Is MN feeding unhealthy attitudes towards men?

What makes me really sad are all the children growing up in abusive, unhappy and unequal homes. Witnessing that lack of respect day in, day out until they believe it is normal.

Another thing that makes me really sad is "casual" male abuse of women, IRL and online.
The impact of addiction on families.
Grooming, rape and trafficking of women and children.
And VAWG.
The cost of male violence in terms of education, police, NHS and the further economy.
Apologists.
Children who grow up without a mother because she was killed by a man who claimed to love her. Many of whom witnessed it. Check out the stats for mothers murdered in the presence of her child.

Those things make me really really sad.😢

Mumsnet does not feed unhealthy attitudes towards men. Men do.🤷‍♀️ And they don't seem keen to change it.🤨

I think a lot of man hating does go on on MN, sometimes justified, sometimes not. But its mostly on a completely personal level and from what I've seen, its always about one individual relating to one thread, and rarely about men as a whole.

I think the wider point is that MN is kind of a safe space for women to come and talk to other women and share opinions, laughs, ideas, etc. the good and the bad. Within that i think that a lot of women provide support for other women with the notion of "hes a massive arse, you're so right" kinda thing. It allows women to vent about whatever man in their life, and i don't think most of the women here are inherently misandrists trying to spread hate, it's just the way they show support to other women sometimes, by agreeing with them.

If anyone pisses me off, I love having a good bitch about them. And I think thats all it is, bitching about what's annoyed you and getting it off your chest.

That being said, I have noticed a more sinister undertone in some threads with regards to male-hate. That's always going to exist, it exists in the form of misogyny as well, as is so widely evidenced in the world it doesn't require an example.

However, I don't think MN is the sole cause of spreading hate against men, and i don't think it's particularly rife on here either. There's a lot of LTB comments on a lot of threads, and i think a lot of the time its warranted. MN being a safe space, women come here questioning whether their own relationships are abusive, and a lot of the time, they are. Its really highlighted for me quite how much it goes on in the world, and if it wasn't for other women advising these women that they are suffering abuse, should LTB, and might even call him a dickhead, then there would be a lot of women still trapped in abusive relationships that needn't be. Its not the case they're just spreading hate against men, I genuinely believe their sole intention is to help other women (with the obvious exclusion of the users who just seemingly want to put others down for anything).

Also, I haven't really seen anything about supporting women never having sex with their partners. What i see most commonly is women saying they don't have sex with their partner anymore due to lack of emotional connection, etc, and in which case I can understand why they wouldn't want to. I have seen comments "he should be grateful for what he gets" in relation to threads like this, and i have to say, I don't disagree.

I also don't think there's much indication that people here think men should do everything a woman's way, perhaps some things, and honestly I don't think thats a bad way to think at all. After centuries of phrases such as "don't be such a girl", "you throw like a girl" etc etc being thrown around (and even to this day), im not surprised women are now taking charge and asking men, why can't you be more like a girl? It was always presented as such a bad thing, but it really isn't. They are saying they need to do everything a woman's way (whatever that means), but moreso hinting at they should be more considerate, emotional, etc. I can't recall the amount of times I have been told to "man up", or "stop being so emotional" - its always qualities likened to men.

Overall I think what you're seeing is women uniting in their mindsets and discussing what works and doesn't work for them in a relationship and in life in general, and do so (mostly) without the commentary of men, which can be very refreshing not to have that male input. I love it here (most the time) as its so nice to get perspective from so many women from so many different walks of life. I would definitely not say MN is one big misandry fest that is skewing society's view of men into the gutter.

Or are women choosing to do this themselves and role modelling this to their daughters?

I’m sure this has been said but men themselves feed the attitudes towards them.

It is not misandrist to acknowledge that men as a class are a threat to women as a class.

I will probably get flamed for saying this but I have thought there have been double standards for a long time on MN. If a woman admits to having an affair, she is often encouraged to not confess to it and what he doesn't know won't hurt him, but if the male is the perpetrator, It's a firm vote of LTB and take everything from him apart from the clothes he is standing in.

In regards to your last paragraph, that sounds like a you problem, honestly. Why are you letting comments that don't reflect your real life experiences affect your view of men so much?

No.

Men are feeding unhealthy attitudes towards men, and some people are desperately trying to make women back into domestic supports only again.

HTH

Almost every physical and online space in the world is designed around men's wants and needs. Are women not allowed a wee corner of their own?

Some people have endured dreadful experiences at the hands of men and deserve to speak frankly without having to add a billion NAMALT qualifications. Men are not an oppressed class - quite the opposite, in fact.

Perhaps men coukd sort their shit out and then women would not have to warn each other about them?

Many do this and it’s obvious what sex they are. Men’s failings let them down again in this respect.
Men also post and paint themselves as utter heroes and their wives lazy unemployable wretches who make their lives a misery - his subsequent posts usually drip feed a more realistic scenario by the end of the thread though.

That was the problem with the poster who tried to tell me there was no such thing, though - she didn't bother to explain her pov at all, it was just 'there's no such thing', end of. I do have to say, though, that although I agree misogyny and misandry aren't exact opposites due to the power imbalance, I disagree that sexism from women towards men doesn't merit its own term.

I haven’t heard this at all. The worst vitriol I’ve heard is routinely handed out to female politicians, far worse than the male ones, and particularly from men!

Having worked in a male dominated environment for decades I manage to see them with their respectable faces off, being the only woman there I’m now an honorary man and they don’t try to be decent for me like they do their wives, sisters, mothers and friends. It’s eye opening and is 100% why I’ve lost all respect for most men and will never have a relationship with one ever again. Loads of women are totally deluded about the men in their lives and how they behave/talk when pack mentality takes over.

God I hope so. At the moment I feel like I'm influencing Mumsnet rather than the other way round. I'm having to do some pretty heavy lifting here, armed only with independently verified statistical data about the various inequities and violence women face.

It's a hard job but someone's gotta do it.

I agree with you, but there are also real and observable patterns in men's behaviour that are commented on. I think the overall narrative about male behaviour lacks any discussions of its redeeming qualities, but that is probably because there's a pretty large selection bias in the behaviour anyone would bother posting about. I'm not on here commenting on the nice stuff my DH does, or how useful his goal orientation can be. I'm just here talking about the the frustrations...

I agree. Especially the attitude to men experiencing mental health challenges...

A lot of behaviours in relationships are very 'gendered' though, unfortunately. If people don't want to be stereotyped, maybe they should stop behaving in such stereotypical ways!

I agree. I think when people post about relationships they should not disclose gender of OP and partner because the comments are very often vilifying the man and supporting the woman. If a woman posts that her husband isn't doing housework well it's weaponised incompetence, a form of abuse, laziness. If a man posts his wife isn't doing it she's depressed, worn down from carrying the mental load, feeling unappreciated. Man not having sex with his wife- must be another woman or a porn addiction, woman not wanting sex- man isn't treating her right.

It's interesting that the constant stream of examples of awful male behaviour posted about on MN has made you worried that MNers are anti-men, rather than worried about the men's behaviour...

I too have altered my opinions about men since I've been on MN, because frankly I had been very blind to how many women suffer abuse, disrespect and just general shitness in their relationships. Unlike you, apparently, this has made me appreciate my husband more. Though it's certainly made me certain that if I found myself single I would stay that way!

I've never known a woman I didn't fancy making small talk with on public transport turn on me and call me an uptight bitch or a lesbian.

Men? It's happened a lot more than once.

It's cute that you think men don't talk negatively about women they're not interested in. Hell, they'll use degrading, dehumanising language about women they are interested in, and often volunteer it – making unwanted and unnecessary commentary about how women in the public eye look and whether they'd fuck them.

Women on Mumsnet tend to only talk negatively about men with traits they're not attracted to if asked what they think of that trait.

I've been ploughing through this thread all day. I can't agree with the OP at all. Yes, there are some unreasonable or extreme (and sometimes deliberately inflammatory) opinions on here, just as there are in real life, but nowhere in real life have I come across so much wisdom about the normalisation of men in heterosexual relationships failing to treat their life partners as equals, not even on a women's studies course I took as part of my degree. I've been here for many years - not sure how many, but well over a decade - and have read so many intelligent and supportive discussions aimed at women who post in crisis about the state of their relationships. I came to realise that my own relationship, which I would have described as happy enough, was actually abusive and was hurting both me and our children, and as a result I was able to muster the courage to leave it.

Those minded to agree with the OP will probably interpret this as me being encouraged to put a bomb under my life a baying horde of man-hating harpies, but nothing could be further from the truth. I didn't really post on my own behalf (only one thread, quite anodyne - I thought - in my complaints, and quite mild in terms of the responses I got, though they were unequivocal about the fact that I was in a damaging relationship) but I read so much and thought a lot, over many, quite measured, years until I came to see that my relationship was actually making me physically ill. I literally didn't see what was happening before my eyes, because I saw feminism in terms of being held back in your career, the wage gap, the tyranny of beauty ideals, etc, and not about the burdens and constraints in my own life.

I'm enduringly grateful to the insightful women here who patiently help women like me open their eyes to the dysfunctional gender dynamics that toxify so many heterosexual relationships. If you reduce that support to a glib and dismissive rejection of what they do to "man-hating" or "misandry then it's your loss.