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!

If you are not angry, you are not paying attention...

Unfortunately the reason many women don't pay attention is because this generalised misogyny is so all-pervading that it's all about us from our cradles.

We don't notoce it n the same way that we don't notice the very air we breathe - it just IS!

And I confess that I was one of these. And then I was forced wake up to it by a particular and horrible incident - and now my eyes have been opened I can't see anything BUT contempt for women everywhere.

It's socialised and it's institutionalised and it's in great danger of erasing the female sex altogether. That's why I'm fighting self-ID with regard to gender every inch of the way - and fighting men's demands to enter women's spaces under the guise of "Transwomen are women".

It's perfidious and dangerous.

@purpleboy

I haven't got to the hate all men stage, but I do look back over my lifetime at the harassment's, sexual assaults, rapes, following, cat calls, sexist comments, leering comments, inappropriate jokes thats have all been forced on me because I'm a woman and I just don't look at men the same way. The worst part for me is watching the cycle continue with my DD17 who has been battling this behavior for about the past 5 years and has already been subjected to ALL of the above behaviors. My heat is breaking for her and what she is going through thanks to the men that think they are entitled to do and say what they want to her.

And no I'm sure not all men are like this, but I'm really hard pushed to think of 1 man that I know that's hasn't demonstrated one of the above actions.

You AND your daughter have been raped?! That's absolutely awful and I'm ever so sorry to hear that. Please tell me they were caught and locked up for a long time.

I have never ever heard women only groups be anywhere near as cruel as some men are about women. It’s a bonding thing for them hating and demeaning us. I wish it wasn’t true but it is.

Yes its completely shit. On a low level - exhausting, draining. You have to work so much harder, you have to be so much better in your career. And you are 'naturally' better at anything to do with care (children, elderly parents, even men's emotional needs), so that work defaults to you. As does other unpaid work (the mental load, cleaning etc). No wonder so many of us are depressed / taking ssris. One of the most replicated finding in epidemiology? Women are over two times more likely to be diagnosed w depression / treated with anti ds than men.

On a bigger level - the threat of rape, violence, murder is never far away.

If you’re not angry you’re not watching.

I feel for you OP, I have days like this. All we can do is take a deep breath, look out for one another, call out the bullshit whenever it is safe to do so and do all we can to raise kind men.

@sheworkshardforthemoney

Yes *@PurpleFeather* it's fucking shit

There are awful human beings many women BUT we make excuses for men. There are 'boys will be boys' people and 'he's mean to you at school because he likes you' people and 'you can't go out like that, people will think you're asking for it'

Until we raise our boys to stand up to their peers and disengage in this language and culture it won't change.

And unfortunately it probably won't change because (broadly speaking) young boys have dads, dads enjoy lads time, men and women enforce stereotypes. Peers encourage the patriarchy.

Does it benefit men to change?
Do they want to?

Already pisses me off when young adult males earn their friends off their sisters but egg them on with other girls.

Treat all women like your daughter/ sister/ mother because guess what we were all born from a woman!

This this this. Until our husbands, boyfriends, partners, sons, friends etc turn round to their male mates and say ‘that comment, joke, action is inappropriate” we will never change.

I asked my partner once if he would/had challenged sexist behaviour among his peers group, he said no it had never crossed his mind to do that. He has a mum and a daughter. I’m trying to educate him.

I agree OP, but I always find it's often the men who pretend to be all 'feminist' that are the worst ones. For example, when I go to my regular Sunday market (Dagenham!) the great market stall holders will say 'al right my darling' and 'lovely lady like you will suit this dress' etc. And it wouldn't occur to me to be in the least bit bothered. And that's because I'm from the east end, I get these men (and women!) and love all the pantomime of it. I also know there is nothing but niceness to it.

However, when I go into work, the men will be very 'woke' and right on, in the surface, yet who gets asked to make the tea? Who is the one asked to greet people at reception? Who gets asked to do the photocopying? Last year they went to a german beer festival as the Christmas outing. Women with their tits out serving beer to office blokes. Winding myself up now.....

I decided to marry dh on the spot when I met his university friends from his course. All women. Great women who I would have been friends with. He never mentioned they were all women when I asked him afterwards he just said “all the men were knobs”.

I'm sorry to hear of the horrible experiences that many of the women on this thread have had with men.

I do feel sorry for the decent men out there though, of which there are plenty. They just cant behave in the same kind way as a women would do for fear of looking like/ being branded a predator.

I don't like extreme views

because even if you had a point, when you exaggerate too much, your point becomes untrue and you lose credibility.

I could say that the rudest, goady and abusive comments I have seen on this forum were from (self-proclaimed, it's anonymous after all) women.

I honestly do not believe there's any solution in hating and accusing half the population of being against the other.

And now all these 'right on' men like Billy Bragg or bloody Daniel Radcliffe are saying women who support having 'safe spaces' are transphobic! They actually have the audacity to tell us what we can and can't think! X

@SchadenfreudePersonified

If you are not angry, you are not paying attention...

Unfortunately the reason many women don't pay attention is because this generalised misogyny is so all-pervading that it's all about us from our cradles.

We don't notoce it n the same way that we don't notice the very air we breathe - it just IS!

And I confess that I was one of these. And then I was forced wake up to it by a particular and horrible incident - and now my eyes have been opened I can't see anything BUT contempt for women everywhere.

It's socialised and it's institutionalised and it's in great danger of erasing the female sex altogether. That's why I'm fighting self-ID with regard to gender every inch of the way - and fighting men's demands to enter women's spaces under the guise of "Transwomen are women".

It's perfidious and dangerous.

Exactly the same here. I thought it was ‘normal’ to be sexually harassed at the age of 16. Now at the age of 55 I see this behaviour for what it is - male entitlement that starts at a very young age - and yes I am the mother of 2 boys - but they learn it from their mates, their mates dad’s, their dads, uncles, etc etc.

YANBU - DH agrees too (he hates men)!

My son was telling me about a girl in his class punching two boys (early teens).
My first reaction was 'well, did they deserve it?'. This girl is no angel but I remember how fucking horrid teen boys were when I was at school.
He says they did nothing. So she was wrong to punch them.
But I wish I could tell my teen self to stick up for myself and punch a boy's lights out for the way they were.
They grow into disrespectful men and we have to deal with them daily.
Grim.
(violence isn't always the answer but my god sometimes it is)

YANBU. It is so sad. A friend of mine was raped at 13. Never prosecuted. Family friend. Under the carpet, etc. I dread to think how many women (and men) have been hurt that way and society lets it happen because... it is apparently difficult to prove!?!?

If all the "nice" men decided it was abhorrent, called sexist jokes stupid, ensure better prosecution, decided to believe victims rather than treating them like criminals, I am sure the behaviour would fade.

As long as it is tacitly tolerated, it is approved.

This thread is depressing but I’m so glad I read it. I feel the same too. My DP would consider himself a good guy and he is. He does equal childcare/housework/cooking and is even picking up some of the mental load. So he IS a good guy. But he struggles to see some of the privileges he gets as he is white, male, privately educated then finished off at Oxbridge. He works in a totally male dominated field and he is aware of the need to ensure DD understands her value for her brain not her looks.

Despite this, he occasionally spouts sexist bollocks and I have heard him repeatedly refer to me as “The. Missus.” WTAF??? It’s not the crime of the century but my goodness can’t he refer to me as his partner or by my name?
It shows how ingrained this sexist,‘patriarchal attitude is. I was really shocked he used such a crap term.

If the good guys still spout this shit, what hope is there?

I also wonder about the dynamics of people who feel this way about men having sons and daughters. Surely this feeling passes on to both of them and it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy? Men are all shits is LITERALLY the same thing as boys will be boys. If they're hearing that message what help is there...? Raise your sons and daughters equally, provide female and male role models, as well as other diverse role models. Provide love, support, do not steer them to play with certain toys and have certain interests, teach them all about boundaries, teach them empathy and kindness and chances are your children will turn out to be good human beings, male or female

@chipsandgin *What I would like to know from all the women who are angry at, scared of and seem to hate ‘most men’ - are you mothers of sons and if so do they know you hate men and if so how does that make them/you feel!?
I am the mother of a son, so I can answer the question from my perspective. First of all I don't hate men. I do hate they way they make me feel sometimes and I do feel very angry at the way the world is and the way I and others are treated. I don't think anger should be confused with hate or portrayed as a prejudice. That is similar to abusive dynamics where the victim is shamed for an entirely justified response to their own treatment.
Back to my son. I absolutely love the bones of him. He is very young and can be boisterous but is always so kind to children younger than him and has a strong sense of justice (him and his friends were discussing getting father christmas a present together because he never gets presents for him). I have seen the way he and all his friends playing a rough game of football will make way for and tone their playing down so a toddler can join in and it melts my heart. I dont believe anyone is born bad. I find it very hard to square the way these small boys act with the way their fathers do.
Which brings me on to fathers. My son saw his father assault me. I was already leaving him at that point. Part of the reason I finally decided to leave was that, at just 3 years old, my son was starting to mimic the way his father talked to me. That broke my heart. He still has regular contact with his dad, and while at his house is discouraged from crying/playing with teddies, gets to hear his dad criticising me on occasion and general stuff. He once said to me, completely out of the blue "girls get sad. Men dont get sad we get angry". I dont know if he heard something like that from his dad but it shocked me. On the other hand at least he is perceptive.
So I will continue to bring up my son as best I can. He helps with housework/cooking, is praised for kindness and we do a lot of rough play and football and craft and reading etc etc. I said that I dont believe all men are bad, just that there are more bad men than bad women and more good women than good men. So I hope he grows up to be one of the good ones. He is good now. But my influence isnt the only influence on him. His father and society as a whole are all bombarding him with the message that being a big, tough shouty man who never cries is a good thing to be, that weakness is womanly and womanly is the worst thing you can be. And that actually makes me even more angry. Not at specific men, not at my son, but at the society that does this.

YANBU at all. There’s a droning background noise of disrespect, complacency and contempt that, once you become aware of it, is maddening

This is what I was trying to say.

You put it so much more succinctly than I did.

Thank you!

I had a conversation with another woman about a lady who was sexually assaulted when she was in the loo at a pub - I said how terrible that was and why can't men realise that is not ok and no means no!
Her response, I think she was leading him on!

What hope do we have if fellow woman think we bring it on ourselves??!

I was thinking just this yesterday with the case of the uncle killing his niece. It sickened me to my core.
Along with that, there was also a thread on here about the rudest thing that had ever happened to people by a stranger and there were many incidents of assault.
There is something going on in the psyche of our society which needs to change immediately. I wonder if it happens when boys are growing up or is a result of porn or, the easier path that they are privilege to. Something really needs to change somewhere.

I can't get het up about it.

Quite, we need a societal change on this.

I do find this "leading on" to be more in the older generation though (I hope!). My MIL is of that generation, but I would expect mine to be more victim centric.

@Oops41 I cross posted with you. I actually agree with this. I love my mum but she always had much much lower expectations of men than women (she very much wasnt a feminist, in fact men were kind of on a pedestal) which explained why we were treated so differently. It really didnt help me form healthy relationships because I let men get away with so much. I definately do not want to repeat this pattern, so try to hold my son to the same standards as I would a female child (and he is really fantastic actually). I would never share how angry I feel with him, in the same way I would never tell him all the things his father did because its innapproriate, emotionally damaging and counter-productive.
I agree largely with what you write, the only thing I will say is that parents, and mothers, are not the only influence on children - there is a load of very toxic stuff out there they are likely to absorb however hard we try.

Seems apt to put it here in the context of the thread, it’s seems it’s also mainly men who have affairs etc. Of course women do it too, but overall the prevalence is much higher for men. You just have to read it on here about ‘DH flirting with office junior’ etc....

It’s not generally women you hear of running off with younger men, in the same way you hear if men going off with you he’s women.

What I’m saying is, men get older and there’s not the stigma in the same way there is for ageing women.

Another thing, how many absent fathers are there compared to absent mothers?.... a lot more is the answer!