Is MN feeding unhealthy attitudes towards men?

It would be lovely to create and protect spaces where women don't have to manage or accommodate male expectations.
It would be great to see men taking responsibility for their own emotional regulation, purpose, and behaviour without demanding women's emotional labour or validation as default, .e.g expecting women to be their audience and accommodate them when they're having difficult feelings.
Both sexes acknowledging real average differences in strengths, tendencies, and vulnerabilities (physical, psychological, statistical) without using them to justify superiority or victimhood.

Well women (and men) who are straight are wired to want companionship from the opposite sex, even if they don't usually like the ones they meet in real life. And there's also the need for children, that you mention.

Would he really be that stupid to send an anniversary card obviously ordered for another women when we've only been split up a couple of months and he's implying that he might want to get back together?

That thread?

And you think she's being unreasonable?

Mumsnet saved my sanity. I had no idea coercive control was a thing or spousal rape. Unfortunately I was a victim of them.

A recent thread on the sex board about a husband masturbating had very reasonable responses. They considered the man's perspective as well as the woman's. That thread would have been torn apart on Relationships, due to a husband suggesting his wife participate in a sexual act with him. I've seen that happen before

@Grtscott. But it wasn't posted so it didn't happen.

It. Is. All. In.Your. Head.

Come on,this is a ridiculous comment.. over the last year I've read loads of political threads on here , especially on the Politics and FWR boards but also others. There' been a lot on Iran, Ukraine, Starmer, etc. And no, not all relating it back to personal life.

Are you just not reading these threads? It also depends which boards you're using. If you read Politics, News and FWR you'll find a lot.

The term man child was definitely around before Mumsnet. There are plenty of them in real life, if you haven't had to deal with any, then that's wonderful. I don't dislike men, but I can definitely see the differences. There's very few women who get through adult life unable to cook or clean properly etc, it seems much more common with men. Is it because they're incapable of learning to do normal adult tasks, nope.
I have had long term relationships with men who ask what's for dinner every night, don't help with DIY or gardening, contribute less to the household in almost every way, reliant on girlfriend or family for everything. I am now in a relationship with a lovely man, competent in normal adult tasks, i feel lucky.
Some men seem stuck in the attitude of the 1950s that they should be able to go to work, come home and do next to nothing. Except times have moved on and if they are now in a relationship with a woman who also goes out to work, they need to share the domestic load, the reason why you see so many complaints on the posts on here, is that it's not uncommon for men to expect women to pick up all the domestic labour and also, very few people will post to say their partner is wonderful

is this your first day on the internet? go on Reddit. Or X. Or tiktok. Or YouTube. Or Facebook.

A german football club are working in partnership with a cosmetics company (whose european headquarters are in their city) to stamp out sexualised abuse of women and so on at their matches. Giving men ideas about how to put a stop to it there and then, get the woman out of that situation, and make it clear to the man that it must stop.

And the comments - from men in about 99.9% of replies - are vile. Truly awful.

My DH is one of the good ones too but he doesn’t take this debate personally. He agrees!

The best role model children have is the environment they grow up in and where do children learn most about relationships themselves? From their parents

Have children with a useless father why on earth keep on repeating it?

Yes this can be called whatever label you want to put on it but is sperm more important than children growing in the best environment as possible?

Sure use men as a bank and endlessly complain about them but needs of children, even un comceived ones should come first

And if they are so bad why are women so desperate to date and keep one?

Women have always treated the men that can't carry their own weight in a relationship as helpless babies. I think it's the acceptability of an adult behaving like a dependent that's changed. I don't think anyone (male or female) has the time to tolerate 'dead weight' when the majority of.people are.living stressful, overstuffed faces paced lives trying to.tick every box.

I often read out posts to DH and chat through random things with him. He is always as horrified about the posters bad experiences as I am. I doubt if he responded it would be much different to many of the women posters on here. Perhaps that is because he grew up with a very abusive father who displayed every form of abusive behaviour out there towards his mother who continued to love him to the end of her life.

My DH is perhaps not as willfully blind as others to how much damage these behaviours cause to women and children because he lived it first hand.

Well they do, and are quite rightly castigated for it by other women, on websites like this, except that this forum then replicates that vice versa.

Yes Mumsnet is very anti men - brackets them as all the same

i leave the OW out of the equation entirely though. If a man is married he knows. And he must say "no". If an OW doesn't know he's married and he pretends not to be? how is she to blame. If an OW is a predator, and doesn't care he's married? he knows and he must say "no".

The laundry one the other day was bloody infuriating. Yes, it happened once. And it really hurt/annoyed the OP. So what should she do? make sure it doesn't happen again and the easiest way is to keep her special laundry separate. I learned that the hard way after accidentally washing a silk blouse. It hasn't happened again, and that was 40 years ago, because i keep special laundry separate. (and my DH does take care of it if he has time and i don't, without asking, and does it properly)

Step-mum wanting her nice new house to have 2 spare rooms and for her (frankly disgusting) SDs to share a room so only 1 is disgusting? I'm right with her because she owns the house too (and she was receptive to ideas about them earning the spare room by keeping their room tidy, and pp were so keen to ignore that the SDs share a room 3 ways at their main residence).

So yes, some posters are keen always to back a woman, be against a MIL or Step-mum and hate men. the rest? give a balanced array of ideas, views and comments. That is how conversations and asking for advice goes. (and if you want mean girl vibes? forget AIBU and head for the straight-talkin'-gals at S&B)

What I find disappointing is that I find I go to Pistonheads for detailed discussions of the world today, like Ukraine, Iran, the economy and of course the fantastic Trump thread as these type of discussions just don’t exist in MN.

MN discussions are always more personal, not bigger picture. Women wanting to share their individual stories to relate things back to them.

Well, this is a safe space where women can vent. This is what’s going on behind closed doors in our lives. These are the men some of us are living with. Our mums & grannies had to to put up & shut up. At least more women can get divorced now (or not get married at all). We’re seeing the reality on MN.

No not agog because its a given that a) that is morally, legally and socially intolerable behaviour that needs to stop and the poster needs to be made safe b) its a given that OP is not talking about genuine abuse/violence, she's talking about every day interactions that men and women get wrong sometimes, because we're all human

Men’s behaviour is feeding negative attitudes towards men

There are double standards on MN.
There are many shitty men.
There are many very bitter women hurt by shitty men- some justified some less so.
There tends to be the less great situations posted.

If you are in a good relationship with a man it can also be like with teens - just you wait it will go bad from posters.

Have a family member and friend of family women who picked very poor partners - left previous kids - and had kids when men had feet out the door then moan and are so very bitter - they also have no sympathy for others but never acknowlege how much their own actions led them there - all men are bad even ones helping them out when they stop and anyone better placed should just wait till their lives implode even if there's no sign - so it's there in RL as well so not surprising it shows up on-line as well.

Some women on here are men haters. If men spoke about women the same way............. I'm female aged 43.

I guess if you have low standards due to having a crap father and relationships, you'd probably think it was normal and that people are being harsh on mumsnet to expect any more of men.

or you could have had that as I did, make sure you don't make your parents mistakes, and just think the OP is right.

You realise that if a quarter of voters think the husband should wash his hands after handling raw meat (not exactly the most unreasonable thing in the world) that three quarters of voters thought he shouldn't have to - ie the vast majority?

I saw a lot of people on the spare bedroom thread say that kids always trumped guests and that her husband should get a say. I replied wouldn't she want her kids to have a room each at their dads I think.

Neither of these threads was a simple case of everyone agreeing with the OP that what the woman wants she should get.

I think MN you tend to get a pressure pot and therefore a disproportionate view.

There aren't many threads about the husbands who do just get on with life, are responsible partners and fathers or the women who have good marriages with a sex life.
I work as a team with my husband most of my friends marriages are the same out of 10 though there are 2 where I hope they wake up and divorce their husbands as they are useless and only add pressure to my friends.

In the rare occasion these threads pop up you will get responses of yeah right or he will cheat etc.

It is a bit polarised in that. As for the bacon one I did say to wash hands because of food poisoning risk potential to spoil a holiday! But I also have Environmental health understanding.