To think that lots of men think this way

[Flynnshine]

Recently a good friend of my partners has split from his wife of 15 years, they have two young children between 10 and 13.
The husband has decided he isn't happy and wants to end the relationship.

Last week he came over to our house in the evening and I left him and my husband chatting in the living room. I wasn't eavesdropping but I was only in the next room so could hear their conversation. Basically the husband has been planning this split for a while, 6 months before he announced he wanted to end things he sold their beautiful big house and they moved into their much smaller starter home which they had out on rent - they moved the kids out of their private school education and into a state school local to their new home.

They've always had a very comfortable life, beautiful house, nice cars and very fancy holidays a few times a year. They both had good jobs when they first met but when the children came along the wife stopped work and dedicated her life to them. They've done amazingly well at school, both top of their classes, sporty and do two sports for their local borough. They are polite and thoughtful and genuinely lovely children.

The conversation I overheard was the husband complaining that even though the wife hasn't paid towards the mortgage for over 10 years she will still be entitled to half of what the house is worth - he seemed bitter and angry and said he'd been hiding money for ages so she wouldn't get anything when they divorce. He's even planning on quitting his job and becoming self employed so he can fudge his earnings so his maintenance payments could be less. My husband was agreeing with him, I don't know if just to placate him or if that's really how he feels!

This man honestly thinks that because he has been working and paying a mortgage that his worth is so much more. He thinks he has enabled her to not work for over 10 years and that she has been having a jolly all that time. It's like he gives zero shits that he has two wonderful children that he has never had to lift a finger for and she has given her all to those children while he reaps the rewards of that.

Do all men deep down think like this, even if they won't openly admit it? Is money really the be all and end all of everything!?

From my perspective I am talking only about what's vital to maintain for developing life, and having a father who isnt shitting on his famly is pretty important, but still not as vital as DM maintaining primary carer attachment, and being supported in that.

I do always wonder about the benefit gained in playing devils advocate, or hiding behind that ploy, in a serious, contentious, and emotive discussion.

t strikes me that you want you want you want. Because of your natural needs. Biology. And the men had better just heed and understand. Whilst denying their biological needs.

If you’re talking about any of my posts I was in fact mainly talking about what babies want and need. Babies can no more deny their biological needs than they can stop breathing. The adults around them - mothers and fathers are the ones who should be compromising as much as is sensible and healthy to do so to fulfil the babies biological/emotional/cognitive/neurological/developmental needs.....Which don’t give a fig about Equality Britain 2019, they are still rooted deeply in our prehistoric ancestry

@TooSassy

You're a woman? I'm so confused? Are you really that much of a female version of an Uncle Tom?

You're cherry picking data. Again what about the data that shows women are naturally polyamorous and hypergamous if you're going to appeal to nature?

8,000 years ago, 17 women reproduced for every one man. So clearly that is natural and what nature intended. Why aren't you arguing for us all to become single mothers and only have sex with the top 5% of men?

psmag.com/environment/17-to-1-reproductive-success

What you're saying is theres a dichotomy between bio needs of babies, mothers and fathers?

Which doesn't really make sense in evolutionary terms.

Yes I’m a woman. Who works amongst a largely male peer group. And hears the other side (albeit in a quasi odd environment) all day long.

8,000 years ago, 17 women reproduced for every one man. So clearly that is natural and what nature intended. Why aren't you arguing for us all to become single mothers and only have sex with the top 5% of men?

Where do I sign up for this?

In my experience, yes, all men think like that.

Because it doesn't matter, this is about balancing needs of the most vulnerable member in a family, within our social constructs.

@elle1111112
Oh god. Are you a Jordan Peterson fan by any chance? I come to Mumsnet to escape those awful creepy misogynists you find on Reddit. 🙄
No not a Jordan Peterson fan, I actually had to Google him to refresh my understanding of who he awas and what his views are. I am wary of misrepresenting him, but I think I agree with him that men and women are fundamentally not the same and that focussing on equality in outcome is unhelpful in the current system. However I believe the fundamental difference in our stances is that as a radical feminist I think the system is at fault and that the patriarchy has created a system where men's biology is an advantage and women's is a disadvantage so women will always struggle to compete when the "rules" have been stacked against them. If women as a class have differences in biology then society should be moulded to suit these as much as it has been moulded to suit men's biology. I am fed up of society writing off women because they want to spend a few years prioritising their children. I believe some women have the instinct to be a primary carer for their children and this should be recognised, accepted and not be used to discriminate against them.

Please ignore these creepy Jordan Peterson fans.
I assume that was directed at me... Ok so I'm now "creepy"!

There is a lot of evidence that hypergamy is natural @Bumpitybumper , that women should be cheating on their partners? What do you think of that? You'd be happy to get cheated on because it's "natural"?
And I'm also a man? So I'm a male creepy Jordan Peterson fan? Thanks for enlightening me as I literally had no idea before reading your posts and always assumed I was a female non-creepy radical feminist. So glad you've corrected me...

Regarding hypergamy then I refer you back to the concept I stated earlier that biological traits do not have to be desirable or morally justifiable to exist. Women may well have a propensity towards hypergamy, gate keeper parenting and lots of other things, but as a society and sex, we should obviously try to focus on addressing and minimising those traits that are considered to be undesirable. I can think of lots of reasons why hypergamy could cause societal issues but I'm not sure I can say the same about women having a proposenity to be the primary carer for their children? What is damaging about this? I will accept that it's a barrier to equality as things stand currently, but as I stated earlier, I would support a radical shake up of society so that women weren't penalised so heavily for taking on this role.

I'm always a bit at arguments about what is natural. In fact... We know quite little about our the 'first men', how they lived etc. We infer a lot about them.... But inference can be mistaken. I think when people are criticising your arguments 'on nature' grounds too sassy they are referring to the needs of the baby. You seem to be repetitively misunderstanding this for some reason. Infants and babies have certain biological needs (nature), if men could gestate, birth, lactate and feed a baby, then we would be equal in our abilities to meet these needs. As it is, they cannot. Unless you believe that the WHO and NHS is mistaken a mother should aim to breastfeed for 2 years. This often doesn't work out. I'm sorry it didn't for you. The reasons it often doesn't work are complex. Some of them societal and often tied to women returning to work. So, as a society we are left w some options... We do smt to increase extended bf rates or we don't. There are lots of reasons to support bf. If we decide to support bf, what does this mean for working mothers? We don't want the effect of supporting bf to end in women leaving the work force in large numbers. The whole nature being gatekeeper mothers vrs philandering fathers is a red herring if ever I saw one. And an insulting one at that.

as a radical feminist I think the system is at fault and that the patriarchy has created a system where men's biology is an advantage and women's is a disadvantage so women will always struggle to compete when the "rules" have been stacked against them. If women as a class have differences in biology then society should be moulded to suit these as much as it has been moulded to suit men's biology. I am fed up of society writing off women because they want to spend a few years prioritising their children.

Yes. So much this. What I was trying to say in an earlier post but so much more elegantly

And I would add that the western capitalist patriarchal society disadvantages infants and children and their needs too

@TooSassy
Oh come on now, nobody has said that we are all slaves to our biological instinct and must replicate all our primeval behaviour to be our "natural" selves. Men AND women all have a proposenity towards different types of undesirable behaviour that we should look to address and minimise? Gate keeper parenting, murder, aggression, depression... The list goes on. Would you place a woman's propoensity to be a child's primary carer amongst these "undesirable" traits? Why is it inherently undesirable if it doesn't extend into gate keeping behaviour?

Massive red-herring, yes

Sassy, I don’t understand why you’re mind makes the link between the maternal instinct and men having affairs? Men may be more biologically predisposed to multiple sexual partners, I don’t know? But surely this is the case whether the wife / girlfriend is “gatekerpung” or not They fancy someone else, it’s as simple as that.

I would argue the flip side to the female maternal instinct is that men may also have the biological predisposition to protect and provide for their young.

As for your comment about the “poor” man at your work - “This man goes to bed alone...” I have to say, I find this very odd. Why on earth are these colleagues telling you how they go to bed? How do you know what his wife does in the night?

As I said, I’ve been a long-term SAHM, but I’m hardly the earth mother type . The two things certainly don’t go hand in hand. I’ve never slept in another room with the DC. I followed attachment parenting insofar as we had the baby in the Moses basket next to our bed for the first six months or so. When he /she cried, I just fed them and DH didn’t get massively disturbed and there was no point him getting up as well really. That’s about it.

If you want to co-sleep with your DC until they’re 5 or whatever, then that behaviour is hardly the preserve of SAHMs, is it? Do you not think WOHMs are just as likely to do that?

@Absofrigginlootly
Thanks, so pleased you get it! Sometimes I feel like people assume that I am some anti-feminist when it's quite the opposite

I know exactly what you mean.... I think it’s because some people think “feminists” should be out there breaking glass ceilings, campaigning to the right to abort their foetuses and eschewing anything to do with motherly/domestic duties so that we can be exactly like men or whatever

When in fact I think most radical feminists recognise motherhood and child rearing as an important part of womanhood

Scandinavian countries ate often hailed as the pinnacle of “equality,” but I just think thank god I didn’t have DC in a place where the societal expectation is to put them in full-time daycentres from the age of one. To me, that is a subjugation of choice and another potential form of female repression in the name of “equality”. It’s all about personal choices and how can you legislate for that? How DH and I care for our DH is our own personal business - certainly not for the state to dictate.

So many people on this thread really don't understand what equality means and by being so adamant that they don't want to be like men they're completely missing the point.
It's not about women being like men or men being like women. It's about equality of choice and opportunity.

It's such a shame we can't make these choices and engage in a wide range of opportunities without being judged.

@CostanzaG
So many people on this thread really don't understand what equality means and by being so adamant that they don't want to be like men they're completely missing the point. It's not about women being like men or men being like women. It's about equality of choice and opportunity
I don't think anyone has "missed the point", but there is a difference in opinion as to whether the biological differences between the sexes enable women to have truly equal choices and opportunity in the society we currently live in.

If you believe that men are fundamentally biologically different to women and these differences extend beyond the physical and also into the psychological then what does "equality of choice and opportunity" actually look like, especially in the realm of child bearing/raising and the impact that this may have on a woman's life and future prospects?

The problem I have with discussions around equality of choices and opportunity are:
a) that equality of choice often simply means that women can make the same choices as men, so they can use childcare to return to work, use formula to avoid BFing etc etc. The problem is that women aren't men and our biology and subsequently our decision making and priorities may well be different at a population level too. I think it's impossible to achieve true equality of choice in our society without fundamental restructuring of social and economic systems so that they are equally well suited to both sexes and women aren't penalised for their different biology and the different decisions they may therefore make.
B) that equality of opportunity is incredibly vague and meaningless without the restructuring mentioned above. Imagine if men and women were running a race, what would equality of opportunity look like? There are obvious issues if it's just that everyone is entitled to run as it is universally acknowledged that men are faster runners than women due to their biological differences. Do you give a women a head start, if so how much of a head start? If you opt to have seperate races then what if (as so commonly happens) the women's race is less prestigious or has less prize money attached to it because it is a slower race? If you started from a position where everyone was running in the same race with no provision being made for biological differences than I think the best way to achieve equality of opportunity would be to look to identify what the biological differences were and to devise a solution that would reflect the different biology of men and women so that an individual from each sex had the same opportunity to win the same prize as their counterpart of the opposite sex.
Similarly, without first acknowledging biological difference how can we expect to have equality of opportunity in any other areas of society? The dice are currently weighted against women as a class and without a fundamental restructuring of society we will struggle as a class to even get close to true equality.

Spot on again bumpity

Not all, but a LOT of men do think like this.

While I don't disagree that biology is important and shouldn't be ignored I think some people have a tendency to use biology as an excuse. I've seen the concept of 'gate-keeper parenting' up thread and find it fascinating and it seems to make sense. I've seen examples of this and men being either pushed out or being allowed to not engage in family life because caring for children is solely the domain of women.

I also find it fascinating that you are referring to class in a discussion about biology. Class is a social construct and infers some sort of pecking order.

Exactly 1ndig0 that's exactly what were not after, removing essential differences to the detriment of the baby, and the DM.

Being out of work for any reason, can bring a few extra challenges, perhaps a loss of confidence in the workplace, a loss of policies, practices, culture, trends, etc from working memory, and changes within the workplace and industry, but if you could do the job before, it only requires a few months in role again; if you are the woman that could do all that before, short of a brain injury you are perfectly capable of doing all that again. I mean all work too, I don't mean, divisions between 'career' jobs and everything else, just whatever your employed role is, otherwise it is, or should be counted as discrimination