Another man in America decided it was time for his wife/kids

So I should know better than to wade into this...but as the mother of two boys, here I go.

Sure I get it. Toxic man stuff. Some men are angry, and they take it out on the rest of the world. I also get that a good deal of violence in our world is perpetrated by what is seemingly these angry men.

But...and here is where I should probably keep my big old fat mouth shut...to blame the violence on toxic masculinity is just too simplistic. WAY too simplistic and there are just too many other factors to blame just 'man.' It is getting frustrating to me, as a mom, as a sister, as a daughter who knows that MY people are horrified by these acts of violence against innocents, against women to feel like I have to keep defending MY people against this almost toxic backlash against men in general.

Yes. There are bad men. Just like there are bad women. And they ALL should be accountable. 

I agree with you, and not just because I have sons or am surrounded by decent, kind, men with integrity.

There obviously is a problem with some masculine culture, but we need to be careful in our labels. This guy represents general manhood no more than Andrea Yates represents all mothers and feminine culture.

According to some people I suppose I should apologize for birthing a boy. All these toxic men were obviously raised by men only.

It's not just men. Just last week a woman here killed her two daughters.

I'm a hard-core feminist and mom of 3 girls. I think gender-bashing hurts our cause. What happened is terrible, and we should focus on the terribleness and the underlying causes--not stereotyping an entire gender.

I too have never had a violent man in my life.  Just out of law school I worked in an office with all men and they were wonderful!  I have had a couple emotionally abusive women in my life though, but I still know that they are the exception, not the norm. 

www.cnn.com/2017/07/07/health/filicide-parents-killing-kids-stats-trnd/index.html

The reality is, filicides happen with depressing regularity in the US. And mothers are almost as likely to be the killers as fathers.

See also...

thoughtcatalog.com/jim-goad/2014/04/19-moms-who-killed-their-kids/


www.wonderslist.com/10-mothers-who-killed-their-kids/

www.foxnews.com/us/2017/07/06/several-children-adult-found-dead-after-reported-stabbing.html

people.com/crime/killer-moms-susan-smith-diane-downs-and-others/marybeth-tinning

No, we don't. What I react to, as do many others, is the implication that many of the reports that toxic masculinity and male are the same. We are being deliberately obtuse, we are being willfully ignorant, we aren't being ... too stupid to understand. We get it, but we are also are seeing the undercurrents of 'man is bad' when we know that isn't the case.

I speak only for myself here, but it feels SO condescending when someone tries to 'explain' to me what I am obviously not understanding when I have some fairly decent critical reasoning skills-just a different view point.

Men reach for guns, women reach for other weapons and do just as much damage.

Of course there are good men. Lots of them. Most of the men I know would never be violent. But why can't we be honest with ourselves and ask some hard questions?

Why are 90.5% of people who commit homicide male?
Why are 98.9% of forcible rapes committed by men?
Why do men commit 79.7% of violence against family and children?
Why do they commit 98% of mass shootings?

I think we, as a society CAN and need to address these questions. And it doesn't mean we're gender bashing. But we can no longer continue to deny/ignore it.

ETA: Source

www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/htus8008.pdf





Sent from my iPad

Obviously I am not, otherwise I would post links. 

I am going to claim old lady status on this one and call my source life experience. 

I think there's some validity in the toxic masculinity claim. When times get tough, you downsize or move in with parents, both spouses go to work, you call on family to help, get public assistance... There are options. He decided for all of them, to disregard all of the options. You don't often see women wiping out their families because they're broke

The sister says he's not a bad guy and he was a protector. She's right... He's not a bad guy, he's the worst kind of guy and it turns out that his family needed protection FROM him. It was not his job to decide their futures... And I think toxic masculinity may have played a part here.

I don't even know what I think about an afterlife or if there is one, but I hope that woman is with her babies.

This is perfect. I am sick and tired of man blaming when woman are capable of violence as well. Do we as women want to lumped in with the women who kill their babies?

We should be discussing toxic personalities....not toxic masculinity.

Sometimes I think just the misunderstanding by some of a frequently used wording can twist it and give it negative power not intended.

Toxic masculinity- I get the intended meaning and agree.  Maybe when it gets misconstrued as 'men are toxic' by a loud minority, the backlash begins. I get that too.

Same with 'feminism'-it gets misconstrued as women over men, not the true meaning of equality.

It seems like it's all the back and forth, tit for tat, 'shouting' trying to make our points without trying to actually understand each other that gets us in trouble.

The facts may say that the largest percentage of shootings are by men.  That doesn't translate into the largest percentage of men are bad.   They are not.

But it still has to be looked at and something done about it.

But I think the point that is being missed is that there is a reason for the 'captain-obvious' posts. There are more than a few of us that are seeing a very different side to the argument and aren't being heard AT all. 

What is happening TOO MUCH TOO OFTEN is violence in general. Not just men. Not just women. There is a degradation in respect for human life as a whole. And we (me) are tired of seeing all the stats pointing toward men rather than all violent offenders. 

And please, don't talk down to me. I know we don't always agree, and that is okay. Conversation is good, saying things like 'captain-obvious' is not a very good way to facilitate conversation. I may be a bit of a redneck hick, but I am an educated one and old enough to know that rather than preaching at someone, listening leads to better understanding.

In that vein, I get it. Part of the issue is that there is also the recent horror of mass killings by men with guns that play a serious role in how people are feeling are right now. Which is highlighting the issue of toxic masculinity. But what some of us are trying to say is that yes, these things are beyond horrific. But so is the violence by a thousand cuts of women who kill and abuse their children (example) that is not part of the conversation because it is too easy to blame toxic masculinity right now.