AIBU to be shocked by seeing a whole new side to DHs opinions of women?

[wiccamum]

Apologies if this is a bit rambling, but I had an argument with DH last night, and it has left me reeling a bit.
We had just come back from a weekend away, at a very nice country resort. Had a very nice time and came back pretty tired. So we were relaxing on the sofa last night, and DH brings up a recent story in the news about a female football pundit getting a “round of applause” from a male pundit (google it if you haven’t read it...I am rubbish at adding links 😆) and the obvious social media furore it caused. He said he thought everyone was overreacting and needed to “calm down now”, I disagreed and also felt the clapping and comments were patronising from the male pundit. I also pointed out that, ok maybe everyone was getting very heated on social media, but what dh needed to grasp was that this is an example of something women face EVERY DAY, so seeing it on a public forum, and a massive global news network, might spark some fairly strong feelings!
At this point he said I was now patronising HIM, and he could understand perfectly well the significance of it, but that people were still over reacting. Basically now this conversation had descended into a full on bunfight and I reminded him of all the shit women put up with (including my own experiences) on a daily basis. To level the playing field dh then said “well, it works both bloody ways you know!”. So, to address the balance of sexist experiences, to give me some insight into the male struggle he gave this example....
Wait for it....
Now, don’t get too upset ladies with a delicate disposition...
Once...when he was out running, a drunk woman...yes, a WOMAN, came out of a pub as he ran past and told him he had a “nice arse”.

Seriously. This is how he justified the “ it works both ways” argument. I then recounted a few examples of my own experiences of misogyny and sexism (the usual, we all know) and rather than feeling shocked or upset, he said “well, I have lost business because women have used their tits to get what they want”. Hmm.

I then said that, firstly maybe these women you speak of have learnt that the only way to get noticed in his industry is to exploit their looks, or maybe, just maybe they might actually be better than him and won the business on their own merit...that maybe the fact that they are attractive (or have tits) is just totally, fucking irrelevant!!! I now just tell him to simply Fuck off, which offends him. I say that he has told me to fuck off before, he’s just upset that this time I said it first.
This is followed up by dh saying things like “you have no idea what you’re talking about”, “you don’t understand “ and all that crap. I am left downstairs in tears, thinking “what don’t I understand? Being a woman? Dealing with sexism? Being judged by my gender? Missing out on stuff because I’m female?”
Dh husband has just taken my anger away and used it for himself!!! He’s nicked feminism off me!!!! I’m fuming!!!!!

So I get up this morning, still angry. I totally admit I was stomping around and wouldn’t speak to him. He says (sarcastically) “ nice to see your feeling so contrite this morning”.
WTAF !!!

Am I BU to tell him to go fuck himself? I feel like strutting around the house wearing a red dress and white hood, just so he feels the balance has been redressed. Why is he doing this? Why is it he can’t simply accept that it doesn’t simply “work both ways”? I am so sick of my anger being diluted and being made to feel that, just because I have a successful career and access to toilets, san pro, health care etc, that I don’t have the right to feel that life is not balanced, that I shouldn’t feel the same anger that there are women out there who don’t have the opportunities that I have? AIBU to think my dh cannot call himself a feminist?

So women are left in the fantastic position of not only having to fear the abusers, rapists and murders, avoid and deal with the sexists and harassers, but also put up with the wilful obliviousness of the Good Guys. It fucking sucks.
This is brilliant, thank you

op get him to follow "man who has it all" on Facebook

It's worth remembering that up to very very recently (in historical terms) as far as society was concerned men were very firmly and definitely more important that women - it was, for example, perfectly acceptable to offer a female wage and a male wage for a job on the basis that women were worth less. So embedded in our society is the bedrock notion that men and everything about men is more important than anything about women. Hence the belief that it's fine to tell women to stay at home in fear of rape and murder but never ever acceptable to tell men to stay at home because they are Important Real people doing Important things. Women have been indoctrinated in that belief as much as men have been.

When you challenge that with men and say that actually your thoughts and feelings about the world are not The Definitive Thoughts and Feelings, they react much like toddlers do - with incomprehension that their belief about being the centre of the universe is actually false. It challenges their whole view of themselves. Hence to extreme reactions.

Don't minimise your anger OP. I have seen lots of women after the initial rage move into denial.

FizzyGreenWater, he is a pretty smart fella. But insight is the issue. He’s from a reasonably privileged background. By that I mean, not wealthy privileged but rather shielded from the kind of experiences I had. He came from an environment of domestic bliss, he has a supportive family, he hasn’t perhaps struggled against some of the barriers I have. He’s well meaning, just he maybe struggles to fully empathise

Yes that's what I mean.

Insight is exactly the issue. To have insight you need to be able to stand outside your own experience and be able to assimilate new knowledge or see something from another point of view, not just your own lived experience. He can't. Or he doesn't want to.

He's either not well meaning at all, or his intelligence is only average. He's certainly not a 'pretty smart fella', but an absolutely run of the mill one.

Just because he does n’t agree with you does n’t mean he’s thick and needs re educating. It’s very arrogant to assume you re right and everyone else is wrong.

the lack of insight thing made me think of this

www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/30069564/australian-tv-host-wears-same-suit-for-a-year-and-nobody-notices

Northern OP's DP is denying what has actually happened to her.

'Just because he does n’t agree with you does n’t mean he’s thick and needs re educating. It’s very arrogant to assume you re right and everyone else is wrong.'

What I've found Northern, and what happened to the OP to an extent is that men will, without any hesitation try to tell me I am wrong about my own life experiences and my own feelings. They genuinely feel that they have more authority and knowledge and about my life than I do. That's the extent to which men believe that their view on the world is The Legitimate View - it includes telling women (not men mind you) what women think, feel, experience and do with absolute certainty and conviction.

In the past when I've said to a man 'are you trying to tell me what I think?' the response is always silent bafflement for a second followed by 'no but...' with further attempts to tell me what I think and feel. It usually takes extended repeated attempts to make a man see that actually he isn't an expert on my life, and that he can't actually tell me anything about my own thoughts and memories. That sort of conversation is a real eye-opener into the extent to which men are made to feel that their world view, their thoughts and experiences are the Real Thing, while women's thoughts and feelings are just irrational, emotional and Plain Wrong.

Another tactic is to imply or state that a woman is feeling an emotion of some sort (usually anger) which then invalidates her argument entirely - the premise being that the man is 100% emotionless and rational and therefore Totally Right, whereas the woman has expressed emotion and therefore is Automatically Wrong. Interestingly I've seen that done even when the woman speaks totally calmly and without any emotional expression at all - the only thing she is doing is disagreeing with a man and persisting in disagreeing even when the man tells her what to think. I think the man in that case often genuinely experiences the disagreement as anger, he can't get his head around the fact that she just disagrees and has her own legitimate thoughts on the matter that don't exactly mirror his.

Interestingly though if the man has any emotions (upset, disappointment whatever) then these emotions are Correct, Important and Must Be Acknowledged and Catered For At All Times. Because a man's emotions are the real deal and everyone must kowtow to them.

Op ask him if a 6ft 4in man built like a rugby player had called out "nice arse" to him, would he have found that funny?

Men just don't understand how intimidating they can be to women.

Agree with PP. I recently may have had to explain (with aid of husband) the issues and inequalities women face to his 17-year-old brother.

He didn't initially understand the gender pay gap and kept equating it to equal pay. He also didn't understand unconscious bias (he does now).

I also gave him a slightly shocking stat on sexual harassment and abuse. To give him context. I asked him how many times he'd been sexually harassed or cat-called. He thought about it and said "five times". I then explained that from the age of 12 to 17 I would be the subject of sexual harassment, groping and catcalls at least five times a day at school. Not to mention grown men in vans and cars shouting comments to me, following me home. Trying to touch me - even in a school uniform. I explained that for his five times by age 17, I'd been subjected to the same / worse behaviour at least a 1000 times... and if I was complained I was told I was frigid or that it was just 'boys being boys' or a 'joke'. I pointed out that I was a fairly average teenage girl and my experiences were pretty reflective of the experiences of most of my female friends. He got it then.

I am slowly explaining the benefits of positive action as a way of overcoming unconscious bias to hubbie. He knows that because he's never experienced sexism in the work place in the same way it's hard to understand what it feels like.

I think most men do know how intimidating they can be to women Mrsharrison, but they don't like it being pointed out. I think that's partially because a lot of men don't like the idea of being intimidating but at the same time I have very limited sympathy because not liking to be intimidating is really nothing compared to worrying about being raped and murdered. I do think there is a psychological struggle that goes on for men around the fact that they hold power that they don't necessarily want and that they definitely don't want to be blamed for having. At the same time I think pushing it back on women and refusing to acknowledge it is incredibly immature behaviour.

Spagetti it’s also worth remebering that women have been erased from history even they did have a really important role.
Women who did go to war, were fighters and bloody good ones are nowhere to be seen for example. Or they are seen as ‘THE’ exception such as the amazonians.
Women who run estates, dealt with all the finances, businesses etc...
Women who more recently were lawyers, inventors, researchers. Women who changed the world around them (think about segregation in the US etc...).
It’s nitbthat recent that women have been the driving force in a society. We’ve just chosen to eliminate them from our collective memory.

The reality is that painting Out how misogyny is affecting women, we are basically telling men they are hurting women. Am they dint like it becaus they want to see themselves as the ‘nice guy’ who would never hurt anyone.

I get where the OP is coming from. I’ve had discussions like this with H. I also have regular conversations with my own dcs (two teen boys) about it. I’m always correcting them when I hear ‘the girls are ....’ and trying to show them how actually boys and girls are NOT that different.
It’s hard though when everything around them is telling them the opposite!

Ok, thank you everyone, I have had some really sound advice and great links. I’ve also had a few harsh words, but keeping it constructive.

I have an update. Dh has come down from the office and wanted to clear the air. All very calm and adult...no hysteria or escalation!. I acknowledged that I was aggressive in my tone and he a.so acknowledged that he has done the same thing in the past. We both apologised for that. He still maintains that social media over reacted to the original event that started our whole argument. I still felt that the reaction was justified. We agreed to disagree.

Then I tackled the wider issue. Dh still describes himself as “gender and colour blind” and hates being lumped in with all the mysogynists of this world, still thinks he is in the Good Guy camp. I have calmly explained that perhaps he is protected by male privilage. He accepts he has privilege, but he sees it more that he came from a nice middle clas, protected upbringing. I pointed out that this wasn’t the kind of privilege I mean...I’m talking about being born male. I have told him he really isn’t a card carrying feminist, he needs to see the wider picture...as ugly as that may be. I have comforted friends who have been so harassed at work that they have been physically sick at the thought of facing the abusers in the workplace. I have walked home from school, aged 13, with my keys between my fingers to defend myself from older boys trying to touch me as I have walked past a bus stop. I have watched my father emotionally and physically beat my mother down into “her place” AND do the same to my brother to “make him a man”. Dh hasn’t seen any of these things.
We are talking, we are calming the situation down. But I’m not leaving it at this. I’m not going to just tolerate it, but I know I can’t waste my energy and it isn’t my job to teach him. Maybe I’ve just sheltered him a bit and toned down my own feelings so as not to make him think I see him as one of the Bad Guys. I won’t do that anymore. He’s not a bad person, but he ain’t perfect either! I think that’s what he is finding so hard to accept.

It's a comparison I don't like making because of the obvious connotations but I think it's similar to the way in which adults can be intimidating to children. Generally most adults don't want or intend to upset children but in many cases it's easy to upset them simply because you're taller than they are and often have authority over them. Therefore you have to adjust your behaviour around them and be a lot more patient and careful than you would be with an adult. I think that fatigues a lot of people and you can end up exasperated by having to modify your behaviour and understand what they need over and above what you need yourself.

Of course that need for men to modify behaviour around women has often been translated by a patriarchal society as a patronising 'women are weak' idea - that you have to open doors and carry things and generally treat women like helpless idiots. Once you start explaining that women do need consideration but not that patronising, pointless 'consideration' that allows men to feel like Big Heroes, the response you often get is that men are just trying to be nice and if women don't want doors to be opened for them then fuck em men aren't going to be nice any more . It's wilfully missing the point that men do need to understand that women have had huge disadvantages and continue to be smaller and physically weaker and so men have to acknowledge that and change their behaviour in ways that are sometimes inconvenient and time consuming for them, but that are geared towards addressing that imbalance. It's not about treating women like weaklings, it's about seeing how things are, practically, genuinely striving to level the playing field and doing what's necessary to achieve that, even if it means men don't have it quite so easy any more.

When the 'Good Guys' refuse to even see that there's an issue, that's when the scales really fall from your eyes and you see why we've ended up where we are - it's not just the Monsters who are the problem, it's the everyday men who want to remain oblivious. There's no way to address the fundamental issues if half the population, the half that holds the vast majority of the power and control, don't even want to see that there's the issues even exist.

Yeeah, he's gender and colour blind, is he? The thing is, apart from this being implausible, as none of us is blind in this way, it's irrelevant.

The incident that sparked this was an interview between one person who is not him and another person who is not him. So how he believes he might have behaved in that situation - or any other situation involving people who are not him - is irrelevant.

I know Lottie!! How can any of us claim this, truly and honestly? We all have, I believe, a degree of inherent bias. I accept that I have. I answered this comment from him with a simple “really?”. Actually, as the conversation went on, I think it started to dawn on him. I can see that this is pretty painful for him. He had a rather nosebleed high opinion of himself, and my response last night was a bit of a shock. I shocked myself to be honest! I got nasty and defensive, I felt like a wounded animal, and in a way I was. Backed in to a corner and angry.
I’m calmer now!

All of those dramatics just because a women on TV received a round of applause from her co-worker.

Also, he really dislikes the male football pundit involved, it’s a team/football thing, I really don’t care why. But he actually wanted this male pundit to get grief and get called out...but only because dh doesn’t like him (for previous actions agains MALE players) and NOT because of his sexist, patronising behaviour!....no dh, just no, that is not the reason to be angry!

Sweetcheeks, I know, it does seem ridiculous. But it is just an example that came up in a conversation but sadly ended up being a demonstration of a fundamental difference of opinion.

My DH works in a male-dominated field, and it's taken years of discussion to get it across to him that women's rights in the workplace don't advantage them over men, just make sure that female employees have the same opportunities as men to progress in their careers, which benefits everyone in the workplace. I honestly don't remember having a screaming row with him about it though.

This is the thing, we normally have pretty open and sensible discussions around this subject, never blazing rows. I think this is why I was so upset. I was thinking, where the hell did all this come from?!?

I work in a very female-dominated industry, but the reason it is so female heavy is because it is very much seen as “woman’s work”... but that is a whole other thread!

In your female-dominated profession wicca, are most of the upper levels of management female?