*With you completely OP.
I am weary of it to my bones.
I have always been vocal about misogyny & patriarchy as I grew up in a very conservative, patriarchal society where DV was not only common but never ever challenged. Every female relative of my grandmothers’s generation was beaten and raped by their husbands and considered property.
As an adult I thought I had made a conscious effort to surround myself with good men. And women who knew good men.
In the last week alone I have argued with gay male friends who referred to women as ‘fish’ and thought it was not only funny but universally accepted that some gay men would rather women not exist because ‘that’s their sexual preference’. Because they don’t want to fuck them, women shouldn’t exist.
I have had to tell one of my closest friends that her very feminist, left wing partner has been harassing me by text because he is ‘sick’ of me having opinions he doesn’t agree with and my ‘aggressiveness’ when disagreeing with him is ‘unattractive’ and he ‘will not stand for it any longer’. My friend thinks I am over reacting and misunderstanding him and if I could just learn to let him speak without interrupting or disagreeing, things would be better. Her partner is a police officer.
I look at the women I am surrounded by - intelligent, courageous, compassionate women broken by men who treated them like sex objects, surrogate mothers or free domestic help.
And I agree with a previous poster that ‘woke’ men are just as bad, if not worse.
I know where I stand with a balls out woman-hater but have been floored by discovering the truth of some of the men who claim to be supporters of women’s equality, feminism and anti-patriarchy.
I was friends with one until I rejected his advances and the verbal abuse and hatred came out. I was approached by someone else who’d had the same experience with him, who discovered that not only did he befriend women with the sole expectation of sleeping with them but that he has a history of EVERY kind of violence against women as long as his arm, including the near murder of a wife and child who have a restraining order against him. He is attractive, successful, wealthy and great company and passionate about equality and fairness. And very very convincing.
My ex has been rewarded and recognised for his women positive attitude and educating his male peers on equality in the workplace. Women fawn over him and praise him and treat him like a god because of it. He is the very guy many women would cite when they say ‘not all men’.
I haven’t the time or the energy to list the many ways in which he hates women but his cruelty and abuse would fill several forums. I thought his behaviour was hatred of me, but having spoken to his most significant ex what he did to me pales in comparison to what he did and continues to do to her and is rooted in his hatred of women, especially those who call out his hypocrisy.
It’s exhausting.*
This really resonates with me, so many seemingly decent men who l have found out to be anything but, from the father of my 11 year old school friend who seemed so welcoming, but she as an adult confessed he had sexually abused her and her sister from a young age, to the boyfriend of mine who worked in a healing/medical profession and supposedly spent his life helping people, who hit then when dumped stalked me....You would never guess.
That is why l am passionate about women shouting loudly about the abuse or comments they receive.
Women need to be so much more assertive in their responses and zero tolerant of this behavior, ie stop being like a woman and more like a man..