To think that some Mumsnetters hate men?

[Ruby8719]

Am I being unreasonable to think that some (not all) mumsnetters hate men and can’t wait to jump in and tell women to leave their husbands?

Obviously there are a lot of stories on here about husbands/boyfriends/dads that sound like arseholes but the amount of comments I see from strangers telling women to leave their men for making a mistake is crazy!!

The problem is that MN is not an accurate representation of real life, yet many posters get sucked into thinking that it is and get their opinion about their situation totally twisted by total strangers to the point of making very harsh and drastic decisions.

Readers start believing that they have it hard, that they are not treated well by their OH and more importantly, that all their problems and issues are solely created by their OH.

In real life, almost all situations are affected by a number of factors, and almost all couple conflicts is the results of wrong doings on both part. Yet self-reflection is an absolute no no on MN. It's a brews a blame culture.

Counselling will always encourage people to self-reflect because if anything, it's a lot easier to change what we control than others. Yet the moment a poster dares to suggest something the OP could do differently themselves, they are accused of being abusive whilst those who will shout how it's all the fault of the other party and the OPis a victim is proclamed a hero.

YABVU

saying awful things about the entire sex.... actively invites the boring NAMALT debate

If you think it’s boring, why do it? Why? How can you talk about male violence without talking about men as a class and what ALL men (yes ALL MEN) can do about it? I don’t take that as a personal affront on my son/husband/dad/brother, why do you?

How can you talk about male violence without talking about men as a class and what ALL men (yes ALL MEN) can do about it?

Oh but you can, and we should. All men need to take responsibility to tackle this, even if just in awareness and educational terms, but that doesn't mean resorting to some of the extreme insults that get so regularly dished out against all of them regardless. That's the bit I have a problem with. It just doesn't help.

Like what? Also, you didn’t answer my question - why do you see it as an affront to your Good Men?

It's a place that centres females, started by women, used predominantly by women, with a strong feminist section which impacts on legislation in the outside world, many people find that uncomfortable.

NAMALT invariably makes the user look like they’re not capable of understanding nuance of debate.

Not a good look.

I always thought it strange that a gender, which has been so held back & damaged by sexism, seems so keen to adopt and actively promote sexism.

I always thought it strange that a gender, which has been so held back & damaged by sexism, seems so keen to adopt and actively promote sexism

Are you objecting to women talking about men as a class by using your own sweeping stereotypes about sex.

Like what?

Like language that labels all men, and my DH and son feature uppermost in my concerns here, as rapists or perpetrators of violence. I don't want my son growing up thinking such behaviour is inevitable. Equally though, and as I've already said, they shouldn't be denied the reality of the problems and u /I do want him to be aware and alert to them, whether it's to avoid it himself, call it out when he sees or hears it, or whatever. The polarisation just doesn't help and I maintain that it simply distracts.

Like language that labels all men, and my DH and son feature uppermost in my concerns here, as rapists or perpetrators of violence

Discussing violence from men as a class automatically means it doesn’t refer to individuals. That’s the whole point. Men who aren’t rapists needn’t worry. But if they’re getting antsy about a discussion they’re not “good men”.

Like language that labels all men, and my DH and son feature uppermost in my concerns here, as rapists or perpetrators of violence. I don't want my son growing up thinking such behaviour is inevitable

This is a bizarre statement to make, why would he think rape is inevitable? And how does saying NAMALT (instead of actually addressing the problem of what all men can do) change that?

You seem to be saying that women talking about male violence makes it MORE likely that your son will be a rapist. Whereas giving him the Not My Nigel clause stops him? That doesn’t make sense.

Marie put it much better than I did!

The fact that all men can do something about it doesn't mean all men are guilty of it. Otherwise all women would be guilty of it too!

I’m sorry but I just don’t think that’s true. I think self reflection is encouraged, and many women are told they are being unreasonable

It happens but I would say it's a rarety when it comes to a woman moaning about her OH.

It's also very biased because anyone can describe a situation in a way that will portray them as a victim and their OH as an abuser. I could very easily do that about my own relationship. It's also easy to lose perspective on the circumstances. Relationships have their own dynamisms, and what can seem abuse in one isn't at all in another. My OH does things that are labelled as abusive here, but it isn't at all because I don't react to them as some posters do here and don't get upset in the same way.

All this is inevitable on a forum full of strangers and that's fine. What isn't fine is how too many posters rely strongly or even fully on what they are told here to make drastic decision about their lives, when they really should speak to family, close friends or professionals instead.

Guilty of what?

Op it’s just luck that you are in such a fantastic marriage.

Abuse is common and it’s mostly male to female. You might think you are equal but your dp could likely murder you with his bare hands it’s unlikely you could do the same. This foreshadows your whole relationship whether you acknowledge it or not.

I think this site is very helpful to women who are in rubbish relationships.
It allows them to see what a 'normal' healthy relationship can look like.
It certainly helped me to see the light.
So what if you have a good marriage and your husband is great? plenty of women dont.
Why criticise women for helping them see that?

SonEtLumiere

Your list is great when the man is at fault, but that's not right when it's the woman at fault is it?

Where you get men posting on here about a problem and it's immediately twisted to make it his fault, that isn't right. So if centering women means that no matter what you blame men, even when it's the woman at fault, then no I don't agree.

This was very clearly evidenced on all of the Caroline Flack threads. So many people minimising or dismissing that she had been charged with domestic violence, so many people seeking to excuse it with posts like " even if she did do it she had found messages on his phone that showed he was cheating" as though that's justification for allegedly whacking someone with a table.lamp over the head. Now whether she did it or not is somewhat immaterial. She had been charged and was awaiting trial so she should have been treated as any other person in that scenario, shouldn't she? If you treat every other person as innocent until.proved guilty then that's fair enough but I'm quite certain that many of those posters would not have been so.passionately arguing that the victim was to blame had the sexes been reversed.

Cheeserton

Your post at 7.19 sums up perfectly my responses on these threads. The assertions made by some people are just so ridiculous and so extreme that I end posting in opposition to them just because they shouldn't be allowed to stand, unchallenged.

How can anyone possibly argue that it's in any way right for a young man to basically be accused of being up to no good for no more reason than he's a voluntary youth worker helping out at a Brownie pack - so no suspicious behaviour, no background that might suggest anything untoward, literally no cause for suspicion at all apart from the fact that he's male. Why shouldn't those posts be challenged without accusing people of being mra? Are posters really saying that it's fine to accuse entirely innocent people without any reason at all?

Sexism and crimes against women, Pump

I'm glad to see the vote is split roughly equally, indicating that, even on MN, a decent number of posters feel that generalising and demonising men is not agreeable.

The threads about Johnny Depp before and after the Amber Heard tapes were leaked are something else.

Before: I believe her, can't understand how anyone can stand by such a disgusting abuser

After: nobody really knows what goes on being closed doors, seems like they were both toxic, just because she abused him doesn't mean that he wasn't also violent

Discussing violence from men as a class automatically means it doesn’t refer to individuals. That’s the whole point. Men who aren’t rapists needn’t worry. But if they’re getting antsy about a discussion they’re not “good men”.

Which is fine when the discussion is an academic one about men as a class. It is entirely irrelevant and yes, sexist, when you apply that class analysis to an individual.

What does class analysis tell us about women? Would that be helpful to apply to discussions where individual women are asking for advice? Isn't it better to treat that woman as an individual and respond to her individual circumstances rather than to apply sweeping generalisations based on women as a class? The answer to that has to be that yes, of course you respond to her as an individual so why then is it ok to demonise any man who posts on here, regardless of the nature of his post, and hold him responsible for every terrible thing that any man gas ever done?

Point proven beautifully.

I’ve also just realised name changes simply aren’t as good as people think they are

It allows them to see what a 'normal' healthy relationship can look like
This is where I totally disagree. I don't think instead of showing what a normal relationship is, it mislead women in thinking that a 'normal' relationship is one where the man is very much a robot designed to do all what the woman wants him to do.

A healthy relationship is one where for a start, both accept that the other one isn't perfect, and certainly one of acceptance that not everyone perceives situations in the same way, not process information similarly and react to stimuli identically. A healthy relationship is one where both are prepared to listen as much as being listened to (MN is keen on insisting one should be listened to, not so much listening to the other), and all in all, ride the ups and downs of life.

There is too much an attitude here that everything should be equal at every instant of life, when it rarely is like this in life. Normality is that at one stage of life, one might be giving more to the other but then situations change, and the roles are reversed. A healthy relationship is one that doesn't score points on who has done what by the end of the week, it is one where communication takes place openly and compromises are made.