To ask if feminism has ruined your life?

[Playtive]

Joining mumsnet coincided with having my first baby. Having my first baby coincided with realising I’d married a deeply sexist man. Ergo a feminist was born.

Long story short he did nothing with our baby. He expected his life to continue as he wanted and it was my job to do all the drudge work.

I had huge resentment and really struggled for the first year of DDs life.

Anywho we’re still together and things marginally improved as she got older, however my resentment will not go away and I think it’s only a matter of time before I eventually leave - even though leaving would undoubtedly make mine and my child’s life harder.

Everywhere I look now I see inequality, male privilege, overt and covert abuse of women and it’s actually ruining my life somewhat.

I can’t watch a lighthearted television show without noticing sexism. Innocent conversation with female friends/family can give me the rage inside with all the internalised misogyny. Pretty much every conversation with my husband regarding women makes me think he’s an entitled sexist arsehole. Even though I wouldn’t have batted an eye to these seemingly innocuous comments previously and was a very easy going person.

Has this happened to anyone else? How did you deal with it? AIBU to just want to watch television in peace?!

Because what happens to other people matters. Or at least it should if you give a shit about anyone other than yourself.

or maybe you could calm down, and consider that your experience is not the same for everyone, that other people are not lying or having an agenda. Maybe things are not as bad as you think they are in general.

There's no gender war, there's no "us" against "them". There are shit people everywhere, that is true.

It's just occurred to me to wonder why the stabbings and increase in knife crime are getting so much official attention... while the ongoing huge levels of rape and sexual harassment are not. Par for the course, ain't it, nothing to see here.

Because one has seen a massive increase which therefore requires immediate awareness and attention to prevent an exponential increase.

It's not to say that sexual crimes are not a priority to Police (they are), it's just that knife crime has seen such an unprecedented increase that it has made the news.

I'm really not trying cause a conflict here but I really, really don't see a lot of the issues I've seen raised in here as issues at all. IMO feminism and seeing reasons to hate men and feel put down as a woman are just inflated first world problems for this society.

There are cultures and countries where women really, really are truly suffering unjustly and are experiencing true prejudice every day for the crime of being a female. But this culture (UK/USA) is not one of them!

That is massive whataboutery. Yes, there are countries where women are far more restricted but that doesn't make it okay to ignore oppression here. If a woman is being abused in her home in the UK, it is little comfort to her that statistically women are worse off elsewhere. When we campaign on, e.g., street harassment in the UK we are sending out a message about injustice everywhere. And we can do it while supporting our oppressed sisters in other countries.

Seeing reasons to hate men - feminism is about equality, not about 'reasons to hate men'. I don't hate men; I do hate certain male behaviours and the structural inequality that makes it more difficult for women to progress than men. Intelligent men hate these things too.

OP, it's really important that you began to notice misogyny and inequality when you had your DC. Whether a boy or a girl, they need you to be aware of these issues so you can equip them to deal with it in their own lives.

or maybe you could calm down, and consider that your experience is not the same for everyone,

Lol, thats a bit rich!

@thedisorganisedmum

If you're going to critique feminism then the least you could do is have a basic understanding of it. Recognising injustice and inequality does not make women weak, or victims. It's just the truth.

@TheFrontHoleIsConnectedToThe
It might be hard to believe but 1 in 6 boys and men have been sexually assaulted and abused. Only 16% of men with documented histories of sexual abuse (by social service agencies, which means it was very serious) considered themselves to have been sexually abused, compared to 64% of women with documented histories in the same study.

I would never have got married with a deeply sexist man and put up with someone not taking care of anything

Well of course not. That’s something I would have bleated out too until I found myself in that position. Like I said it was only after my child was born that these things became apparent. Sure, in hindsight there were probably blatant clues, but the way he spoke about wanting children and how important it was to him etc. I could never have imagined he would turn out to be the type of father he did.

Our lifestyle was very, very different before DD arrived and I think that’s how I was so blinded to the reality. We lived in an apartment in a major city. Neither of us very domesticated yet it was fairly equal in terms of cleaning etc. because there was minimum to do. We ate out a lot, worked crazy hours (offshore a lot in his case). We lived this sort of lifestyle for 5 years but moved back to the UK to his hometown when I was pregnant and that’s when everything changed beyond recognition. I never, ever thought I’d be the “type” of woman to “put up with” this shit but there you are...

You sound like me in my twenties disorganised and I cringe at my naïveté.

I completely agree with the OP. I feel really worried about my daughters now my eyes have been opened.

if you know you are in an unhealthy situation and know you have options but some women don't have options. They may find out, after
having kids usually, that they have married an entitled sexist arsehole but then they have kids to consider and leaving is not financially possible for some (especially now because of changes to universal credit etc). A homeless women who'd left her marriage (and home) because it was abusive recently ended up dead on the streets near me. So she's not exactly better off.

You can also bet your arse that if suddenly 3 men a week were being murdered by a female partner so many more people would also pay a jolly lot more attention.

By the way its a very strange viewpoint to have, that because you have never experienced violence, harassment, discrimination in the workplace, that you think women have equality and feminism is not longer needed.

no one is saying it doesn't exist, but they are just as illegal as racism, bullying and any men or woman victim of any of these problem can fight.

I am not saying we are living in perfect world, I am saying It's not a gender issue.
I was also pointing out that some women have tried to play the "female discrimination" card when it really had nothing to do with gender. Just because you call it doesn't mean it's true.

You’re right, as a PP said upthread once you see it you can’t unsee it. I recently started going to a chiropractor for a long term back issue that I’d been suffering, and she was trying to demonstrate to me how my pregnancy had affected my pelvis and my spine on a skeleton model. She had to try and explain to me how to imagine the bones and muscles around the area because all skeleton models are actually male. I mean, she was trying to demonstrate an exclusively female problem using a male anatomy. It’s such a small thing but I couldn’t help but get a bit worked up about it inside. It’s just so infuriating that women are considered so much less worthy in every possible regard and it seems to be verywhere in every bloody thing. I’m so tired of being so angry.

disorganised i have only ever had decent men in my life.

That doesn't mean my blood doesn't boil at the amount of not-decent men out there and how women and girls as a class are systematically treated.

Our lifestyle was very, very different before DD arrived and I think that’s how I was so blinded to the reality. We lived in an apartment in a major city. Neither of us very domesticated yet it was fairly equal in terms of cleaning etc. because there was minimum to do.

Oh yes, agree with this 100%. One thing I wish both girls and boys had more of is not just sex education but also education about the amount of work required to be an adequate parent. Housework more than doubles when you have kids, we all know that, but I never heard that before I had them.

This

or maybe you could calm down, and consider that your experience is not the same for everyone

Lol. Coming from you, who thinks that if they haven't personally experienced it then it isn't real.

no one is saying it doesn't exist, but they are just as illegal as racism, bullying and any men or woman victim of any of these problem can fight.

A few months ago a man who basically raped his girlfriend to death with a bottle of carpet cleaner got 3 years in prison, because..... 'she liked it rough'.

John Worboys very nearly got out of prison after less than 10 years, even though he had raped potentially over 100 women.

Ched Evans was acquitted of rape, even though what he himself described in court was rape, because his victim had previously had sex and.... Enjoyed it.

The conviction rate for rape in this country is woeful full stop. Women get discredited because of what Underwear they were wearing at the time, or because they had spoken to their rapist before it happened or a myriad of other ridiculous reasons.

But yeah, they can fight.....

it's funny, no one is denying that a fight was necessary to gain the same rights and privileges we enjoy now.

But now we do have these rights, and we are equal, what do you want us to do? We have them, we use them, we have the same rights, opportunities, the same jobs, the same everything.

We can't pretend that they don't exist. It makes no sense.

the disorganised mum
I really wish you would stop using the word gender. Gender is a social construct, sex is a matter of biology and is not changeable. Stop conflating sex and gender.
Women are disadvantaged because of their biological sex, the Female sex.

I am not saying we are living in perfect world, I am saying It's not a gender issue.

Can you post some stats to back up your assertion that 'it's not a gender issue' and that women commit crimes against men at a similar rate to men against women please? Thanks.

I honestly don't think anyone is anti feminist, I think people are against what a lot of so called 'feminists' think feminism is.

because despite women being equal in law, societally there's still a long way to go.

You do know that 30 years after the Equal Pay Act, many many companies, including in industries dominated by women, there are substantial pay gaps between men and women? But because the Equal Pay Act exists we shouldn't want or need to do anything about that?

@PBo83

Why would you want someone to 'wake up' to something that they don't believe in them just so they can get annoyed about something that doesn't affect them?

All people in world are affected by feminism. Feminism is literally just a leveller. Not only is it trying to improve lives of women, but men too. A tiny example in a huge array of things is breaking down the stereotypes men are expected to play into e.g. must be strong and brave, can't show emotion.

They might think it doesn't affect them but it does and it affects every person they know.

Lol. Coming from you, who thinks that if they haven't personally experienced it then it isn't real

you don't have to twist my words.

I said it's not everybody's experience, and I gave mine as an example.
It's not a gender war out there. Don't try to pretend that every single woman is victim of a sexist patriarchy (insert your favourite words) because it's just not true.

I’m going to save that for future use Shoxfordian

I know exactly what you mean.
Have you tried watching The Royle Family recently? I used to think it was hilarious.....watched some at Xmas and found it almost unbearable due to Jim being the laziest, dirtiest, most selfish wAnker imaginable. I wanted to shout “Ltb Barbara!! Kick the useless toaster out!!!” Grrrrr