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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

.. to think that "I fear for my sons" and ..

831 replies

BertrandRussell · 09/06/2016 07:54

"I feel sorry for my sons" are just new ways of saying "I hate feminists"?

OP posts:
MerchantofVenice · 10/06/2016 20:13

No, I'm sure you don't Dione - but you're likely a reasonable person. Many people are not.

bran but that's almost the main premise of this whole thread. .. hardly my fault if you missed that!

Itsmine · 10/06/2016 20:14

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

missmatted · 10/06/2016 20:20

I fear for my sons. The fact he will be called an evil patriarch for sitting with his legs too far apart on the bus is quite unsettling

MerchantofVenice · 10/06/2016 20:21

It was a genuine, completely baffled question - because you claimed to be unaware that any men (or women) are hostile towards feminism. It is sm absurd thing to suggest.

Anyway, I can't really deal with this much longer. My advice would be that, if you don't fully understand an OP, don't wade into the discussion with quite so much alacrity.

Jasonandyawegunorts · 10/06/2016 20:22

My advice would be that, if you don't fully understand an OP, don't wade into the discussion with quite so much alacrity.

OR even better politely ask for context.Hmm

TheSultanofPingu · 10/06/2016 20:23

Sorry if this is seen as derailing the thread, but when DS1 was 16 he was approached by two girls at a bus stop. They were part of a big group and he was on his own.
One of them swung her arm and smashed him in the face, breaking his nose. He fell to the floor and she kicked him in the stomach. He didn't know her. At first she said he called her a slag, but then admitted it was done for a laugh...a fucking laugh.

That said, I do realise that the risk of violence they face from other boys/men is higher than the risk they face from girls/women, but I get annoyed when anyone who mentions violence by females is accused of detailing the thread.

Itsmine · 10/06/2016 20:25

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

bumbleymummy · 10/06/2016 20:26

"The specfic point was that if you think that the progress towards equal rights for women should be a source of fear for men then you are very surely pouring scorn on feminism."

No it wasn't. That's what some people have tried to change it into because they don't seem to like the real reasons that some of us fear for our sons.

"That's why all the anecdotal evidence of abuse directed at men is so irrelevant to this thread; no one is saying it doesn't matter"

When people are complaining about us talking about men's problems on a thread about why we might fear fir our sons, it sounds very like people are saying it doesn't matter/their problems aren't important.

bumbleymummy · 10/06/2016 20:30

"The whole point most people are making that their feelings towards their sons have nothing to do with feminism and certainly not a way of saying 'I hate feminists'."

Exactly bran.

merchant that most certainly is not the main premise of the thread.

missmatted · 10/06/2016 20:31

TheSultan that is awful. Im going to take a major risk posting this but I believe if any male is assaulted by a female he should bloody well punch her one back and not follow this archaic 'ya can't hit a guuuurl' rule

Sallystyle · 10/06/2016 20:32

In my circle I have never known a single man to be sexually assaulted by a female.

My son was assaulted by another boy. It wasn't classed as sexual assault though, it was classed as nothing much at all, although he stimulated anal rape, made my son smell his bottom and then rubbed his penis on his clothes.

According to one cop it was 'banter' Boys will be boys.

I am sure there are men out there who have been groped, I doubt it's very common and it is not a daily occurrence like it is for women. When it happens it is of course just as bad as when a man does it to a woman but I know my husband has never ever feared about being raped walking at night and neither has he had his physical appearance commented on so freely from women walking down the road. No one has told him it's a shame his chest isn't a different size when minding his own business and shopping like I have had.

So yes I worry for my sons, but mostly I worry about them being harmed from other males.

BertrandRussell · 10/06/2016 20:34

"I fear for my sons. The fact he will be called an evil patriarch for sitting with his legs too far apart on the bus is quite unsettling"

Some new definition of the word "fact" I haven't come across before!

Back to the "all men are potential rapists" thing. You know- I really don't have an issue with this. Obviously I didn't look at my gorgeous baby boy and think "There is a possibility that he will grow up to be the sort of man who jumps out on strangers in dark alleys and rapes them" But the whole idea of sexual consent and male entitlement is so complex and tied up with evolutionary biology and the history of the patriarchy that it is quite likely that he could grow up to with a skewed view of his "rights". And I know a lot of people are worried about false accusations,but I think it is more likely that a young man would be correctly accused of rape, but genuinely think that what he did was OK. There are lots of times on here where women have described a sexual encounter, and have unanimously been told it was rape- but crucially neither party saw it that way. We have a lot of years of cultural conditioning about sexual mores to challenge and change.

OP posts:
grannytomine · 10/06/2016 20:35

missmatted, I know what you mean but the chances are that he will end up with a criminal record. Maybe women are misjudged in rape complaints but men are misjudged with violence, people just assume he is the attacker.

MangoMoon · 10/06/2016 20:46

So if other women say they do live in fear, do you think that it's because they're weak Mango?

No.
And I didn't suggest or imply that either.

grannytomine · 10/06/2016 20:48

I am sure there are men out there who have been groped, I doubt it's very common and it is not a daily occurrence like it is for women.

Really, a daily occurrence? I might not be the target group for sex attacks, I'm in my 60s, but back in the 1960s I was a slim young thing who wore hot pants and mini skirts that were so short you could see my knickers and yet I have never been assaulted by a man. I grew up in a rough inner city area, and I have been kerb crawled but that is something different and by the time I was 12 I knew the rules, walk quickly and don't make eye contact with the kerb crawlers and they will leave you alone, they are looking for business not trying to attack you. I happily walked down dark roads at night, stayed out late and have never been frightened. I am sad that woman are so fearful now.

My daughter isn't frightened to go out down dark roads. She has only been in a difficult situation once and that was in broad daylight with a university lecturer and fortunately her boyfriend realised she had been alone in a room with him for too long so her knocked on the door and walked in, saw what this man was trying to do and helped her make her escape which I am eternally grateful for. So it wasn't some random madman down a dark alley but someone she knew and trusted.

When working for the local force I have seen rapists convicted and girls make false allegations. I was lucky to work with detectives who treated women with respect and I only remember one who was a sexist idiot but he was an idiot about many subjects.

Just thought I have been molested once, pathetic old man touched my knee in the cinema so once in 60 odd years by a nutter who decided to do it while I was sitting with my boyfriend. It didn't end well.

MangoMoon · 10/06/2016 20:50

I feel like you're really new to the internet or something?

How wonderfully patronising!

I'm not, and I've had 27 years in the workplace too, as well as 20 yrs working predominantly with men - this is the experience personal to me that have formed my views.

FirstShinyRobe · 10/06/2016 20:51

I completely understand where the OP is coming from.

What fascinates me is that all this worry only ever seems to manifest itself on MN in bald rebuttals on threads that are women - focused, with little actual engagement in the discussion at hand.

There is nothing more that most feminists would like, I believe, than a serious and concerted effort to address male violence, which is obviously right up there as a concern for parents of sons. But it never happens. I can't remember seeing a thread to discuss this, nor the damaging effects of hypermasculinity, from the pov of women raising the men of tomorrow. I get why some feminist discussion is difficult to read. I don't get why the effort is being put into arguing against feminists (our progress is incredibly slow) instead of pouring that effort into helping change society to make it better for all of us if men were less constrained by the expectations of them.

Rigid gender roles harm us all. Feminists have worked hard to break out of them for women. Why is the same not happening for men? Why do the movements focused on men's rights almost always only aim to roll back gains towards equality made by women instead of addressing the actual issues that are of concern?

MangoMoon · 10/06/2016 20:51

Don't blame feminists for the minimising attitude people have towards male victims.

?
Nobody is doing that.

Itsmine · 10/06/2016 20:52

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

branofthemist · 10/06/2016 20:52

bran but that's almost the main premise of this whole thread. .. hardly my fault if you missed that!

I didn't miss it. It's what I was saying from my first post. That's it's not naming feminists

MangoMoon · 10/06/2016 20:59

My advice would be that, if you don't fully understand an OP, don't wade into the discussion with quite so much alacrity.

OP:

AIBU to think that 'I fear for my sons' & 'I feel sorry for my sons' are just new ways of saying "I hate feminists".

Several pages of various posters discussing their own interpretation of that subjective & ambiguous question and answering it, before the point was actually clarified.

Therefore, my advice would be to stop the patronising attitude.
Perhaps if it had been in the FWR section, the outcome would have been different?

RufusTheReindeer · 10/06/2016 21:03

its

Seemed to be an issue with your Cutting and pasting earlier

merchant said

*And then you get women 'fearing for their sons' in the face of this 'madness' (and, for madness, read 'women afforded improved but still not on-a-par-with-men's rights).

That's what this thread is about.*

Its just your version made it seem like she was saying something a bit different

RufusTheReindeer · 10/06/2016 21:05

Oh wow...epic highlighting fail there Grin

See its very difficult....

TheSultanofPingu · 10/06/2016 21:08

Thanks missmatted, it really was awful. He was in no fit state to retaliate unfortunately, but if he was I wouldn't have judged him for hitting back.

DioneTheDiabolist · 10/06/2016 21:08

If anyone talks about the damaging effects of the patriarchy on boys they are met with "Menz" type comments. A Guest Post recently regarding the pressure put on boys by telling them to "man up" was derailed on pg1 by FWR regulars.

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