To be jealous of men :S

[HelpImEnvious]

I’m so jealous of men.. including DH..

They don’t have as much society pressure to be nice and not be themselves

They don’t have so much biological changes just to become a parent

They don’t have to go through labour or pregnancy or the full time job of breastfeeding.. so their bodies don’t take a physical toll and don’t age

Their Careers and lives don’t take s hit when they deliver a baby

They don’t suffer mum guilt if they decide to pursue their lives.. because to them that’s normal.

To them age is grace and there is no biological clock... very carefree

I resent DH sleeping through the night while I have to get up breastfeed..

I love being a mum, always wanted to be, and want more kids, but It comes at such a huge cost that doesn’t seem to affect him as much.

I find myself snapping a lot because I feel annoyed at the changes I had to my social life and my career and my sleep and my overall life. Even though it was my choice.. because I feel it’s what best for my child. But I can’t help feel resentment :S

Yes it is, unless you have some secret statistics that no one else knows about? Female attempts are between 2 and 4 times more frequent.

You don't just need your DH to acknowledge it you need him to step up and do his share if you're feeling that it's so unequal!

No way would I put up with some of the shite I read about on MN from my DH.

Breastfeeding aside, there is absolutely no reason everything else you and others have said on this thread should not be shared equally.

If your career has taken a hit that's a choice you've made between you, mine didn't, DH and I equally share all childcare, school pick ups/drop offs, parties etc etc. We both work our hours around it.

Choose between being a parent or having a life.

Every parent does this to a degree when they make decision to have DC, but why on earth do you feel like your DH gets more of a life than you do?

I don't get "mum" guilt, because quite honestly, I know DH and I are doing the best we can and I don't give a shiny shit what anyone else thinks.

It's about time women stopped being martyrs to the cause and started standing up for themselves. As long as we continue to kertow to stereotypes and the patriarchy the misogyny will thrive.

YABU to be envious of men when it comes to the things that you can control.

Vast majority of what you list in OP are literally choices that you're free not to make though

Female attempts are between 2 and 4 times more frequent.

Makes you wonder how come man then end up with the 3/4 deaths.

I've always done way more of what might be termed the 'parental sacrifices' - body fucked after 3DC (no more trampolining for me!), career fucked, all the short term stuff of being pregnant (with HG), breastfeeding, night waking etc...

But they were all choices and I feel privileged that I could choose to do them. PG was hell for me. I never want to feel that ill again. But it was still an amazing experience - feeling a baby move inside you, knowing you are nurturing that new life single handed, the bond from breastfeeding. I am glad I was lucky enough to be able to do all those things and the downsides that come from it do not detract.

I do wish I could have my own penis for the day though. I think they're brilliant!

Yes it is a “choice” I made but a necessary one else I would suffer mum guilt.

'Mum guilt' is an invented patriarchal concept to put women back in their boxes the second they deliver the placenta. It's not compulsory to feel it. I don't. I work FT and remain as ambitious, if not more so, than I was before I had DS, and I go out whenever I feel like it. This in no way makes me a bad mother.

Resist unhelpful ideas like 'mum guilt', for heaven's sake. Motherhood means you've had a child, not that you turned into some kind of self-sacrificing non-person. You choose to indulge certain feelings and not others. If you were feeling a strong attraction to a married man, posters would be encouraging you to do whatever you could to put that out of your mind -- it should be similar with optional but unhelpful feelings like 'mum guilt.' If you feel it, it is because you are choosing to feel it. And this is not helped by other women talking about it as though it's some kind of biological inevitability like menopause.

What does it bring to your life? Nothing.

Most of the downside to being a woman is due to the patriarchal society we live in. You can renegotiate s lot of that in your own relationship, OP.
For example, I bottle fed my two DDs, and DH took an equal share of the feeding, bathing and nappy changing. He walked the floor with them at night when they were teething. He did a lot of the cooking - he came to the hospital and cooked dinner for me every night I was on call as a junior doc.
As regards sex - I’ve no idea how a PP thinks orgasm is better for men! Brain scans during orgasm show that in men, only a small area of brain reacts, whereas in women it’s global. Multiple orgasm is a female thing.
Female life expectancy still exceeds male. We are largely protected from ischaemic heart disease until the menopause. We engage in less risky and foolish behaviour, and less violence.
We tend to have better friendships and social support, and remain receptive to new ideas into old age.
And don’t blame feminism for women now having “two jobs” - that’s on you for letting your DH get away with it! Learn to delegate household tasks fairly, and insist on it.
I didn’t have that for long, as DH died when the DC were still in nappies, but thanks to feminism I had a well paid career to support them to adulthood.

Makes you wonder how come man then end up with the 3/4 deaths.

There have been lots of studies internationally on this, and some interesting things discovered, even if none of it is entirely conclusive plus to an extent some of it is culture-dependent. In general, men are far more likely to use violent 'immediate' methods like firearms or hanging, while women are more likely to overdose and there's a gendered element in access to firearms in some countries. (Far more gun owners in the US are male.) One big US study found that male suicides were far more likely to have alcohol problems, and to have high levels of alcohol in their blood when they ended their lives. There's been some research on how this contributes, along with higher male levels of impulsiveness.

And there's some slightly more tentative stuff on whether gendered socialisation is evident in suicide methods -- that women are more likely to choose a method that is non-disfiguring. There was a US study that concluded that even when women shot themselves, they were far less likely than men to shoot themselves in the head.

I agree @GeneralGibbon
I also don't envy that a lot of men have to shave daily.
Or that they have to wear ties at work.
Or that they get screwed over in a divorce and kids access.
I would rather be a woman any day.

I also don't envy that a lot of men have to shave daily.
Or that they have to wear ties at work.
Or that they get screwed over in a divorce and kids access.

We don't have to do any of those things

Some might choose to

I think if you’re so resentful of your husband then he’s not doing his bit in parenting. Yes you gave birth and it’s fucking shit and all that but you didn’t have to breastfeed and when I did with my first I certainly didn’t dedicate my life to it. I didn’t bother with my second and he did every single nightfeed. Your partner is not pulling his weight

Makes you wonder how come man then end up with the 3/4 deaths.

Because they typically use more lethal methods, such as ligaturing, suffocating, firearms etc.

@GaudyNight that's interesting. Made me check US statistics. The 3/4 is purely just UK. Looks like US has a very similar figure😮 It's even bit higher where I am originally from.
It looks like Scotland has the sad lead in the UK.

I think women tend to attempt it as a cry for help.........whereas when men do it they make sure there's no going back. And that's a worry.

I think attitudes on here towards men with poor, mental health are a reflection on society as a whole.........if a woman ended up bed bound as a result of crippling depression her partner would quite rightly be expected to support her through it. Whereas a bloke would be labelled an abusive, cocklodger.

If a woman goes off sex it's because she needs time, she's feeling ' touched out'. Etc etc. (( Fair enough )) but men struggling with the same thing will be accused of with holding sex to abuse their partners and posters will be advised to end the relationship.

It's a real eye opener on here at times. 😳

@easyandy101
Some don't, I agree
But many have to unfortunately.

I don't think that's at all fair, @Rubbing. We are still living in a word that defaults to patriarchal norms in many areas, despite all the work done by feminism, which has always taken the line that patriarchy hurts everyone, not just women. Which is true, but men need to work on reforming masculinity to be less toxic -- to men themselves, as well as women. That cannot be women's job. I confess to getting very impatient with those health ads about specifically male issues like prostate cancer, which are aimed at women, whose responsibility is clearly supposed to include supervision of their husbands' health.

In the example you used, of men and women on Mn being treated differently if they were incapacitated with crippling depression you're leaving out the fact that it's considered entirely normal (on Mn I don't know anyone who has) for a woman to step back from her career or give up work entirely when she has children, thereby both cutting herself off from an income stream and meaning that her DP/DH is the sole provider -- which skews how they both feel about any illness which compromises his capacity to support the family (which in turn contributes to male suicide rates because of a sense of failure). It's better for everyone if both childcare and providing for the household is shared.

Of course they are all choices. Personal choices. But our choices are limited by what is on offer to us by society.

I’m sure if you asked a 5 year old boy and girl what they wanted to be when they grow up you would get different answers because they are operating within different parameters of what they think their options are.

By the time we realise that these choices are manmade it’s too late and we’ve already gone so far down our paths in life it’s not feasible to start over.

Biologically speaking women are fucked. Periods, childbirth, pelvic floor, menopause, loneliness in old age. And our sexual capital goes down much earlier than men’s. We have fewer choices when it comes to dating.

The only thing we have in our favour is kids. We have our babies and more access to them although they’re not always the blessing we’re led to believe!

Still, at least we have our fantastic brains. Actually, even that women are more likely to get dementia.

So yeah YANBU.

I think men have their problems too.

I’d rather be a woman any day. I have two kids and I work full time.

I can’t have it all but I don’t want it all. What I do value is my financial independence and knowing that if my marriage went down the shitter I’d walk away with no money worries and I’d be able to support my kids.

My dh can be a right pain in the arse but he’s decent and we split household tasks evenly. We still moan at each other though.

Just identify as a man! Then all that biological stuff won't matter. Oh, wait...

I just knew it wouldn't be long before someone spouted the whole women who attempt suicide are just doing it as a cry for help bullshit.

This is such an interesting thread, and something I think about quite a lot. I don’t have any desire to be a man but I would love to experience what it’s like to be a father. My DH is a good man and this is isn’t a criticism of him - but he’s considered an excellent father because he does things like baths his own children, feeds them, reads to them, all the stuff considered the absolute bare minimum for mothers. I often feel like the standard for being ‘good dad’ equals ‘fun dad’ - so a father will be praised for having a filthy, pj-clad child at the park at 2pm because he’s pushing them on the swings but a mother would be judged totally differently in that same scenario.

I once heard a comedian say ‘it takes so little to be considered a good dad and so little to be considered a shit mum’ and I really do believe that. And I also think that’s not really something you think about until you listen to people telling you how lucky to you are to have a DH who can care for his own children, like it’s such a novelty.

If someone said that the reason men opt for more violent methods is simply because men are more violent then they would have their arse handed to them on a plate. But for some reason it's totally fine.to suggest that women attempt suicide because they are attention seeking. I mean FFS.

Who did though?

No one's said that, @HugsAreMyDrugs.