to think -women, what´s gone so wrong?

[isaidlesbonotasbo]

Long time lurker, can´t sit on this one any longer.

Fifty years ago I and many other women fought for equality and womens rights. After a long struggle the western world conceded (OK, only up to a point, still a way to go), but things are so very different now.

Fifty years of books, magazines, tv, movies, pop music, education, the internet, showing us very different templates of how womens´ lives can be.
So why do I read here every day of young women who have chosen lazy, abusive, controlling, or selfish partners. Women who apparently must have such low self esteem that they think they deserve no better? Women from all parts of society.

And not only the pleas from the women who have just woken up to the situation they are in, but almost worse the everyday asides from seemingly contented women as part of other topics, which casually mention how OH, DH, DP ´won´t´or ´can`t´ do such and such, or relly´helps´, or spends endless hours and money on his own hobbies.

Sometimes there´s almost competetive banter re how ¨useless¨ their partners are, bless ´em!

Put aside the very real problems of leaving such relationships once stuck in them, why start them in the first place with all the choices available to us? We don´t have forced or compulsory marriage/partnership. Last time I looked, the Taliban were not in charge nor religious leaders all powerful.

And if the answer is that girls and women are socialised within their family of origin to feel worthless, let´s push the question back at their mothers and grandmothers - feminism did not start last week!

(and don´t get me started on who plays the biggest part in raising,
socialising and entitling these men from their early years....)

Charlotte. you are who you are because of your family. You picked up attitudes from BOTH your parents. Women in your family knew their worth and men treated them properly and this was passed on to you.

I was saying this in my op and asking why it does not happen more after decades of feminism. That made me a woman hating, woman blaming anti feminist.

Surely by bringing up your sons to respect women you and your husband are equally working on womens´ self worth in the wider arena. I don´t think the two things can be seperated.

Why does this kind of emotional education not take place AS WELL in every school from early years upwards. I know family models are crucial, but maybe consistent, compulsory, prolonged input from schools would go a long way to countering the negative input from dysfunctional families and the deaths from DV every week.

Isaid - I do know what you mean but the problem is you are looking at the world through Mumsnet eyes.

While feminism may be a very real and pertinent issue on here, "out there" it is not, and the message that without a partner you are incomplete is loud and it is strong.

I am struggling to think of a film, book, TV series without at least a romantic sub plot. We know fairy tales are a load of bollocks but they are still stories we are brought up on. A single woman with no man or child is likely to be pitied.

It's what it is.

So why do I read here every day of young women who have chosen lazy, abusive, controlling, or selfish partners.

Could it be that women and men in happy and supportive relationships don't post here to say so?

That sounds flippant but I honestly think there is something in it.

it's still too many though, isn't it

one is too many

Working with abusive men fucked with my previous opinions and beliefs a lot. I will make it clear again that the responsibility for abuse ALWAYS lies with the abuser.

But when I worked with abusive men (and this was in a prison setting so the more obvious extreme end of abuse and usually representative of certain sectors of society ); a few had happy functional childhoods but became abusers in adulthood due to substance misuse, personality disorders etc.

But most of the men I worked with grew up in domestic violence. That was their model for relationships. That's what 'family and love' looked like. That's how it was and they replicated that in their adult relationships. And we rightly condemned them for their abuse.

Many of their victims grew up in domestic violence. That was their model for relationships. That's what 'family and love' looked like. That's how it was and they replicated that in their adult relationships. And we rightly sympathised with them as victims.

And what I struggled with so much is that victims who become abusers were still victims in childhood.

Why do we understand completely that women who experience/witness DV in childhood are likely to become involved in abusive relationships in adulthood because they were taught to be that way but we expect men to have some kind of greater intellect or greater psychological defence to recognise that what they were shown and taught by their caregivers is fucked up and they won't do that?.

And I again want to make it clear I will never minimise or excuse abuse. Nor will I ever blame the victim. But the idea that the solution is 'men just stop being abusers' is just as simplistic as saying 'women, stop being victims'.

alwaysstay

I agree it is simplistic to say ´women, stop being victims´ but that has never been part of mainstream DV theory or practise has it. So we have no empirical evidence wether it would help or not.

But saying ´men just stop being abusers´ hasn`t worked out to well either.

Many times on relationship threads people say things like: He doesn`t do that to his boss, or speak to his friends like that, so he can control it.´

He doesn`t do/say whatever to them because he knows there would be consequences. However much of a dysfunctional childhood he may have had. At home, so often, there are no consequences, except that he gets his own way and feels in control.

Girl children grow up in these homes as well, but far, far less often resort to violence. Because in practical terms they mostly cannot, unless they use weapons. Which they sometimes do.

I don´t know how to teach girls nd women `stop being victims´

Women have to be brave enough to stand up to power, like the guy facing the tanks in Tianamen Square. It´s a big ask.

Andrew
why is the only obviously male contribution on here just to try and minimise the problem?

Most unlike you that post, Andrew

go stand in the corner

I most certainly do not minimise the problem.

I have seen too much of it in legal practice and as a JP to do any such thing.

If that was the impression given, a million apologies and I am upset.

no, you don't usually but you did then

no need to be upset though, that's a bit weird

"At home, so often, there are no consequences, except that he gets his own way and feels in control."

The consequences for the woman in that relationship are likely to be far worse should he feel he is losing control

Upset because I had given the wrong impression on a subject about which I feel strongly. Reading over my earlier post apologetic would be better.

never mind, andrew, you will get over it

Doesn't it all come back to restructuring society? There's always a knee jerk reaction by the mainstream media that we need to go back to traditional family values; Mum at home in an apron baking cakes, Dad at work and cutting the grass on weekends, happy smiling well adjusted (and white - in these tabloid fantasies everyone must be white) children around the dinner table - that's how we'll fix things...

It really needs to keep going the other way, until no-one raises an eyebrow at SAHFs because they're just as common-place as SAHM's, and no-one asks a businesswoman or woman athlete/celeb who is looking after her children while she is away from the home. That's the best way to break the abuse cycle, independent income for women, increased family bonding for men, automatic 50/50 shared residency in the event of a split (except in the case of a domestic abuse conviction) and new family roles instead of falling into the same patterns.

Petula. I can´t help thinking of a toddler. He throws a tantrum to GET control because he feels OUT OF CONTROL. Only when someone maturely and calmly shows him that s/he (mum or dad) is really the one with control can the toddler relax and feel safe. I think that´s often why certain types of men are drawn to the Army, or are in a sense happy to end up in prison. The WANT to feel controlled.

How this helps individual women in relationships I don`t know, as they are not often in a position to take this control themselves - or they don´t feel that they are.

OP. I wasn't suggesting that 'women stop being victims' has ever been part of mainstream DV theory or practice. I think my posts make that clear. I was using that in terms of your original post which was essentially asking why are women putting up with this? which provoked very emotional responses from many posters.

But the argument that men need to 'just stop being abusive' IS often presented as the solution to violence and abuse against women and not just on MN.

And it's true. They should stop. It shouldn't happen ever. But I'm saying it's not as black and white as that and it is multi-factorial.

And until we move away from the attitude that men abuse because that's how some men naturally are/how it's always been/because they can/because society let's them get away with it or excuses it or allows if then we will get no further in addressing this huge, huge problem that we have in the world.

In doing that we are accepting the paradigm that many men are abusers and women are usually the victims of that abuse. And that's how it has been; is now and will be until 'men stop being abusers'.

And that's not working at all. For men or women.

alwaysstay. I don´t know the answer to any of it. I have been lucky enough all my life to have not needed to be in intimate relationships with a single one of them. Looking around me that makes me very happy.

I think in reality very few women and much, much fewer men are really interested on this at all until it happens to them.

I don´t really know why I bother.

Not read full thread so apologies if I'm repeating someone else.

I think you sleepwalk into bad relationships. Being brought up.with mum telling you you have to work at relationships, watching her placate your dad and teaching you how to stay on his good side, even where's there's no violence in the home, just the threat of being shut off from him.

Watching your brother get away with stuff, going out, etc, you know as girls you would get told off for.

Hearing about relatives who are being hit that no one in the family helps.

Being bullied, even if mildly, and your mum tells you to just talk to them, be a bit nicer to them, as after all 'i know you'll be best friends one day' because you really want to be friends with a bully don't you.

OP - I wish I had the answers too but I don't have any.

I haven't been in an abusive relationship but I've been a victim of extreme male violence and I have no doubt from the things he did and said that he hated me. But there was no possible way he could hate ME because he didn't know me and I was no threat to him whatsoever.

So he hated me because I was female. And I cannot believe (maybe it's self - protection and trying to process it as an adult now with a degree in Psychology and experience in MH) that he was born like that. I can't believe he had a happy childhood and life with positive influences because those people generally don't go on to inflict harm and pain on other people.

So he caused extreme harm to another (me) but I doubt he was doing it for the love of it, for the joy or excitement of hurting another because the people that enjoy that are thankfully rare.

So he's part of the society I live in and contribute to. And I don't believe that drug addicts/alcoholics/homeless people spring out of nowhere and are just doing that because they've made an informed choice to live their lives that and that they are 'other' to me and my own.

No individual exists in a vacuum. Every member of a society contributes to it/influences it/sustains it in small ways that make a larger whole whether they think they do or not.

alwaysstay I think your last sentence sums up exactly why I did not consider my op to be victim-blaming. Yes, every member of societymen and women etc.

I don´t think that men are inherently more ´evil´ or hate filled by nature than women, that is surely shaped by environment. But I do think its well documented that testosterone makes them, on average, more aggressive, and they are, again on average, bigger and stronger than women.

They are encouraged and praised for using their strength and aggression (think competetive sports for example). And women are not given any ,weapons - I mean psychological and practical weapons- against everyday, unfocused,male violence, other than appeasemen or flight..

How many times on tv or in films have we seen the angry male, even in early evening soaps, arguing with a family member while violently sweeping objects from the table or sideboard, while shouting? I don´t think this is recognised for what it is - domestic violence- but is considered pretty standard male behaviour, and it is rarely sanctioned.

The experiences of women and transmen who take testosterone for whatever reason make interesting reading. I will look for some references - but not tonight!

I sometimes stupidly think that we can only level the playing field regarding the physical imbalance by giving women weapons for self defence and teaching them how to use them. But I don´t see any better outcomes for women in the USA for instance, and besides we women would inevitably be providing men with another weapon to use against us.

And what actions are these that we need to take responsibility for then? Unless of course you think women choose to be abused?

Your OP specifically blamed women for being abused. Totally ignoring men's far greater influence in this matter. Not even a mention of how men shape women's behaviour.

Abuse and violence against women does not happen because of women's actions and choices. It happens because of men's actions and choices. Men are far more complicit in other men's abuse than women are. They maintain the power structures that allow DV to continue. They choose not to take care of their own children. They choose to not do the housework and maintain the relationship of house and children = women's work with countless messages throughout society. It suits them and helps keep women doing the unpaid work. They have far more of the power to dictate salaries and maintain pay gaps. They choose to sexually harass women, rape them, have that threat of violence hanging over women. This is way way way more of an issue and more of a determining factor on women's behaviour than what what women 'choose' to do in abusive relationships. Choice is loaded and never free.

Men abuse because they feel entitled to. Because of the society we live in where people question the actions of those who are oppressed whilst ignoring the actions of those who oppress. Because if you don't name the problem you don't have to deal with it. Men know they can get away with it.

However I'll leave you to it. I'm sure you'll be able to sort out the systemic hierarchy of abuse by tackling the behaviour of those with the least amount of power.

I read a piece by a transgender man who said that after his testosterone shot not only did he feel more aggressive, he also found himself unable to cry. I found that fascinating.

Such a good thread ! Very interesting

Interesting thread.

My wife and I often have these kinds of conversations as some of our friends are in the one sided relationships that you're talking about OP. My wife cannot understand why they put up with it as there is no way she would. I have lazy lapses on occasion and she has no problem in pulling me up on it. But we both do so it evens out.

Even stranger is how you get the halo effect just for being normal. A mate also has a balanced relationship and we're often on the receiving end of, "oh you're so good". Er, no.

Fingers crossed that when our daughters are our age that the dialogue will have moved on.