Feeling depressed after conversations with my young adult daughters regarding female value.

Did you advise her to go to the police about the rapes? Perhaps even considering this might drive it home to your daughter that this is a serious crime, not an ordinary occurrence. Plus the fuckers who did that to her deserve an interview in the police station at the very least. Might make them think twice next time.

It's human nature.

Princeton and Stanford University psychologists performed a study showing a group of men two sets of pictures, some of fully-clothed women and others of women who had been sexualized and were barely clothed. The psychologists monitored their medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), which is the part of the brain involved in recognizing human faces and distinguishing one person from another. For the most part, the mPFC part of the brain was activated with each picture. However, when the subjects of the study were shown the pictures of sexualized women, this part of the brain was not activated. Basically, the automatic reaction in their brains suggested that they didn’t perceive the sexualized women as fully human, rather they saw them as objects, focusing on their bodies and body parts. The researchers concluded, “sexualized women were perceived as having the least control over their own lives” and “this suggests that sexualized women are more closely associated with being the objects, not the agents, of action as compared to clothed women.”

Women who are objectified are viewed as less than fully human, perceived to have less of a mind for thoughts or decisions and viewed as less deserving of moral treatment by others [8]. This denial of mental capacity and moral status has been found to have negative repercussions for objectified women, including increasing men’s willingness to commit sexually aggressive actions towards them [9], and decreasing perceived suffering in cases of sexual assault [10–12]. Furthermore, some women are objectified more than others: Women who appear sexualized (e.g., more tightly-fitted, revealing or provocative clothing, too much cosmetics ), in particular, are objectified more than non-sexualized women [3, 13–15]

Yeah right, I ‘get off on’ the fact that men as a population don’t regard me or other women as equals 🙄

You keep on telling yourself whatever you need to believe.

Okey-dokey. 🙄

Just two points:

I was arguing against men having nothing to gain from feminism. Despite what many men (and you!) believe, get off on, or whatever, there is much to gain.

I have read and listened to Jordan Peterson for years. I'm not forming an opinion based on what critics say.

Part of this mish mash of disparate accusations all thrown together is targeted at my post, so I will respond.

Men don't have much to gain from feminism. If they did, you can bet your ass they would be all over it. They'd probably have invented it, in fact. Or never needed to, as they would have been happy throughout history with equal relationships so never have treated women as second class citizens (or not even citizens at all) from the start.

But that is not what human history has been has it? And why not, if equality was such a win for men?

Fact is humans are status seeking animals and feeling superior to half of humanity is quite the boost. I remember reading a piece written by a chinese man in the time when women's feet were bound. He spoke about how he was not much in the world of men, but at home with his wife who relied on him to carry her to the window, he was a lion. And there we have it. As is having someone to do all the boring drudge work, like cleaning and digging up roots (rather than the fun stuff like fishing and hunting in hunter gatherer societies), and raising children. Its nice to have someone who has to defer to you and you make the decisions for and you can take their money, and they make your dinner when you get home, and you get to go to the pub when your working day finishes, but they keep on working making your dinner and looking after the shit stuff. Its quite nice having people you can punch when you are angry and you can have sex with when you like. Men have liked all this and gained from it. If they didn't, they wouldn't have kept things like this for so long. Women's gains have been hard won. Men did not say , ' Oh yeah, good point, here you go.'

I was briefly the sole earner in my family, when we had young kids. And you know what, it felt great. It felt absolutely great to go out into the world and earn the money and come home to someone else having done the drudge stuff and who made dinner. And I thought, no wonder men have held onto this for so long. This feels great!

You can rail as long as you like about how much men should see equal relationships as the big win, but the fact is they haven't and most still don't. They know full well what they would lose practically and psychologically from equality and they don't like it.

And yes, I do like what I have seen from Jordan Peterson. What I have read and heard from him directly (rather than just reading critics of him) I have liked. He is literally the only man I have ever seen crying after hearing a woman give an account of her abuse at the hands of men. Having read some of his stuff, stuff specific criticisms of him have been made over, I found that he didn't actually say what the critics said, or actually, his point was reasonable. He is a man who cares about other people and wants to help them help themselves. I don't see anything wrong with that. I am suspicious of those who create hate figures of those who have made it a mission in their life to tackle human suffering. It rather reminds me of those who try to knock down JKR actually. Most of them probably haven't bothered reading what their 'hate figure' said either.

If this comment is directed at me, I appreciate that you are trying to throw in some sympathy for the possibility that I have been raped, but you can keep your "sadness" for the idea that I might find it normal to sleep with 9 people by the age of 22 or the idea that I think it's normal that a person should keep a record of who they had sex with that's really cloaking slut shaming.

I have had only one sexual partner for the last 25 years but I came of age when people were very concerned with STD testing and tracking sexual partners so it was very normal to keep a record.

Thanks.

If that's your normal — including the rapes — I feel sadness for you.

It's normal to keep a written record of all the people you've had sex with, including rapes. It's normal to have had sex with 9 people by the age of 22. What's not great is the slut shaming on this post and the support for Jordan Peterson.

Also, to the PP who said men have nothing to gain from feminism, I couldn't disagree more. Who wouldn't want to have healthy, equal relationships with daughters, mothers, sisters, lovers who are all allowed to thrive in society? There have always been misogynists, and there always will be apparently, but people need to stop blaming feminism for the backlash against women insisting on equitable treatment.

Not sure how that is relevant to what I wrote.

And even more reason to not play along with the hypocrisy of devaluing women for sleeping with people while praising men for it.

If they know the history, they wouldn't have said "now".

Do any other MNers have recommendations for support resources for young women in the same situation as the OP's daughter? I was going to say rape counselling, but the she may not see herself as entitled to specific rape counselling.

it really unfair to call someone daft and assume they don’t know any of the history of all this when what they probably meant was that we were supposed to have moved on from all this misogynistic rubbish. I think that view is fair enough given the comments on here from women of the generations above OP’s daughter whose experience as young women was of not being judged on so called purity. It does seem we’ve gone backwards which is really sad although it’s also sad that some women in the recent past have been judged for not having lots of partners.

OP, re. @NeighbourhoodWatchPotholeDivision ’s question. I’ve told my DD to be really careful around men who try to ply her with shots, for example. Sadly we all know that there are some total shits around who will deliberately try to get a woman v. drunk, not to mention spiking her drinks.

I’m sure that you’ve had that conversation with her, but it might be worth reiterating it, especially if she’s around men like her Dad’s friends. 🙁

Also I do think there is a huge issue generally with people feeling devalued/ valued only as economic units/consumers and this being normalised. it doesn't just affect boys/men but I think maybe some of this manosphere stuff is an (unhealthy) reaction to it

This is so sad to read. Yes I don't have dd's, but it affects my ds's.

however these men like to brag and in her social circles not much is kept secret regarding the girls they have shagged( and badly or even raped).

that's odd because according to many it's women that practice reputational destruction (while men are physically violent). societies focus on the physical violence of men while ignoring reputation destruction /bitchiness as less important has been presented to me as evidence of misandry. but it turns out men do this too. astonishing.

But on a serious note apart from porn, the internet gives the impression that you can see what everyone else is thinking. and will then filter what it shows . so there are actually loads and loads of positive/neutral portrayals of men in the media (and even if there was a dearth older stuff still exists ). but tiktok/youtube shorts will just show a stream of "angry feminist says men are useless, is OWNED by facts and logic". or literally just male commentators saying boys/men arent valued and if you repeat it enough times ...

Thats really unhealthy for boys and, even if their reality offline was constant support and affirmation it would skew their perceptions . especially combined with the "bleurgh women are whores" "counternarrative." its probably even more unhealthy for your daughter in those echo-chambers. she needs to spend less time online (and make better friends)

Ah, so she's surrounded by students. That might explain things. I'm old and when I was growing up we had the same situation — if you didn't sleep with a guy you were frigid and uptight, and if you did you were a tart. But if you don't subscribe to that misogynistic nonsense it doesn't matter. Which was what my friend's daughter had worked out. If you're not on Insta or social media, and if you have enough confidence to be yourself and do your own thing, you tend to end up getting to know others who are independent thinkers.

I think it sounds as if you need to do some old-fashioned feminist consciousness-raising, OP.

God it’s depressing. I’ve been listening to a run of podcasts about Tudor England, and specifically the wives of Henry VIII. Exactly the same social values and beliefs, that -to retain their value - women must be chaste and pure, while men who shag around are virile and manly.

im 51: when I was at school girls were either slags or frigid.

At uni, during peak lads mag / ladette era, I think it went too far the other way, with pressure on women to be as ‘up for it’ as all the lads were. I did shag around a bit, but was never happy with it.

but like the older posters here, I have never been asked to explain or justify how many men I’d slept with, by anyone.

I’m sorry your daughter is absorbing the misogyny dished out by her father.

I'm not sure where you get the idea that women posting here are suggesting that any of what you describe is 'valuable' or particularly edifying?

"She says that young women now are deemed to have lower value if they sleep with a lot of people".

Sorry but your daughter is incredibly daft. Now? As if this is new, heck the old religions that used to dominate (and in some cases still do) societal values worship virginity. There is falling for social media brainwashing (as in, yes, some people think less of women with high body count, but so what, she doesn't have to play along, but I can see why one might succumb to these pressures) and then there is not knowing any history, and sorry but the latter is just completely on her.

I'm not disputing much of what you say, but it remains a fact that it is males that are the fetishists, voyeurs, flashers etc - and you need only look at the gay male dating/clubbing scene to see what unrestrained male sexuality looks like.

I talked about this thread earlier today with a friend's 21-y-o daughter. She said that she knows this goes on — both men and women totting up bodies and rating them — but among the young women she's friendly with it doesn't happen. It was quite a long and rambling conversation but she wondered what your daughter is into on Insta etc, OP, and whether she needs to stop that and start something healthier/ get in with a healthier group. I asked her how she was surviving at university (she's in her second year) and she said that after trying to conform and go along with the in-crowd in the first year, and being very unhappy as result (she was turned on and bullied for having her own opinions), she decided to go it alone. She came off social media, adopted an aloof sort of attitude where she focussed on herself and her own well-being and refused to engage with people just because she wanted to seem social or popular. She said eventually she got to know a few women who weren't in thrall to toxic culture — women who were political and GC and feminist, from the sound of it, and things got better. I don't know if any of that's relevant to your daughter, OP. Would she be prepared to come off social media?