AIBU to have just about fucking had it with men?

[PurpleFeather]

I’m sure some of you will pile on me to tell me “it’s not all men”, but right now I don’t fucking care.

Woke up to read about more horrific sexual attacks on women along my favourite running route (there have been many lately).

Dealt with some horrific sexism in my work meeting today (a “hilarious” conversation between male members of staff as to why men are just so much smarter than women).

Ended the day by receiving an e-mail from someone I line manage about how she approached inappropriately by a customer today.

So we can’t run safely, we can’t do our jobs and be seen as “equal”, and we can’t serve customers without getting harassed.

Today I am so so so angry. I am done with making excuses for men, and giving them the benefit of the doubt (“He probably brushed past me by accident”, and “he was only joking really”, etc). I am just totally, utterly done with male privilege and male violence rearing it’s fucking ugly head in every area of my life.

Fuck the patriarchy!

@PurpleFeather The stuff that’s happening at work, make a note of it all, names, dates, locations, factually record what is being said. The two knobjockeys “joking” about men being smarter are breaking the law BTW. Have a side bar with them, say “just be careful, somebody might write down everything you’re saying and go to HR/management. In the current economic climate you really don’t want a disciplinary on your record .....”. I’m old enough now to realise I don’t have to smile, be nice, be kind or avoid upsetting men. So I stand my ground, at home, at work, in the street, in shops, in the car. I’ve had too many years of this shit. Most men I have difficulty with are about 36+, most young men seem ok. But we still need to teach our sons to be respectful towards women.

So much is expected for us to accept as we weren't born with a penis. The lived experience of being a woman and the mistakes we've made or shit we've accepted just because it's accepted that it is our lot. The dress code thread yesterday was a tiny part of it but it leaks over in to so many areas.

@Jeeperscreepers69

Men cant have a giggle at work? Women do it. And as for "horrific" well your going a bit ott.

Men can giggle all they like , just not by putting down women or making them uncomfortable.

They can giggle their assess off about football,beer,books,tv shows,cooking,the size of their dick .. whatever.

Interesting that men not having sexist banter equals to some people them not having a "giggle" at all.

Single mum for 10 years for a reason! Men are selfish pricks... I’ve tried dating, thought they were different, but nope! I’ve given up now! I’d rather be on my own.

I refuse to engage with all these goady 'oh, stop whining, typical woman' posts. Demonstrates our point exactly.

I will be teaching DD to tell boys/men to fuck off if she feels even remotely uncomfortable.

There was a deleted thread on here a couple of days back - 12 year old girl being intimidated by some boys at school - just shows nothing has changed. I wish I'd punched more boys at school, like the girl mentioned upthread. Call out sexism early.

Yeah pandering doesn’t work does it. Ask Neville Chamberlain! My one regret in life is that I was too simpering and man pleasing as a young woman. It’s worn off now thankfully and bringing my girls up not to be like that.

Most men are sexist. I work in a male dominated industry and although they are mostly good people they are sexist and patronising. Some days I despair. I am specialist in a field and will have men that know nothing about it trying to "explain" details of my job to me. Its exhausting

Yes they like to think they are better than women especially if there’s several together. Had this in one place I worked, boys club as I used to call the little band . They were very offensive not to me directly but as soon as a female director was out of earshot they would really made sexist comments about her.
I was put in a difficult position I couldn’t complain to my line male manager as he was part of it and my female colleague it would have really upset her so I had to keep quiet. I left the company as I didn’t like the guys behaviour.

I completely agree. I ended my last relationship thirteen years ago and after some time on my own came to realise that most of the problems in my long term relationships and marriages were caused by sex - I had all sorts happen to me before I was fifteen and probably should have had therapy but long story short I wasn’t that keen on sex and it seemed to be a deal breaker despite them knowing about my past. Fast forward to four years ago and I had my elderly father move in because he was unable to cope and lived miles away. Not only did my brothers leave me to it I also discovered that my father was vile and a complete misogynist and would tell me horrible tales when he was drunk about how he treated women and talk about my late mother in a disrespectful way. Fortunately my own sons who are all adults are lovely and were just as horrified by him as I was. I had him here until May when he finally died and felt nothing but immense relief. I was glad that we were in lockdown because I had an excuse not to organise a funeral and suggested a memorial at a later date but I can’t be bothered to organise anything. It’s been so refreshing to read this thread and realise that I am not alone in feeling such ambivalence towards men.

Oh boy did I make a mistake leaving this thread unread for so long.

I have too many things to say now. I am going to have to break it into bits..

First off 'the good men'. Of course NAMALT. We need to say that again and again. However, men generally aren't aware of the depth and frequency of the bullshit we put up with unless they are made aware and have it CONSTANTLY pointed out.

My ex was a 'good one', but was still massively blind and needed his eyes opening nearly ever single day. He still won't get it because he hasn't lived it, but I still pick up sexism in his day to day experience that he hasn't even noticed.

He took 50/50 care of DS when we split and then stayed at home to care for his two younger DSs with his second wife. She went back to work.

In the eyes of the world he is a Saint among humans. He gets praise for every little thing he does. I am SOOO lucky to have an ex who does the same amount of parenting as I do. He is like Gold Dust and some Godlike being for doing exactly the same stuff nearly every mother collecting children from the school playground does every day. He doesn't see it because it's normal for him. (Plus, he likes it!)

It's not equality when that is still the attitude.

And women buy that narrative far too easily.

Another 'good one' (who turned out very otherwise) was a colleague of mine at a primary school where I taught. He was a Learning Mentor in Early Years. So he got all of that value placed on his amazing virtue for being a MAN who chose to work with little children. How WONDERFUL! What a shining beacon among men. The female teachers in school were constantly all over him, making him cups of tea and telling him how great he was.

He and I had a platonic friendship, which I thought was quite refreshing - until I worked out it was because he and I were the same age. He was only sexually interested in younger women, so I was largely irrelevant to him.

Then I watched him circling a new NQT like a dog on heat. Poor girl. She fell for the charm and the 'isn't he wonderful' accolades and ended up sleeping with him after the Christmas Party.

I found her crying the following week having been dropped like a hot brick and totally ignored afterwards.

This happened the following year with the next NQT. It turned out, he had a horrific Madonna/whore complex. He liked women to look sweet and young and innocent and would seduce them because that's what he liked. Unfortunately, once they 'gave in' to his advances, they ceased to be innocent and became too 'loose and easy' and he lost respect for them.

Horrible man.

He also told me once, when another member of staff left, that I had 'moved up' to be the third most attractive teacher left. He fucking RATED us.

Yup. Lovely man. Great role model.

And yes - one anecdote about one horrible man, but there is so much to unpack in that story about how we expect men to be and how easily impressed we are when they do something as normal as work with small children as a career.

If you can't take the heat luv, get out of the kitchen. There are just as many manipulative, boorish and bullying women out there - try working for one of them!

I remember my horror, having been to a co-ed school, to meet boys who had been at single sex schools and were encountering girls for the first time at uni.

How unbelievably neanderthal they were.
Women really were sex objects to them.
Their language was more like what you'd expect from a serial killer than a bunch of posh public school boys

Separating women into categories by their favourite body parts. Describing women from ethnic minorities by names coined in porn magazines. Working class men are actually so much more enlightened and have been for years.

Dare I point the finger at the British public school system?

Next point...

Small one this time.

Going back up to someone (for some reason) talking about fictional soap operas and women hitting men in them...

I will admit, I don't watch them. However, on the occasions when I have seen a clip of a soap or a drama when a woman slaps a man (or pours her drink over him, which seems to be something that happens a lot on soap world), the violence inflicted is not about the violence itself.

You don't wince and think 'ow. That must have stung' - the violence is a source of humiliation. The usual story is woman is scorned/cheated on and responds by whacking the man around the chops in a public place. That is humiliating for him.

It's not physically dangerous. It's not the same as a scene in possibly the same soap opera when a man, behind closed doors, uses his physical advantage to brutally assault a woman.

It is so far from equivalent that it's almost an own goal of a point.

Ugh, but saying that, I've also had a career of miserable experiences at the hands of non-British males from cultures where women are inferior. Those have been much more belittling and difficult to deal with in practice.

It's perhaps just a male thing, but I do think the more enlightened men are often from white working class families where equality has always been a reality because both partners have worked.

On the BBC website today there is a story about serial rapist Reynhard Sinaga who is believed to have targeted more than 200 victims.

His jail sentence has been increased. Whilst this is good news, I did wonder if this only happened because the people he raped were men.

The disgust at his crimes seems to be deemed worse because it is men who have been attached.

He has had an additional 10 years added to his sentence.

I can completely understand your frustration anger etc

To have to second guess your moves, where you go what you wear etc it shouldn’t be happening. The 20 something man that assaulted the 13 ish year old girl on her way to school for one, it invoked so much anger in me I couldn’t stop waiting for updates and wishing bad on him.

It’s a minimal amount of men but it’s too many instances of violence and appalling g attitude I wonder where they learn that woman aren’t equal and deserving of decency

Last point. Someone touched on it up thread, but this actually happened yesterday, so the anger and reflection it lead to are fresh in my mind.

My DD informed me that her dad (a different ex of mine) has told her she can't have a boyfriend until she's 35.

He was joking.

Ha bloody ha.

Why did he say that? (I asked him)

'Because I know what boys are like and they aren't going near my daughter.'

Too much to contend with for my little head, I'm afraid.

Firstly, he knows he was an awful human being as a teenage boy and thinks it is perfectly normal and expected for all teenaged boys to be awful human beings.

Secondly, that his Daughter is more vulnerable and he KNOWS it, but rather than challenge it, he almost pre-empts victim blaming behaviour. 'You got assaulted by that nasty little scrote of a teenager, DD. I did tell you it's not safe to have boyfriends.'

Just What the Fuck thinking is that? That is such a lot of twisting of society going on that I just can't unravel it.

I did tell him that I hoped that, rather than ban his DD from forming natural, mutually affectionate relationships as a teenager (which do exist - I had some), he should be teaching his DS to treat girls with respect, stand up when his friends don't do the same and stop perpetuating 'boys will be boys' because that is the MEN'S job. For the men to tell the boys. Not for the men to police their daughters.

Argh.

I'm going to stop. I am single and happily so and I'm not taking this bullshit from men anymore. Weeding out (and usually having to educate) the good ones is too exhausting.

I love my husband dearly, but if anything happened to him I could never trust another man.
Men in general are proof positive that if sexuality was a choice there would be no straight women.

At least you don't have 'culture' being masked as religion, as your community continually throws women to the wolves.
There's a lost generation of women my age, who are now fighting back though. Watching our daughters (and sons) stick two fingers up to what the community expects of them. Good on them I say. I hope I stick around for my kids. Absolutely terrifies me that they might not have me (their personal guard dog) growling at anyone who dares try to stamp out their dreams. Mine were stamped out a long time ago, and I'll never get them back.

When you've lost your job because you refused to sit on bosses knee get back to me

YANBU..... I've suffered it my entire life and I too am funking over male entitlement and I'm way past the nauseating excuses.

It's bad enough men trot them out but seeing women do it just makes me want to take a run up and kick them in their non existent balls.

Yeah, I went there.

@MarieIVanArkleStinks

And I think that's what a lot of the NAMALT crowd get confused by - they leap straight to the violence and beg us not to forget that "women can also be violent" or that "most men aren't violent" and completely ignore the death by a thousand cuts we're facing.

And then wonder why they get short shrift. We already KNOW NAMALT. We are mothers of sons, wives, daughters (although the latter isn't much of a recommendation in my particular case).

What we also know, is that you'll have to travel a hell of a long way to find a woman who has not - repeatedly - been at the receiving end of both individual and systemic sexism, casual sexism on a pretty much daily basis, physical harm, and at its very best unwanted sexual conduct which in the case of me and a far too large number of women out there really is a best-case scenario. At its worst, it's murder; in my case it was a violent and terrifying rape by two youths, a violent father, two separate cases of stalking, intimidation and threatening behaviour, constantly being approached by male strangers who seemed to think I craved their company and became very offended when I stated my preference for solitude, and on, and on, ad nauseam. They are stories sadly every woman is familiar with, and I suspect there are few of us who don't look over our shoulder when out alone at night.

All these issues are my personal experiences. Others' will vary but the script rarely does. Have any of the women posting here about similar issues ever been at the receiving end of this sort of behaviour from other women? Suffered sexual harm? Sexually threatening or predatory behaviour?

Me neither.

But the misguided, misogynistic, sycophantic, women-loathing servants of the patriarchy on this thread are quick to crawl out of the woodwork and remind us that 'women commit violence too'.

Go and read a few statistics, eh?

Outstanding post. 👏👏👏👏

You are not being unreasonable, I find men abhorrent, small minded and lead by one thing and one thing only and that is whatever disappointment is in their pants. Every single man I’ve ever known in my life has failed at impulse control and temptation, it’s the way they are wired.

@maudspellbody

Next point...

Small one this time.

Going back up to someone (for some reason) talking about fictional soap operas and women hitting men in them...

I will admit, I don't watch them. However, on the occasions when I have seen a clip of a soap or a drama when a woman slaps a man (or pours her drink over him, which seems to be something that happens a lot on soap world), the violence inflicted is not about the violence itself.

You don't wince and think 'ow. That must have stung' - the violence is a source of humiliation. The usual story is woman is scorned/cheated on and responds by whacking the man around the chops in a public place. That is humiliating for him.

It's not physically dangerous. It's not the same as a scene in possibly the same soap opera when a man, behind closed doors, uses his physical advantage to brutally assault a woman.

It is so far from equivalent that it's almost an own goal of a point.

Hi . I'm assuming you meant me.

My point about soaps which you obviously didn't read enough if you didn't understand why I said it was to back up a PP who was talking about how hard it is for men to access help, the point being that it is seen as funny in society. I never said it's equal.
Since you chose my own post pages ago to pick on even though I have since almost changed my stance due to hearing the stories of PPs, HTH.

@Redrum2009

You are not being unreasonable, I find men abhorrent, small minded and lead by one thing and one thing only and that is whatever disappointment is in their pants. Every single man I’ve ever known in my life has failed at impulse control and temptation, it’s the way they are wired.

brilliant