Do men need a license to be allowed socialise (MOD NOTE IN OP)

Yet you felt it was appropriate to post that victims should have some responsibility for their actions in a thread which was started in relation to said event.

Not the time or the place for any right minded person imo.

All this talk of zero tolerance on male violence against women. What about violence against men. I personally don't know any woman that got attacked but I know several of my male friends that got a beating on nights out. I've been attacked several times myself but luckily I always managed to diffuse the situation. I hardly wanted to leave the house today with all the hatred towards men I was hearing. Ended up going out in town for the day and although I was sheepish at first I ended up having good craic with a few men/women around town. Restored some confidence in me and I think I'll be avoiding alot of the social media and coverage on the matter for a while.

In my view one of the major issues which nobody talks enough about in these debates is collectivism vs individualism. Feminists and other activist movements in the 'identity politics' arena view the world through a collectivist lens; whereas most people, male or female, view the world largely through an individualist lens. This, more than anything, is what causes such unimaginably bitter and toxic conflicts when these debates come up, largely because neither side has ever considered that the other has an entirely different way of interpreting the world around them and human civilisation generally.

When it comes to collectivism, feminists and other "woke" movements see the world in terms of groups. You are in X group, and if another member of X group says this or experiences that, by extension so do you. If a member of X group, or if X group itself, is ridiculed or made fun of by someone, that person is by extension making fun of you and every other member of that group. Etc etc etc etc.

Because of this worldview, they fire back in the same terms. If *a* man does something bad? *Men*, as a *group*, are responsible for him. He's on their "team" and he's "one of them" so all of them have some "connection" to him, because they're men. If something bad is done to a women? Same issue. She's not some random stranger, she's one of *us*. And *we* have to defend another *member* of our *tribe*.

So, so, so much of this ongoing gender war bullsh!t from the 2010s has its root in this very simply discrepancy between how the two groups see the world.

If some random stranger I've never met is killed in a fight, they're killed in a fight. I don't particularly care because I don't know them - not a family member, not a close friend, etc. It provokes a negative reaction in the general "crime sucks and we're too lenient on it" kind of way, but nothing more or less personal than that, because there is a very narrow subset of humans I actually directly care about and/or empathise with, and what we have in common isn't a chromosome or a set of genitalia, it's actual direct personal experience of eachother.

Conversely, if a stranger I've never met does something bad and I hear about it, my gut instinct will be "he sucks, f*ck him" - but nothing further, because I don't know him. He has nothing to do with me, he's not in my life, not even an "extra" in my story, he's a nobody to me because I just don't know him. And therefore I couldn't give a bollocks.

Feminists and other identity-based activist movements, however, just don't see the world like this. If one woman is insulted, objectified, assaulted, murdered etc, they don't see it as an individual thing the way the rest of us do - they see it as a "we are ALL X" thing, because literally everything in life is filtered through an identity-based lens of which *group* one belongs to. That's why there is such an overwhelming push by them to regard individual incidents of everything from disrespect and crass joking to violence and murder, as a group v group thing. Because they are absolutely incapable of understanding that some people in the world see every man or woman as an island, and simply do not subscribe in any way to collectivist beliefs.

I do not believe that men or women are groups. Every individual human being is an individual, and once someone is outside my own personal social circle, their behaviour is not my responsibility and their problems are not my problems. That's why I, and I suspect other men who have the same reaction this week to being called out on this, don't regard it as our problem - I'm not out there being violent or murdering anyone, male or female, and that very specifically is where my involvement in this ends. I don't care about strangers, or their bad behaviour or bad things that happen to them, because they're strangers and they're outside my sphere of influence and/or empathy. I don't know them, I have no connection to them, I just don't have the time or energy to give them a second thought.

That doesn't mean I defend or condone other people doing bad things - of course it doesn't. But this idea that you're obliged to be personally "wired in" to the life experiences and trials and tribulations of everyone you read about in the news is bizarre. Nobody in the world has the emotional or psychological capacity to care that much about that many strangers at all times.

So no, I don't believe this is my problem to fix. I don't allow toxic people, male or female, to be characters in my life. I cut them out. And if some random stranger does something sh!t, that's why he's a stranger. His bullsh!t is nothing to do with me and I strenuously object to being told I have to care just because I, like him, happen to have been born with a d!ck.

There really is only one solution to all this perceived male threat

We all identify as women and then they we'll all be safe..

hatrickpatrick,

I think you're wrong because - as some posters have already pointed out - political liberals will rotate between collectivism and individualism depending on whether or not "white males" are implicated, and to protect their ideology depending who *is* implicated.

So collectivism isn't the bottom line for these activists.

Excellent post, lets see what you can do Helen. Or, anyone in "power" who has a say.

I've seen female guards wolf-whistled at in the centre of Dublin.

This may be partly true (although the commentary earlier this week when the wrong guy was implicated as a Romanian national, and the #KillAllMen crowd were like "it's not where he's from, it's that he's a man" would seem to disagree here) but I think it still stands from the other end - these particular activists see women as a monolithic group in which something which offends or wrongs one of them is somehow by extension an attack on all of them. That is at the root of so, so, so many of the viral outrage movements that have emerged in the last ten years or so - something bad done to or said about a specific woman, is something bad done to or said about "women". It can't be just that individual at that particular moment, because apparently nobody is allowed to exist without the lens of collectivism anymore. Likewise, therefore, if a man does or says something bad to a woman, not only is that bad thing being done or said to women, not just a woman, it's also being done or said by men, not just a man. Because god forbid we all be allowed to exist in this world as individuals without giving a flying f*ck about which group we belong to and which groups we do not.

Well, if you’re speaking for all women here, then I concede on my point.

my own opinion is that not all women are too bothered with it, the way you are painting it.

I never said I agree with wolf whistling. It’s just something that men have done. I would not castigate them for it.

Exactly. I can’t see it as being in any way some issue, serious issue. It’s childish and juvenile, but that’s men/boys. It’s pure innocent pretty much all the time. Nobody is trying to hurt anybody with it.

yes, women will disagree and say they are offended by it. And other women will not at all be offended.

what are ya gonna do?!

@Potential-Monke 'There are currently more women in Ireland than men, for the first time ever I believe'

In 1918, or after any major war, there would have been more women unless I'm missing something.

Now, hassling women in the street is not laughing at a tasteless joke, unless you see passing comments at random women as funny?

Its been commented on in every aspect of the media over the past week.

Here's one example from RTE.

The problem is, its happening to frequent.

You are going to stop it, that's what you are going to do.

This boys will be boys mentality is what women have been speaking out about.

You still refuse to listen.

Well, it really depends on what the tacky jokes are and in what context they are used.

Im sure the man playing his flute at the vigil just thought it was a joke.

It's always been know your audience with jokes, so that is really not anything new.

I think she is talking about using social pressure to make it taboo but of course she can correct me if this isn't the case.

This is a pretty ridiculous idea. Does anyone have a link to what he actually said?

I think there has been a pretty high reaction to the tragic murder. It seems appropriate and proportionate to a rare and terrible event. It's not something that happens regularly and is endemic to Ireland. It's not seen as acceptable or anything other than a tragedy.

There isn't any kind of huge problem with men murdering women at random. There was a terrible murder by a man. That's it.

There's no serious call for any of this. Its just a man expressing a fairly far out opinion at a time of heightened emotion. Pure 3am stuff

ok, are you advocating for a whistle in the direction of women to be deemed a crime?

you seem to be changing goal posts.

harassment is a broad area.