Is MN feeding unhealthy attitudes towards men?

Interesting.

There's a good amount of posters on this thread that agree with me, yet you still label it a "me" problem.

Perhaps you need to read an entire thread to properly engage in such discussions, rather than be one of the MN women who try to pile onto a poster who disagrees with them regarding men?

I'm not sure why Reddit is relevant to how posters use MN to put men down.

It's been a irrelevant segway.

To be fair, did men alive now create the patriarchal standards? I think it's difficult to view men now as creating patriarchal ideas like that. Men are born into a system with certain ideas and expectations of them, and women, and they may not necessarily agree. They're not a homogenous group working in concert.

I think the argument is that therefore short/lower earning etc men find it hard to find partners. But is this really such an issue in real life? Online dating is not real life.

I am so sure of it because statistics, and the reality of profit. Men pretend to be women all over internet sex stuff. Either for kicks or money.

See Ashley Madison etc.🤷‍♀️

Oh, and I've seen it happening on Mnet.🙈

I think talking about "misandry" is pointless, it doesn't affect men even if it exists, whereas misogyny gets women trafficked, assaulted, raped and murdered. Not the same thing is it.

And you're so sure of this because...?

... You're so down on men, many of them pretend to be women online for kicks?

That's quite a leap.

All very good points.

AIBU is a crazy place at times.

I find the sex board users the most realistic and down to earth about both sexes.

"Often" is doing all the heavy lifting there though.

Sex is sometimes a key element in the relationships between men and women. Equally, sex is sometimes absent from those relationships entirely.

Men often use friendship as a gateway to sex, and so do women. Men and women also use friendship as a gateway to nothing more than friendship, and those two sentences are not contradictory. (They also use friendship as a gateway to social status, career connections and many more ulterior motives. People are complex! Boiling it down to only sex is silly.)

Friendship between two people who are attracted to each other often leads to sex, but if one or both are in non-open relationships it often doesn't, unless one or both lacks moral fibre. I'm aware that affairs happen a great deal but "finding someone attractive and then doing nothing about it on account of already having a husband/wife" also happens a great deal, and is not as dramatic to talk about.

Oh don't get me started on all the threads where poster after poster lines up to declare that men who are short, or not high earners, or shy, or upset, or vulnerable, or bisexual, give her the ick. To me, learning about feminism and gender theory was what allowed me to unlearn all the traditional gender roles I'd been brought up with, both for men and women. It generally seems on MN that posters are happy with every traditional gender role except that men should do housework as well.

(Which is such a pointless thing to argue from a feminist standpoint. Yes, men should do equal amounts of chores and parenting. That's sorted out in my relationship. No one can step in and sort it out in yours though.)

I agree. There's a lot of double standards, there's a lot of anger and negativity towards men in general. Of course, it's easy to get sucked in. VAWG is a serious problem. Misogyny is a serious problem. But I feel like the prevalent anti-men attitude misses the point. Misogyny and the macho culture in society harms men and boys in different, but very valid ways. We can't tackle it without them.

I teach and I can see so much misogyny and poor behaviour from boys that really stems from self esteem. They don't feel manly enough. They are expected to act a certain way, dress a certain way, believe certain things, or society will say they are not good enough. Men who are effeminate, physically weak, or don't conform are punished in a way that I don't think women are.

I think about recent threads which advocate for banning all men from childcare settings. Threads on which people lose their collective minds when boys want to wear a skirt/leggings/ballet pumps. Threads full of women saying they wouldn't date men who can't drive, or don't earn enough. Oh, and threads which state men and women can't be friends. (My best friend is a man and my husband had a 'best woman' at his wedding)

There's very little sympathy for men, and sometimes they really do deserve it.

Exactly.

Misandry doesn't exist in the same sense that racism against white people doesn't exist and snobbery against rich people doesn't exist.

Yes, I hate that too - I find it really creepy when posters automatically jump to that conclusion.

I wonder if some of those people insisting that looking after children is exclusively the preserve of women then go on to blast men for essentially agreeing with them and seeing it as 'women's work' and leaving them to it.

Have never yet seen ' all men are arseholes" on MN, and I have been here since 2004, I think. And yes, male dominated sites like Reddit or 4 chan do get a huge voice.

It's so odd- in a world where VAWG is a huge issue- to pat yourself on the back for saying " all men are not arseholes" and do a clenched fist. We know that.