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

An article like this really just illustrates why it's probably better to just not take this "it's all men" thing personally and ultimately just ignore it.

The people writing and publishing this stuff literally have no idea on how we could prevent violence in general or violence against women specifically. They don't have a single good suggestion. What they really want is just to be allowed to rant without challenge.

To be fair, I do know people like this in my personal life. I am sure most people do. That friend or relative who just loves and good moan and a rant and you humor them knowing that nothing will be done and you'll be hearing the same guff the next time you see them but that's OK because it's good for them to vent. Then you open up to them with your problems and they can hardly wait to change the subject. No listening, no sympathy, no empathy. They might as well just come out and say "nobody cares about your problems, let's talk about mine some more".

We should remember that we are discussing a murder here. Not the pay gap. Not jokes. Not abortions. Not mother and baby homes.

People should be outraged over what happened last week. Absolutely. It's a disgrace that an innocent person just out for a run was murdered. We should all be angry and we should all be asking how this could happen.

However, the approach from so many is just all over the place. At times we seem so far off course that we would take an age trying to resolve the mixed messaging going on. You have people complaining about pornography and prostitution alongside people declaring that sex work is real work. Are these things even remotely connected to this murder?

Then you have weird statements like this: "But I also know it is the case that I have allowed myself to snigger at off-colour sexist jokes".

Unfortunately, we'd have to really get into how the human brain is wired if we wanted to make sure that we wouldn't even think to laugh at a sexist joke. Humor will generally come from the unexpected twist or punchline and the tone and intonation of the delivery. I am sure everyone has a moment where they think oh god I should not have laughed at that but in real-time it's not so easy. Again, this has nothing to do with murder.

I don't know why people are so upset that they have to read "not all men" on social media. Maybe stop trying to publicly insist that it is indeed ALL men and you won't get feedback. These are public platforms. You can't seriously expect to make very bold, very provocative and objectively false statements in a public place and have nobody at all even think about correcting you.

Ultimately, you have all of these articles that basically boil down to "would you just let us say that it is all men, even if it isn't, just shut up and let us say that it is". Why? What is the purpose of this?

I don't understand if it's some social experiment or some attempt to gaslight the entire population. I just don't see what the purpose would be or what the intended end goal would be? What if I just accept it and agree? Ok it's all men. Now what? Seriously though, now what?

I don't really like where these kind of articles go when you follow them to a logical conclusion. They seem to believe that a human being is just a blank slate and we can simply impose a way of thinking onto someone and their thoughts will just trundle along on pre-determined rails never to go off course. We already try to do this to some extent in society and we have been doing that with various laws and philosophies and stories and lessons for thousands of years. What we've never really been able to do is to stop individual thought processes from going catastrophically off the rails.

I'm sorry Fergus Finlay but it's not all men. I don't really understand the insistence that an objectively false statement is actually true. It isn't true. It isn't all men. No level of insistence will make it true. You might be able to shame people into never objecting to the use of the phrase but it still won't be true. What would be the point in that anyway?

Don't know why you included that first sentence or why you think anything I wrote contradicted that.

Regarding the second statement, how do you know what effect it has on anyone, man or woman? Unless you're a mind-reader that statement is pure speculation, and it isn't up to you or anyone other than the person involved to decided what effect it has. Also it ain't that rare, I've been the unwilling recipient of all sorts of weird chick's advances, and I've seen it plenty of times. Anecdotal obviously, but enough personal experiences to know it's far from rare, certainly in a nightclub environment. If you want to place more importance on women's welfare than men's, then at least that's a starting point for an honest discussion, but you can't just decide these things have a catastrophic effect on one group and little to no effect on the other, then apply penalties on that basis. Both are sexual assault as should be treated as such.

Again the limits of the Irish media are being shown up.

On the national broadcaster a pundit floats the possibility of licences being introduced for men before they enter the social sphere, while in the third best selling daily broadsheet a man claims ALL men are guilty of sexist behaviour.

Have spoken to several people about violence against women since the murder, generally they hold sensible views, and see that is unacceptable that women feel at risk so often. But they don't come out with utterly stupid shoite like these media outlets.

A few times I intervened to try and stop fights between men. But I always felt that the situation wasn't helped by someone else getting involved. If I came across an incident now I'd generally be inclined to ignore it, unless there was a woman in clear physical danger.

Very often getting involved (even with the best of intentions) can actually inflame a situation. I know it can be hard to leave things alone, but i do think it's often the course of action that'll get the best outcome.

ok so the example I gave earlier in the thread of having my shirt ripped off by a girl is ok then!

thanks I will man up etc since its acceptable and that you never answered my other points

That Mckonkey guy has gotten so fond of hearing his own voice, he's a joke and shouldn't be rolled out anymore or inflicted on the public by RTE or media, I heard the programme live and couldnt believe what I was hearing from him. Ashling Murphy's murder was shocking and dispicable but decent people are being lumped into the bracket of the killer just because they are men. The generalization that has gone on for the past week would make u think all men should be locked up. It's people like Mckonkey trying to jump on the bandwagon that really sicken me. They don't care about a solution with ideas like that, they just want to go with the popular opinion as they hear it.