Violence Against Women- stop derailing the conversation

In the current political climate, the shit  state of affairs overseas and with six women  being murdered  in Australia in under  a week, I've seen many women post and talk about sexual-assualt and violence against women.

I've seen men post about it too and am forever appreciative of those that do and continue to support so I am prefacing with that as I do do not want to create more of a divide with what I am about to say

....and I while I think I have purged myself of the 'not all men' types for the most part, I have had my share and I am over it.

Every single woman in your life is over it.

We are over the conversation being derailed by the same dickheads who jump on 'Black lives matter' posts and rant about how all lives matter.

I've seen this compared to someone running into a cancer ward and screaming "THERE ARE OTHER ILLNESSES TOO"... Because for fucks sake, WE KNOW!

The problem is that these people that yell about violence against men only ever do it when the conversation is about women.

You will never see them donate to causes to help depression in men or to assist male victims of violence... but the second anyone mentions violence against women, these people turn up to distract, to derail and spout random, completely unrelated stats.

I posted a Facebook status recently, sharing accounts of why women don't report rape, including my own experience with having taken a rape kit and how invasive it is.

This was met with a response from a dickhead that I used to work with about how women murder their children at a higher rate than men and "why are you not posting about that?"

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?

I initially had no idea how to react to this random statistic thrown at me.. I first felt fired up and wanted to engage with more stats about male violence and mad because the whole thing became about everyone agreeing that it was a moronic thing to say but not really discussing the original issue...

And that is what the aim seems to be. If you can spout a random stat that in no way relates, if you scream 'Not all men!"

 .... Then in that moment, our energy goes toward responding do the idiotic comment and for as long as that can go on, nobody is talking about the original issue and that is just fucking perfect because these people didn't want to talk about the issue or admit that there is one in the first place.

I want to believe people are capable of change.

I don't need to live in an echo chamber where I am constantly told I am right.
I am ok with being wrong sometimes or accepting that some issues have subtle nuances and are not always black and white.

I am forever open to having my mind expanded and learning a new point of view on an issue but not when that issue is only raised in an attempt to stop another from being heard.

I know some people love a good internet argument but often the ones that start them are only doing it to diflect.

If you read something and feel personally attacked because you feel like it genralises men or white people or whatever the group is and your first thought is:

 'Hey I don't fit in to that category'

 instead try reading again, taking it in and going:

"Ok this is a thing that happens and someone it has happened to is trying to tell me that it's happening, what can I do to help?....or at the very least, not make it worse"