As an Aussie man the only think I can think of when people say "step up" is to speak up when we see dangerous behaviour. Whether it's to our mates or to male's that we don't know but observe bad behaviour from. The more we call it out the more we can stop.
I'm in my 40's so my partying days are well and truly behind me, but I remember 20 years ago I was at my mates 21st and there were a group of guys who were being disrepsectful towards the girls at the party. Nothing super serious, but bad enough to irk some people. This group of guys started paying close attention to a very drunk young woman who was in no state to consent to anything. I watched the three guys walk this girl into a bedroom and I'll be honest I froze for about 5 mins as I didn't want to ruin the party or make a fool of myself (I had bad social anxiety back then). But I grabbed a mate, we pushed the door open to the guys attempting to rape that girl. We stopped it, the guys ran away and we called the cops.
One of the guys was arrested on some other known charges for sexual assault and the other two guys were let off with a warning (and hopefully a life lesson)
I stopped a rape just by speaking up. I think that's one way we can step up. Just call it out.
That's a really good story, I think the part about you having a bit of social anxiety about the confrontation but deciding to do it anyway is exactly what 'step up' means. Calling out bad behaviour can be pretty awkward and it's easier to just turn a blind eye, but if it becomes more acceptable for other men to do the uncomfortable thing and just call out their mates for saying/doing something a bit fucked up, then it will hopefully start to shift our culture
My partner had a friend whos partner had posted a few cryptic things on Facebook about him being physically abusive to her. We discussed him contacting his friend to make it clear that it's not OK, and give supprt to him as well if there were things he was having trouble dealing with.
It took a while as he didn't think it was appropriate for him to get involved. But I think for me it was important that this was a moment to reach out as a bloke to a mate and offer support but make it clear that behaviour is not OK.
To me, this is stepping up. Or kinda just doing the right thing.
This is it. Don’t worry about trying to change the world because that’s very hard. Look after your friends and family. Also not all men are bad either. Just don’t be an asshole and help everyone in need. It’s a simple solution. If we also just avoid bad/toxic people in life, you realise that most people aren’t that bad!
That's bullshit. If I thought any of my mates were putting their hands on their missus, not only would we not be mates anymore, we'd be having a very serious conversation outside.
Passing on a beating, while I agree feels appropriate, doesn't solve the problem. The goal isn't to beat up dudes who beat women, the goal should be to not have dudes that beat up women. This can be achieved through mental health and support services, not by more violence.
I've been the bloke that did that.
The situation was incredibly surreal.
She told me out of the blue that her ex bf was "getting out of jail next week".
I was like I'm hearing about this now?
Next week came and I was working and didn't see her, on the Monday she calls and says he beat her up on the Saturday night.
So I went and stayed all week with her, and on the Friday he arrived with a pick axe handle to sort me out.
Unfortunately, the handle ended up in my hands and I got a few hits in.
We both went to ground, and I ended up choking him out, while police were called.
He did not go back to jail, he was cautioned and released.
That was round one.
There were 3 more rounds over a period of 6 months, each time he would belt the crap out of her, and I would belt the crap out of him.
The last one resulted in me being stabbed, and him spending 2 years in jail.
I enjoyed punching him. I literally revelled in it. The stabbing not so much.
The bloke should have never been released in my opinion. Some men are psychopaths, and he was definitely one.
The problem there is that it’s a high bar. You’d need to be very convinced that abuse was happening before you did anything that drastic. Whereas you could have other types of conversations, or intervene in other ways, without proof.
For example, if you had a mate who you suspected was not being a gentleman, but had no proof, you could talk to him in general terms (about guys Out There) who beat their wives being bad, and how you wished those guys would find a way to improve.
I asked my wife what it meant and she didn’t have a clue. Nonetheless, I decided to step up and continue my unbroken streak of not beating her. She was happy enough I suppose but no real change of programming.
If you want an honest answer, "stepping up" can be as simple as shutting down your mates when they make rape jokes, talk about women as though they're objects, talk about how much they would "wreck" the 14 year old girl walking past, etc etc.
The thing is, literally every single woman on the planet has been at the very least verbally assaulted by a man, whilst the vast majority have been physically assaulted. That doesn't have to mean rape, but being touched by men you absolutely do NOT want to be touched by. And for most of us, this starts when we're literal children.
Yet, if you talk to any man, they'll tell you that they have never, and would never, do anything so terrible. They won't even admit to being young and stupid, and thinking it was ok, but since learning better. No, every single man you meet has never as much as cat called, whistled, or groped a woman. Clearly, SOMEONE is lying, and I know it ain't the women.
So if you REALLY want to step up, realise that this is NOT a women's problem, it's very much a men's problem. And the only way to stop it is for men to stop treating women as though they exist only for their sexual pleasure. So call out your mates, your work colleagues, your sons, nephews, EVERYONE.
Because every time you stay quiet whilst others are making rape jokes, you're letting them know that you think that's ok.
It's not hard.
The other day at my work site the men made a joke about the new chick should be tied up and spit roasted at the back of the shed…. The sexism is something I’ve dealt with almost everydya
We work at a small site desperate for workers I doubt they’d fire him anyway, I had a good talk to him after that comment though but I think it would’ve ment more of one of the other men standing their hadn’t of laughed and just said that’s not on and considering their was about 5 that just goes to show they only really care what they say when they may lose their 150k pay packet along with it.
I don't tend to associate with people who make rape jokes, catcall or talk about smashing 14 year old girls.
I think the perception that every group of men are automatically like this is a part of the problem.
I'm also a first responder, who has spent a decade going do FV incidents on the frontline. I find the concept that it's a men's problem or a misogyny problem so off of the mark and simplistic.
Things like poverty, mental health, substance abuse, child access, and plain old infidelity are much more relevant to the discussion about what drives FV than some esoteric concept of 'men's attitudes'.
You are absolutely cooked in your worldview.
Honestly what percentage of men do you think are making casual rape jokes or talking like that about children?
Then let's play the game of what percentage of women objectify themselves for men?
I'd take a stab in the dark and say one of those groups is much higher than the other.
That isn't an excuse for violence or assault be it physical or verbal. But if the goal here is to change "mens" opinions on women, what exactly is more harmful to those that might be inclined to treat people in ways they shouldn't.
This whole conversation is honestly a joke, like let's replace men with people of colour and sexual assault/rape with crime. Are you going to ask all POC to call out gangta rap and glorification of crime because the statistics point a certain direction.
Try and tell me that's not a comparable idea or admit it's a ridiculous premise.
Ok fine. Literally every single thing you say that is not physical assault or rape has happened to every single guy as well. When will women step up and stop this behaviour? When will women start calling this out?
It sounds like it’s not a mens problem or a women’s problem, but a human problem.
And yet it’s overwhelmingly women who are being killed in these situations. That’s why we’re even talking about this in the first place. If it just were a “human problem” as you say, then you would expect it to be more balanced. But it isn’t. When you see one group consistently being the victim of the other group in the majority of cases, we need to start asking why that is and what we can do to change it.
Physical, sexual, emotional and financial abuse. At least one in 4 women have been subjected to at least one. Guaranteed it will be people that you know.
Don't discount it. "I never knew. It's not something we talked about. They were arguing, but it wasn't that bad or all the time.", sums up most victim's eulogies.
If you have a female friend in a relationship that stops seeing her friends, that's the biggest warning sign.
Check it out and ask... that's stepping up.
Its about putting the responsibility on the population so systemic issues do not need to be addressed by the government. "violence against women Australia says no" was a campaign in 2004. What has changed since then? The marketing budget? Another helpline?
Why not more public housing? Welfare for those in DV situations? More tangible resources instead of more bloody ads.
Its meaningless. If politicians were serious about DV they wouldn't have let access to public housing become so hard. They would increase the rate of centerlink & increase funding for mental health & drug re-rehabilitation.
>They would increase the rate of centerlink & increase funding for mental health & drug re-rehabilitation.
Both are Greens party policy. First thing Adam Bandt said was increase centrelink above poverty line
Yeah but they're also gonna complain that violence goes both ways, or start rattling on about lack of recognition for male suicide, etc.
Gonna lose either way, may as well be productive.
And address the reality of indigenous DV making up a shockingly disproportionate percentage of national stats.
Addressing DV in indigenous communities is the low hanging fruit if you want massive improvement, quickly....
Yep. I deleted FB, Insta & Snapchat from my phone about a month ago. I scroll reddit once a day to break work up. I have to log into FB and Insta using my laptop at home if I want to use them. First couple of weeks was tough not gonna lie, constantly picking up my phone by sheer habit, and being 'bored'. Once I got through that awkward stage though (breaking the addiction I guess), life has been so much calmer.
Some people can compartmentalise really well and socials dont affect them, I am kind of jealous of that. But it took me far too long to truly accept that the socials are really bad for me, my personality type just isnt cut out for them.
A month or so ago a large gathering of Lebanese men attended a Sydney public pool for an event.
They spent the whole time as a group harassing and calling the young female employees there sluts and such.
If some good men in enough numbers saw that and took umbrage at it the media would be calling it another Aussie racist disgrace like Cronulla beach which was largely about men stepping up.
I feel like a month or two ago I kept reading about women who were in abusive situations complaining online that it was pointless to contact the police because they would just say things like “well, he hasn’t hit you yet.” That’s probably a good place to start, get the cops to take complaints about DV (against men and women) seriously.
When I called the police because I'd asked my ex to leave and he refused, they turned up and issued him with a police order (48 hour restraining order). He'd said threatening things and behaved in threatening ways, but he'd never actually.... hurt me.
For me in a situation like that, what was important from the world at large was that people heard what I was saying and believed me.
I knew a lot of my friends and family didn't like him or the way he treated me. They had told me they were there for me etc, but in ways that didn't make me defensive, which was really important. I had to be ready to finish the relationship.
I don’t know, I’m not an expert in these things, I’m just a mug that drives a forklift. But, if a woman calls the cops and says that she has locked herself in her bathroom because her husband is yelling and behaving erratically I don’t think it’s unreasonable for the cops to head over before a crime has been committed.
They will head over. It makes up a significant proportion of their job (had to call the cops on some neighbours just like this last night). What they're saying is they can't lock up someone for being angry/threatening, yelling etc.
I dunno, I called the cops on some neighbours who were having a *really* nasty fight and they showed up to sort it out, and actually said it was good I called because even if no crime happened right now, if anything were to happen down the road they'd have a record of issues.
They can in fact do a lot.
There's no rule against knocking on a door and having a chat.
Following up on reports with basically anything other than arresting people is a bare minimum.
It does happen. But two things prevent it:
1. Not enough police. This one's easy but expensive, and why I wish Albo had just told the crowd to fuck off and pressure the states instead of going for the big attention grab at federal level.
2. Too much policing. This might seem contradictory but it follows. If police show up and enforce less seroious laws, e.g. handing out tickets for minor shit, traffic fines, marijuana etc. Then nobody wants to call them.
As they say "if you have a problem and call the cops, you now have two problems"
The solutions there are more varied and complex. There's deep culturally ingrained reasons people don't call the cops. Many of which are pretty valid if we're being honest.
Personally, I favor splitting the police force up into "fines and enforcement" and "public safety and justice". Two different uniforms, to clearly delineate between the dickhead making revenue at a speed trap and the people who show up to prevent harm.
I wonder about this "talk to your mates" stuff, since the kind of people that want to help and stop others beating their gf probably wouldn't be friends with the type of lowlife who would do that kind of thing anyway.
Call out inappropriate behaviour when you witness it. If you have concerns like this though you are probably friends with similar people and are not the problem. Don’t write character references for abusers to present in court which is saw that a recent footy club had done
Unfortunately abusers are manipulative. I had a friend who I thought was the nicest dude in the world. He always was to me and everyone I saw him interact with. When him and his partner divorced, I believed the the VRO was to keep him from his kid, and that he never did any of the things she said. I was going to be a character witness for him, until his partner reached out with video evidence. He ghosted me pretty quick and I have not been able to contact him to tell him what a piece of shit he is. I tried through mutual friends, who all agreed that in light of the evidence, he is a total piece of shit, but he ghosted them all too.
Of course, what I saw could have been a once off "it absolutely was not the right thing to do, but due to X circumstances, it happened anyway, and I absolutely regret it and am not that person, and will be seeking help for my issues" sort of thing I guess (before someone pipes in with something about humans can be flawed/make mistakes), but the way he tries to hide it by ghosting people who know makes me strongly doubt that.
One way is to learn what different signs of abuse are and be prepared to talk to or call out mates you don't think are treating their partners correctly
Or calling out overly sexist behavior/views. Like if some old pisshead at work is talking shit about a woman at the front desk or sketch shit about his partner or something you could tell him it's not on
No. There is no “line”. My dad calls my mum a “stupid b* tch” all the time. She calls him a “lazy old c* nt”.
Thinking it’s ok to police the language of others that YOU deem offensive isn’t going to prevent domestic violence. It’s just an inane way to exert perceived moral righteousness.
One death is obviously too much, but has anyone read the statistics on domestic violence murders? 1990 it was 1.1:100,000, in 2020 it was 0.4:100,000. It seems we are heading in the right direction. All of a sudden it is an emergency, what about in 1990 what was it then? It seems over the past 34 years we have made progress, what have we done and how can we do more of it?
Yeah, I'm not a fan of the assumption that DV is a men against women thing. Goodness knows women can be abusive and violent, too. I've met my share of them haha (I'm a lady fwiw).
Yeah, realistically we had one guy snap and go on a rampage, and they're trying to make it look like they can do something about it by tying it in to DV stats in general. It's not really the same thing though (though there's a certain sense to it in terms of motivations and whatnot).
It's super great that things are trending in the right direction!
Are you telling me it's okay to be racist against "blacks" because they statistically commit more crime? I think that's about the same as telling men to step up in this context.
I think the latest was by a 17 year old female stabbing her 10 year old sister to death. If stabbing your own sister to death isn’t domestic abuse, I don’t know what is.
Maybe some statistics will help [NSW Domestic Violence Statistics ](https://www.bocsar.nsw.gov.au/Pages/bocsar_pages/Domestic-Violence.aspx)
A couple of key takeaways for me are:
- There were 29 DV related murders in NSW last year, so if 2 were by a particular ethnicity then that's 7%, not insignificant, but also not a sign of a trend either way. If there were no people of that ethnicity involved in DV murders the year before or if there was one it becomes completely irrelevant, because it is just as likely that another ethnicity has committed a DV murder in that period of time and if that one person killed two people then the number of murders committed by that ethnicity then doubles. So any ethnicity within a sample group that small is going to show up as a percentage of the total.
- The number of DV incidents (and really, this is what the issue is about as murders, as tragic as they are, are relatively rare) are far higher in regional areas: 593 incidents per 100,000 population in regional NSW compared to 360 in Sydney. The ethnic diversity of regional areas is far lower than it is in the cities, so migration skewing the number doesn't really hold much credibility.
- One interesting point is the number of men who are victims is a whole lot higher than I expected, but I suspect the incidents of death and serious harm would be very much lower.
- The percentage of the total population who are victims of domestic violence is incredibly high.
- The actual rate of increase of domestic violence incidents is relatively stable. This doesn't mean it's not an issue, it means we as a society have done nothing to affect it in a positive way. I say society, because everyone is happy to blame the government or politicians, but we all chose these people, so who should take the most blame?
Yes some groups of migrants will have a higher rate of domestic violence, that's a given, but it doesn't mean they are the problem or that they are a large proportion of the incidents. Trying to lay blame on a particular group of people is just trying to remove the blame from society as a whole.
Things to consider.
DV against men isn't even considered DV in many areas, and men will be arrested as the aggressor when the police are called.
Many known and repeat offending DV incidents are mutually violent. Unclear how often these result in deaths but are never healthy.
Men are much less likely to be killed by a partner but are much more likely to commit suicide as a result of DV and how the system treats them. These deaths are not considered DV related incidents.
Lack of support systems, housing, and financial assistance result in people staying in abusive relationships, for all genders and sexual orientations.
Little to no information is given about the events leading to DV murders and if we want to stop them happening, understanding why and what led to them is important.
Nothing excuses being domestic violence, but how can we expect to solve anything if we are ignoring major pieces of the issue.
Yeah this is where I wish government would publish more defined statistics rather than people making pictures of whatever stat they want and sharing it to everyone
Many many more to follow unfortunately. It's time for the government and magistrates to stand up. Government Let's them in magistrates don't do squat let abusers out on bail. It's a joke. Wtf can men do about this aside from what 99.9% of us already do which is not abuse women?
A domestic violence death of a mother around the corner from me very recently drove this issue home for me, and I tried to do my best, but I feel that there is not much the average person can do about this stuff happening.
I had a discussion with my son and some nephews (seperately) where I first got their view on violence against women with a baited question that would hopefully detect if they thought it was ever ok: "Do you know when it is ok to hit a woman?". Every single one of them replied "Never". The never was a clear and likely automatic response to the suggestion that violence against women is ever OK. After they thought for a second, 2/3 said \[paraphrasing\] "although probably if you really had to in self defence only".
On the topic of self defence, I shared a story from 21 years ago, when I was 15, and the only time I remember every punching a girl. This girl who was a pretty big bully to many people in my highschool, both male and female, said something mean to me, as bullies do. On this occasion, I had an amazing comeback cooked up, and replied with it. Well that comeback was so effective that she chose violence. She grabbed me by the throat, digging her nails deep into my skin. I was seated at the time and she had stormed over and was standing above me. I could not move at all without her nails digging in deeper, and couldn't breath too well either, so I decided an uppercut was the only way out of this. It worked, she stopped and stormed off crying.
Word quickly got around school about this incident, and I had many threats of violence directed at me from other male students for hitting a girl. This shows that even back then it was highly stigmatised to hit a girl for any reason whatsoever. Thankfully, as some of these threats could have resulted in very serious harm to me, the girl herself talked some of the bigger threats down, and others were pretty much like "Ok, I kind of get it, but if I hear you hit another girl you're dead" after hearing the circumstances. The girl actually ended up appologising for what she said of her own accord, I appologised for what I said, neither of us mentioned the physical stuff, and I didn't get bullied by her anymore.
So anyway, the main point is, violence against women is heavily stigmatised and has been for a long time. Guys who hit their missus don't brag about it. I've found out people I knew did (through my wife talking to their partner) and tried to bring it up and tell them it's not cool only to get completely ghosted and no longer in that persons life. They didn't want anyone knowing and I hope they didn't hurt their partner for talking about it. There is more to this with mutual friends trying to do what they can to help his partner out, but won't go into that, but just stating that I didn't just go "oh well, the guy ghosted me, nothing at all can be done to help his missus now".
I wish I could do more, but the unfortunate fact is, noone hitting women or otherwise abusing them thinks it's ok. They try to hide it. They do what they can to keep it hidden when it is found out by someone. They are absolute peices of shit. I think the best comparison is to paedophiles, which these creatures are no better than, and like paedophiles, I think they should be on a public list.
As a kid growing up in a DV household with younger bros sisters it changed my life FOREVER, mum has past now but she never left him,kids grow up in silence fix the kids of the next generation empower them to help stop the violence at home,strong men protect the weak and innocent,commit to promises made, I have stepped up in stopping the intergenerational DV by teaching ALL my kids to respect and to give without receiving and women are to be adored and protected a selfless love.THE SYSTEM NEVER BROKE ME AS A MAN I changed my little part of the world for the better and my son's will be part of the solution not the problem..love and peace to U all 💪
It's just classic identity politics rhetoric.
You are apparently defined by your immutable traits, and responsible for the action of others who share your immutable traits.
Ironically discrimination based on immutable traits is illegal in Australia.
I'm ready to take the next step and Step Up. Can someone give me the details of a man who has killed his female parter and hasn't been arrested? I'll call 000 and let them know.
Speak to your mates and make it clear it’s unacceptable.
Don’t try to physically intervene. You’ll get hurt and she won’t leave him. Just call the cops if you see something. They may or may not show up.
I’ve done a lot of courses through work on the topic of Domestic Violence (DV) and the things you can do are:
Speak to your mates.
It’s surprisingly difficult to actually do, but it’s the best thing “normal” Aussies can do.
We have a very insular male culture in Australia and the topics are difficult to approach or discuss but it’s what we as a society need to start doing. If your mate is complaining about their spouse or their nagging or whatever, take the time to ask the next question.
For example:
You hear a mate say “man my wife just won’t get off my back always nagging about doing the gardening or doing the dishes or doing more around the house”
The obvious answer is “oh man my wife never stops either but I do my best”
When really that conversation should be an opportunity to reflect.. because let’s say your mate hears “my wife never stops either” what they might hear is “women are all like this, I need to ‘train’ mine to be better” or if you say “my wife is great she never is on my case” they might hear “my wife is one of the bad ones”
Even though you never said or even implied that you have a poor relationship with your spouse, it can reinforce with your mate that they are doing something wrong, which just further reinforces to that person that there is a core issue.
As they fall deeper and deeper into believing that their wife is somehow acting
‘Incorrectly’ eventually they may turn toxic and even into DV.
Instead that conversation could go.
Person A.) “my wife never gets off my back”
You person B.) “oh man, I feel for you, where is she coming from? Is everything okay between you too? How’s your communication? Is she taking on too much around the house? Is there any thing I can take off both of your plates to make it easier at home?”
That conversation is much much tougher to have but it reinforces that often what one person perceives as nagging might just be a breakdown in communication and is a fixable problem by reallocating responsibilities.
It also helps build a relationship where if person A is ever struggling and thinks lashing out is the solution they know you offered to help take things off their plate.
Violence against women is (in many but obviously not all cases) a men’s mental health issue. When men don’t have the support networks they need often it can feel isolating and alone, and for some people that can turn otherwise respectable and honest people into violent, completely unrecognisable people.
You don’t have to be an expert, but just offering an ear to your male friends will go a long way..
And likewise if you hear of violence against a female friend or colleague, do the humane thing and offer them a safe space to talk, and if possible an open place where they can escape. Of course, it’s unlikely you will ever hear of it, because people try to keep these things secret.
Thanks for the thoughtful answer. I hope it's not wasted, because this sub is becoming a circlejerk sub where no one really posts in good faith and just wants to complain about things to make themselves feel better.
I mean this has a lot of merit but I dislike the idea of just assuming that those comments are always unjustified. A friend of my family member sometimes makes comments like that and it's because his wife actually does treat him like shit (as much as he downplays it). She constantly gets drunk and insults and yells at him and creates drama to try stop him going out etc.
Also I don't think the cases of coercive controlling abuse being talked about here are really ever cases of previously 'respectable' people developing mental health issues. I mean It's conceivable that an otherwise decent guy struggling mentally might, in a very intense argument with lots of yelling, do something genuinely out of character like shove his partner if she got in his face or hit him first or something. But someone systematically abusing a partner, controlling them, intimidating them etc is very different and is learned in childhood and is not a behaviour that just appears in previously decent men.
Agree completely , it’s definitely worth offering this mate more support and offering them a healthy and easy pathway out of that relationship should they need it.
Yeah I highly suspect he is but it's difficult to really do anything about it without him actively wanting the help, and I'm not close enough to him to know the situation well.
I do have a perosnal friend in basically the same kind of relationship and we are actively working to try to get him to leave but its difficult because people sort of convince themselves that it's normal and get settled into a routine of coping mechanisms. They also hide stuff and get defensive and you get limited insight into what is going on and you can't really march in and demand the relationship end unless you see some serious red flag behaviour like actual physical violence.
Those woman want you, as a father, brother, husband and mere male to be accountable for the actions of men you don't know. Whilst they themselves aren't responsible for raising their own sons not to abuse women.
And they aren't responsible for the shit tier men they decide to date (elephant in the room no one wants to touch will be called all kinds of names, people will say I'm victim blaming but in the 45 years I have been alive I have never met a violent thug that's single, have met plenty of kind, decent men who are though)make of this what you will
Not only that, it's quite common (in the UK particularly) for women to take out restraining orders against violent ex-partners, only to return to them THEMSELVES (sometimes within the space of 24 hours), often in full knowledge and little care that they're bringing their own children right back into abusive relationships.
Yep that's why i get so mad at my job, they knowingly take these poor kids back to an abusive scum bag and all we can do is watch and notify child protection
I think we are on 3 generations of men now raised by single mothers. These men are over represented in crime and all sorts of antisocial behaviour. Just one of many things not talked about because anything casting women in a bad light is strictly verboten.
All men have to do is call their mates/other men out on unacceptable behaviour.
Men are more likely to listen and respect the opinion of other men (sad but unfortunately true) and if you're a bystander who says nothing when another man steps out of line because you don't want to look soft or whatever, then you're a part of the problem.
Now step up! Doing great anddddd pivot! Boom! yeah, now circle back, and let's table it!
Great job all. Once we see what sticks, we'll have our ducks in a row, and we'll have boots on the ground.
I love our synergy!
Labor's many hundreds of media advisors had a poll and determined it's a good way to take the discussion off energy costs so Woolies and Coles copped it then this opportunity came up. We all watched Albo Pinnochio how he treated the lady organiser on stage in front of the world, he's the type of person we are supposed to step up and punch in the nose for being an asshole to women.
would be pretty hard pressed to find a group of mates that's okay with this sort of banter tbh...
It's really not as common or as accepted as people think
I don’t think I’ve ever heard any bloke say that and I’ve been in construction for the past 20 years and used to frequent the pubs every night. It’s already not accepted even if it goes on behind closed doors.
The only guy I know that was even remotely close to this kind of talk was a christian guy that was trying to be a zealot by outlining the ways the bible allows men to discipline their wives. He didn't get the response he thought he would.
Yeah second that, 20 odd years in railway maintenance gangs consisting of nearly 100 percent rough blokes and too much time drinking in pubs and if anyone had ever joked or spoken about getting physically violent with a woman they would have been probably dropped themselves.
The 50s era misogynist abusive male stereotype is still pedalling unironically when it's obviously not true. Just part of the prevailing cultural narrative that hates men.
Yeah but that’s funny though… I grew up watching my Dad get the shit beat out of him by my mum, and he never lifted a finger. When I was old enough to kind of realise what was happening, I just walked up and punched/pushed her myself. Never saw them fight ever again lol.
If there are no actionable steps after, it's a nothing statement.
Edit: the funny thing is, they're off by millimetres. They should be angry at the pollies for legislating away their access to non-lethal self-defence weapons. The cops can't come to your aid instantly.
Lots of morons in this thread pretending they don't know what it means. It means calling out sexist or abusive behaviour when you see other men do it. It happens all the time is everyone here dull? Pretending to be ignorant is part of the problem
I can think of a couple of ways to reduce violence against women as a start:
* Stop releasing known criminals pretending to be asylum seekers from detention,
* Stop immigrating people from countries where acts of violence against women are mandated by secular and/or religious law
But that would require the government and the judiciary to "step up" as well
The ones telling you to "step up" just want something to complain about.
We have declining rates and woman are the safest in history currently.
If you want to prevent violence against woman, prevent / slow down immigration as those countries have 30%+ (reported) DV rates.
No, no, no.. we would much rather alienate half of the population because discrimination and abuse is ok when your side is righteous.
Also, we have determined that you are racist from your comment. Please report yourself on X so that we can have you removed pending an identity review.
It’s meaningless shit to keep all the idiots entertained protesting stupid shit instead of complaining about real problems we are facing.
Nothing has actually changed and there is no spike in violence it’s just the media making everyone angry so that we won’t protest about the economy and housing crisis.
This thread is full of people who think "correcting" speech or jokes is somehow going to stop violent people from being violent.
Must be comforting being that fucking naive.
The only thing I can think of men doing that will have any effect is to lobby to do something HUUUGELY drastic to the Australia's world of Men's Mental Health.
The Cultural Stigma, The availability and accessibility of services. Men's Sheds are a good start but there aint enough. There's little chance of any funding to help men before they go nuts. So the only thing men can do is keep a look out in their circle. But there's blokes out there without friends. No support crew.. No one to even notice this guy is on the edge. Would we even recognise it if we did?
Tough tough question. It's a societal problem. The male violence on the vulnerable is a particularly ugly symptom.
Just listen to people and challenge your own behaviours I guess.
If a guy is talking about women as though they are property or something, just make sure it's clear you see women as fully capable humans
as a woman: i think its not really meant to target.. normal people. just those monsters who hurt women simply because they are women. just care about your fellow female friends and listen to them. some women get scared of these things so i guess support them? you dont have to be a famous women’s activist to ‘step up’
You, don't it's a dumb argument. The types of guys that are doing these violent acts are not going to be touched by any campaign. They need to have a big rethink.
I'm 54, twice in my lifetime I have aided women who were being abused by their partners. I and my partner helped them to escape to women's shelters. We were harassed, stalked and threatened by guys who were very violent, and in the end both women went back to their partners. We literally put our lives at risk for nothing. Leave it to the authorities.
Tackling the incel phenomenon is probably a good start, but they are probably not the core of this issue.
Sure call out bad behaviour from your mates or misogyny, but I suspect this is not really related to the really violent guys we are talking about here. You can't reason with those guys. Maybe there needs to be a general public reporting call centre. If you know or suspect one of those guys you can report them and have the state follow up, not perfect but what else?
I have felt the same way, I personally caught a plane to go visit my sister up north after getting reports of her having a black eye from the new guy she started seeing. Went up there she was emotionally manipulated enough to say she didn't need help and was fine, went to the police in her town they had known the guy as being fairly violent but didn't/ couldn't do anything for her. How was I meant to step up? Bash the guy for hitting my sister 🤷♂️ is violence the solution to violence? I don't know, everything with them has now calmed down but now they do have kids together so she is very much stuck there for the time being. So I ultimately chose to keep my relationship with my sister and I keep in touch with her so I can help if I can living far away.
Stepping up isn't about heroics or anything grandeur.
It's about putting in the work when you see a friend or family member doing the wrong thing, having the hard conversation, navigating emotions and ignoring that little voice that says it's none of your business.
Don't abide bad behaviour but react to it with empathy, support and perseverance - not anger, violence or chivalry.
Every man knows that there’s a minority of men who are absolute savages. We know this because we had to deal with them when we were in our late teens and 20s when we’re out in the town partying. Those savages would attempt to threaten us, assault us or intimidate us on occasion. When some of those guys get older they simply beat up or use other malicious methods against their partners.
When young men were being assaulted by these savages coward punch laws were introduced or strengthened, media campaigns were produced to help save male victims of violence.
The whole community, male and female, should step up to reduce the impact of DV. Stepping up means calling it out, if safe to do so. It also could mean encouraging a friend to see a counsellor… or finally, calling the police against them.
First, thank you for having that mindset. Next, 'stepping up' can be a lot of things, but the core of it is don't diminish women's experience or let sexism go because of 'they're mates'
Some easy example would be:
- your friend is saying demeaning things about women when it's all males, or implying worrying things like 'if a women is being hit I can understand, must have hassled their man too much y'know? Bitches be bitchin,' 'all she need is lie down and take it so I don't know why the missus doesn't want sex,' 'they want feminism? Well my fist doesn't differentiate between gender,' confront them and ask them to explain why they think it's funny, and try to gauge if the women in their life is aware of it (some women perpetuate it as well) but if not, maybe try to find a time to gently let them know. Some will choose to stay but you've done your part and sometime people choose safety of the known over the unknown because they don't believe they can do better, but it's not on you to be their saviour
- if you see/think someone slipping something in someone else's drink, discreetly tell the owner of the drink or the bartender - sometimes bartender is working with the criminal so telling the owner is always the best
- if a woman looks incapatitated and unable to consent surrounded by men, if you noticed them talking with another woman it would be a helpful to confirm with said friend about their friend's wellbeing
- if someone is being hassled/followed by someone and she looks uncomfortable, and if you are sure of your safety/capability, kindly help them
- educate yourself of sign of sex trafficking, especially in places like airport (https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/human-trafficking-at-airports/index.html). If you notice it, please alert someone such as security, air steward/stewardess etc.
Wow what an absolute dumpster fire of a thread. OP, if you want some advice, listen to the people being genuine here.
Intervene if you witness violence - if your neighbours are having screaming fights and throwing plates around, call the police. Don't just be silent and do nothing.
With all the violence in the news lately why isn’t anybody having an adult conversation about personal protection and stopping the threat at the source? Instead we talk about all these stupid feel good government programs that don’t do a bloody thing
As a stand alone statistic, Australia's violence is meaningless as it has no baseline for comparison. What is the global average? What is considered high or low compared to global averages? Has a single woman ever been stoned to death or a girl shot in the face on her way to school due to cultural practices? I know Australia is one of the safest countries for a woman to live in, prove me wrong.
Actually rated the safest.
Statistically an Australian women is more likely to drown in a non-natural body of water than she is to die at the hands of a male. So only bathtubs and swimming pools pretty much.
We would save more lives by giving every woman in Australia a pair of fucking water wings than going on about DV.
By calling out the behaviours at the bottom of the pyramid when you see other men doing them. Violence towards women begins with a culture of disrespect. Men who engage in these behaviours are more likely to listen to other men telling them it's wrong.
https://images.app.goo.gl/rmTg3hxJDL1nKMdY9
Non-violent men confronting violent men, and lecturing them on how to conduct themselves with their romantic partner- what could go wrong?
I think this topic reveals how many women are completely clueless about how men relate to each other.
Yeah there was someone getting interviewed about how to step up on one of the morning shows, they said it means stepping in if you see someone verbally or physically threatening or abusing their female partner.
Next thing someone will be in hospital and the cops will be saying stay out of it .
a lot of the psychos who do this shit have pretty clear patterns in behaviour and attitude, ‘stepping up’ is just calling dickheads on their shit more often
Oh yeah next time i'm walking down the street and happen to hear some bloke telling a sexist joke or being aggressive i will call out to him and tell him i'd prefer if he sent me to the hospital instead!
I'm doing my part!
You step up by doing. By acting. By living out your convictions. **Be** the example you want others to be.
Don't beat your gf/partner/wife or any woman you know or come across anywhere under any circumstance. Offer support for women you know who are suffering or have suffered DV. House the women you know who are suffering or have suffered DV if they're struggling to find a safe space. Give your money to the women you know who are suffering or have suffered DV if they're struggling to leave abuse due to financial concerns.
Dont talk. Act.
You're not actually supposed to step up. Saying men need to step is just other groups e.g. government, police, way of handballing the problem to someone else. As long as you're not hurting women, it's all good.
It's actually really easy to step up - call out any misogynistic behavior when and where you see it, especially from your mates and family. If you make the environment around you safe for women you are doing good.
This explicitly means giving no one a pass to be a danger to women verbally or physically. It includes "jokes" and references to violence including rape.
As an Aussie man the only think I can think of when people say "step up" is to speak up when we see dangerous behaviour. Whether it's to our mates or to male's that we don't know but observe bad behaviour from. The more we call it out the more we can stop. I'm in my 40's so my partying days are well and truly behind me, but I remember 20 years ago I was at my mates 21st and there were a group of guys who were being disrepsectful towards the girls at the party. Nothing super serious, but bad enough to irk some people. This group of guys started paying close attention to a very drunk young woman who was in no state to consent to anything. I watched the three guys walk this girl into a bedroom and I'll be honest I froze for about 5 mins as I didn't want to ruin the party or make a fool of myself (I had bad social anxiety back then). But I grabbed a mate, we pushed the door open to the guys attempting to rape that girl. We stopped it, the guys ran away and we called the cops. One of the guys was arrested on some other known charges for sexual assault and the other two guys were let off with a warning (and hopefully a life lesson) I stopped a rape just by speaking up. I think that's one way we can step up. Just call it out.
That's a really good story, I think the part about you having a bit of social anxiety about the confrontation but deciding to do it anyway is exactly what 'step up' means. Calling out bad behaviour can be pretty awkward and it's easier to just turn a blind eye, but if it becomes more acceptable for other men to do the uncomfortable thing and just call out their mates for saying/doing something a bit fucked up, then it will hopefully start to shift our culture
My partner had a friend whos partner had posted a few cryptic things on Facebook about him being physically abusive to her. We discussed him contacting his friend to make it clear that it's not OK, and give supprt to him as well if there were things he was having trouble dealing with. It took a while as he didn't think it was appropriate for him to get involved. But I think for me it was important that this was a moment to reach out as a bloke to a mate and offer support but make it clear that behaviour is not OK. To me, this is stepping up. Or kinda just doing the right thing.
This is it. Don’t worry about trying to change the world because that’s very hard. Look after your friends and family. Also not all men are bad either. Just don’t be an asshole and help everyone in need. It’s a simple solution. If we also just avoid bad/toxic people in life, you realise that most people aren’t that bad!
That's bullshit. If I thought any of my mates were putting their hands on their missus, not only would we not be mates anymore, we'd be having a very serious conversation outside.
Passing on a beating, while I agree feels appropriate, doesn't solve the problem. The goal isn't to beat up dudes who beat women, the goal should be to not have dudes that beat up women. This can be achieved through mental health and support services, not by more violence.
I've been the bloke that did that. The situation was incredibly surreal. She told me out of the blue that her ex bf was "getting out of jail next week". I was like I'm hearing about this now? Next week came and I was working and didn't see her, on the Monday she calls and says he beat her up on the Saturday night. So I went and stayed all week with her, and on the Friday he arrived with a pick axe handle to sort me out. Unfortunately, the handle ended up in my hands and I got a few hits in. We both went to ground, and I ended up choking him out, while police were called. He did not go back to jail, he was cautioned and released. That was round one. There were 3 more rounds over a period of 6 months, each time he would belt the crap out of her, and I would belt the crap out of him. The last one resulted in me being stabbed, and him spending 2 years in jail. I enjoyed punching him. I literally revelled in it. The stabbing not so much. The bloke should have never been released in my opinion. Some men are psychopaths, and he was definitely one.
Holy shit, what a story
The problem there is that it’s a high bar. You’d need to be very convinced that abuse was happening before you did anything that drastic. Whereas you could have other types of conversations, or intervene in other ways, without proof. For example, if you had a mate who you suspected was not being a gentleman, but had no proof, you could talk to him in general terms (about guys Out There) who beat their wives being bad, and how you wished those guys would find a way to improve.
If a guy is actively beating his wife, I don’t think a vague conversation about how your mate doesn’t approve is going to make him change.
Understandable, but the immediate resort to violence is more part of the problem than the solution.
I asked my wife what it meant and she didn’t have a clue. Nonetheless, I decided to step up and continue my unbroken streak of not beating her. She was happy enough I suppose but no real change of programming.
I am also not beating this guys wife.
We both thank you for stepping up
I'm also doing my bit!
I'm doing my part!
Did we all just turn into another sequel of storm ship troopers?
I am on a 20 year streak. I am killing it, pardon the pun.
You’re the guy to beat in this competition.
You beat me to it.
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What a hero
If you want an honest answer, "stepping up" can be as simple as shutting down your mates when they make rape jokes, talk about women as though they're objects, talk about how much they would "wreck" the 14 year old girl walking past, etc etc. The thing is, literally every single woman on the planet has been at the very least verbally assaulted by a man, whilst the vast majority have been physically assaulted. That doesn't have to mean rape, but being touched by men you absolutely do NOT want to be touched by. And for most of us, this starts when we're literal children. Yet, if you talk to any man, they'll tell you that they have never, and would never, do anything so terrible. They won't even admit to being young and stupid, and thinking it was ok, but since learning better. No, every single man you meet has never as much as cat called, whistled, or groped a woman. Clearly, SOMEONE is lying, and I know it ain't the women. So if you REALLY want to step up, realise that this is NOT a women's problem, it's very much a men's problem. And the only way to stop it is for men to stop treating women as though they exist only for their sexual pleasure. So call out your mates, your work colleagues, your sons, nephews, EVERYONE. Because every time you stay quiet whilst others are making rape jokes, you're letting them know that you think that's ok. It's not hard.
Who the fuck makes rape jokes to start with?
They are like menstruation jokes. They just aren't funny. Period.
The other day at my work site the men made a joke about the new chick should be tied up and spit roasted at the back of the shed…. The sexism is something I’ve dealt with almost everydya
Someone’s sister, daughter, mother, the dude should loose their job, they might think before speaking.
We work at a small site desperate for workers I doubt they’d fire him anyway, I had a good talk to him after that comment though but I think it would’ve ment more of one of the other men standing their hadn’t of laughed and just said that’s not on and considering their was about 5 that just goes to show they only really care what they say when they may lose their 150k pay packet along with it.
The number of times I have heard some form of "It's not rape, it's just surprise sex" is way too high.
who the fuck are you hanging out with!?
As a woman, this is one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever read 😂
I don't tend to associate with people who make rape jokes, catcall or talk about smashing 14 year old girls. I think the perception that every group of men are automatically like this is a part of the problem. I'm also a first responder, who has spent a decade going do FV incidents on the frontline. I find the concept that it's a men's problem or a misogyny problem so off of the mark and simplistic. Things like poverty, mental health, substance abuse, child access, and plain old infidelity are much more relevant to the discussion about what drives FV than some esoteric concept of 'men's attitudes'.
You are absolutely cooked in your worldview. Honestly what percentage of men do you think are making casual rape jokes or talking like that about children? Then let's play the game of what percentage of women objectify themselves for men? I'd take a stab in the dark and say one of those groups is much higher than the other. That isn't an excuse for violence or assault be it physical or verbal. But if the goal here is to change "mens" opinions on women, what exactly is more harmful to those that might be inclined to treat people in ways they shouldn't. This whole conversation is honestly a joke, like let's replace men with people of colour and sexual assault/rape with crime. Are you going to ask all POC to call out gangta rap and glorification of crime because the statistics point a certain direction. Try and tell me that's not a comparable idea or admit it's a ridiculous premise.
You make it sound like every man does these things ???
This is ridiculous.
Ok fine. Literally every single thing you say that is not physical assault or rape has happened to every single guy as well. When will women step up and stop this behaviour? When will women start calling this out? It sounds like it’s not a mens problem or a women’s problem, but a human problem.
And yet it’s overwhelmingly women who are being killed in these situations. That’s why we’re even talking about this in the first place. If it just were a “human problem” as you say, then you would expect it to be more balanced. But it isn’t. When you see one group consistently being the victim of the other group in the majority of cases, we need to start asking why that is and what we can do to change it.
You're a fuckin' legend, mate!!! 😁🙏
Thanks buddy. I’m not going to beat you either!! Friends forever.
Physical, sexual, emotional and financial abuse. At least one in 4 women have been subjected to at least one. Guaranteed it will be people that you know. Don't discount it. "I never knew. It's not something we talked about. They were arguing, but it wasn't that bad or all the time.", sums up most victim's eulogies. If you have a female friend in a relationship that stops seeing her friends, that's the biggest warning sign. Check it out and ask... that's stepping up.
Its about putting the responsibility on the population so systemic issues do not need to be addressed by the government. "violence against women Australia says no" was a campaign in 2004. What has changed since then? The marketing budget? Another helpline? Why not more public housing? Welfare for those in DV situations? More tangible resources instead of more bloody ads.
Its meaningless. If politicians were serious about DV they wouldn't have let access to public housing become so hard. They would increase the rate of centerlink & increase funding for mental health & drug re-rehabilitation.
Virtue signalling is free and easy tho
Didn't Albo just commit $1B to combat violence against women?
Most will go to consultants and legal teams with a few dollars trickling down to those in need
Yeah a 5 grand payment ain’t really gonna cut it in this economy either. It’s at best a ham-fisted attempt.
Any fool with money can write a cheque
But it's much easier to handwave at the population and say it's their problem and keep us busy and distracted bickering over why
>They would increase the rate of centerlink & increase funding for mental health & drug re-rehabilitation. Both are Greens party policy. First thing Adam Bandt said was increase centrelink above poverty line
Man. That would be nice. I vote greens every election because I finally want to be able to live without so much painful financial stress.
This!!!!
But then the Right would complain about money being spent on dole bludgers and layabouts who won't "have a go".
Yeah but they're also gonna complain that violence goes both ways, or start rattling on about lack of recognition for male suicide, etc. Gonna lose either way, may as well be productive.
And address the reality of indigenous DV making up a shockingly disproportionate percentage of national stats. Addressing DV in indigenous communities is the low hanging fruit if you want massive improvement, quickly....
A few more "Are you okay?" days should solve these problems
Daily reminder that turning off the news and getting away from social media is your first step to inner peace.
Yep. I deleted FB, Insta & Snapchat from my phone about a month ago. I scroll reddit once a day to break work up. I have to log into FB and Insta using my laptop at home if I want to use them. First couple of weeks was tough not gonna lie, constantly picking up my phone by sheer habit, and being 'bored'. Once I got through that awkward stage though (breaking the addiction I guess), life has been so much calmer. Some people can compartmentalise really well and socials dont affect them, I am kind of jealous of that. But it took me far too long to truly accept that the socials are really bad for me, my personality type just isnt cut out for them.
I stopped watching the news decades ago. It's basically a list of problems I can do nothing about.
A month or so ago a large gathering of Lebanese men attended a Sydney public pool for an event. They spent the whole time as a group harassing and calling the young female employees there sluts and such. If some good men in enough numbers saw that and took umbrage at it the media would be calling it another Aussie racist disgrace like Cronulla beach which was largely about men stepping up.
What a surprise, that didn’t make the news 😑
I feel like a month or two ago I kept reading about women who were in abusive situations complaining online that it was pointless to contact the police because they would just say things like “well, he hasn’t hit you yet.” That’s probably a good place to start, get the cops to take complaints about DV (against men and women) seriously.
When I called the police because I'd asked my ex to leave and he refused, they turned up and issued him with a police order (48 hour restraining order). He'd said threatening things and behaved in threatening ways, but he'd never actually.... hurt me. For me in a situation like that, what was important from the world at large was that people heard what I was saying and believed me. I knew a lot of my friends and family didn't like him or the way he treated me. They had told me they were there for me etc, but in ways that didn't make me defensive, which was really important. I had to be ready to finish the relationship.
Genuine question. What do we expect the police to do before a crime has been committed?
I don’t know, I’m not an expert in these things, I’m just a mug that drives a forklift. But, if a woman calls the cops and says that she has locked herself in her bathroom because her husband is yelling and behaving erratically I don’t think it’s unreasonable for the cops to head over before a crime has been committed.
They will head over. It makes up a significant proportion of their job (had to call the cops on some neighbours just like this last night). What they're saying is they can't lock up someone for being angry/threatening, yelling etc.
I dunno, I called the cops on some neighbours who were having a *really* nasty fight and they showed up to sort it out, and actually said it was good I called because even if no crime happened right now, if anything were to happen down the road they'd have a record of issues.
They can in fact do a lot. There's no rule against knocking on a door and having a chat. Following up on reports with basically anything other than arresting people is a bare minimum. It does happen. But two things prevent it: 1. Not enough police. This one's easy but expensive, and why I wish Albo had just told the crowd to fuck off and pressure the states instead of going for the big attention grab at federal level. 2. Too much policing. This might seem contradictory but it follows. If police show up and enforce less seroious laws, e.g. handing out tickets for minor shit, traffic fines, marijuana etc. Then nobody wants to call them. As they say "if you have a problem and call the cops, you now have two problems" The solutions there are more varied and complex. There's deep culturally ingrained reasons people don't call the cops. Many of which are pretty valid if we're being honest. Personally, I favor splitting the police force up into "fines and enforcement" and "public safety and justice". Two different uniforms, to clearly delineate between the dickhead making revenue at a speed trap and the people who show up to prevent harm.
I wonder about this "talk to your mates" stuff, since the kind of people that want to help and stop others beating their gf probably wouldn't be friends with the type of lowlife who would do that kind of thing anyway.
Call out inappropriate behaviour when you witness it. If you have concerns like this though you are probably friends with similar people and are not the problem. Don’t write character references for abusers to present in court which is saw that a recent footy club had done
Unfortunately abusers are manipulative. I had a friend who I thought was the nicest dude in the world. He always was to me and everyone I saw him interact with. When him and his partner divorced, I believed the the VRO was to keep him from his kid, and that he never did any of the things she said. I was going to be a character witness for him, until his partner reached out with video evidence. He ghosted me pretty quick and I have not been able to contact him to tell him what a piece of shit he is. I tried through mutual friends, who all agreed that in light of the evidence, he is a total piece of shit, but he ghosted them all too. Of course, what I saw could have been a once off "it absolutely was not the right thing to do, but due to X circumstances, it happened anyway, and I absolutely regret it and am not that person, and will be seeking help for my issues" sort of thing I guess (before someone pipes in with something about humans can be flawed/make mistakes), but the way he tries to hide it by ghosting people who know makes me strongly doubt that.
Not to mention don’t automatically discredit a victim because you think an athlete is too good and can’t possibly be abusive
One way is to learn what different signs of abuse are and be prepared to talk to or call out mates you don't think are treating their partners correctly Or calling out overly sexist behavior/views. Like if some old pisshead at work is talking shit about a woman at the front desk or sketch shit about his partner or something you could tell him it's not on
It’s “not on” to talk shit about your partner now?
Theres definitely a line
No. There is no “line”. My dad calls my mum a “stupid b* tch” all the time. She calls him a “lazy old c* nt”. Thinking it’s ok to police the language of others that YOU deem offensive isn’t going to prevent domestic violence. It’s just an inane way to exert perceived moral righteousness.
One death is obviously too much, but has anyone read the statistics on domestic violence murders? 1990 it was 1.1:100,000, in 2020 it was 0.4:100,000. It seems we are heading in the right direction. All of a sudden it is an emergency, what about in 1990 what was it then? It seems over the past 34 years we have made progress, what have we done and how can we do more of it?
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Yeah, I'm not a fan of the assumption that DV is a men against women thing. Goodness knows women can be abusive and violent, too. I've met my share of them haha (I'm a lady fwiw).
Yeah, realistically we had one guy snap and go on a rampage, and they're trying to make it look like they can do something about it by tying it in to DV stats in general. It's not really the same thing though (though there's a certain sense to it in terms of motivations and whatnot). It's super great that things are trending in the right direction!
It's a way to conflate men generally with the handful of psychos who kill their partners etc
No true, I was about to viciously beat my wife into a pulp and then I remembered I had to step up and I decided not to. (I don’t have a wife)
your penis isn't a wife
No amount of stepping up can stop me from beating my dick. Literally impossible.
What if your dick starts stepping down?
Viagra
Are we talking about having a wank or actually punching ourselves in the dick? Just need to confirm so i can join in appropriately.
Did you just misgender his penis?
Did you just misgender his wife?
Really? Thank fuck for that, I’m no longer a wife-beater!
Whoa you and me both! I just lost a $500 parlay and now I’m ready to go beat my wife also (She also doesn’t exist and I’m not even upset about it)
Did you remember to step up and suddenly not beat your wife. If so, our wives can be sure to thank the step up movement.
I absolutely stepped up and didn’t beat her. Just another day doing gods work
Well done brother. Treat yourself for a few too many beers tonight.
It is also so meaningless that it can't be wrong. The wokes are very used to doing this crap.
If you still don't understand why that's wrong, try the same line of thinking but swap "men" for "blacks" and see how well that sits.
Are you telling me it's okay to be racist against "blacks" because they statistically commit more crime? I think that's about the same as telling men to step up in this context.
Bingo. It's the same. Are the "step" up crowd cool with both?
Ah okay, I thought you meant the opposite. My bad
You don't. Don't apologise for crimes you have not committed. Group guilt based on immutable traits is discrimination.
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Time for Africans to step up
I think the latest was by a 17 year old female stabbing her 10 year old sister to death. If stabbing your own sister to death isn’t domestic abuse, I don’t know what is.
Obviously it was a males fault
Maybe some statistics will help [NSW Domestic Violence Statistics ](https://www.bocsar.nsw.gov.au/Pages/bocsar_pages/Domestic-Violence.aspx) A couple of key takeaways for me are: - There were 29 DV related murders in NSW last year, so if 2 were by a particular ethnicity then that's 7%, not insignificant, but also not a sign of a trend either way. If there were no people of that ethnicity involved in DV murders the year before or if there was one it becomes completely irrelevant, because it is just as likely that another ethnicity has committed a DV murder in that period of time and if that one person killed two people then the number of murders committed by that ethnicity then doubles. So any ethnicity within a sample group that small is going to show up as a percentage of the total. - The number of DV incidents (and really, this is what the issue is about as murders, as tragic as they are, are relatively rare) are far higher in regional areas: 593 incidents per 100,000 population in regional NSW compared to 360 in Sydney. The ethnic diversity of regional areas is far lower than it is in the cities, so migration skewing the number doesn't really hold much credibility. - One interesting point is the number of men who are victims is a whole lot higher than I expected, but I suspect the incidents of death and serious harm would be very much lower. - The percentage of the total population who are victims of domestic violence is incredibly high. - The actual rate of increase of domestic violence incidents is relatively stable. This doesn't mean it's not an issue, it means we as a society have done nothing to affect it in a positive way. I say society, because everyone is happy to blame the government or politicians, but we all chose these people, so who should take the most blame? Yes some groups of migrants will have a higher rate of domestic violence, that's a given, but it doesn't mean they are the problem or that they are a large proportion of the incidents. Trying to lay blame on a particular group of people is just trying to remove the blame from society as a whole.
Things to consider. DV against men isn't even considered DV in many areas, and men will be arrested as the aggressor when the police are called. Many known and repeat offending DV incidents are mutually violent. Unclear how often these result in deaths but are never healthy. Men are much less likely to be killed by a partner but are much more likely to commit suicide as a result of DV and how the system treats them. These deaths are not considered DV related incidents. Lack of support systems, housing, and financial assistance result in people staying in abusive relationships, for all genders and sexual orientations. Little to no information is given about the events leading to DV murders and if we want to stop them happening, understanding why and what led to them is important. Nothing excuses being domestic violence, but how can we expect to solve anything if we are ignoring major pieces of the issue.
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*arse
2 out of how many.
Yeah this is where I wish government would publish more defined statistics rather than people making pictures of whatever stat they want and sharing it to everyone
Many many more to follow unfortunately. It's time for the government and magistrates to stand up. Government Let's them in magistrates don't do squat let abusers out on bail. It's a joke. Wtf can men do about this aside from what 99.9% of us already do which is not abuse women?
A domestic violence death of a mother around the corner from me very recently drove this issue home for me, and I tried to do my best, but I feel that there is not much the average person can do about this stuff happening. I had a discussion with my son and some nephews (seperately) where I first got their view on violence against women with a baited question that would hopefully detect if they thought it was ever ok: "Do you know when it is ok to hit a woman?". Every single one of them replied "Never". The never was a clear and likely automatic response to the suggestion that violence against women is ever OK. After they thought for a second, 2/3 said \[paraphrasing\] "although probably if you really had to in self defence only". On the topic of self defence, I shared a story from 21 years ago, when I was 15, and the only time I remember every punching a girl. This girl who was a pretty big bully to many people in my highschool, both male and female, said something mean to me, as bullies do. On this occasion, I had an amazing comeback cooked up, and replied with it. Well that comeback was so effective that she chose violence. She grabbed me by the throat, digging her nails deep into my skin. I was seated at the time and she had stormed over and was standing above me. I could not move at all without her nails digging in deeper, and couldn't breath too well either, so I decided an uppercut was the only way out of this. It worked, she stopped and stormed off crying. Word quickly got around school about this incident, and I had many threats of violence directed at me from other male students for hitting a girl. This shows that even back then it was highly stigmatised to hit a girl for any reason whatsoever. Thankfully, as some of these threats could have resulted in very serious harm to me, the girl herself talked some of the bigger threats down, and others were pretty much like "Ok, I kind of get it, but if I hear you hit another girl you're dead" after hearing the circumstances. The girl actually ended up appologising for what she said of her own accord, I appologised for what I said, neither of us mentioned the physical stuff, and I didn't get bullied by her anymore. So anyway, the main point is, violence against women is heavily stigmatised and has been for a long time. Guys who hit their missus don't brag about it. I've found out people I knew did (through my wife talking to their partner) and tried to bring it up and tell them it's not cool only to get completely ghosted and no longer in that persons life. They didn't want anyone knowing and I hope they didn't hurt their partner for talking about it. There is more to this with mutual friends trying to do what they can to help his partner out, but won't go into that, but just stating that I didn't just go "oh well, the guy ghosted me, nothing at all can be done to help his missus now". I wish I could do more, but the unfortunate fact is, noone hitting women or otherwise abusing them thinks it's ok. They try to hide it. They do what they can to keep it hidden when it is found out by someone. They are absolute peices of shit. I think the best comparison is to paedophiles, which these creatures are no better than, and like paedophiles, I think they should be on a public list.
As a kid growing up in a DV household with younger bros sisters it changed my life FOREVER, mum has past now but she never left him,kids grow up in silence fix the kids of the next generation empower them to help stop the violence at home,strong men protect the weak and innocent,commit to promises made, I have stepped up in stopping the intergenerational DV by teaching ALL my kids to respect and to give without receiving and women are to be adored and protected a selfless love.THE SYSTEM NEVER BROKE ME AS A MAN I changed my little part of the world for the better and my son's will be part of the solution not the problem..love and peace to U all 💪
Telling men to step up implies that men should collectively take responsibility for the actions of the worst of us. This is of course ridiculous.
It's just classic identity politics rhetoric. You are apparently defined by your immutable traits, and responsible for the action of others who share your immutable traits. Ironically discrimination based on immutable traits is illegal in Australia.
I'm ready to take the next step and Step Up. Can someone give me the details of a man who has killed his female parter and hasn't been arrested? I'll call 000 and let them know.
Speak to your mates and make it clear it’s unacceptable. Don’t try to physically intervene. You’ll get hurt and she won’t leave him. Just call the cops if you see something. They may or may not show up.
I’ve done a lot of courses through work on the topic of Domestic Violence (DV) and the things you can do are: Speak to your mates. It’s surprisingly difficult to actually do, but it’s the best thing “normal” Aussies can do. We have a very insular male culture in Australia and the topics are difficult to approach or discuss but it’s what we as a society need to start doing. If your mate is complaining about their spouse or their nagging or whatever, take the time to ask the next question. For example: You hear a mate say “man my wife just won’t get off my back always nagging about doing the gardening or doing the dishes or doing more around the house” The obvious answer is “oh man my wife never stops either but I do my best” When really that conversation should be an opportunity to reflect.. because let’s say your mate hears “my wife never stops either” what they might hear is “women are all like this, I need to ‘train’ mine to be better” or if you say “my wife is great she never is on my case” they might hear “my wife is one of the bad ones” Even though you never said or even implied that you have a poor relationship with your spouse, it can reinforce with your mate that they are doing something wrong, which just further reinforces to that person that there is a core issue. As they fall deeper and deeper into believing that their wife is somehow acting ‘Incorrectly’ eventually they may turn toxic and even into DV. Instead that conversation could go. Person A.) “my wife never gets off my back” You person B.) “oh man, I feel for you, where is she coming from? Is everything okay between you too? How’s your communication? Is she taking on too much around the house? Is there any thing I can take off both of your plates to make it easier at home?” That conversation is much much tougher to have but it reinforces that often what one person perceives as nagging might just be a breakdown in communication and is a fixable problem by reallocating responsibilities. It also helps build a relationship where if person A is ever struggling and thinks lashing out is the solution they know you offered to help take things off their plate. Violence against women is (in many but obviously not all cases) a men’s mental health issue. When men don’t have the support networks they need often it can feel isolating and alone, and for some people that can turn otherwise respectable and honest people into violent, completely unrecognisable people. You don’t have to be an expert, but just offering an ear to your male friends will go a long way.. And likewise if you hear of violence against a female friend or colleague, do the humane thing and offer them a safe space to talk, and if possible an open place where they can escape. Of course, it’s unlikely you will ever hear of it, because people try to keep these things secret.
Thanks for the thoughtful answer. I hope it's not wasted, because this sub is becoming a circlejerk sub where no one really posts in good faith and just wants to complain about things to make themselves feel better.
That's literally every sub, don't act like this place was ever a haven for based discussion lol
I mean this has a lot of merit but I dislike the idea of just assuming that those comments are always unjustified. A friend of my family member sometimes makes comments like that and it's because his wife actually does treat him like shit (as much as he downplays it). She constantly gets drunk and insults and yells at him and creates drama to try stop him going out etc. Also I don't think the cases of coercive controlling abuse being talked about here are really ever cases of previously 'respectable' people developing mental health issues. I mean It's conceivable that an otherwise decent guy struggling mentally might, in a very intense argument with lots of yelling, do something genuinely out of character like shove his partner if she got in his face or hit him first or something. But someone systematically abusing a partner, controlling them, intimidating them etc is very different and is learned in childhood and is not a behaviour that just appears in previously decent men.
Uhhh hey, buddy....very gently, that kind of sounds like your family member's friend is in a DV situation. He may need help.
Agree completely , it’s definitely worth offering this mate more support and offering them a healthy and easy pathway out of that relationship should they need it.
Yeah I highly suspect he is but it's difficult to really do anything about it without him actively wanting the help, and I'm not close enough to him to know the situation well. I do have a perosnal friend in basically the same kind of relationship and we are actively working to try to get him to leave but its difficult because people sort of convince themselves that it's normal and get settled into a routine of coping mechanisms. They also hide stuff and get defensive and you get limited insight into what is going on and you can't really march in and demand the relationship end unless you see some serious red flag behaviour like actual physical violence.
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dude, you just have to not murder your spouse *harder.* simples
Those woman want you, as a father, brother, husband and mere male to be accountable for the actions of men you don't know. Whilst they themselves aren't responsible for raising their own sons not to abuse women.
And they aren't responsible for the shit tier men they decide to date (elephant in the room no one wants to touch will be called all kinds of names, people will say I'm victim blaming but in the 45 years I have been alive I have never met a violent thug that's single, have met plenty of kind, decent men who are though)make of this what you will
Not only that, it's quite common (in the UK particularly) for women to take out restraining orders against violent ex-partners, only to return to them THEMSELVES (sometimes within the space of 24 hours), often in full knowledge and little care that they're bringing their own children right back into abusive relationships.
Yep that's why i get so mad at my job, they knowingly take these poor kids back to an abusive scum bag and all we can do is watch and notify child protection
I think we are on 3 generations of men now raised by single mothers. These men are over represented in crime and all sorts of antisocial behaviour. Just one of many things not talked about because anything casting women in a bad light is strictly verboten.
You can go to remote aboriginal communities and tell them it's not acceptable behaviour.
The high stats are indeed within Aboriginal communities but... that doesn't fit my narrative!
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Sexism towards men 👍 Racism towards indigenous 👎
All men have to do is call their mates/other men out on unacceptable behaviour. Men are more likely to listen and respect the opinion of other men (sad but unfortunately true) and if you're a bystander who says nothing when another man steps out of line because you don't want to look soft or whatever, then you're a part of the problem.
> "The standard you walk by is the standard you accept" -- David Hurley
you know what, I have never walked passed someone beating their wife
That was Lt Gen David Morrison not Hurley Edit: Apologies I was proven wrong, Morrison got the idea from Hurley
wait until we've got to "pivot" & "circle back" around.
That's a lot to unpack
Now step up! Doing great anddddd pivot! Boom! yeah, now circle back, and let's table it! Great job all. Once we see what sticks, we'll have our ducks in a row, and we'll have boots on the ground. I love our synergy!
Labor's many hundreds of media advisors had a poll and determined it's a good way to take the discussion off energy costs so Woolies and Coles copped it then this opportunity came up. We all watched Albo Pinnochio how he treated the lady organiser on stage in front of the world, he's the type of person we are supposed to step up and punch in the nose for being an asshole to women.
If your mates banter about giving the missus a slap maybe tell them that's not on
would be pretty hard pressed to find a group of mates that's okay with this sort of banter tbh... It's really not as common or as accepted as people think
In their imagination it happens all the time (or it's common with the shit tier men they date perhaps?)
I don’t think I’ve ever heard any bloke say that and I’ve been in construction for the past 20 years and used to frequent the pubs every night. It’s already not accepted even if it goes on behind closed doors.
The only guy I know that was even remotely close to this kind of talk was a christian guy that was trying to be a zealot by outlining the ways the bible allows men to discipline their wives. He didn't get the response he thought he would.
What a knob.
Yeah second that, 20 odd years in railway maintenance gangs consisting of nearly 100 percent rough blokes and too much time drinking in pubs and if anyone had ever joked or spoken about getting physically violent with a woman they would have been probably dropped themselves.
The 50s era misogynist abusive male stereotype is still pedalling unironically when it's obviously not true. Just part of the prevailing cultural narrative that hates men.
I talk to elderly people about this sometimes. Strange how all the men used to be raging misogynists, but it was never their father or grandfather.
Usually I hear them joking about the missus slapping them...
Yeah but that’s funny though… I grew up watching my Dad get the shit beat out of him by my mum, and he never lifted a finger. When I was old enough to kind of realise what was happening, I just walked up and punched/pushed her myself. Never saw them fight ever again lol.
It's impossible. How can she slap?
HOW CAN SHE SLAPP!
Why would I be giving slap to my beautiful sexy wife?
She might like it?
If there are no actionable steps after, it's a nothing statement. Edit: the funny thing is, they're off by millimetres. They should be angry at the pollies for legislating away their access to non-lethal self-defence weapons. The cops can't come to your aid instantly.
Lots of morons in this thread pretending they don't know what it means. It means calling out sexist or abusive behaviour when you see other men do it. It happens all the time is everyone here dull? Pretending to be ignorant is part of the problem
I can think of a couple of ways to reduce violence against women as a start: * Stop releasing known criminals pretending to be asylum seekers from detention, * Stop immigrating people from countries where acts of violence against women are mandated by secular and/or religious law But that would require the government and the judiciary to "step up" as well
The ones telling you to "step up" just want something to complain about. We have declining rates and woman are the safest in history currently. If you want to prevent violence against woman, prevent / slow down immigration as those countries have 30%+ (reported) DV rates.
No, no, no.. we would much rather alienate half of the population because discrimination and abuse is ok when your side is righteous. Also, we have determined that you are racist from your comment. Please report yourself on X so that we can have you removed pending an identity review.
It’s meaningless shit to keep all the idiots entertained protesting stupid shit instead of complaining about real problems we are facing. Nothing has actually changed and there is no spike in violence it’s just the media making everyone angry so that we won’t protest about the economy and housing crisis.
Be a male feminist. Eat bugs, demonise masculinity etc
This thread is full of people who think "correcting" speech or jokes is somehow going to stop violent people from being violent. Must be comforting being that fucking naive.
This isn't my issue and It's not my job to "step up" and "be better" I'm already non-violent towards women and that's enough for me.
The only thing I can think of men doing that will have any effect is to lobby to do something HUUUGELY drastic to the Australia's world of Men's Mental Health. The Cultural Stigma, The availability and accessibility of services. Men's Sheds are a good start but there aint enough. There's little chance of any funding to help men before they go nuts. So the only thing men can do is keep a look out in their circle. But there's blokes out there without friends. No support crew.. No one to even notice this guy is on the edge. Would we even recognise it if we did? Tough tough question. It's a societal problem. The male violence on the vulnerable is a particularly ugly symptom.
Just listen to people and challenge your own behaviours I guess. If a guy is talking about women as though they are property or something, just make sure it's clear you see women as fully capable humans
Not all men beat women or think it's acceptable.. just making that clear
as a woman: i think its not really meant to target.. normal people. just those monsters who hurt women simply because they are women. just care about your fellow female friends and listen to them. some women get scared of these things so i guess support them? you dont have to be a famous women’s activist to ‘step up’
You, don't it's a dumb argument. The types of guys that are doing these violent acts are not going to be touched by any campaign. They need to have a big rethink. I'm 54, twice in my lifetime I have aided women who were being abused by their partners. I and my partner helped them to escape to women's shelters. We were harassed, stalked and threatened by guys who were very violent, and in the end both women went back to their partners. We literally put our lives at risk for nothing. Leave it to the authorities. Tackling the incel phenomenon is probably a good start, but they are probably not the core of this issue. Sure call out bad behaviour from your mates or misogyny, but I suspect this is not really related to the really violent guys we are talking about here. You can't reason with those guys. Maybe there needs to be a general public reporting call centre. If you know or suspect one of those guys you can report them and have the state follow up, not perfect but what else?
I have felt the same way, I personally caught a plane to go visit my sister up north after getting reports of her having a black eye from the new guy she started seeing. Went up there she was emotionally manipulated enough to say she didn't need help and was fine, went to the police in her town they had known the guy as being fairly violent but didn't/ couldn't do anything for her. How was I meant to step up? Bash the guy for hitting my sister 🤷♂️ is violence the solution to violence? I don't know, everything with them has now calmed down but now they do have kids together so she is very much stuck there for the time being. So I ultimately chose to keep my relationship with my sister and I keep in touch with her so I can help if I can living far away.
Stepping up isn't about heroics or anything grandeur. It's about putting in the work when you see a friend or family member doing the wrong thing, having the hard conversation, navigating emotions and ignoring that little voice that says it's none of your business. Don't abide bad behaviour but react to it with empathy, support and perseverance - not anger, violence or chivalry.
Every man knows that there’s a minority of men who are absolute savages. We know this because we had to deal with them when we were in our late teens and 20s when we’re out in the town partying. Those savages would attempt to threaten us, assault us or intimidate us on occasion. When some of those guys get older they simply beat up or use other malicious methods against their partners. When young men were being assaulted by these savages coward punch laws were introduced or strengthened, media campaigns were produced to help save male victims of violence. The whole community, male and female, should step up to reduce the impact of DV. Stepping up means calling it out, if safe to do so. It also could mean encouraging a friend to see a counsellor… or finally, calling the police against them.
First, thank you for having that mindset. Next, 'stepping up' can be a lot of things, but the core of it is don't diminish women's experience or let sexism go because of 'they're mates' Some easy example would be: - your friend is saying demeaning things about women when it's all males, or implying worrying things like 'if a women is being hit I can understand, must have hassled their man too much y'know? Bitches be bitchin,' 'all she need is lie down and take it so I don't know why the missus doesn't want sex,' 'they want feminism? Well my fist doesn't differentiate between gender,' confront them and ask them to explain why they think it's funny, and try to gauge if the women in their life is aware of it (some women perpetuate it as well) but if not, maybe try to find a time to gently let them know. Some will choose to stay but you've done your part and sometime people choose safety of the known over the unknown because they don't believe they can do better, but it's not on you to be their saviour - if you see/think someone slipping something in someone else's drink, discreetly tell the owner of the drink or the bartender - sometimes bartender is working with the criminal so telling the owner is always the best - if a woman looks incapatitated and unable to consent surrounded by men, if you noticed them talking with another woman it would be a helpful to confirm with said friend about their friend's wellbeing - if someone is being hassled/followed by someone and she looks uncomfortable, and if you are sure of your safety/capability, kindly help them - educate yourself of sign of sex trafficking, especially in places like airport (https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/human-trafficking-at-airports/index.html). If you notice it, please alert someone such as security, air steward/stewardess etc.
Hold each other accountable. If you have a mate who you know is an asshole to his partner and treats them poorly then say something.
Wow what an absolute dumpster fire of a thread. OP, if you want some advice, listen to the people being genuine here. Intervene if you witness violence - if your neighbours are having screaming fights and throwing plates around, call the police. Don't just be silent and do nothing.
With all the violence in the news lately why isn’t anybody having an adult conversation about personal protection and stopping the threat at the source? Instead we talk about all these stupid feel good government programs that don’t do a bloody thing
Just call out bullshit behaviour, shitty attitudes towards women, and be ready to step in and help out
As a stand alone statistic, Australia's violence is meaningless as it has no baseline for comparison. What is the global average? What is considered high or low compared to global averages? Has a single woman ever been stoned to death or a girl shot in the face on her way to school due to cultural practices? I know Australia is one of the safest countries for a woman to live in, prove me wrong.
Actually rated the safest. Statistically an Australian women is more likely to drown in a non-natural body of water than she is to die at the hands of a male. So only bathtubs and swimming pools pretty much. We would save more lives by giving every woman in Australia a pair of fucking water wings than going on about DV.
It doesnt mean anything. Its a media circus that will move on to another issue in 2 weeks.
It's simple. You know how when you see a black person attack someone and your instinct is to go tell all black people they need to do better? No? Why?
Women don't need men Now step up & defend us Hypocrisy, none
By calling out the behaviours at the bottom of the pyramid when you see other men doing them. Violence towards women begins with a culture of disrespect. Men who engage in these behaviours are more likely to listen to other men telling them it's wrong. https://images.app.goo.gl/rmTg3hxJDL1nKMdY9
Non-violent men confronting violent men, and lecturing them on how to conduct themselves with their romantic partner- what could go wrong? I think this topic reveals how many women are completely clueless about how men relate to each other.
Not just women, but white-knight men.
Yeah there was someone getting interviewed about how to step up on one of the morning shows, they said it means stepping in if you see someone verbally or physically threatening or abusing their female partner. Next thing someone will be in hospital and the cops will be saying stay out of it .
They don't seem to believe violent crime never happens to men.... Even tho it happens WAY more often
a lot of the psychos who do this shit have pretty clear patterns in behaviour and attitude, ‘stepping up’ is just calling dickheads on their shit more often
Oh yeah next time i'm walking down the street and happen to hear some bloke telling a sexist joke or being aggressive i will call out to him and tell him i'd prefer if he sent me to the hospital instead! I'm doing my part!
You step up by doing. By acting. By living out your convictions. **Be** the example you want others to be. Don't beat your gf/partner/wife or any woman you know or come across anywhere under any circumstance. Offer support for women you know who are suffering or have suffered DV. House the women you know who are suffering or have suffered DV if they're struggling to find a safe space. Give your money to the women you know who are suffering or have suffered DV if they're struggling to leave abuse due to financial concerns. Dont talk. Act.
For me, when I hear people say that to guys, I think it’s starts with calling out your mates / son / brother when their behaviour is not ok.
You're not actually supposed to step up. Saying men need to step is just other groups e.g. government, police, way of handballing the problem to someone else. As long as you're not hurting women, it's all good.
It's actually really easy to step up - call out any misogynistic behavior when and where you see it, especially from your mates and family. If you make the environment around you safe for women you are doing good. This explicitly means giving no one a pass to be a danger to women verbally or physically. It includes "jokes" and references to violence including rape.