the behaviour of most men

I have a question for the mums of wonderful young men/boys.You’re adamant your child wouldn’t do a bad thing. Fair enough, you know then and I don’t.

However , if their friends were doing the bad thing, would they join in, would they help them? Would they do anything about it? Try to stop them? Get help /get an adult? Would they sit by passively? Would they at least offer help after? Comfort? Support? Offer the tell/be a witness?
Would you even know about it?
Not doing the bad thing is not good enough. Again, I speak from experience, but I won’t bore you all with another tale of woe.

No it means those professions are dominated by mediocre men who probably wouldn’t even be able to get a job as a receptionist. They lack the skill set but they’re deemed suitable to run a department.
Tale as old as time

No it’s the smugness, the dismissiveness of other people’s experiences, the inability to take in rational evidence that challenges your world view. Your unwillingness to look objectively at how you engage in difference of opinions, anyway clearly this conversation is unproductive due to the above so I’ll disengage.

That just means women are underpaid not that lost men are overpaid.

if having a different opinion is "conflict oriented" for you, I see what part of the problem might be

I am not going to agree with nonsense just to look better and think I'd give a better impression.
That's literally what people like you accuse women to do facing men 😂
No, most of us really do not do that.

again.. that's YOUR experience.

I am not conditioned to "make way for men", or sit aside and excuse anything. From them, or from women frankly. Maybe that's why we have different experience. I don't put up with bullshit or bad treatment from anyone, and won't be bullied by men, or women.

it’s well known that women reach their 40s and the scales lift.
it's really not. You might be in a small little bubble where everybody agrees with you, and it's well known in your circle.

You have convinced yourself and your little group that men are at best hiding their bad nature and are an entirely different species.

I am glad I dont' live in your world. I believe in PEOPLE, women can be just as bad as men, or worst.

You know who had the same language? Racists, who tried to convince themselves and others that other races were "different", "deep down a threat" and should never be mistakenly accepted as their own. Read about it. Testimonies are everywhere, and racism still exist today. I read a few posts from posters fainting in horror because "men are so DIRTY! just for being MEN". Come on...

We can only hope with progress people will learn to be less prejudiced and ignorant, and your silly beliefs will go away.

The way you write is actually very conflict oriented and you have accused me of that behaviour too.

The difference between you and me is I can accept that about myself whereas you deny reality.

what do you want me to say? I am not denying her experience, I am not pretending it didn't happen.

I am not pretending that parents who abuse their kids do not exist, or that it doesn't happen simply because I had great parents. I am not going to argue about what she experienced, why would I?
But keeping with this analogy... I would also say that it's absolutely not true that MOST parents are abusive, simply because some kids have experienced abuse.

Unlike you, I am not here for a fight.

I stand by my point, no, it's not the behaviour of MOST men. I am not sure why others are trying to convince themselves is most men, it's sad for them, it must be claustrophobic to live in such an utopian world

One of the reasons I hate all the "perimenopause is feminist enlightenment" discourse is that what they don't say is that it isn't just men that they feel able to be nasty to - it's young women as well. When I read about the scale of hostility that some middle-aged women apparently feel about everyone else, a lot of behaviour I experienced in my teens and 20s from older women suddenly made a lot of sense.

that's such a twisted view, I won't even bother to comment.
If you genuinely believe I can't have a different opinion without being physically abused and lying to myself about it?
That's very scary. You need therapy.

I'll say that about men though: to be fair to them when their desire to have as many as women as possible goes because their hormones decrease, they don't generally write articles about how enlightened they are.

Edited to say that this post was not directed to the post it replied to.
Posted in error.

This isn't my life experience.

Actually, what my life experience is teaching me as I get older is that any sentence that starts "all men..." or "all women..." is incredibly stupid. Seeing any given individual through the prism of their sex first is so alien to me.

I've unfortunately experienced appalling behaviour from men - but also wonderful behaviour from different men. The appalling behaviour wasn't intrinsic to their maleness. That also goes for the appalling behaviour (and wonderful behaviour) I've experienced from women.

I was a very misanthropic teenager who hated most people, and definitely most men. One of the nicest surprises in my life as I've got older has been finding out how brilliant so many people really are.

Why are you making this out to be some sort of achievement?

It's not the scales lifting at all, it's just the hormones that lead some women to get into a quid pro quo relationship whereby she puts up with selfish (albeit not heinous) behaviour from him in return from something from him goes.

There's no great enlightenment.
It's the equivalent of a man settling down at 50.
It's nothing to do with any enlightenment that monogamy is the way to live, just his hormones decreasing.

And to be frank some women remain in pleasing men mode beyond menopause.

This comment is just nonsense. It really is.

No. We’ve spent a lifetime being conditioned to make way for men, to sit aside and excuse their behaviour.
In perimenopause our hormones change in a way that allows us to see the bullshit (I’ve seen this described so well with levels of hormones quoted, but sadly I can’t remember it, ironically perimeno brain fog 😬)

Rather telling that you consider this weakness or that we’re idiots, when it’s well known that women reach their 40s and the scales lift.

I think when you’ve worked in male dominated environments, as I have, and have seen men work together day in day out and the way they talk about women - even the nice guys - it really opens your eyes. Yet to meet a woman who has worked in similar circumstances who hasn’t had the same experience of men.

When you’ve seen so many men pose themselves as helpful, kind, caring, then slowly realise they’re doing it to try to get into women’s knickers, it opens your eyes.

This doesn’t happen with a minority of men, it’s so common it’s typical, but these men are good at hiding it, then they are defended by other men and by too many women, upholding their misogyny.

Yeah being thoughtless and lazy and selfish isn't evil but it shows they don't give a fuck about others, or if they do, it's only because that they want you to keep serving them. Stop serving them. See what happens.

Do they? Do you have a source for that? Last time I looked it was the opposite, but that could’ve changed.

I do accept that some men are truly awful human beings. I really do.

I'm not denying anybody's experience of this at all but the set of behaviours of what makes men terrible is being expanded to include behaviours that aren't heinous.
A bit thoughtless and selfish, for example. Doesn't do many chores.
Hardly on the same level as a wife beater.

And these behaviours are very much apparent in women, too.
Cheating for example. As it happens, women cheat more than men but that's another story.

Sadly i agree with you OP. Genuinely positive interactions with men have been fewwww and far between in my life, and i dont just mean my own direct experiences, its hearing and seeing what happens to others too.

If you read it you're realise what women are saying is the opposite ie these men are everywhere. Denial stops progress.

My DD is 14 and I caught a man at the opticians yesterday looking at her legs, he worked there and was in his 50s. I gave him the deadliest stare imaginable, I wanted to punch him in truth. She had shorts on because it’s hot but she’s a child ffs and it’s pretty obvious she is. I think parenting girls is hard for this reason, I felt like a bear or lion in that moment like take your eyes off my child you fucking creep.

Some men are honestly great. They know where to keep their eyes, they don’t make you feel uncomfortable as a woman in any way, they’re just genuinely kind and lovely people. It definitely isn’t all men but yeah, a lot of them give me the heebies. I just feel like I have to be careful around them and don’t know how to read them. Because I’m also young myself (I’m only 33) and attractive, it’s still very much an issue for me. You’re always questioning whether they’re being nice or just wanting to screw you, no matter how old they are.

Jesus Christ. Being selfish and thoughtless does not make somebody a terrible human being.
Women can be thoughtless and selfish, too.
They really can be.

Obviously men commit more violent, heinous crime. Nobody sane would deny it!

But when it comes to thoughtlessness and selfishness, there's no difference between men and women.

While some of the things the men have done here are undeniably truly awful and if I had my way they'd all be shot, or put in a pit to starve, frankly I don't give a shit if they do. They are beneath contempt and deserve no compassion.

I do have to say, though. that having read this thread I am now convinced that women are generally solipsistic.

'I've had 3 terrible things happen to me, therefore all men are like this.'