DH doesn't understand, I mean really 'undertand' the issues women face

[RingRingRed]

Just that really.

DH is a good person, and tries to understand but after another argument tonight I realised he just doesn't get the issues facing women.

I'm so fucked off because we have 2 DD but because they're young, the reality of how shit life is for females hasn't really struck.

He absolutely adores DD's and I'm dreading the BF stage.

He sees me as very fiesty but when I try to share my lived experience, he only sees how I don't 'take shit' now. In my 40s.

AIBU to be SO disappointed in DH

• [post edited at OP's request to remove sensitive detail]

Sally, your life as it is now may not be shot. But does this mean that you don’t understand that women as a class are disproportionately disadvantaged in many, many ways?

OP, it is tragic you think it is MOST males and if this is the attitude you are showing your young DDs it is even worse.. The lesson here is to help with the confidence levels and common sense. There are some bad people out there, but living with the thought of most men are bad /dangerous is harmful in my view. Your DH perhaps needs more examples and stats to give him a better understanding of the statistica though.
I don't think being a woman somehow dramatically worse than being a man. They face different challenges sometimes.

Just even a glance on the Style and Beauty board where women in their late twenties and early thirties are asking if they should consider Botox should give you a clue as to how life is so fabulous for women, even very privileged women in the UK. You can bet no young man is thinking about his forehead wrinkles. Nope, he thinks he is hot.

Honestly I don't think there is a (heterosexual) man on earth who truly "gets" this.

There are men who, to their credit, try very hard, educate themselves and try to see a woman's experience. But it will never be part of their lived experience. How can it?

Crude analogy but I am white and while I like to think that I am aware of racism in society and try very hard to try to understand he kinds of discrimination non-white people face in our society, I will never really get it because I haven't experienced it. And I'm not arrogant enough to think I ever could.

If you are born into a position of privilege (of any kind) in society, the best you can expect is to be open and conscious, to be aware of your shortcomings in perception and to understand that it is for the unprivileged, not the privileged, to frame the terms of reference and define their lived experience (and know when to keep your mouth shut about things you don't understand and to defer to those who do). I think its very difficult to go beyond this, really.

This applies to white people in a white majority society and it applies to men. They are not identical forms of privilege but there are similarities and the most fundamental one is that the privileged party will never truly understand what it is like to be on the receiving end of structural discrimination.

To be fair, women are doing that to each other.

Most men may not be dangerous but women can't tell which one is a good un when walking home alone in the dark at 10 pm. Men don't have to perform that kind of risk versus benefit analysis. That is OP's point, I think.

This isn’t necessarily the experience of most women. Most women I know have been generally happy with their lives give or take ups and downs and not nice people. I’m sorry if you personally have been through some bad experiences but I’m not sure quite what your expecting from your dh?

My dh is a mixture of both

He sees what men are like and doesn’t want me walking late at night, and worries about dd etc etc

But at the same time, he calls me a man hater because I say about men did this and men did that and he comes out with But NoT aLl MeN aRe LiKe ThAt.

Why are you being so vague?

Nobody is denying men overwhelmingly are the perpetrators of violent crime, but my life isn't shit as a woman because of this. When my dd was born I didn't worry that she was born female. In some countries being female is proper shit and you'd pray not to have a girl, but generally no, not in the UK.

There are definitely areas where it is shit, but not life in general. Maybe op would've got a better response from her DH if she gave specific examples, likewise the thread as a whole.

Life is shit for lots of people, I don't think sex is the main reason why that is for most people.

You are married to someone who calls you a ‘man hater’?

Why on earth are you married to such a dickhead?

Honestly? Lately, I really don’t know.

According to the ONS, almost one in three women aged 16-59 will experience domestic abuse in her lifetime. That’s a LOT of women. So, odds are, there are a number of said women amongst you, your DDs and your adult female friends. And it’s because you are female. I think that’s pretty shit, personally.

For those who have always been happy to be female and cannot see why the OP is disappointed about her husband's lack of understanding and her worries for her daughters....... Just a few things off the top of my head:

The glass ceiling
The pay gap
Not being taken seriously at work, or ignored, or being talked down to
After work socials amongst male colleagues where important work stuff is discussed (females either not welcome or have to rush off to collect kids...)
Being overlooked for promotion
Never catching up after maternity leave

That's before we get to women's safety:
Always having to make sure you're safe
Men pressing yourself against you on the tube during the rush hour.
Worries about having your drink spiked
An apparently 'nice' man suddenly trying to force you into having sex
Being blamed for getting raped because you were in the wrong place, at the wrong time, wearing the wrong clothes, etc

Plus there's all the stories here of women who end up with useless, abusive and/or cheating men. Women Who work full time and yet do all housework and childcare. Not to mention those who are shafted financially their 'dear' partners when the relationship goes belly up.

And now we are also told that TWAW and have a right to be in women-only spaces, and to make it all simpler let's just get rid of women-only spaces and make them all gender neutral. Including toilets in schools FFS.

Yes, only a few of these affect me personally, but I'm not blind to the fact that they happen.

DH is a good guy, and doesn't recognise this terrible behaviour from MOST males that his DD will be subject too and doesn't seem to believe my lived experience of this shit behaviour.

What behaviour? Most males? Bollocks.

Show him the He Said, She Said episode of Brooklyn 99. Absolutely nails the way men just don’t get what it’s like to be a woman.

Just how fucking thick and lacking in empathy do you have to be to say ‘women don’t have problems due to their sex’.

Who's said that? I've only seen people post that they don't think it's shit to be a woman/that they're happy to be female.

The comments about empathy and understanding men's issues have been alongside the same points made about not having the same lived experience as people of other races and colours. So your 'hand maiden' jibe is unwarranted. We were talking about the concept of empathy and REALLY understanding as opposed to trying to understand. And if you haven't lived as the other sex/person of another colour, you can never REALLY understand.

If you read the thread, you’ll see that multiple posters have said precisely that.

Not necessarily and I think your last paragraph is poor advice as I don't think you can totally overcome privilege when asking people to reframe mindsets.

I went through a phase where I messaged my husband every single time a man leered at me, winked at me, made a comment, eyed me up, tried to chat me up. Every single time.

I think that helped him to understand a little bit about quite how relentless and constant it is.

I am a woman in my 40s, average looking, nothing special, going about my normal boring daily life.

I am nearly 50. There is a particular path where DH and I both walk to clear our heads. Quite a safe area, not dodgy but quiet at times. When I was there last, a man tried to chat me up, leering and getting too close. There was no one around so I had to leave because I felt unsafe. I told DH that and he was like "Gosh, I would't expect that in this safe area blah blah." Safe for you, maybe!

Two of DD's friends were drugged and raped in freshers week ( at two different Unis). DS is going off to uni soon. You can bet he is not thinking about that possibility and is focused on enjoying himself and partying hard. DD meanwhile has to be careful all the time.