the behaviour of most men

I understand you, OP. I'm a similar age to you, and my life has been greatly compromised by horrible men who have ruined many, many years of my life. I had an abusive father and that was followed by an abusive boyfriend, who I eventually got rid of and then met my husband, who turned abusive after marriage and emigration. Took me years to get free of him.

I do think there are some decent men around; however, there's no decency detector and you often don't know what you're dealing with until your heart is invested and you've wasted quite a long time. Also, most of the decent men were snapped up when they were young.

I didn't get any peace until I was 50, and this is the most peaceful stage of my life so far, with no close male relatives and no committed relationship.

Having men in my life again simply is not worth the risk. I'm more than half a century old, and men have done nothing but be nasty to me and break my heart. I will protect my current peace at all costs. Yes, it can be lonely, but I have lived with abuse and I have lived with loneliness. The latter is far, far better.

I went to a talk last year given by a woman who runs an NGO that helps women who've been sex trafficked.

One of the attendees asked if there is a typical profile of the men who buy sex from these women.

Absolutely, was the response. She calls it the 3Ms - middle aged, middle class, married.

There’s fawn too. Appease the crap out of him until you can get out of there and deal with it later. I’ve done all at various points.

The freezing one is the one that cemented things for me. I was 17 by then so been there done that several times, including fighting like mad and screaming my head off.

It was just so fucked up, such a level of entitlement that I couldn’t process it.

Here I am at a table , with 3 other girls with the esteemed professor X. Yes , in his home , but you know , with 3 other girls!!! His wife was in the kitchen making dinner!! His son in his bedroom revising. At the same table as 3 other girls. And he comes over , leans over me and while telling me how to solve the maths question I was stuck on, he started touching me under my jumper. And like an idiot I stood there, listened to his words still working on that fucking word problem. I was sure it wasn’t happening, he’ll surely stop, it’s a mistake, an accident. It didn’t stop. It went on for ages (probably minutes, but you know) all over my body. And i still sat there. It wasn’t happening, he’ll surely stop , it’s a mistake. There are three other girls here. His wife is right next door. So is his kid. I could scream . I could kick off. What is he thinking. Surely this is not happening.

At the end of the session I said thank you like i always did ffs!! Not just that , but I went back!! Because it couldn’t have happened. Not like that. It must’ve been an accident. A mistake. Then it happened again. And I kept quiet again. And I said thank you again.

I did tell. No one gave a shit or worse. I didn’t go back. Found another tutor myself. I passed my fucking tests. I still hate functions and inverses. Don’t get them. Don’t get why I didn’t scream or fight or shout or swear like i did before. Don’t get him. Don’t get his entitlement, his arrogance, his invincibility.

YANBU

I'm in my sixties now, and I can tell you you are not wrong. But I've had a long journey to get to this point.

Reading many of the responses here I found myself saying 'yes, I lived behind those rose tinted glasses for years too.' I don't blame women for their (or my previous) insistence that most men are decent; we have to believe that for own peace of mind, especially if we have children.Yet we see it on this site, week after week, month after month - the utter shock at the behaviour of a man they had totally trusted and believed in. I'm reminded of Elizabeth Taylor 'I fell off my pink cloud with a thud.'

Menopause, once it all settled down and I become free of the sexual imperative, has brought a more clear eyed view of how men actually are. I've been single by choice for 20 years as I had a child to raise alone, and I am SO glad now I kept to that decision. The issue is not just that men can be dangerous, and many of them certainly are, but the crux of the matter seems to me to be that they only think about themselves. In everyday life, everything is about them, what they want, and what they need to get it. Say no to them, without apology, without excuse or 'kindness' and see the reaction. Abandoned children feel that the father doesn't love them. How do you tell a child that actually it's nothing to do with them personally, it's just that the man didn't want to be a dad. It was all about him and what he wanted, he barely gave the child itself a thought. It's the same selfishness that means they can justify affairs, neglect, hiding resources, extreme porn use etc etc, while appearing to be good husbands and decent members of society.

I don't hate men per se, I have a brother who I love dearly but God, I do roll my eyes at some of the stuff he comes out with. And he doesn't even realise there's anything wrong with it. I pull him up, but I'm not sure how much attention he pays. Like most men I've known, he's very sure of his own opinions, no matter how little evidence he may have to support them.

So my attitude to men now is to keep my distance. I'm polite and will engage in the requisite social niceties but tend to avoid getting into anything deeper. In fact, the last time I did allow it, was a situation where I was asked to contribute to a talk as I have lived experience of the issue being presented. I was patronised by two men who had none of my experience and were much younger than me, but who clearly thought their lofty opinions were much more worthy than my actual life. I won't make that mistake again! I just don't have the energy for it anymore. I will say though, one man who also lived it did come up to me afterwards and said to pay no attention, they were clearly trying to wind me up. Which was decent of him. 1 out of 3- I wonder if that is anywhere near the truth of it?

I have 2 daughters and 3 sisters.

Both daughters have been sexually harassed repeatedly since around age 11/12. One has been raped, both have been assaulted.

My sisters are all married, 1 to an absolute dick who doesn’t lift a finger in their home of help with their children “I’m not a babysitter”. 1 comes across as a good guy but when drunk the misogyny seeps out and he shows his true colours - in vino veritas. Sister number 3 was, I believed, married to a genuinely nice man, but it turns out he had an affair and my poor sister had to decide whether to leave or push all her emotions down and ignore it in order to stay in a marriage with the cheating bastard. She stayed.

Even the nice men have so many subtle ways that show how disappointing they are, but there’s none so blind as those that can’t see.

I wish women would defend women like they defend men. The world would be a better place for it.

You are being very unreasonable to generalize about half the human race. Every human being is a mixture of good and bad; and as the mother of three sensitive and kind young men, I resent you making such a generalization.

YANBU at all.

Also in my 50s, started out so optimistic, loved the men in my life (and still do), to find over the years that it’s the women in my life who keep shit going whilst the men, even the good ones, are mediocre at best.

I know so many women who are quick to defend their perfect husbands, to announce “women are crap too” whenever men are held to account, and I can see that their husbands are largely not great either.

I don’t know one man who isn’t misogynistic even in a mild way, but we’re so used to it we mostly don’t see it.

Oh save your sympathy. It’s an awareness of what they can be capable of. It’s the lack of surprise/shock at yet another headline or friend crying cause her husband is a cheat /arsehole/abuser. It’s knowing that it can happen to you. It’s knowing that it can be him.
I know decent men, as far as I know them and there are always limits to that.l I also know what can lurk between and the obliviousness (sometimes deliberate) of the people(family, friends, community, spouses etc.) around them.

Like blaming Sarah Everard for "walking home alone'.

Its not just my life experience though - sister in law - 12 years younger/ different location/ life choices/ work etc jokes my brother basically stalked her, got her pissed, got her pregnant now they are married ha ha
Daughters, had sex with a man who took the condom off - rape and assault - 30 years younger than me, different part of the country/ social class etc
There only one common denominator

I don’t think that’s right at all,but what saddens me is some posters here just have had very bad life experiences with men and clearly don’t know any decent ones or been treated well. And that’s made them think it’s them all. It’s not, it’s a minority, but I can see why a woman who has sadly never experienced the majority would think otherwise.

I think most men have raped if they told the truth. If we agree rape is sex women didn’t consent to, were not sober enough to consent to, wsnted to stop but it didn’t, were talked into to get out of a situation, persuaded to then 1% is more likely to be the number that are innocent

I am incredibly biased against such narratives, for obvious reasons.

The funny(not really)thing is, if you dig deep down enough most of those women will also have a story or two. Maybe it wasn’t that bad, maybe it didn’t quite escalate , maybe other things/people kept them safe , but there normally is a story. Of course the moral of the story is still “it didn’t happen to me because I’m a special/the right kind of woman.”

but a much higher proportion than you think either are, would if they could, or have thought about it.

If you think about the stats - the vast majority of women have had some experience of sexual assault. It's highly unlikely that just 1% of 'bad' men are out there committing 100% of violent crimes - for the numbers to work out they'd have to be raping multiple women every single night. Most rapes are by men the victim knows, not strangers in dark alleys - their husbands, boyfriends, uncles, friends.

There was a study done a few years ago where men were asked if they would rape if they could definitely get away with it - the proportion who replied 'yes' was staggeringly high, particularly when the wording varied so the word 'rape' wasn't used but the action was the same.

Even if only a comparatively small men rape or sexually assault children and women, far more watch porn or images of CSA fantasising about it. "It" might not be your Nigel (husband) but it almost definitely is your Dave (brother), Ramesh (work colleague), Jack (uni friend), etc.

Other women have to believe that they made a good choice and that it is entirely down to their judgment that nothing bad has happened to them. The alternative is too awful to admit that they are just lucky, for now and their luck could change at any moment

I absolutely agree there is a type of misogyny that shows up, often sadly in women, where they detail all of the absolutely perfect, idealistic totally unreachable ways women should have to behave and give absolutely no responsibility to men to have anything that remotely resembles basic human standards.

Have you met most men? Or just some men?

The issue with this train of thought is that the focus is once again on women(their choices, their decisions, their behaviours) and the male issue and VAWAG gets quietly dropped. Not just that, but those men would be arseholes whether you omen picked them or not.

P.S. If you want to start a thread about why women choose “bad” men , I’ll happily join you. I have a lot of theories on that one too.

YANBU.

My father was a good one, gentle, kind, honest, loyal but of his generation in that he could barely boil an egg (although he did do all the gardening). Apart from him, my experience and observation of men has been very bad.

ExH misrepresented who was from the outset, in reality he had shabby morals, selfish, secretive , entitled, and unfaithful I think. Also a lazy, disinterested misogynist parent and duplicitous and tight with his extensive hidden funds.

Current partner is better but I agree with this comment upthread …Even the nice switched on ones generally exhibit selfish and entitled attitudes towards women at some level. And they generally think they are pretty fucking great because they look after their own kids sometimes (as long as it doesn't affect their career) and cook a bit (using all the pots and fancy expensive ingredients whilst expecting a round of applause) or "help" their women clean the house they live in (although rarely cleaning the toilet, those unseen bits around the dishwasher…

Just looking at my immediate neighbours there are three examples of unfaithful men, one a pit pervy, definitely his eyes wandered over his teenage daughter's friends and makes crude sexist jokes. That one was financial dodgy too- lost job under a cloud. There’s an ok one who is acutely on the spectrum who doesn’t do anything domestically - wife is breadwinner and she organises home too. Two others where both the DHs are very dominant, misogynist, take themselves off for hobbies for hours, leaving wives to do everything else. The final one is better, long marriage, praises his wife. Seems very equal partnership and equal parenting, both highly educated academic types. So out of eight local examples there’s only one where the man seems a really good one.