Wake up to the cold, hard facts of rising worldwide misogyny

Article here. Excerpt:

'Increasingly, sexism, if not downright misogyny, is so endemic in society that many of us barely register it. But when we do – when a report like the EU one wakes us up to the hard, cold facts – we have to be very, very careful how we phrase our outrage. God forbid we may upset people. Or be called muck-raking cranks. Some people are very sensitive, we may hurt their feelings (they may sue!), so we have to be very clear and say, "not all men, only some men hate women", and only the "odd man" is actually a "real" misogynist. And of course, we understand and acknowledge that "men suffer from domestic violence too". And of course, we should be talking about women who are violent to their partners as well.

Pretty soon, we're apologising for saying that we live in a sexist world (we do) which overwhelmingly benefits the male sex (it does) and that we're concerned about the level of violence directed against women (we are). Soon after that, we're agreeing that yes, men certainly do terrible things to women, but women can be just as bad, if not worse, and before you know it, the discussion is no longer about endemic societal misogyny and violence against women but about the dubious effects of feminism, and whether militant 'feminazis' are destroying society as we know it.

I noticed this in many of the comments about articles on the EU report: "Why is this report only about one gender?" "Surely men suffer more violence than women?" (Eh, not at the hands of women.) "Why does female violence go almost unreported?"

And of course, most blokes are lovely guys; they are our fathers, brothers, husbands, partners and sons. And it's not their fault that the world is a horribly sexist place with such terrible levels of violence perpetuated by one gender on another. But that doesn't mean they can ignore it. It doesn't mean they have no responsibility to act. Individually, most men do not hate women. But as a group? Look at the facts. Men have dominated and controlled women for centuries.'