NAMALT. Really? Dig deep and be honest with yourself. AMALT

Isn't just really weird to be acting like it's some kind of balancing scale?

Oh, the fire service saved x amount of women last year vs x amount of women dying at the hands of intimate partners & make relatives. If there are fewer women killed than rescued, men are great and there's no pattern of male violence - is that really your argument?

You're comparing men's actions in a job with pay & status vs men's , I guess, leisure(?) activities 😂 🙄

And again, one of the reasons there aren't as many women working in the fire service & other emergency services is because of hostile work environments. In 2002, the Equalities Commission made recommendations to reduce obstacles to women and minorities joining, which took us up a few percent, but it's still an ongoing process. After all the London Fire Brigade was found to be “institutionally misogynist and racist” only in 2022.

It's like having a boys club and then going round saying "neeneerneer girls don't do the things we do in our boys club!".

See, that's the thing, @crackofdoom . I would never say 'I'm a good guy', because I have the brain cells to realise that it's not up to me to decide. Whether I am a good husband, a dad, coworker, friend, and by extension a 'good man', or not - that is a question for those who know me, interact with me, etc. So I don't engage in "BUT THAT'S NOT HOW I AM" - level of conversations. It helps no one.

And no, no, I was very clear with what I asked about - why the moms, multiple female parents of children throughout years, consistently do the above at our school's drop-off. If women in general are better and more empathetic, less selfish than men in general, then what is the reason? I just want to see if people end up with "well it's just those specific mums, but we are not like that", or not. Parents parking in a shit way where you live is by no means an answer to that. In any shape or form. Do you hear how "well you are talking about an overarching pattern of male behaviour" sounds, and the offenders in this case are all women? Isn't that a little bit absurd to just straight jump to that? I am talking about this specific example, I made it clear that it is what I am asking about. I would like to see how the "all women are better than men by virtue of being women" side would try to explain it.

Also - I'd just also mention, that it's funny how this is my experience pretty consistently for years, and somehow I have the objectivity to not consider it a big, general truth for everyone, and somehow, god knows why, I don't think men are better at all, by any metric.

I am amazed by "...to be a "good guy", there need to be the bad guys beside which you look good, don't there?"
So. Men are bad. Which is bad. We don't like that. But there are good men. Which is also bad because there needs to be bad men to look good next to them. So bad is bad, but good is bad, also.

What you are deliberately choosing to ignore is that what we are identifying is an overarching pattern to male behaviour. Yes there are exceptions, yes there are individuals who buck the trend, but there are very few men out there who do not benefit from their entrenched privilege in some way or another.

ExhaustDAD if you have ever thought "But that's not me- I'm one of the good guys!" then yes, you too have benefited from that privilege. Because, to be a "good guy", there need to be the bad guys beside which you look good, don't there? And are you objectively all that good, or just comparatively?

Laziness? being inconsiderate arses? Rushing? A combination of them, even?
I totally am on your side - What you experience is shit. What I experience is shit. But neither are a conclusive representation of any group, is my point. So yours is another example to what I am preaching, alongside mine.

(The note about the wildflowers hurts just reading about it... how disgusting)

I live next to a school.

There are ample parking spaces round the corner, but instead parents like to park either on the double yellow lines at the junction, straddling the pavement outside my house or right on top of our wildflower verge. I have only ever seen men do the latter two. Why do men hate pedestrians and nature so much?

(FWIW, I also have a very low opinion of both people who don't park considerately leaving space for others (there's a 3 car parking space outside my window usually occupied by the 2 cars of 1 male and 1 female neighbour sprawled across it) and the idiots who waste their time arriving early just to snag a desirable parking space outside school when they could just as easily park sensibly 5 minutes walk away and avoid the crush if they have that time to kill)

I was wondering about something this morning - what the explanation or opinion is to the following according to those who are dead-set on one entire group of people being inferior to them.. Throughout the comments, we have seen it multiple times that the argument is that women are more selfless, more empathetic, etc.

As I was sitting in the car with my children at drop-off, waiting for the school to open with other families, we were listening to music and talking, while I was looking at other parents arriving and parking. And as per usual (4 out of 5 times on average, so we could say IN GENERAL) mums (multiple, not just one or two) tend to park in a way that their cars take up 2 spaces. The specific space where I park (as I arrive early to avoid queuing) can comfortably fit 5 cars. But it generally houses 3, because mums (never seen a dad do it, so i can comfortably say that), who arrive there before others just park however it lands, no matter if there's half a car's worth of room to their left and to their right, they don't care. Then they sit there with the others, looking at a queue forming that makes it hard for ongoing traffic to get past of all the cars waiting. With all their empathy and selflessness that they were naturally born with, somehow they don't seem to care about others - heck, fellow parents (mostly mums, so fellow women, sisters-in-arms) will be able to park their cars and drop their children. I am amongst the first ones to arrive, because I can't stand queues, I want to avoid them. And with all that empty space at my disposal, do you know where I park? right at the edge, so there is just enough space on my right to open the car door, and everyone else has the opportunity to park in a civilised fashion, without taking up multiple cars' worth of space with just one.

My kids are year 6, so we have been doing this routine for a good while. I am the only one doing school pickups and drop-offs in our family, so I have seen it a few times. And not ONCE have I seen a dad do the above.

Disclaimers: Let's see... This is not an argument against women, this is not an argument about women vs male drivers, this is not an argument for how awesome I am, this is not an argument saying all women park like this, this is not an argument saying all men park better than women..Hope I covered everything.

I am just wondering about your answer - why does this happen? Could it be that my personal experience with this does not represent the entirety of women drivers and mums? Dare I say... Not All Women Are Like That?

(Before anyone throws it in my face that NAMALT is used in more serious contexts, like violence, OP's original angle was just simple every-day things, husbands being not as great as their wives. I just want people to think about being prejudiced against an entire group of people.)

but how would you say patriarchy manifests?

In terms of what is deemed important and what is not - patriarchal attitudes run through everything. For example - what is more important than raising the next generation? So why are early years teachers and child carers not among the highest paid people in society?

There is an excellent post earlier about types of bravery that are lauded. I made a point earlier about where information is presented and to whom. And lets not forget the default person is a man - so for example every time you get into your car, you are less safe than a man because you are wearing a seat belt designed for male anatomy. I went to the theatre over the weekend - good production, but more male roles than female, which is pretty common. Why is that? Why are male led or dominated stories the default? Why is the Bechdel test still a thing? Why will men and women not be earning equally until after 2050?

I dont think patriarchy is about men supporting men. It is a system that devalues women so that men retain privilege. Does that mean that all women struggle or dont do well? Of course not. But it is harder.

Something tells me you've never eavesdropped on building site chat!

It's 90% slagging their colleagues off behind their backs 😆

Nice attempt at changing the subject.

You could increase the figure tenfold and it would still be far lower than the number of women saved by men.

It's worrying that you're so annoyed by that fact. More women being saved than killed is a good thing, right? Surely scoring points isn't more important than female lives.

Google says that the estimated figure is 38,000 people rescued annually by the fire service.

So a lot of women. 😉

What about women who weren't killed by a partner? Women killed by their sons, colleagues, carers, strangers?

And the ones permanently physically disabled and scarred by men? The victims of trauma because of rape and domestic violence? Do they not count?

Is your bar so low that men meet it by not having murdered their Ex?

How many?

Yes, absolutely. Women have displayed admirable courage in many situations too. I'm only mentioning the above because this thread has turned into a typical mumsnet man bashing fest.

No bloke who valued his life would dare try and minimise the ordeal of childbirth but there are plenty of women who opine about how great a female-run world would be whilst taking for granted all the things the current system had provided them. That's not to say that things can't be improved but for all their shortcomings and the violent minority of males, men are pretty good at getting on with it. They seem to get far less caught up in petty tiffs etc like we see in all the threads on here whinging about MILs/SILs/mean school mums etc.

In England and Wales, women now make up about 36% of police officers- so if a knife-wielding maniac did turn up, women might well be among the officers sent to help.

Now, onto the wider point:

I understand that you work in construction yourself, no? So I can understand why you value that kind of physical courage the most. And I share your frustration with posts on this thread that dismiss the good qualities of men in such a blanket way.

But remember that women have and do often risk their lives too, just often. in different ways. You focus only on a very specific kind of bravery — dramatic, confrontational situations like fighting attackers or running into burning buildings. Those are obviously courageous, and many men do those jobs.

But there are other situations where women risk their lives for others :
For example:
• Historically, childbirth was one of the most dangerous things many women ever did. Before modern obstetrics, maternal mortality was significant, and in many parts of the world it still is.
• Humanitarian and aid workers operating in war zones or unstable regions. Many of these workers are women, and they face real risks from violence, disease, and kidnapping.
• Healthcare workers during COVID-19 — a large proportion of the frontline workforce (especially nurses and carers) were women who continued working despite significant personal risk.
• Women involved in resistance movements or intelligence work in wartime. Many served as couriers, organizers, or spies and faced torture or execution if captured.

None of this means men aren’t brave — clearly many are. But it suggests that risk and courage show up in different forms, and sometimes the less visible ones don’t get counted.

Funny how those that moan about unequal representation are usually the first with the excuses. 😆

I said women murdered by their partner. Which was 75 for the year ending March 2025.

More than 100 for sure.

All big statistics and historical relevancies aside, I wonder why personal experiences and anecdotes count in these types of arguments only when it supports one's own views... That is just such logical fallacy that makes it hard to look past.

"Well, my experience is that my girlfriends are amazing, and their husbands are not". - Yes, that is what men are like.
"And my experience is that both my husband and my best friend (M) pull their weight at home, are attentive dads and pretty great partners". - Irrelevant when it comes to the general truth.

Make it make sense, either take both, or disregard both.

I agree with you mainly on this, but historically I would argue that since life was more violent, there was less law enforcement & women had less power often, it's more understandable that women did that. Plus, in a lot of history, women (and men too often) didn't have much choice in who they married, it was arranged by family.

When you say 'things designed for women' that people complain about, what kinds of things are you talking about?

A lot more women are doing DIY now though, and it increases down the generations.

https://www.insightdiy.co.uk/news/rise-in-the-female-diyer/994.htm

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/diy-jobs-women-men-study-b2884267.html

https://www.insightdiy.co.uk/news/yale-survey-modern-women-more-confident-about-diy-than-previous-generations/7053.htm#:~:text=The%20study%20found%20almost%20half%20of%20today's,and%20seven%20per%20cent%20of%20their%20grandmothers

'If only women had thought of creating a patriarchy to support them in every area of life.'

• re this : men in more recent eras didn't create the patriarchy so much as perpetuate it, though. Women could have tried to do a similar system but unfortunately stuff like the move to agriculture, emphasis on paternal lineage made this harder, as well as women's lesser physical strength making it more difficult to impose their will, especially in times when there was a lot more physical fighting & less law enforcement.

Is there patriarchy in England now though to support men in all areas of life? There is certainly misogyny : but how would you say patriarchy manifests? And clearly patriarchy doesn't always suppprt men, certainly not if it perceives them to have failed (homeless men, suicidal men etc)

Research shows women tend to have higher in-group solidarity. Imo patriarchy in history was more about groups of men supporting each other, siding along class/religion/tribe etc lines rather than generalised solidarity among men.

The culture of misogyny in the fire service is well documented.

Exactly, there's no reason a woman can't learn, or that a man would instinctively know how to.