally stunted blokes forever frozen at the age of seven on twitter.
    Not just on twitter.

    I have mused on @Cyclefree header whilst pottering in the garden. The problem seems intractable, and while better education and police who are competent are clearly good things, they do have a rather apple pie appeal. Who doesn't favour these things?

    The problem is men, and while only a minority behave physically violently, it is a big problem for women. While fear of random street violence is legitimate in men, the threat is violence or robbery rather than sexual assault, so of a different order.

    There is a lot of male anger out there, and part of that is that for many men anger is the only permissable emotional outlet. It is the goto for any stress or difficulty. The threat to status from female equality and emancipation brings it to the fore.

    I work in a majority female workplace, and cannot recall seeing any misogyny, but at a recent pre-pandemic team day the subject #metoo came up.

    I was the only male at a lunchtable with a half dozen female colleagues aged from mid twenties to mid fifties. I asked them to tell me of their #metoo stories. Everyone of them had several, mostly inappropriate behaviour from male patients. Indeed they had devised a way of marking notes for certain patients to be never be seen without a witness.

    Perhaps the most important thing for men to do is to listen to the women in their lives and workplace, without interrupting or arguing. These experiences are very common, only yesterday Mrs Foxy told me of an incident where a van driver cut her up, blocked the road in front of her, got out and pounded on her car window swearing at her and accusing her of dangerous driving. These incidents are so common that all women seem able to tell similar tales. So my advice to men is to raise the issue, and listen, just listen.

    It would be nice if these angry metropolitan women had marched in the name of the THOUSANDS of girls systematically groomed, raped, abused and sometimes killed - with the connivance of police and politicians - across the north and Midlands in the last 30 years, but maybe I am over-optimistic about human nature.

    Ahem: Anne Cryer MP, various female social workers and female police officers (Maggie Oliver whistle blew over Rochdale) did raise the issue. And were shut down. By male MPs and senior male police officers, as it happens.
    Anne Cryer was treated dreadfully by, mostly,male, colleagues and accused of being a racist and BNP enabler. A similar thing happened to Sarah Chanpion.

    This simply allowed the far right to own the issue as mainstream politicians were too scared to tackle it. It’s shameful. Girls were raped and molested on an industrial scale and many in positions of peer main concern were the optics not the victims. One victim was even arrested for abusing in the street one of her abusers. It’s insane.

    https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/ann-cryer-and-fight-expose-child-grooming-gangs-yorkshire-1751079
    Simply put, the victims were lower down the "victim hierarchy" than the perpetrators. I experienced the same when reporting my girlfriend being spat on and called a white whore in the street over several occasions, the police didn't want to know.
    If they had misgendered her on Twitter you’d have had a better chance of action from them.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,799
    HYUFD said:

    dixiedean said:

    HYUFD said:

    AP (via New Haven Register) - Merkel's party suffers defeats in 2 German state elections

    "Amid discontent over a sluggish start to Germany’s vaccination drive, with coronavirus restrictions easing only gradually and infections rising again, Merkel’s Union bloc has been hit over the past two weeks by allegations that two lawmakers profited from deals to procure masks early in the coronavirus pandemic.

    Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union already faced a challenging task against the states' well-liked governors. Projections for ARD and ZDF public television, based on exit polls and a partial count of votes, indicated that those governors’ parties -- the environmentalist Greens in Baden-Wuerttemberg and the center-left Social Democrats in Rhineland-Palatinate -- were set to finish first, 7 to 9 percentage points ahead of the CDU. The CDU's showings of about 23% and 26%, respectively, would be the party's worst since World War II in both states.

    “To say it very clearly, this isn't a good election evening for the CDU,” said the party's general secretary, Paul Ziemiak. “We would have liked different, better results.” . . . .

    In Baden-Wuerttemberg, Germany's only Green party governor, Winfried Kretschmann, has become popular with centrist . . . Kretschmann, 72, a fatherly figure with a conservative image, featured on Green election posters with the slogan “You know me.” That was a slogan Merkel famously once used in a pre-election debate to underline her own largely ideology-free appeal.

    The Greens' success bolstered their confidence for the national election campaign, in which the traditionally left-leaning environmentalist party is expected to make its first bid for the chancellery. . . . .

    The center-left Social Democrats have led Rhineland-Palatinate for 30 years — currently under governor Malu Dreyer, whose personal popularity has kept her party’s support above its dismal national ratings. The Greens are a junior partner in her three-party governing coalition that also includes the pro-business Free Democrats, and looked set to improve somewhat on their showing five years ago.

    The far-right Alternative for Germany party appeared to have lost some support in both states, though still polled 10% or a bit more. . . . .

    Many people had already voted by mail, so it’s unclear how far the scandal over lawmakers in the CDU and its Bavaria-only sister party, the Christian Social Union, allegedly enriching themselves through mask deals impacted Sunday’s vote. . . .

    “What we see today is that forming a government is possible without the CDU,” said the Social Democrats' candidate for chancellor, current Finance Minister Olaf Scholz. “And that is what we are aiming for in the federal election campaign.”

    https://www.nhregister.com/news/article/German-election-year-opens-with-tough-test-for-16024419.php

    On the Rhineland Palatinate results at least the SPD would still need the CDU, the SPD and Green and Linke combined vote there still less than the CDU and FDP and AfD and FW combined vote. In Baden Wurttemberg neck and neck between the 2 blocks
    https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1371173013182427137?s=20
    https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1371175994053300224?s=20
    Point of order. You are constructing "blocs" based on your own left/right ideas.
    Outgoing governments were
    BW Green with CDU.
    RP SPD with Green and FDP.
    CDU or FDP still needed then
    Yes. But it isn't a left bloc v a right bloc.
    The governing coalition looks to have been re elected ahead of the opposition in both cases. Very much on trend.
    Although the CDU can be dumped possibly in BW in favour of the RP model of coalition.
  • Time_to_LeaveTime_to_Leave Posts: 2,547
    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Foxy said:

    Been out this afternoon walking in the rain so just catching up on this thread.

    Once again to join with other contributors, an excellent piece and nothing I can disagree with in there.

    I think the key point to be understood is education of boys and young men. Never has Aristotle's aphorism been more true than in the treatment of women.

    Give me a child until he is seven and I will show you the man.

    There certainly seem to be a lot of emotionally stunted blokes forever frozen at the age of seven on twitter.
    Not just on twitter.

    I have mused on @Cyclefree header whilst pottering in the garden. The problem seems intractable, and while better education and police who are competent are clearly good things, they do have a rather apple pie appeal. Who doesn't favour these things?

    The problem is men, and while only a minority behave physically violently, it is a big problem for women. While fear of random street violence is legitimate in men, the threat is violence or robbery rather than sexual assault, so of a different order.

    There is a lot of male anger out there, and part of that is that for many men anger is the only permissable emotional outlet. It is the goto for any stress or difficulty. The threat to status from female equality and emancipation brings it to the fore.

    I work in a majority female workplace, and cannot recall seeing any misogyny, but at a recent pre-pandemic team day the subject #metoo came up.

    I was the only male at a lunchtable with a half dozen female colleagues aged from mid twenties to mid fifties. I asked them to tell me of their #metoo stories. Everyone of them had several, mostly inappropriate behaviour from male patients. Indeed they had devised a way of marking notes for certain patients to be never be seen without a witness.

    Perhaps the most important thing for men to do is to listen to the women in their lives and workplace, without interrupting or arguing. These experiences are very common, only yesterday Mrs Foxy told me of an incident where a van driver cut her up, blocked the road in front of her, got out and pounded on her car window swearing at her and accusing her of dangerous driving. These incidents are so common that all women seem able to tell similar tales. So my advice to men is to raise the issue, and listen, just listen.

    It would be nice if these angry metropolitan women had marched in the name of the THOUSANDS of girls systematically groomed, raped, abused and sometimes killed - with the connivance of police and politicians - across the north and Midlands in the last 30 years, but maybe I am over-optimistic about human nature.

    On your larger point, I agree, but I fear misogyny and male violence - clearly very real problems - are likely to get WORSE before they get better. Why? Involuntary celibacy. Incels. More and more young men are getting less and less sex, for various reasons - apps like Tinder, inequality, declining employment prospects for young men, and so on.

    Young men deprived of sex quite quickly turn to violence. See the rise of Islamism in sexually suppressive societies.

    Eventually this problem will probably be solved by technology. Sex bots. GPT3 with fake boobs.

    But we could be in for a rocky decade or three before then. It’s a major issue, not really acknowledged
    Except.

    Plenty of those sleazeballs are in high status roles, like policemen, bankers or politicians. They have money and partners.

    They just get greedy; they assume that because they are bursting with spunk (to take a phrase I must have picked up from someone famous) they can take without asking. Biologically, that's what males do, but civilisation is turning away from pure biological urges, because they lead to nasty, brutish and short lives.

    But some men don't bother with that. Because they're alphas, dontchaknow?
    And yet we ARE making progress there. After MeToo. Powerful men are much less likely to abuse that power, sexually, because society is much less tolerant. That’s good.

    It’s the powerLESS men we should be worried about. The incels. They are already one of the biggest terror threats in the USA
    Incels are an example of the sort of of entitled male anger that is the problem. Men who make no concessions to being pleasant or respectful to women who believe they are entitled to sex. Too much time on the Internet watching porn, I suppose.

    It is not women who are to blame for their behaviour, nor their parents or teachers. They taught themselves to hate women, down a rabbit hole of their own choice.
    I had not previously heard the term “incel”. 20 minutes with google later... Jesus Christ!
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 14,605

    Can someone talk me through this love for Drakeford, please? Is it just because the vaccine rate in Wales has been impressive the last 4-5 weeks?

    Because 2 months ago absolutely everyone thought he was a total pillock, and the absurdity of him locking down supermarket shelves was widely derided.

    I've been assuming that it's largely ironic, but he was being criticised when he was stockpiling doses and Wales as falling behind, so only fair to give him some credit when Wales does better.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,607

    Election Bulletin - Western Australia 2021 State Election

    Here is commentary I found on a reddit blog (map porn) by "erinthecute"

    Yesterday's Western Australian state election delivered a historic landslide, unprecedented in Australian history. In the 59-seat Legislative Assembly, the Labor Party government won 53, while the opposition Liberal Party was reduced to just two. The National Party, which won less than 5% of the vote compared to the Liberals' 21%, is now the second largest party with 4 seats.

    The Labor Party won 59% of first preference votes, beating out their previous best of 53% in 1983. The Liberal Party suffered their worst ever result, collapsing almost ten percentage points compared to their previous worst - 31% in the previous election just four years ago. The overall two-party-preferred result is estimated to be somewhere around 68-69%, beating out the 2011 New South Wales state election, which previously held the record as the most lopsided two-party-preferred result in Australian history.

    Labor was in a strong position from the start. In 2017, they won a landslide victory from opposition, winning the largest majority in their history with 41 out of 59 seats. The Liberal Party was reduced to 13 seats. In the intervening years, the economy has boomed, infrastructure projects progressed, and most importantly, the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Or more accurately, it hit everywhere except WA. Premier Mark McGowan, who has taken a hard line on border controls and successfully kept the virus almost completely out of the state, has become incredibly popular. Polling indicates his approval rating is around 90%.

    Meanwhile, the Liberal Party struggled to pull itself together after its landslide 2017 defeat. It has gone through three opposition leaders since then, with the second, Liza Harvey, making a series of unforced errors during 2020, including opposing aspects of the government's pandemic strategy and temporarily siding with billionaire and two-time failed politician Clive Palmer in his attempt to overturn the border closure.

    Harvey resigned in November 2020, making way for 34-year-old freshman MP Zak Kirkup, who the Liberals hoped would revive their chances. With polling looking increasingly grim, Kirkup made a series of interesting decisions throughout the campaign, including promising to phase out coal power by 2025 and, even more bizarrely, conceding the election 16 days before it took place. He said that, although Labor's victory was inevitable, voters should support a strong Liberal opposition to keep them accountable. Apparently, the public didn't find this very inspiring. The opposition leader lost his seat in a landslide on election night, with Labor candidate Lisa Munday winning 65% of the two-party-preferred vote to Kirkup's 35%.

    Labor also won the 2017 WA election comfortably, the Liberal/National Coalition still won the 2019 Australian Federal election
  • TazTaz Posts: 10,533
    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    alex_ said:

    Leon said:

    RobD said:

    Leon said:

    Floater said:
    So AZ actually REDUCES the chance of blood clots. It is positively therapeutic. Another genius move by our European friends and neighbours.

    When the tragic history of Covid-19 is written, the chapter on the European Reaction to the Vaccines will at least provide some surreal comic relief. I wonder if people will believe it
    They've quite literally gone insane.
    It’s the Irish reaction that is most baffling, to me, at the moment (with many rivals). Suspending AZ for ‘one week’. Why? What possible rationale do they have? What do they expect to happen in that week??
    I think Ireland is starting to feel the pressure over Brexit in a new way.
    https://twitter.com/RSylvesterTimes/status/1370665879344668678
    It has to be said that this thing seemed bizarre - apparently the EU has no current plans to get involved in re-opening trade negotiations with the US.

    Given the disaster that is EU-UK trade, they can hardly expect the UK not to attempt to make up some ground elsewhere.
    There's been a few rumours that the EU are threatening to cut off trade talks with Australia if the UK is allowed to join the CPTPP. I didn't put much stock in the idea until Australia were singled out with the vaccine export ban. It shows just how paranoid the EU is about the UK's success outside of it, joining the CPTPP would be a huge vindication of leaving and at the same time we'd get a lot more leverage to address the deficiencies in the EU deal in 2026 as we'd be in a much stronger position to actually walk away.
    That would be utterly extraordinary. Outright hostility and a blatant attempt to harm us, out of nothing but spite.

    The EU has done so many mad things recently I suppose it might be true, but it would still astonish me
    Blair was right when he said it was in ours, and the EUs, interest for us to do well outside of the EU so when we do rejoin (As it is when, not if) we do so as a strong partner and bring a lot to the EU. It is no good to either party for us to rejoin in a position of weakness.
  • Time_to_LeaveTime_to_Leave Posts: 2,547
    edited March 2021
    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    alex_ said:

    Leon said:

    RobD said:

    Leon said:

    Floater said:
    So AZ actually REDUCES the chance of blood clots. It is positively therapeutic. Another genius move by our European friends and neighbours.

    When the tragic history of Covid-19 is written, the chapter on the European Reaction to the Vaccines will at least provide some surreal comic relief. I wonder if people will believe it
    They've quite literally gone insane.
    It’s the Irish reaction that is most baffling, to me, at the moment (with many rivals). Suspending AZ for ‘one week’. Why? What possible rationale do they have? What do they expect to happen in that week??
    I think Ireland is starting to feel the pressure over Brexit in a new way.
    https://twitter.com/RSylvesterTimes/status/1370665879344668678
    It has to be said that this thing seemed bizarre - apparently the EU has no current plans to get involved in re-opening trade negotiations with the US.

    Given the disaster that is EU-UK trade, they can hardly expect the UK not to attempt to make up some ground elsewhere.
    There's been a few rumours that the EU are threatening to cut off trade talks with Australia if the UK is allowed to join the CPTPP. I didn't put much stock in the idea until Australia were singled out with the vaccine export ban. It shows just how paranoid the EU is about the UK's success outside of it, joining the CPTPP would be a huge vindication of leaving and at the same time we'd get a lot more leverage to address the deficiencies in the EU deal in 2026 as we'd be in a much stronger position to actually walk away.
    That would be utterly extraordinary. Outright hostility and a blatant attempt to harm us, out of nothing but spite.

    The EU has done so many mad things recently I suppose it might be true, but it would still astonish me
    If you were the Aussies (or another CPTPP nation) and you received that threat, wouldn’t the logical response be to say “strewth - we’d better get the poms in and strengthen our trade block”?
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 8,545
    To be controversial (for a change :) )

    The header calls for men to change, I do wonder however women shouldn't also look at themselves and think about their behaviour. Now maybe I am unusual in this but I have known many women ditch boyfriends who were steady and respectful and stable for those that were shall we say less respectful. The habitual cheats and regularly unemployed and worse because apparently "well bob was sort of boring".

    I don't think its just me because girls like a bad boy has become somewhat of a cliche and certainly seen it happen. The bad boy however is also quite often the sort railed against in this thread.

    No before you say so not claiming its all womens fault by any means just that there is also as well as men behaving badly women rewarding them almost for being like that
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,607

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    Some good articles on the rise of the incel, and how a lot of it is driven by tech like Tinder. A few alpha men get all the sex, huge numbers get none. At all


    ‘In the past decade there has been a three-fold increase in the number of men who have not had sex in the past year.‘

    https://unherd.com/2020/02/why-incels-are-the-losers-in-the-age-of-tinder/

    https://www.newstatesman.com/science-tech/social-media/2020/01/how-she-ghosted-me-men-being-radicalised-tinder-data

    There are plenty of websites for longer term commitments not short term hookups where inevitably the best looking males will get most success (though even there the plain girls will still also be looking for some action, leave the beautiful girls to the handsome men)
    Gosh, it's almost as if Cyclefree's header had never been written.
    So apparently sex must be banned too, if you join a dating site you are looking for a consensual relationship and consensual sex on both sides
  • LeonLeon Posts: 45,700
    Nigelb said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Leon said:

    Foxy said:

    Been out this afternoon walking in the rain so just catching up on this thread.

    Once again to join with other contributors, an excellent piece and nothing I can disagree with in there.

    I think the key point to be understood is education of boys and young men. Never has Aristotle's aphorism been more true than in the treatment of women.

    Give me a child until he is seven and I will show you the man.

    There certainly seem to be a lot of emotionally stunted blokes forever frozen at the age of seven on twitter.
    Not just on twitter.

    I have mused on @Cyclefree header whilst pottering in the garden. The problem seems intractable, and while better education and police who are competent are clearly good things, they do have a rather apple pie appeal. Who doesn't favour these things?

    The problem is men, and while only a minority behave physically violently, it is a big problem for women. While fear of random street violence is legitimate in men, the threat is violence or robbery rather than sexual assault, so of a different order.

    There is a lot of male anger out there, and part of that is that for many men anger is the only permissable emotional outlet. It is the goto for any stress or difficulty. The threat to status from female equality and emancipation brings it to the fore.

    I work in a majority female workplace, and cannot recall seeing any misogyny, but at a recent pre-pandemic team day the subject #metoo came up.

    I was the only male at a lunchtable with a half dozen female colleagues aged from mid twenties to mid fifties. I asked them to tell me of their #metoo stories. Everyone of them had several, mostly inappropriate behaviour from male patients. Indeed they had devised a way of marking notes for certain patients to be never be seen without a witness.

    Perhaps the most important thing for men to do is to listen to the women in their lives and workplace, without interrupting or arguing. These experiences are very common, only yesterday Mrs Foxy told me of an incident where a van driver cut her up, blocked the road in front of her, got out and pounded on her car window swearing at her and accusing her of dangerous driving. These incidents are so common that all women seem able to tell similar tales. So my advice to men is to raise the issue, and listen, just listen.

    It would be nice if these angry metropolitan women had marched in the name of the THOUSANDS of girls systematically groomed, raped, abused and sometimes killed - with the connivance of police and politicians - across the north and Midlands in the last 30 years, but maybe I am over-optimistic about human nature.

    Ahem: Anne Cryer MP, various female social workers and female police officers (Maggie Oliver whistle blew over Rochdale) did raise the issue. And were shut down. By male MPs and senior male police officers, as it happens.
    The Times also deserves great credit for their reporting at a time when the rest of the media simply wasn’t paying attention.
    Andrew Norfolk. Very brave reporting. And for his pains the Guardian tried to smear him as racist


    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/jan/07/grooming-racialising-crime-tradition?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
This discussion has been closed.