Does anyone else struggle to be in a mixed sex relationship whilst holding RadFem politics?

Bowlofbabelfish has it right, IMO. You're not really angry at him, you're angry at the class oppression you are a part of, and that he's part of the oppressor class, not the oppressor himself. He can no more help that he was born male than you can that you were born female.

I get it though. My god, I get it. Sometimes you want to rage at the injustice of oppression to the person you adore, and well, while they are happy to listen, they don't quite get it deep down. With other women you have a shared, unspoken understanding. And that really matters.

So yes, throw yourself into activism. It's the only thing that has stopped me being so "itchy" and ragey at the whole situation. I now know I am trying actively to make this better for myself. And somehow it makes it easier to deal with, despite knowing far more of the injustices now than I ever have before.

Basically, it's Pandora's box, and you can't put back the horrors once you have seen them. But you can learn to live with knowing about them.

I suppose direct the anger at the structure not the individual? You aren’t angry at him, you’re angry at patriarchy. He isn’t the problem, the structure we all live inside is. And yes he’s part of that class but while that’s useful for analysis it’s not going to help relations between you.

Men have to be part of the solution to all this - you seem to have one who is, as do I. That’s a positive thing. Anger directed outwards, love directed in?

He is a good guy and I love him very much, he loves me, and our family is, without question, his top priority. Not a bad foundation.

That's the situation I'm in. DH is clever, funny, kind, a respectful father and a good man. He doesn't have the angry knee-jerk reactions about rape culture (if anything, he is more switched onto it that me in some ways.) He tends to know about and be angry about news stories like the murder of Laura Huteson, and thinks it inherently wrong that as women we are expected to moderate our behaviour to keep ourselves safe. Like a PP he has left stag dos and ended friendships due to friends' strip club and/or prostitution usage. He is great with challenging gender norms with our DC and never has the little slips of the tongue that belie ingrained misogynistic views eg "lady doctor" or "hysterical". I am equal in our household.

However, he has told me I'll be on the wrong side of history for being GC, and that is deeply ingrained in some dodgy views that a man wouldn't go through the "shame" of wearing a dress or being perceived as a woman if he didn't have true gender dysphoria. Unfortunately I am a crier and when I get frustrated or angry I cry, so I'm not good at robust debates. Ironically, I can't express my views that gender is a social construct because I am socialised to hate confrontation! We don't talk about that any more. I truly believe he is one of those annoying men who will only start to get it when "his" wife or daughters are affected.

I started to get switched on to feminism after a sexual assault that happened to me aged 17 on a train (which until recently I'd just thought of as a bit of groping) and when I've recounted it DH doesn't understand why I'd not loudly said something or sought help. I explained that I was really upset because when I got off the train, a group of women my mum's age had said "We saw what happened, we were keeping an eye out" - as a grown up woman now, I do understand why they didn't address the drunk, large man with his group of mates while in a closed environment, but back then I just felt horribly let down by adults I felt should have helped me. DH doesn't get why they didn't step in AT ALL. Him and his mates - middle aged men - would! We also had a very interesting chat about me having left a queue in Asda due to a man in a motorbike hat standing very, very close to me in the queue. DH didn't get it - at 6'3" and 15 stone, why would he?! How can he understand my fears and life experiences when they are nothing like anything he's ever experienced?

It is a good question/thread.

Dh isn't a feminist. Our marriage has many feminist red checkmarks against it. I realised a few years ago that his worldview is heavily influenced by his grandparents, who lived in a very different place and time (they were dirt poor farmers in a Soviet country - some traditional roles but quite egalitarian due to circumstance)
Realising this has helped me to make sense of my marriage immensely. I was heavily influenced by growing up in a domestic violence situation and a mother who chased after (and dragged her kids around with her) stupid men. We married as starry eyed teens.

My radfemness is more recent than my marriage (15+ years) and dh is handling it pretty well. He may not be a feminist but he does absolutely respect my intelligence and will give my side of the heated debate fair consideration. He does have an angry kneejerk reaction of namalt when I bring up rape culture - we've made some progress on that but it's pretty deeply ingrained!

He is a good guy and I love him very much, he loves me, and our family is, without question, his top priority. Not a bad foundation.

I'm with you Torn and my dh and I found our answer. It meant some significant sacrifices on his part.

Would that something inside you be like the something inside that tells a man he's a woman when he fancies wearing lacy underwear?

No it wouldn't. I don't know how a man can know he feels like a woman. What does a woman feel like? I think that's a misguided belief of some transpeople that they don't feel right as a man, and deduce (wrongly) that they must be women inside.
I think it's misguided, but I'll respect their choice to live as a woman, without actually 'being' a woman.

But in terms of men and women co-existing - that's a different matter. So far, as a biological species, it's been absolutely necessary for us to co-exist, or face extinction. That might change very soon.

But, the co-existence we currently have is functional (at best) for many, but it's not great co-existence. We aren't equal partners, and whilst one half is oppressed, how can it ever be a truly mutually rewarding co-existence? I don't think it can whilst one half isn't equal.

But is it wrong to have feelings that it could be and should be better? that the solution doesn't have to be women vs men? Don't we all have internal feelings, fears and hopes?

Really interesting thread, particularly reflecting on people feeling their relationship is equal but they still struggle a bit. Because we have a complete reversal of conventional roles in our family I find it quite easy being in a mixed sex relationship as a feminist. My dh has been the primary care giver and financially dependent on me for 15 years. The nature of our roles means that I am the one who has to work to maintain equality (checking myself and my behaviours) rather than him. He gave up his career and mine has flourished to maturity. He has lost status while I have gained it. I lead. He carries the mental load. He buys my sanitary towels and cards for my family. He says that he has never been happier and is fully satisfied as he finds raising our children rewarding and enjoys managing our home life but I have seen him lose some confidence. When I rage about toxic masculinity it wouldn't occur to him for one single moment that I included him in my complaints, because his role prevents him from being part of that culture. I had to fight against sexism in my workplace as I progressed my career and I still do but because of his role he does truly understand. His role is not valued by many other men and he has experienced the gradual loss of status in society. So we walk together in this. If we had had financial and career equality I would definitely have struggled, given the additional challenges I would have faced to achieve that as a woman.

Something inside me says we are supposed to co-exist and find pleasure in each other, but what we currently have is a pale imitation of that. I can't believe the solution is homosexuality. That's not decrying homosexuality, I just can't really believe it's the answer for all - which must mean we do have to reconcile feminism with heterosexual relationships. They have to co-exist, surely?

Would that something inside you be like the something inside that tells a man he's a woman when he fancies wearing lacy underwear?

Lots of evidence from places like Japan, where the birthrate is plummeting and a large proportion of under-30s aren't having sex, that women who can earn their own living are thinking twice about marrying.
www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/japan-sex-problem-demographic-time-bomb-birth-rates-sex-robots-fertility-crisis-virgins-romance-porn-a7831041.html

Women say it's because men are into porn and not the reality of relationships with women. It used to be true that the more educated a woman was, the higher the likelihood that she'd be child-free and single. There'll be people better informed than me out there who'll be able to say whether that's true or not.

I'm now in my 50s and if my partner and I decide to split that's me done with men. I look at the my friends' husbands and partners and... well, no, it's not going to happen.

This is a brilliant question, OP, and a great thread. Yes, I feel a disconnect, though not as much as I did previously. I’m bisexual too btw, but the majority of my serious relationships have been with men.

I have a brilliant husband, and he’s definitely an ally. He is thoughtful, kind, genuine, and never deliberately misogynistic. He’s against porn, prostitution (in all its guises), and he’s gender critical. He listens to me, and he rants about this stuff too.

But still, but still. Yes, there’s a disconnect, because he will never know what this feels like. It’s personal and it frequently hurts because we are women and we can’t change that fact and he is not and he can’t change that fact either.

In the past, I’ve wondered if we would work, mostly back at the start where he was struggling to see my position on our sexualised society (he was already anti-porn and anti-prostitution, however, and thankfully it didn’t take much reading/research to show him how everything is sexualised and why that’s bad and why we should be fighting it). We got into some blazing rows, mostly because of my sheer frustration that someone I loved didn’t see how fucked up the treatment my sex received in this society was.

We dealt with it and we are fine now. There are still days I get frustrated he can’t ever feel it like I do. It forms a slight gap between us. But you can’t change that, and we’ve come to respect where we differ.

Would I do it again, if we split up? No. I’d leave men well alone. lol

Oh look, a male poster sharing his unsolicited opinions and demanding all the attention on a thread about feminism

Goodness me, that’s never been done before! And certainly not by the very same male poster!

🙄🤦🏻‍♀️

Do people believe you naturally are more akin to another woman simply because they are a woman, or can the overlap between men and women result in a specific man and a specific woman being more akin?

Interesting question.

I think in the context of the thread I identify with what women are saying about preferring female company after a certain age. For me that wouldn’t be sexual because I’m straight. However what I have found is that men who meet my criteria are few and far between (and I don’t think I’m picky, my criteria are basically decency, humour, respect, equal partnership, intelligence. I didn’t think that was too much to ask.)

I think that women just get fed up to be honest. Child bearing, child rearing or for those without children just the passage of time show up the structural inequalities. Far too many men have their cake and eat it. Far too few men do their share domestically, far too many women end up physically wrung out by pregnancy and childbearing, shafted at work then ending up doing everything at home too.

That sounds very pessimistic but look at the threads in relationships - so, so many women doing everything. So many with stunted careers, so many left for a younger model at the end of it. So many dads just walking out, having to be chased for pennies.

And no, NAMALT, we know that. Good men exist, we know theydo! But I can understand why women are saying they feel more akin to other women. Because women get it so much more.

I’m in what I consider to be a very equal partnership with a brilliant bloke. Even then with us trying really hard to be equal I’ve found that two physically awful pregnancies and one awful birth (waiting for the next next week argh) have physically knackered me. My career is stalled. And that’s with us trying really hard.

If I was married to someone who thought women weren’t oppressed, or didn’t pull their weight with house, kids and emotional load or NAMALTed me when I talked about these issues, I’d be out the door.

And there’s a whole treatise to be written on how women refusing men are seen as a threat to men, either individually or in a commune type setting.

Here's a question...

Do people believe you naturally are more akin to another woman simply because they are a woman, or can the overlap between men and women result in a specific man and a specific woman being more akin?

I can feel a million miles from some other men, and far more akin to some women, some other men are closer to me than others, and some are like another species.

Then there's this big one - for many of us, we are drawn to the opposite sex and despite some of our differences, that draw is considerable sometimes. Love is a strange thing and we can love something or someone we do not always like. I don't know what to make of that, it makes life rather complex, but it does seem to be something real.

Something inside me says we are supposed to co-exist and find pleasure in each other, but what we currently have is a pale imitation of that. I can't believe the solution is homosexuality. That's not decrying homosexuality, I just can't really believe it's the answer for all - which must mean we do have to reconcile feminism with heterosexual relationships. They have to co-exist, surely?

Yes. It's a constant struggle. I have known a couple of political lesbians. I can remember one of them saying to me that when she began to understand feminism and see the way the world worked, having relationships with women was the only choice that didn't leave her feeling unbearably compromised.

If a man can be a feminist my partner would probably qualify. He doesn't feel it viscerally, as I do, though and there are times I have to explain exactly why I feel the way I do. He's a quiet, thoughtful sort of man and I feel lucky to have him in my life. I sometimes wonder if he feels the same way because I certainly expect more of than many women do of their partners.

I want to believe there is hope.
If there is no hope, then I can't see how feminism works - it has to about liberating women and coexisting with men. If some women then choose not to engage or form relationships with men, that's their choice, but I'd hope many other women do manage a relationship with men with a renewed enthusiasm.
Feminism is an opportunity for men too - instead of caging women, giving them liberty could open up a whole new (better) world to men.

You may say I'm a dreamer, but....

Sorry should read to not put an ops preferences in mind.

Nevertheless I don’t think it’s bad practice to put an OPs preferences in mind when posting. Sometimes it’s wise to put flesh and blood people ahead of ideaologies especially in terms of family and/or intimate relationships.

Well it’s your thread and thus entirely up to you wanted from from it, sorry if I derailed or took away from that.

And my apologies if you thought I was getting at you. That was not my intention.

Look I’m making no value judgements about your relationship, and the fact you communicate with your partner and can see the potential issue enough to start a thread about it means your probably fine. I’m simply stating what I personally would/wouldn’t put up with. It perfectly normal and indeed healthy to take into account one another’s preferences, reciprocated both ways of course.