I'm starting to hate men

You articulate very well.

I like your emphasis on positive, collective values transcending gender differences. It is precisely those collective values that will cultivate equality and empathy.

Just rethinking what I meant by gender identity. I guess in a way I was thinking more about how concepts of gender identity inform heterosexual relations. It's almost like...now the sexes don't NEED one another in the way they once did, we don't really know what heterosexual relationships should be about. Should they be about love and commitment? But those things limit individual agency and therefore have been rejected by liberal feminists. And that just leaves a neoliberal sexual culture of mutually beneficial transactions. Of course they will involve objectification - principally of women. It's like many young women reject traditional femininity only to seek self I empowerment through their sexuality; but that can easily lead to them becomingg mired in objecficatory processes; and then they are maybe back to simply wanting to be loved unconditionally by men? And men get confused by this: what is it that is being asked of them? All these debates about whether all men are bad, or whether a feminist can look at porn - or objectify men, or be a slut rage away. And none if them get resolved. It's a big mess. Now the private sphere has gone, sexual identity is inseparable from consumer-capitalism. That's an issue for feminism.

I realise I'm presuming to understand female experience and talking in massive generalities. It's just how I see it.

....you know, the less sexy stuff?

For example - where are your facts on the predatory women who date younger men and feminists who pat them on the back?

Why do your discussions keep coming back to porn, do you think that's all feminism is? Stopping men from watching while we all sit at home wanking to porn and swiping right because that's empowerment?

It's obvious you've read a lot and I'm sure you know a considerable amount more than me on various viewpoints of feminists. That doesn't make mine/any of our opinions less valid, just so you know.

Use your views to help, support and listen, not to criticise and I'm sure your audience will be more engaged.

How about looking at the other reasons for disliking men, abuse, domestic drudgery, the invisible women....

I might not it articulate it very well, but in the sense that when raising my son (now entering adult life), I never really had any focus on ridding him of some set of supposedly masculine traits of aggression, violence, competition and so on. It was much more of an organic process of this is who our family are as human beings. We value compassion, certain ideas, political histories, our community, music, landscape and so on. We were too busy participating on who we wanted to collectively be to fret over the things to avoid.

I read a couple of studies recently claiming that globally, the more opposite the sex roles the more similar were men and women's personalities.

I find this also anecdotally with my own elderly male family members when worked in heavy industry. They are just people. They don't have masculine personalities.

So while I think that there is a problem for some men with issues of work role under neoliberalism (and of course for many women), I see that as separate to the kind of masculine character traits which are largely acted out/fabricated by males who would never work in traditionally masculine roles in industry should we rebuild some of our industrialised/manufacturing sector.

Which ones?

Perhaps you should use your 'critical faculties' on your own viewpoints.

Hi almond: I think you're absolutely right about the difference anglisoheric and European feminism. However I'm not quite sure what you mean by men 'taking on human traits and interests...'. What kind of traits of interests? (Genuinely interested in what you have to say).

John, I think you may be using 'gender identity' to mean a somewhat different thing to what feminists mean by the term. It isn't the same thing as masculine and feminine personality traits or sex roles.

I don't see there being a problem with men dropping masculinity and taking on human traits and interests from our very rich culture and all it has to offer.

There is a problem with people having terrible lives with no rights and mass job insecurity. I agree with you about feminism being meaningless without socialism. And of course feminism and socialism have always been linked in Europe. A large part of the problem of Internet feminism in the anglosphere is that the U.S. has a totally different history.

Hi Lass. A LOT has changed since the 90's. I was thinking of two things: Cindy Gallop, a fifty-something businesswoman who announced in a lauded TED talk that 'I fuck 22 year olds': and a recent Guardian article about a woman in her sixties who had discovered the joys of recreational sex with young men. It wax presented as positive and emancipatory.

I didn't think that was great really.

See this cougar "thing", I've never thought it was a "real thing" beyond Sex and the City and I assume GQ, FHM type magazines.

I've only known one woman who could have been described in that way.

She was a secretary in an office I worked in in the 90s. The male partners , who were all roughly in the same age bracket, tolerated her on a "X, what is she like? chortle chortle" sort of way.

Amongst the female staff, myself included, she was at best an embarrassment and at worst a sexual harassment case waiting to happen. Her behaviour towards male trainees half her age was appalling.

As it happened there were complaints made by and on behalf of one trainee because of particularly egregious behaviour resulting in disciplinary action by HR.

So, the women in that office weren't patting her on the back, far from it.

Fair point, but there were comments about whether gender was biologically determined or encultured. They were the ones I was originally responding to. Sorry I sometimes don't know when to stop but it isn't because I want to dominate the conversation: I just can't think about anything from one angle so it all comes tumbling out.

John, this thread is about women discussing some of our negative feelings towards men. The poster originally asked how she can feel more positively towards the men in her life.

It is not a thread that is going to come up with a grand theory of everything that's wrong with feminism, were such a thing required.

Wind your neck in, eh?

Amarami: I was discussing patriarchy, which involves both genders. I am as much a part of it as you. I at no point claimed to know what it us like to be a woman, that rape isn't so bad or any of the grot nasty men come out with. I was discussing theoretical problems with feminist concepts of gender identity (ones that pertain to me as much as you).

Is that 'mansplaining'?

Great example of mansplaining going on here. INotice more of this take over the thread going on in the feminism forums these days.Maybe a parallel to the take over of women's washrooms,change rooms etc?

Look, I am offering my opinion on a discussion forum. I have carefully read what people have written, agreed with certain points and have been courteous and respectful in my language throughout.Am I not allowed to do that? And in a sense everyone who advances an opinion would be gratified if others shared that opinion.

I take take the point that lots of misogynist men do insert themselves into these discussions who believe that feminism is one big conspiracy against the menfolk.

But there is a danger there: what you seem to be suggesting is that anyone who interrogates any aspect of feminist thought for whatever reason should be told to shut up. That isn't a debate.

I like debate but dislike ideologues. Marilynne Robinson describes ideology as a 'spirit rule in a fractal universe'. In short, you shoehorn complex reality into your pet narrative and everything that doesn't fit is rejected. I have received abuse from Socialist Workers Party members for telling them that their leaders are antisemites, homophobes and rape apologists; from conservatives for telling them that their economic system is broken; and from feminists for suggesting that certain schools of feminism are complicit in perpetuating the very problems they claim to be addressing.

Sorry, I am not going to turn my critical faculties off and demur to EVERYTHING everyone says.

ANYWAY! I just read the thread title again and, as the French say "revenons à nos moutons", let's get back to our sheep and the topic at hand.

I go back and forward about men. There are a lot of men in my life that I love and that have amazing qualities and my life would be poorer without them in it. Husband, father, friends. But if for some reason I were no longer in my marriage, I wouldn't seek out another intimate relationship with a man, because of the down side - the emotional labour etc. I've always run in very mixed social groups, but I have to say that recently, I find it much more fulfilling to be in women only groups and activities. It's just...better. I couldn't even tell you why, but it often is.

So no, I don't hate men, but sometimes I can very easily do without.

Whoa, tiger! "In case you hadn't noticed"? "you have...without even thinking about it"? I was giving you the benefit of the doubt, but now I am less sure of your good faith.

I don't know if you're aware (see? delicious, isn't it, to subtly patronise) but the line "I'm trying to widen the discussion" is so commonly used by men inserting themselves into feminist conversations, that it is a cliché. Women are never short on men's voices setting the topics and tone of conversations.

Are you a feminist? Or are you telling us what we think?

Would it not be more constructive to listen to what we think rather than tell us what we think and how it's wrong?

I think you had every intention of killing the discussion. Slow hand clap. Hope it makes you feel all big and clever.

Thanks for coming and telling us what to think and discuss. Really helpful

Hi all. Sorry I don't mean to kill the discussion - just widen it.

WiLLiam: I think certain aspects of Dworkin's thought are highly eccentric, but I nevertheless think her one of the most unfairly underacknowledeged thinkers of the twentieth century. My allusion was complimentary.

I did not say that feminism per se is responsible for dick pics. Rather my point is that liberal post-feminism has bought into hook-up culture and a very utilitarian conception of human sexual relations (see pro-porn types like Laurie Penny etc. Even Laura Bates says porn should not be regulated because state interference in the sexual marketplace would be 'authoritarian'). They have gone along with sexonomics and now it has backfired.

Batteries: My point is that FEMINISTS would not necessarily castigate the same sexual behaviour in women that they would in men. Specifically feminists. My criticism of them then is that if you argue that is wrong to see women as sexual utilities, then it is also wrong to see men in this way too.

Freshwater: I really meant that many feminists have no positive conceptions of masculinity. They see it as wholly negative while reserving the right to hang on to the feminine side of patriarchy.

I agree that feminisation is a good thing and that we should accept people as people with preferences, strengths, weaknesses etc. But the question remains of what preferences and strengths people should aspire to. What sort of society and economy should house this genderless egalitarianism? In case you haven't noticed there are less and less traditionally masculine jobs by the day. What is the unemployed ex-docker to do? Become a receptionist, secretary or PR assistant? Automation and austerity economics change everything.

But also some preferences are wrong. Suppose I am a woman and want to be a porn actress. That is my strength and preference. But is that right or wrong? I would say it is wrong and such a career should be discouraged. Liberals who reject social values are left with the problem of what we should replace them with other than individualism and choice. Pro-sex feminists say that all consensual sexual acts are fine: simulated rape, whatever. Lucy Cosslet, in one of the most irresponsible things I have ever read, said that teenage setting is normal and healthy. Right: so a teenage girl makes sexualised videos of herself that will likely end up on some dark recess of the internet to be masturbated to by paedophiles - and this is in keeping with feminism? Stupid woman.
See you are talking as though people develop these strengths and preferences in a socioeconomic vacuum. There is no original person beneath the socially constructed identity. Without thinking about it, you're subscribing to a very late capitalist conception of human identity: that people can just sort of do what they want without being oppressed by power structures. But power structures are necessary and an ethical culture that curbs the vicious tendencies of human nature is crucial to social health. Feminism in one sense is quite right-wing - saying that women should more or less do as they please and fight their way to the top etc; while another tendency is quite left-wing: outlaw prostitution, regulate porn etc.

Finally, as any intersectional feminists will tell you, systems of oppression are never simply binary but involve class, race and other designations. Hence the man begging outside the cafe I am sitting in with a horrible growth on his face patently has less power than Sheryl Sandberg.

The dirty little secret of the last thirty years is the way men and women have been turned against one another by the capitalist system. Without realigning itself to socialism, feminism makes no good sense. You can only have equality when positive form of secure social and economic identity is provided to all. Otherwise you just have this nihilistic me me me world.

John, I'm sure you've got some interesting ideas in there somewhere, I started to try to pick out a few, but holy wall of text! Where to start?

I'll give it a go on one of the ideas in your first post - conceptions of masculinity and feminity. It's just not true to say that there are no positive conceptions of masculinity in a deindustrialized economy. A man is a decisive leader (a woman is a ball-breaker). A man provides for his family by working (a woman deprives her family by working). A man is a protector (women require protecting). I could go on, but do you see?

The next important point is that gender is not a binary - it is a hierarchy. The one cannot operate without the other, because the relationship is oppressor>oppressed. You take one out and the whole house of cards collapses. Masculine trumps feminine, and masculine attributes are generally more positive, remunerative, active etc. You say that women are free to adopt masculine traits - well yes, to an extent, but there is a social cost to this. Likewise, men can adopt feminine traits, but there is a social cost to this too.

What feminists propose is that instead of blindly adhering to this hierarchy, we accept people as people with preferences, strengths, weaknesses, proclivities etc which need not align with those generally designated to their sex. Some feminists prefer to work within the framework that exists, while others would take a more radical approach. That there are many different approaches doesn't make feminism weak or splintered necessarily (though at times and on some issues it may be).
So please, please be careful about crashing into a feminist board and in your first few posts making statements like "feminism is a mess". That's not constructive.

The idea that older men chasing younger women are more castigated by society than older women chasing younger men is frankly laughable.

John you have effectively killed this discussion by being too willing to talk and not willing to listen and let others discuss. When that happens it doesn't mean you're right. It just means people find somewhere else to talk where they aren't going to be hectored the whole time.

John. Feminists did not cause it to go from courting to dick pics, porn culture did.

Dworkin was not potty.

Doubled in three years not 'free" years haha. I get homophones mixed up all the time.