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AIBU?

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Original poster

To think there is a group on MN deliberately trying to downplay the institutional oppression of women?

999 replies

PerryPerryThePlatypus · 18/10/2017 08:13

I've been hanging around these here parts since Pom Bears were just a bizarre crisp but more and more I see posters chipping away at other posters experiences, feelings of unease etc. It's difficult to articulate but it's just a shift from NAMALT to women are just as bad so stop complaining. An almost subtle silencing.

OP posts:
BertrandRussell · 19/10/2017 08:29

"bertrand of course men should stop and think for 5 minutes. I bet many of them would be willing to discuss these issues if you actually asked them to!"
Once again. Why is it up to me to ask them to? Do you have such a low opinion of men that you think they don't read, or watch the news, or have intellects, empathy and sympathy?

I just don't get this women shouldn't have to be involved in this discussion it's men's fault attitude.

Of course women should be involved. But it's a bit like all the threads where women complain that their partners can't cook, and lots of people say "So, why don't you teach him, poor thing. It's not his fault nobody ever taught him!" And I think "He's 30 years old and presumably a functioning adult who can hold down a job, drive a car and build a Death Star out of Lego. What's stopping him getting out a cookery book and following the instructions?"

HornyTortoise · 19/10/2017 08:35

Or men could stop and think for five minutes and realise that they have some responsibility for their behaviour and that of other men and actually do something about it? Rather than expecting to be educated again by women?

Well yes. Come on, I know its implied a lot but men really are not stupid. Men know when their attention is unwanted, they know but often do not care.

Its entirely possible to educate our boys and at the same time for men to start actually engaging their brains instead of their dicks tbh. And I feel like a broken record here but men could very easily apply the 'if you wouldn't say/do it to a man, don't to a woman'. Its hardly expecting the world, just expecting men to treat men and women the same, which is apparently the goal so I don't see why this keeps being argued against Confused

Rufustherenegadereindeer1 · 19/10/2017 08:37

build a Death Star out of Lego.

Keeping that

Oh bob can't make little tommy's lunch...

Can he build a death star out of lego

Boom, the vast amount of men i know will not be able to get out of that one...all star wars fans Grin

Dh makes the childrens lunch

Rufustherenegadereindeer1 · 19/10/2017 08:38

Agree horny

I dont get it

HornyTortoise · 19/10/2017 08:43

The death star out of lego made me snort Grin

I also think I need to change my username. It feels so weird on such important situations as these for people to be calling me horny...and using the full username is even worse really. Its fine for 'theres a chicken in my garden, what do i do'...not so much for meaningful and important stuff.

whiskyowl · 19/10/2017 08:44

taratill - Shock at that male manager!! I wonder how many others have those fears born out of ignorance?

The issue of funding is a huge, wide one, but I'd point to the high-tax-high-living-standards economies of places like Denmark, where childcare provision is much greater than the UK, and gender (and more general) pay inequalities much reduced. Denmark's productivity is much greater than the UK's in spite of it having much higher taxes, proving that the two are not diametrically opposed to one another in their tendency. I am always impressed when I go to Denmark by how much help there is for families, and what an effect this seems to have on the freedoms of women. I truly believe that we need to stop seeing childcare as the responsibility solely of parents, and start seeing it as a social obligation - we are sleepwalking into a demographic crisis in the UK, in part because we are leaving young people to flounder with ridiculous housing costs and high childcare bills, and this will affect anyone who plans to get a pension or to be provided for with health and social care when they are older. Before someone accuses me of self-interest, I am childless myself (infertility Sad ).

HornyTortoise · 19/10/2017 08:49

Yes Denmark sounds amazing in so many respects. Can you imagine the hell on there would be if we were to announce a tax hike for something like this though? Hell theres already so many resent paying tax as they don't want to fund ill people, the NHS and so on.

whiskyowl · 19/10/2017 08:53

Horny - yes, that's the problem isn't it? We need to change that whole discourse! Liberal individualism is a huge problem...

Rufustherenegadereindeer1 · 19/10/2017 08:59

I agree horny

I feel my name has much more gravitas

Rufustherenegadereindeer1 · 19/10/2017 09:00

whisky

Thanks
taratill · 19/10/2017 09:02

My husband cooks as much as I do.
My son loves to cook with me.

Unfortunately many women enable men to not pull their weight. I get that.

Still not sure how ignoring them works.

Betrand I don't want a man to stop and think for 5 minutes that I might not want to talk to him because I do want to talk to him.

It's not just about educating men , it's about educating women too.

Rufustherenegadereindeer1 · 19/10/2017 09:04

I don't understand

(My brain isn't functioning yet)

Why do i need to be educated?

Rufustherenegadereindeer1 · 19/10/2017 09:05

About making men pull their weight?

taratill · 19/10/2017 09:05

Totally agree that we should treat childcare as society's problem.

Rufustherenegadereindeer1 · 19/10/2017 09:05

If thats case my husband already does shedloads

I is well edukated

taratill · 19/10/2017 09:06

not you Rufus but some women enable men to be lazy etc. They need to be educated that they don't have to do that.

Rufustherenegadereindeer1 · 19/10/2017 09:07

Why are men apparently really chatty and friendly to women but not men?

whiskyowl · 19/10/2017 09:07

Thanks rufus!

tara - absolutely, I don't see how anyone can find the domestic work battle except for women. I really, really see men not pulling their weight around the house as a huge issue. If you took all the situations where a man is working 8 hours waged, and a woman 4 hours waged and another 12 unwaged (housework, childcare) and tallied up the number of hours women are working over and above men across the country, it would come to years of free and unrewarded labour. A lot of that work is repetitive drudgery too. I refuse to believe anyone enjoys cleaning the toilet!!

Rufustherenegadereindeer1 · 19/10/2017 09:09

My husband is obviously well intelligent

But sometimes it sounds like loads of men are fucking stupid

Actually i prefer selfish

falange · 19/10/2017 09:09

Yes yabu. I don’t think anyone takes MN seriously enough to bother.

Rufustherenegadereindeer1 · 19/10/2017 09:10

Well exactly whisky

Are they too stupid to realise that they are not sharing..that their wife does a disproportionate amount of work, or that the kitchen does not tidy itself

bumbleymummy · 19/10/2017 09:11

""Educating the future generation. So they see it as normal to treat everyone the same."

OK. I'm up for this. How do we do it?"

Ummm... but several people here don't want everyone to be treated the same. They want to treat men as potential ateackers and advise them not to approach women in case they scare them. Confused

whiskyowl · 19/10/2017 09:11

falange - Have your RTFT? You can actually go to other forums and see them organising to come over here and troll.

rufus - I think it's really important for women like you to say that. Because so many people say normalising stuff like "Men can't cook/can't see dirt" in a manner that implies "So we just have to accept it". Saying "I'm married to a guy who does his share, does it well, and doesn't moan about doing it" is a powerful statement in a context like that.

Roomba · 19/10/2017 09:13

I think what is possibly happening is that a more radical and feminist politics - more attentive to the structural and material dimensions - has come to the fore in wider society, and that this is having two consequences. The first is that those with rather old-fashioned views really do appear further out of their time than they did 5 years ago; the second is a revelation of the weaknesses of a white, liberal, second-wavey feminism that is insufficiently engaged with intersectionality, power structures (Foucault), and materialism (Marx).

Thank you! You just summed up very eloquently what I spent half an hour at least trying to explain to a friend the other day. And in a simpler form to my 12 year old.

HornyTortoise · 19/10/2017 09:15

I don't want a man to stop and think for 5 minutes that I might not want to talk to him because I do want to talk to him.

But some (most?) women, would not want to talk to him. Especially if hes only talking to them because they are women...rather than 'just to be friendly'

If you want to talk to random guys, you could approach them? I am fairly sure they wouldn't not mind (as a class, individual men might) and I am also sure if they were clearly not interested in chatting, you could pick up on that and then leave them alone. Which most men will NOT do when approaching random women.

We seem to be kind of going in circles here tbh. And I still am not understanding whats oh so awful about expecting men to think about if they are actually approaching someone just for a friendly chat (in which case they would also do it to a man*), or if they are approaching to chat them up or be a dick.

*Not meaning they must instead find the nearest man to talk to if thats being misinterpreted somewhere. Just meaning, would they chat to a random bloke in the same setting. If they would, then approach away if you so feel the need, but still please be aware that the woman may not want to be approached so read signals and fuck the fuck off if she isn't interested, same as you would if a guy didn't want to talk