AIBU to think that all men are…

That’s so lovely!! You and your mum sound wonderful.

Oh I absolutely agree with you! My mum didn’t take any of my dad’s nonsense, hence the divorce. He saw how badly he treated our mother and vowed never to be like that. He’s the best man and best human I know.

My mum raised him to be a good man. As I’m raising my sons to be. I don’t want my boys to grow up being the cause of any woman’s distress. I want them to be her peace not her problem.

Men could say the same about women!!! Men have to second guess what women actually mean and want. If the man doesn’t do it the way the woman wants, he is seen as incompetent!!! I can understand why more men are not bothering with relationships. A lot of women are HARD work!!!

Being married is like going to "Build a bear", the woman has to try to create an acceptable human being from a collection of random bits and pieces.Tried it once, too much work for too little reward, never lived with a man again. Quite happy

Why is that?
It seems from your OP that you're not in a relationship with a man.

Whose mental an practical load are you carrying and why do you do that?

On MN the only litmus test of a man's moral character seems to be whether he pulls his weight at home and does the chores. I guess it's not surprising but it is blinkered.

I'm not defending any of your lazy husbands - my point is, if domestic selfishness is the type of bad behaviour you hate the most, then as heterosexual women you're only going to see it from men.

Of course there are many, many more ways for men and women to be selfish and awful than not doing the hoovering though. And perhaps this is my perspective as a child-free and slatternly woman speaking, but I simply don't consider being domestically slack as a moral failure. And there should be about 5000 feminist issues to prioritise before "the mental load".

A boy’s mother is typically he’s very first experience with love and attachment.

Perhaps some women need to do a better job at raising their sons (and daughters!!)

Perhaps their worlds aren't so binary as this suggests. Perhaps they have hope that they can create a home environment and, to a limited extent, an external environment, in which their boys are brought up which could make them less likely to exhibit misogynistic behaviour than the men of their own generation.

Maybe they point out people they think are good role models, and explain why, and maybe they also point out people they think are poor role models, and explain why. Perhaps they tell their sons they have agency and capacity and can choose how they use those abilities in their lives. Perhaps they see bringing up boys well as one of the single most powerful changes they themselves can bring to bear in the world.

I have less patience since peri with those men who are crap at many aspects of being a decent adult human. Fortunately I'm insulted from some of the worst of it.

D'oh!

*insulated 😂

It’s very sad that a lot of women don’t want boys. If they are resenting the sex of their baby before they’re even born, It must affect the relationship with their son/s.

Just because all the men you know are like this, doesn’t mean the rest of the global male population is. I think that’s a strange assumption to make.

It seems really common to reach this conclusion around / during perimenopause.

I have less patience since peri with those men who are crap at many aspects of being a decent adult human. Fortunately I'm insulted from some of the worst of it. In my work environment, overt misogyny is somewhat frowned upon, though, it almost goes without saying that outward behaviours often don't match private thoughts and biases. My husband does the lion's share of the housework. I'm involved in kids clubs alongside men who are volunteering their time to help young boys and girls do things they enjoy.

There are decent men out there. Maybe some of the divorced ones learn to look after themselves when they find themselves alone, and maybe subsequent marriages set off on a different footing. But, my word, I'd steer well clear of the majority of men my age if I ever found myself looking for another life partner, to the extent that I wouldn't think it worth actively trying to find one.

I get the impression women have a massive blind spot about their own behaviour, whereas they're very critical of men.

I do agree with this.

Some one said previously that when they look back on times they've been treated badly by others in life it's been a fairly equal split between men and women. I'd agree with that too from my own experience.

It's just that a) the poor behaviour presents differently and b) the majority of people are heterosexual so most women will live.more closely with men rather than women. So men will have a greater impact on our lives.

There's also a strange dichotomy on MN whereby women will claim men are absent parents even within their own home and do nothing but when a man can't use a washing machine (or cook or dress their children or pack for a holiday or whatever) and someone says, "His mum never taught him," or "His mum does all his washing for him," or the wife insists on doing it because he won't be able to do it properly there's an outcry about blaming women for men's behaviour.

Well, if there are supposedly generations of men who can't use washing machines etc or were never allowed to do x, y, z because they werent any/as good at it, there won't be any men to teach their sons how to use washing machines etc and so if women are the default parents and women are the only ones who do these things actually it probably does fall to women to raise their sons differently. Especially if the husband/father isn't doing it. That's how you change it for the future generations.

You only have to read threads where a woman is complaining that her daughter in law hasn't done something (eg taken the childen to visit, allowed her to visit, babysit or whatever) to see that there are also a lot of women who hold other women to much higher parenting and domestic standards than men in the first place and see the home and family as a woman's domain.

Disclaimer: I did raise my son differently and I don't expect anyone other than him to be responsible for himself and I've never met a man who couldn't use a washing machine or expected me to 'mother' him.

Men are also heavily criticised for their 'socialisation' over which they have no control. Whereas women use their own socialisation as an 'excuse' because they had no control over it. Men are expected to just realise and instinctively know that their socialisation was wrong and detrimental to those around them and reject it. Whereas women are 'victims' of their socialisation and can't ever be expected to realise it as detrimental even to themselves.

Women are just as responsible for perpetuating the 'socialisation' as men. Yes, structural inequality exists and we are all raised within the patriarchy. Many people can see that this is just as detrimental to men and causes problems for both sexes, it just manifests differently. But within our own homes, we don't have to accept it.

But in terms of people being generally deceitful, self serving, manipulative, unkind etc they're human traits not male ones.

The only relevant thing thing you said there is “my pattern”. And you are quite right, about that at least. This is YOUR pattern, not mine.

People in general are just awful. Women cheat, lie and are lazy etc too. Not according to mn though. It’s just 99% of men who are scum and women can do no wrong

True.

I don’t have this skill so I stay very happily single.

I have managed to raise a superb son though, who is 25 now and a brilliant partner to his lovely girlfriend.

As I said, I do think mothers are generally the better parents. But on the whole, I don't think women are the better sex. I get the impression women have a massive blind spot about their own behaviour, whereas they're very critical of men.

I am very much the opposite of a handmaiden, but agree with pps. Why is it okay to point out arsehole behaviour in men, but not allowed to say that many women are also arseholes. Reading some many of the posts on MN shows just how awful some women are, there is no "pretend" about it.

It also seems to me that some women are incapable of finding the nice men, they appear to be attracted more to the other sort, then complain.

"Love is often nothing but a favorable exchange between two people who get the most of what they can expect, considering their value on the personality market." Einrich Fromm.

In other words, people get what they deserve in the dating market. All those people moaning about useless partners should get their own glass house in order.

It goes for men, too. The reason why people like Andrew Tate only find shallow gold diggers us because they aren't good men. The worst women are the only ones interested in them
.

You realise that several absolutely vile women complain that there is no man out there good enough for them. They have no idea that the men they'd most want are avoiding them like the plague because those men want a nice woman.

I think that's a bit disingenuous because a) men and boys are held to a lower standard of behaviour than women and girls (see: what was she wearing, don't ruin a young man's promising future for one stupid moment, he's such a good dad for taking his child to the park) and b) many men have been brought up and conditioned by the patriarchy that they are "owed" a wife and mother who will shoulder the mental and emotional load of their husbands and families.
This proposition falls down in a world where for the last 40 years girls have been told we can work, do whatever we want, have it all but boys have been not encouraged to be present partners, pick up the domestic slack, be a true co-parent or even primary parent and see that being a good husband and father is not simply the absence of cruelty, it is active kindness. Perhaps more so in the last 10-15 years, but boys of this age aren't the men OP is talking about.
A terrifying number of otherwise "nice guys" don't recognise this, and this is where we see after 10, 20 years of women shouldering a crushing load at home whilst also working and crying out for help multiple times, god forbid they complain. Think about what society thinks a good husband is and what society thinks a good wife is. We are all of us, men and women, struggling within a system that has historically and encouraged a system of economic inequality in favour of men at the expense of their emotional wellbeing and domestic responsibility to the detriment of both sexes. This kind of inequality in insidious and isn't always obvious until you have had the baby or married the man. So no, it's not as simple as "just pick a better husband."

But women have a choice they dont have to have relationships or children with these men

I wonder how the man haters cope when they have sons.
It must be such a thankless job bringing up a child you know will turn out to be a twat.