We need to talk about men needing to be partners, not 'providers and protectors'

We’re not feeding that protect and provide BS to our teen son, definitely going down the partner route. I hope he finds someone his equal in all things. And we talk about us protecting each other as a family, he looks out for his sister, his sister looks out for him, we parents take care of both of them.

There are around 100,000 female soldiers in the Ukrainian army, including many in positions of command.

I don't believe anyone should be conscripted into an army, male or female.

It works for me.

Similar height - had the same experiences as you for the most part.

But for me it’s even simpler - it’s attraction. I cannot date men I have no physical attraction to and it’s rare I am physically attracted to a man I tower over.

What’s depressing about it?

Why do people get so hung up on this?

Especially when men have the same preference in reverse. A preference for women smaller than them as tall women look “mannish” or make them intimidated. It’s not women alone who created the “tall - masculine / short - feminine” dynamic.

It’s not women alone who have height related dating preferences nor tie them to evolutionary reasons. Yet only women are criticised for this.

I don't know. I think you are undervaluing protection here.

I suspect many women from the Ukraine right now might have a differernt perspective. It's not like they were living a radically differernt lifestyle like medieval times, they are/were women with normal jobs and lives we'd all recognise.

And yet, many Ukrainian women are fled with their kids, while their husbands are at war.

Should the women be there too? Or should they have drawn lots for whether it was husbands or wives who stayed behind to fight?

It’s really down to parenting. Both parents should be teaching their children [of both sexes] that relationships are partnerships. But even in 2025 they are not. And they often aren’t demonstrating it in the way they operate in their own relationships, so YP learn by what they see, not what they are told.

And if companies doesn't provide supportive environments where men can have flexible hours to help with picks up and take compassionate leave without fear of it negatively impacting their careers - then with the best will in the world, even the most progressive couples will find it hard to demonstrate the equality of roles - a partnership - within the homes that those YP live in.

I think it needs a gradual unlearning/retraining over decades, I’m afraid.

So that’s an experience that shapes many women - not simply the biological reality of being a woman.

I have and will have no experience of childbearing so any and everything related to that has no impact on my reality of being a woman

Bit of a depressing take.

I'm sure, but if you don't learn your lessons in your own life what is the point. I learnt 3 times not to go there again.

Nonsense. Men don’t go to war for women.

Men need to be full participants in relationships, not virtual bystanders whose only job is to bring in money

PREACH!!

Not all short men are like that though. My DB has been happily with a woman 6 inches taller than him for 18 years.

Also I loathe the kind of man who wants his only contribution to relationships to be wallets.

I dont need a man fullstop.

Provider and protector.
I Provide for my self and I protect my self.
Don't need a man for money I earn my own, dont need a man to stand up for me i can do that myself because I'm an adult.

I dont have kids because I dont want to be tied down to a man for the rest of my life.
Its not just 18 years.

Life's tough enough now no way would I swap one prison for another.

I think it’s fine for those who prefer to be in a relationship with a “protector / provider” but like you I prefer “partnership” to “protection and provision”. I don’t need protecting nor providing for but having a true partner in every sense is a cheat code for life (imo).

Yes, and have an inability to admit mistakes or talk through problems like an adult. We all know men like this.

I think there’s a lot of merit in protect and provide, and I think that men who have those instincts are the ones whose marriages are most likely to survive.

I disagree. I think that men who view themselves as the protector and provider often (maybe even subconsciously) therefore view women as lesser, weaker humans who need to be protected and provided for. That may work at least for a while if they are married to women who are happy to be considered weak and vulnerable, but not for the rest of us. Men like this are often bad partners in other ways because they think they are superior.

I dont think bearing a child is innate or necessary to womanhood, but having the body type that could bear a child seems to be an innate part of a women to me. Until I bore a child I was also child free and I still think my body type shaped how I was treated but also how I dealt with the world. A lot is cultural no doubt. But stuff like handgrip seems to have very little overlap compared to height.

(I appreciate the trans body feel differently and womanhood is a feeling outwith your body )

I just want a taller man (am 5ft 9) because I went out with asshats who were shorter - one wouldn't "let" me wear heels. It's not about the way they look, for me it is the chip it leaves on their shoulder.

You're talking about being an individual, with a range of influences on your life and character. One of those influences is your sex. Being a woman, with the physical capacity to bear children, matters whether you actually do bear children or not. For any individual, the extent to which it matters will vary.

Across a whole population, average sex differences between men and women have shaped societies and the conversation about what that should mean goes on. I don't want to live in a society that completely denies that average differences exist. For me it's just a complete unwillingness to look facts in the face. I'd ideally like our culture to acknowledge that broadly, men are more likely to be like X and women are more likely to be like Y, but that doesn't preclude any individual man or woman doing anything across the whole spectrum. It might mean that actually we could value the things women are, on average, more interested in, like child-rearing.

Society does also organise around other traits to some degree. We tend to see introverts and extroverts in different walks of life. You could argue that public life to some extent caters better for extroverts.

It seems to me that parents who work together as partners turn their sons into young men who also work together with their partners. Just as parents that don’t demonstrate misogyny in their relationship turn their sons into young men who are also not misogynists.

I have also noticed that, IME, people who live together a few years before having children, so that they can work on their partnership, fair division of domestic chores, gardening, redecorating, building repairs and money choices, also fare better and do all of the above.

Our DS has grown up with the expectation that everyone pitches in and helps (as has our DD) in a home, and is now putting that into practice.

What I am surprised about is that so many people don’t sort this out before they start a family!

You see it on the height threads, that preference for tall men is an evolutionary thing because “we want to feel protected”.

My perspective is very much one of a child-free woman. So while childbearing is obviously something only women can do, I don't consider it an innate and necessary part of being a woman.