YesAllMen2021

It is time for us – men – to recognise the threat of male violence in the UK and take our responsibility seriously. Just look at the numbers : 1.6 million women in the UK were estimated to be victims of domestic abuse in the last year. 144,000 women were victims of rape or attempted rape in the same period. On average, a woman is murdered every three days in the UK. The common denominator in all this violence is the sex of those responsible: just as in the case of violence against men, perpetrators are overwhelmingly male. Anyone who seeks to downplay this threat, or who thinks platitudes are the answer, is in denial. In response, we need to do more than take individual responsibility for our own behaviour; we need to use our voices too. I think we should use that voice to make the case for national strategy which treats male violence like the threat that it is, and I’ve set out below a few thoughts about what that strategy might look like.   First, groups like Yes All Men have be...

On 8th April 2021 around 45 men came together for a second #YesAllMen conversation. Lots of people had been at the first meeting which took place following the tragic death of Sarah Everard. A few others had heard about it from others so with a combination of guests who had some idea of where the conversations might go from the last meeting, and a fair few new faces, we set off.   As a format at the two meetings we have invited a woman to give a keynote on sexism and misogyny to frame the conversation. Conversations then take place in smaller break outs.  We were lucky to welcome Julie Bentley who gave a powerful and sometimes uncomfortable speech. Julie has been kind enough to allow me to share the closing statements of this speech here to illustrate where our conversations started.   “To finish let me say a few words about being an ally. Because we do really need men to step up. But for me it’s in ways that may feel small. I don’t need you to march with placards. I don’...

A few years back, a couple of close friends shared their master plan with me.  They would save enough money to buy some land, away from any major cities or towns; build a small wooden house self-powered by natural resources and tend the land to provide enough plant-based food to both live and trade locally.  Within a few years they would be totally off-grid, no longer complicit in a society they viewed as fundamentally unfair, unsustainable and unsuited to flourishing life.  I admired the simplicity and purity of their ambition.  They would no longer have to make any compromises in the way they lived, no messy trade-offs, no moral conflict.  They would live lightly on the planet, their individual footprint contained, doing no harm.  And yet they would also be doing very little to change society itself.  The world would continue on its unsustainable path.  My friends could feel satisfied that it wasn’t their fault; but they couldn’t claim to be m...

On the morning of Saturday 13th March I was in bed reflecting on the awful events of the week with the abduction and murder of Sarah Everard. I like many other men were voicing our concerns about men's violence on social media, but we all know that social media activism alone is not enough. It will not do much to change the day to day realities of women's lives.  I was also furious that the response from some men - just like we saw All Lives Matter in response to Black Lives Matters - was to say Not All Men.  We know that men's violence is about all men. Every single one of us.  And we also know that we as men have to do the work to challenge the sexism and misogyny in our everyday lives. We have to be responsible for our own behaviours and for challenging the behaviours of other men. We have to speak up, sometimes we have to shut up and we have to recognise that however nice we think we are, if we are not actively reflecting on our own actions and seeking to challenge th...