What should I say to my 19 year old daughter who has already decided that she hates men?

When I was a broke student I used to work on one of those sex chat websites.

Trust me, this could NOT be more true.

Dads, grandads etc (I'm sure 'loving' to their family etc, in fact many had pics of their family in their photos including children!) no matter how old they were they were just lusting over 18 year olds (and the idea of them being younger) and their tightness etc. So gross.

It forever changed how I see men. It was not a few. It was many, many, many. I now feel that when I look at a man in his 70s/80s I know what they are thinking and their real desires. I reckon a huge majority of them want to fuck a young woman, and think that the young woman would want them in return (based on the way they spoke) even if they are fat/old/hideous. I do think they think they owed it!

I also think a lot of women are naïve to this. (all the man in my family would NEVER!) Well, you don't know what they get up to behind closed doors or on their phone/ipad. And you'll never know what goes on in their brains.

At 6 I was SAd by a 'friend' of the family
At 8 a different family 'friend' exposed himself to me while he was babysitting
At 11 I was flashed by an adult man in the park
At 13, 14 and 15 I was slapped and/or pushed by older teen boys at School
At 14 I was groomed into getting into bed with an adult man who tried to have sex with me, my poor little body tensed up so hard it couldn't happen, thankfully.
At 20 I was raped while he thought I was asleep by my partner, who had also been violent towards me.

I'm just a normal woman who had a perfectly normal upbringing and now lives a normal and mundane life. I don't blame her.

Completey agree

I utterly disagree with the posters who claim that this is a man-hating thread. To suggest that there is any equivalence between the distrust of men as a group, and the hatred of women which is apparent from at best a significant minority of men (so frequently with lethal consequences) is absurd. I don't perceive hatred on here, but just disappointment, at the levels of hatred men evidently have and the amount of evil that is directed by men against women and girls. I have no idea where all their hatred and contempt comes from; I am just disappointed and mystified, rather than hostile.

Speaking for myself I don’t hate men. My view is almost the opposite: it is that, given the levels of misogynistic spew that contaminate the cultural sea we all swim in, it is a miracle that so many men turn out decent. I have also been fortunate enough to have good & trustworthy men in my life. But that doesn’t mean that I trust men as a group, as years of my own bitter experience (starting with an indecent assault when I was 11) alongside the numerous accounts of others and news stories, have taught me that I just can’t.

I find it particularly egregious when women and girls are blamed for their distrust of men, and at the suggestion that this has anything to do with misandry. I know I am never going to let myself be put in a position where I am vulnerable ever again. And you can blame violent men together with their apologists for that distrust, and not me.

I also have two sons (single mum brought them up alone from tiny).. But I know I have brought them up well. They aren’t mysogynistic, chauvenistic or sexist - they had a very good role model in me. Both their gf’s are very happy and my eldest’s gf recently told me how awesome a bf he is (they live together). My younger one also treats his gf very well, with respect. I know I have brought up two good guys but I parented them in a very mindful way when it came to prejudices, stereotypes, sexism etc. I’ve always felt you have to bring up boys using a lot of emotional intelligence to produce decent human males. I also had very good male role models growing up so had strong reference points (just a shame their dad was a let down). It’s important to ‘lock in’ when you raise boys, you can’t sleepwalk it.

Stop apologising for men and let her work through her rage.

She's not stupid. She has a male loved ones and friends. She knows the difference.

ALL women should be enraged at the moment.

I for one am glad she's prepared to stand for what's right.

You're very naive.

She's not wrong though is she. I am in my 40s and I feel so enraged by ALL of it! Yes it's not all men but if you look at the statistics of women killed by their partners or men they know are frightening and those saying tell her about female murderers, yes of course they are out there but in nowhere near the numbers of men. Men are the biggest threat to a woman's life and that's the truth!

When we were younger this shit was going on and we didn't know any better or how to speak up and deal with it. I would need more than two hands to count all the inappropriate sexual behaviour I have had to deal with. I would much rather my DD (who is only 11) had an awareness and knew what to look out for, far better to be cautious than murdered by some entitled prick that thinks she owes him the world.

My DD has a wonderful father, and many other positive male role models so she knows there are good ones out there but I will be making her well are there are plenty of awful ones too.

I have a 13 year old DS as well and the current climate makes it hard for teenage boys to know how they are supposed to be as they have such mixed messaging, be sensitive but be strong etc etc so again he has plenty of positive behaviours to show him how to treat others. Society just has to do better!

Does some sort of klaxon go out on 4Chan and Reddit when there's posts like this?

I try to be fair minded and go on the evidence.
So basically I just hate everyone ... until experience proves me wrong one person at a time.

I have a son. He's 27.

I don't hate him but I brought him up so he's the sort of man I think men ae capable of being. And he's managed it very well.

So maybe its just that we have raised our sons to be the exceptions... 👍

I can do nothing but defend them and pity you.

I DO know that they are not abusing women and I also know they never will. It is about good character, about understanding how to cultivate it, and how to recognise it in others.

I am sorry that life has treated you so badly that you are so full of hate you have to impugn the character of strangers on the internet, but there really is nothing I can do about that.

It seems that Mumsnet is full of man-haters so, like a few others on this thread, I will be bowing out now. Lesson learned.

Well, there you have part of the puzzle.

Yes abusers come from all walks of life. But the ultra rich committing crimes and protecting each other is a problem. As is a personality type that is extremely driven and selfish for money, being worth a fortune but not wanting to pay staff a living wage despite them bending over backwards for their employer. I read examples of this every day that have nothing to do with sex crimes.

Andrew Lownie spoke of the rich being the tougest negotiators and greediest at his agency, and people like PM being worth many millions and not wanting to pay for a course for his spouse. It's a type that will overlook or participate in crimes bc they are selfish.

Yessss!

Spot on!!

I remember once reading some nothing a man had written saying if women really understood how much men hate them they'd be horrified..

Have her join mumsnet. Part of the crew, part of the ship. 😆

I have had good experiences with men in my life in my father, brother and I am not very happily married for over 25 years to a man I believe is good and trustworthy. However even with that experience I am still somewhat cynical about men in general. I don't think the odds are great for women when it comes to men.

When I look at a lot of the men I have known or even classed as good friends over the years or the men in my wider family and the partners of female friends there is a lot of shitty, selfish behaviour. Lots of them seem to suffer from some kind of addiction issue gaming, porn, gambling, alcohol, occasionally drugs. Lots feel entitled to spend huge amounts of their time and family money on expensive hobbies and leave their wives who work full time with pretty much all the work of running a home and child rearing and if they can't get what they want they sulk or just checkout of family life which is what they were doing anyway. One friends husband who thought he was oh so clever lost all their money for a house deposit trying to get rich on the stock market and as a result they still live in a rented flat in their early 50's. This is not even to mention cheating and domestic violence that has happened.

I don't know it isn't all men but its a lot of men who seem to see women less than human. Look at all the local men who were happy to rape a drugged Gisèle Pelicot? Look at the ex-tory councillor who repeatedly drugged and raped his wife? Even the much lauded and supposedly unimpeachable Noam Chomsky has shown his true colours in supporting Epstein a convicted sex offender against a minor. Chomsky also noted how hard it was for Epstein to recover his public image due to “the hysteria that has developed about abuse of women". Oh the poor men if only women would just shut up and put up.

I think its a good thing that your daughter has her eyes open about men it perhaps means she will more likely be aware of what to look out for and what to avoid. It also will hopefully mean that she will be able to realise her own full potential without worrying what some guy wants her to be.

I don't think there's anything wrong with what your daughter wrote. My husband will sometimes read a news article, come and give me a hug and then say something like "Men are just horrible". Then he'll tell me about the article. He knows it isn't all men, because it isn't him and it isn't his (admittedly few) friends but it's enough.

And sometimes people just want to vent to someone safe.

I pretty much thought the same at her age & still do. It's good that she's conscious of the fact that men can do a lot of damage to women. Maybe she'll find a good'n, but being cautious is not such a bad thing.

Misandry is NOT the antidote to misogyny. In fact the former fuels the latter

Well done you, that is literally the first Rule of Misogyny,
'Women are responsible for what men do'.

Please point out to me where I have disparaged either you or your husband? Because I'm more than happy to engage with you about things I have said, but not to have you make things up and attribute them to me and then suggest this is evidence of lack of rationality. That's disingenuous and unfair.
I didn't say that every women who doesn't hate men is a panderer. I merely pointed out that there are far more women who pander than hate, so your men are more likely to encounter women who praise and elevate, support, flatter and uplift them than hate them.

Imagine a man etc etc???

Do you not spend a lot of time on the internet, or something?

Personally I'd be a misanthrope rather than a misandrist. Your DD is halfway there.

(I appreciate that may just be me.)

Misandry is NOT the antidote to misogyny. In fact the former fuels the latter.

Are you seriously trying to say that women 'hating' men (which generally means simply being wary of them, and distrusting them) as a demographic for the heinous things they do to women and children, is why men do those heinous things to women and children?

That seems a bit backwards to me, but I admire the acrobatics you're trying to do to make misogyny women's fault.

(I also have a lovely DH, and a DS who seems to be turning out well - and neither of them have an issue with the fact that women are disillusioned with men as a demographic.)