I am not a fan of trigger warnings, but I will include one here as this is a particularly sensitive subject around which emotions are high. If trigger warnings meant anything, you’d be triggered by the warning itself, but nonetheless, I am going to discuss the recent events in London, street violence, rape, assault and sexual harassment here. Put on your big girl pants.

I’m writing this while the Sarah Everard murder is fresh, and the man accused of the murder is in custody. The suspect is a police officer, and a vigil held to honour her death has been policed with a great deal of violence in a way other protests during COVID haven’t.

Tensions and emotions are running extremely high, which means this is probably one of the worst times to try and introduce some moderation and consideration into the discussion, but that is also the most necessary time to do so. Bad decisions are made when they’re made reflexively and emotionally, some of the most dangerous words in the English language are: “Something must be done.”

I’m under no illusions that most people will read this blog in good faith, or that most will even pause to consider the content or to change their behaviour or demands, but some will. Just as with the misinterpretations of my defences of free expression, people will wilfully take it the wrong way, but such is life and such is the internet.

I consider myself to be an egalitarian, and I have a particular concern for men’s issues. This is because I think men’s issues are woefully underrepresented in the national and international conversation and, as such, go unaddressed. Everything from male genital mutilation, to the lack of shelter places for male victims of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV). From men and boys falling behind in education, to rates of depression and suicide.

These concerns have led many to call me a Men’s Rights Activist (MRA), but while I do have friends within that movement – who aren’t the horrorshow that some call them, I’ve never considered myself such because I think the men’s rights movement has many of the same problems feminism does. However, I do think I can offer some insight into why men do get so bitter and angry, and why they do join onto such groups, even those that mirror the petty nastiness of the radical feminists.

It’s hypocrisy.

It’s betrayal.

It’s double standards.

Like most of my generation I was brought up to consider men and women equal, to decry sexism, to refuse to tolerate racism. The understanding was that we all have the same rights and that the differences between us are meaningless compared to who we are as individual people. This was obviously and intuitively the right point of view, and for a while it seemed like we had these issues licked.

Then something changed, I’d place the break-point somewhere around 2010, others suggest later. Gradually at first and picking up speed, the people who had been activists for equality and fairness began to express bigotry. This bigotry went largely unchallenged and even uncommented. People who had argued for the equality of the sexes began to spout the most hideously bigoted statements about men. People who had argued for racial equality started claiming that all white people were racist, by dint of being born white. That they were inferior and blackness was supreme. People who had fought hard for acceptance of their sexuality began spewing hatred at straight people.

If, like me, you took on board the messages of equality and fairness, this was betrayal. This was bigotry. This was everything you’d helped to fight against and had eliminated from your personal worldview, but now it was coming back at you from the people you’d helped and that you’d treated, lifelong, as equals.

If you want to know where a lot of anger and backlash comes from, that’s it. Hypocrisy, not living up to the standards we had all agreed upon. Not to dismiss someone because of their identity category, but also not to elevate them. To try and eliminate our prejudices, from any group, against any group.

Which brings us back around to recent events.

We are being told that this singular event is an exemplar of problems. That women are afraid to be out at night. That this is ‘male violence’. That men are the problem and that women need to feel safe. Feelings aren’t a good guide here, at all, they’re far too subjective. We shouldn’t care whether women feel safe, we should care whether they are safe. That’s also subjective, but we can at least compare and assess against other degrees of risk and threat and use that as a benchmark for what to do.

So what do the statistics tell us?

Women, as a group, are less likely to suffer random street violence than men. Men suffer random street violence at a rate of 150% that of women, though it’s closer to 200% in more recent surveys. Men are also more likely to be injured or killed in such circumstances, while women are more likely to suffer sexual assault, but all things considered women are considerably safer than men. This isn’t to minimise anything, these are just the bald facts.

Unlike women, men don’t seem concerned about this elevated level of risk, relative to women. This leads us to ask which case is correct. Is it than men are not assessing their risk level appropriately and accurately, or is it that women are overestimating it? Why is society so much more concerned about violence against women than it is about (more serious and prevalent) violence against men? Why are women being told to carry things for self defence, while men and boys are decried for doing the same?

It is true that most, but by no means all, of this violence is carried out by men. We’re hampered somewhat in accurate assessment because rape against men is commonly not recognised in law and sexual assault is underreported when it comes to male victims. We also find that IPV is underreported against men, and may run as high as 33-40% of the total amount of IPV.

We seem to have a paternalistic, benevolently sexism bias to see women as victims and to value their safety more than we do that of men. A classic example of this is a headline shocked and appalled that ‘1 in 4 homeless people are women!’ – blithely ignoring the fact that this meant 3/4 were men, who would appear to need more assistance in that situation.

Does any of this mean it’s justifiable to treat all men as potential rapists and murderers? After all, they are more likely to be such, right?

Well no.

Members of ethnic minorities are about twice as likely to be criminals as white majorities are (assuming UK/US). Would this justify clutching your purse whenever you pass a black man in the street?

Of course not.

We recognise, rightly, that this is a racist assumption. That there are many confounding factors at play and that even if it’s true, it’s still a tiny minority of PoC that are criminal. We understand that the vast and overwhelming majority of the time we are not at risk and that it would be racist to assume.

It is sexist prejudice to assume a predatory nature for men, for exactly the same reasons.

Yet the excuses seen on the ostensibly left-wing feminist side of thing, sound exactly like the talking heads of the right excusing their racism. It’s just acceptable to be sexist towards men in a way it isn’t acceptable to be racist. Some people will even claim you can’t be sexist towards men, an ironically, profoundly sexist statement in and of itself.

People will come out with anecdotes of their own sexual harassment and experiences, but we can’t make important societal or legal decisions on the basis of anecdote or feelings, we have to consider the facts.

I have anecdotes of my own.

I have been sexually harassed or assaulted several times, by women and once by men. Something I don’t make a huge fuss about, or laught off, because nobody gives a shit or wants to talk about it – because I’m a man. Even other men treat this as something funny, or even boastful. Should laws be changed and women given a 6pm curfew because of my personal, subjective experience?

Obviously not.

Shoud women be kept away from young infants because of their statistically higher chance to commit infanticide than men?

Also obviously not.

Which brings us back to risk assessment. If men are three times as likely to suffer street violence of any sort from a random stranger, why are they so unconcerned and why are women so fearful? Is it a constant diet of fear in the media and from activist circles, as happens to old people who only watch Fox or read the Daily Mail? Is it that men are wildly underestimating their risk? What is it? What is it rational to be afraid of?

Would you play Russian Roulette for a million dollars?

What if the chance was 1/100 rather than 1/6?

We have COVID as a good point of comparison here. From the start of the pandemic you had about a 60% chance of contracting it and a 2-3% chance of dying from it. Data on Long COVID isn’t that reliable yet. So, globally, we’re looking at about a 1-1.5% fatality rate. To deal with that we’ve taken to wearing masks, social distancing and lockdowns. In comparison, a women’s chance of being a victim of random street violence is 0.4% and a man’s 1.4%.

So what does a rational response to these levels of risk look like?

Correct and useful action can only follow from correct and useful information. We can’t formulate meaningful policy or enact effective change unless we look at these issues with dispassion and rationality. Meanwhile, a little consistency in ethics would go a long way towards creating solidarity and sympathy.

#NotAllMen is said sarcastically, but so many people seem to assume it is #AllMen that it continues to need to be said, at least until we shy away from misandry with the same readiness we do racism.