Sarah Everard murder | Wayne Couzens given whole-life sentence

[Mazzarelli's Swiss Cheese]

Sad the way this thread has divided along the usual lines. Especially so since I'm sure everyone involved agrees that this was a horrific rape/murder. I'm doing my bit by not doing any raping or murdering, and trying to bring my kids up to not rape or murder people either. I think if we all do that then things will be fine.

 

[Bazzmand Show]

Are these not things women and men do to avoid being victims of crime?

Yeah I mean, what I would say is I am a 90kg 6 foot bloke who hits the gym and lifts regularly.

I don't typically go running through parks at night or walking through them. As a society we probably just need to realise some activities, will always just carry higher risk.

 

[Centurions]

...

I‘m empathetic to women’s vulnerability and the mental anguish that this causes.

...

You're probably going to take this personally rather than think about what you said, but you've already made a 'joke' about a woman not being fast enough to run away from an attacker.

In what way was that 'empathic'? Was it just 'banter' like Couzens WhatsApp group?

This really isn't a dig at you whatever you may think, but just an attempt to get you to consider what you wrote.

 

[Mr Kobayashi]

The Metropolitan should dig and go over every inch of that woodland. He has exposure instances going back as far as 2015
he planned this really well, even to buy heavy duty bin bags a couple of days before, it’s hard to believe it was the first one

Why did he leave her body in the river then?

He was obviously expecting it to be discovered because he burnt it before hand, so unlikely he has been burying or concealing other bodies in the woodland.

 

[BobKowalski]

Whilst I get where you are coming from, I’m not sure what you want me to actually do.

I‘m empathetic to women’s vulnerability and the mental anguish that this causes.

I’m very much anti-harassment and anti-rape/murder(if I need to spell it out). I’m also extremely anti-predator.

If I saw anybody in trouble, I would try to help.

It feels like there is a campaign where we have to say it’s a problem and there are lots of posts highlighting scenarios where women feel uncomfortable.

What is being achieved?

We know we aren’t in a perfect society.

We know that a fraction of men create these problems.

We know that women feel threatened as a result of this.

My guess is that the vast majority who has posted in this thread hasn’t harassed a woman. The ones that have aren’t going to admit to it.

I think we’ve had enough posts about it being a problem. The question is, what do you do to change things?

Good question. I’m not even sure I have the answer. First thing that occurred to me - Is it just a ‘fraction of men’? Or is it a minority of men, but with the rest of us ‘joking’ about it not exactly helping? I’ve joked about similar in the past. Am I contributing to an environment that seeks to lessen collective responsibility?

We can joke about a woman using a treadmill rather than going out jogging. We can joke about an athlete outrunning a non-athlete, but in reality we are joking about prey outrunning the hunter.

A woman I know, posted yesterday about her sisters routine for going out jogging. Part of that routine was ensuring family knew her route and self-protection measures. The bit that struck me was not that the sister was angry she had to do this, she wasn’t. It was just part of her everyday routine, background noise. She’s a woman so she may encounter a man who wants to do her harm simply because she is a woman and for no other reason. Part of the experience of being a woman.

I don’t fear or worry about being attacked simply because I am a man. I may be attacked because I support City or whatever, but I’m not getting attacked because of my gender. It would never even occur to me.

I guess, my only answer is trying to be open minded about something that is outside of my experience and my understanding. It doesn’t cost me anything to try and understand. I may never fully appreciate the issue, but I can give it a go. No harm in that, right?

Except some men seem to take exception to this stance. It struck me that for a lot of posters on here, it was simply enough to wish violent harm or death on Couzens and having done that, there was no need to think any further about the issue. It’s almost like ‘well, I hope the bastard dies, that’s my bit done, and how dare anyone think I would do something like that’ and #notallmen etc. It rapidly becomes about what men think and feel and if any woman suggests it should be more about her and what she thinks and feels, cue indignation and outrage.

I’m not some paragon of virtue here, I’m a guy, I know the shit that goes on, and I don’t have the answers other than maybe actually listening to what women say and then acting on it.

 

[Alan Harper's Tash]

You're probably going to take this personally rather than think about what you said, but you've already made a 'joke' about a woman not being fast enough to run away from an attacker.

In what way was that 'empathic'? Was it just 'banter' like Couzens WhatsApp group?

This really isn't a dig at you whatever you may think, but just an attempt to get you to consider what you wrote.

I did. It want at anyone’s expense. It was a joke suggesting that a professional athlete could train better if they weren’t confident in their running ability.

Page after page of people repeating the same thing doesn’t help anything.

 

[Alan Harper's Tash]

Good question. I’m not even sure I have the answer. First thing that occurred to me - Is it just a ‘fraction of men’? Or is it a minority of men, but with the rest of us ‘joking’ about it not exactly helping? I’ve joked about similar in the past. Am I contributing to an environment that seeks to lessen collective responsibility?

We can joke about a woman using a treadmill rather than going out jogging. We can joke about an athlete outrunning a non-athlete, but in reality we are joking about prey outrunning the hunter.

A woman I know, posted yesterday about her sisters routine for going out jogging. Part of that routine was ensuring family knew her route and self-protection measures. The bit that struck me was not that the sister was angry she had to do this, she wasn’t. It was just part of her everyday routine, background noise. She’s a woman so she may encounter a man who wants to do her harm simply because she is a woman and for no other reason. Part of the experience of being a woman.

I don’t fear or worry about being attacked simply because I am a man. I may be attacked because I support City or whatever, but I’m not getting attacked because of my gender. It would never even occur to me.

I guess, my only answer is trying to be open minded about something that is outside of my experience and my understanding. It doesn’t cost me anything to try and understand. I may never fully appreciate the issue, but I can give it a go. No harm in that, right?

Except some men seem to take exception to this stance. It struck me that for a lot of posters on here, it was simply enough to wish violent harm or death on Couzens and having done that, there was no need to think any further about the issue. It’s almost like ‘well, I hope the bastard dies, that’s my bit done, and how dare anyone think I would do something like that’ and #notallmen etc. It rapidly becomes about what men think and feel and if any woman suggests it should be more about her and what she thinks and feels, cue indignation and outrage.

I’m not some paragon of virtue here, I’m a guy, I know the shit that goes on, and I don’t have the answers other than maybe actually listening to what women say and then acting on it.

Will respond to this in a bit. I want to reread and have a think.

 

[Mr Kobayashi]

I did. It want at anyone’s expense. It was a joke suggesting that a professional athlete could train better if they weren’t confident in their running ability.

Page after page of people repeating the same thing doesn’t help anything.

Professional athlete runs a regular route and this is noticed by a sex pest, one day he waits for her to get towards the end of her run when she is tired and less able to run, kicks her legs out and drags in alley or bundles her in car.

That’s probably the sort of "what if" that means she runs on a treadmill.

 

[1.618034]

The 81 women killed in 28 weeks

Since Sarah Everard’s brutal murder, only one thing has changed – the death toll

www.theguardian.com

 

[I'm With Stupid]

Sad the way this thread has divided along the usual lines. Especially so since I'm sure everyone involved agrees that this was a horrific rape/murder. I'm doing my bit by not doing any raping or murdering, and trying to bring my kids up to not rape or murder people either. I think if we all do that then things will be fine.

I think this is a bit of a simplistic solution though. Most rapes and murders of women are not caused by the Wayne Couzens types. Rapists and murderers are not people who have never been taught that it's wrong to rape and murder, they're typically people who feel entitled to someone else's attention, love and body. I've not checked, but I'd have a guess that the vast majority of those killers since Couzens was caught are jilted or jealous husbands, boyfriends or prospective boyfriends. You see it in absolutely every culture around the world. And obviously women are just as capable of being jealous and controlling in a relationship, but it's kinda like comparing a chihuahua and a pitbull. Yeah, both are capable of going crazy and biting you, but one of them is a far bigger issue.

So I guess my point is that it's not enough to say "don't rape," the key things are firstly a cultural shift to change the attitudes that cause this jealous and controlling behaviour, as well as that "any hole's a goal" attitude that men in groups often have, (even if they don't really believe it or act on it, they often perpetuate it, covering for men who do). I remember being in nightclubs in my late teens and seeing obviously hammered women being surrounded by men who saw her as an easy shag basically because she didn't know what she was doing, and then having to be led home by her friends, basically to avoid getting raped by a man who would have no doubt not considered it rape. It's not a 0.0001% that some suggest. It's shitloads of men who think this way, or at least did when I was a youngster, which wasn't so long ago.

But failing that cultural shift, massive investment in the sorts of things that allow women (and men) in such a situation to be protected. So that's things like women's shelters, restraining orders, etc. And yes, more police too, despite their many recent failings. But all of this stuff costs money, which is why it doesn't happen.