(which assault, rape and killing are the ultimate manifestations of), has roots in male childhood. Bullying, manipulation of and control over and humiliation of others begins to be learned at a fairly early age.
I grew up in a tough, blue-collar town, where many of the families were at least somewhat disfunctional due to rampant alcoholism and spousal abuse by a generation of men who returned from WWII with many unresolved issues of PTSD and generalized rage. They took their rage out on their spouses and children. Boys seem to respond to bullying in the home in one of two ways - they become frightened and traumatized themselves and go on to develop deep trust issues (me), or they emulate the behavior themselves with other kids.
A frightening percentage of the boys I grew up around were bullying and manipulating others by the second or third grade. I was frequently the target of their bullying, but that's not my point. These kids learned that this behavior was OK somewhere, and that somewhere was in their own homes. Without any kind of intervention (teachers looked the other way back in the day), these guys just got away with more and more violent and disturbing behavior as time went on. By the time they were young men, they prowled the streets like wolves. Then they went on to pass this horrific behavior onto their own sons.
So yeah, obviously men are the problem, and good men can call out anti-social and misogynistic behavior when they see it, but I think if would be better to prevent these behaviors from taking hold in the first place. My own approach with my son was to teach him love, respect, and boundaries, and a firm understanding of No at an early age, which sounds obvious and cliché, but seems to be so often lacking by the time our boys reach their teen years. Add in alcohol and you have a ticking bomb of male aggression.
We've had nearly non-stop war for thousands of years, affecting nearly every generation, and men returning from war fucked up in so many ways. I don't know how to break the cycle except by ceasing to send young men (and now women) off to kill each other. And if kill we must, then I fear we're going to continue this vicious cycle.
On edit: I'm talking about really hard-core nasty people, which doesn't nearly cover all the otherwise 'nice guys' who rape. But I maintain that it's just a matter of degree. The 'nice guys' think, "Well, I'm surely not a son-of-a-bitch like so-and-so", but the same effect is at work.
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