To be sick of seeing "cool girl" or "cool wife" used as an insult

[11GrumpsaGrumping]

I have been on a few threads recently where some posters have been really quite cruel to other posters, including me, for having different boundaries and preferences than they do.

The terms "cool girl" or "cool wife" are slung at them, with the implication made (sometimes directly) that said "cool" person doesn't really do/feel/enjoy the way the say they do, and are just trying to be cool.

Everyone has different boundaries, experiences, cultural influences, relationships, ages, backgrounds, etc- why is it not okay for one person to find for example strippers okay within their marriage and others not to, without the former being accused of being part of the "cool wives brigade".

Is it really that hard for people to understand and accept that we all have different boundaries and lines in the sand?

It really makes me angry and I find it just another way in which woman choose to tear other women down, when what we need to do is support one another.

Op, are you also sick of seeing women called prudes, frigid, pearl clutcheres, man-haters / too hard on men / asking for a perfect angel man if they don’t like everything men do?

Because there is a lot of that (and more) around here as well…..

Well, that’s the crux of the term ‘cool girl’ as an insult, surely? I’m not ‘desperate to hang on to my main’, I just have close male friends who are important to me, and have no problem with my DH of several decades having good female friends. To me, the idea that confiding in a man other than my husband is a betrayal or ‘emotional affair’ is as ridiculous as the idea (which I’ve often seen on here) that going to the cinema or out for dinner with a male friend is ‘date territory’. DH flew to Barcelona recently to see a longterm female friend I’ve never met. I’m not ‘putting up with this’, I’m pleased he has friendships that nourish his life, as I do.

This works for us both, and we’re happily monogamous. Other people are obviously entirely at liberty to choose differently.

It's often a retaliation to accusations that someone is being uptight or controlling, or a minimising of concerns.

But it varies

On most posts people are called a cool wife for one aspect of their boundaries

I've been called a prude and cool wife across different topics for example

So unless one poster is on the lac side for everything it's not all that clear cut

From a psychological perspective, and writing generally, it is used to describe women who align themselves more with the opposite sex rather than their own, i.e. their intrinsic motivation is towards men and not women.

I used to be a "cool girlfriend" in that I hadn't yet resolved my relationship with my mother, and rather took my father's side. Now I'm older and wiser, I see both my parents were both flawed, and both/neither to blame, and as a result I have stronger bonds with my girlfriends, and no longer tolerate my erstwhile pandering to win male approval. That benefits everyone in my life, male and female.

It's often a retaliation to accusations that someone is being uptight or controlling, or a minimising of concerns.

I've often seen it used to put people down when their boundaries are more permissive.
As an aggressive tactic tbh.
As in " you think you're a cool girl"

It's not the anti-porn anti-lap-dancing anti-"boys will be boys" lot that I see throwing around "cool wives" as an insult.

I see it in this context:

OP: My boyfriend is friends with a woman at work and I feel uncomfortable about it. OR My boyfriend has had a female best friend for the last decade and I want him to distance himself from her now that he's in a relationship.

Poster: They're just friends. You can't ban him from having friendships; it's controlling.

Other poster: Well you might be a COOL WIFE but my husband isn't allowed to talk to women!

The CG insult tends to come from bitter, hurt people who don't like being reminded that other lifestyles than theirs are not only possible but might just have suited them better.

I've been accused of all sorts after admitting being openly and mutually polyamorous with my partner. I've been called a man-panderer etc. for "allowing" it! These people assume an awful lot about my motivation, paint a very lurid picture of me in their imaginations, and are in total denial of the fact that I might just get something positive out of the arrangement in return.

It's used as an insult by people who can't either cope or fathom other people having different reactions to a situation than them. Go straight to the insult and high five yourself for being so right and so on point.

Mumsnet is not a place for nuanced discussions unfortunately.

I think all those on here who are accused of being a cool wife should embrace the term until it loses its heat. Similarly the pearl clutchers, hand maidens etc etc.

The only reason these terms are used is to antagonise people and make threads nastier.

It's used as an insult by people who can't either cope or fathom other people having different reactions to a situation than them. Go straight to the insult and high five yourself for being so right and so on point.

Mumsnet is not a place for nuanced discussions unfortunately.

I think all those on here who are accused of being a cool wife should embrace the term until it loses its heat. Similarly the pearl clutchers, hand maidens etc etc.

The only reason these terms are used is to antagonise people and make threads nastier.

This. ^ I hate the 'cool wives' to be honest, and they get on my tits. When a woman comes on here upset about something her husband does - be that watching porn or sleeping in the same room as a female colleague on a business trip - and someone says 'chill out, your husband is free to watch what he wants, and it doesn't bother ME,' and 'men should be allowed to have other females as close friends, with you excluded!' then yes I am going to say 'oooh aren't YOU the cool wife?'

They deserve mocking, because in real life, the vast majority of women are NOT OK with their DH/DP being close to another woman, or wanking off to porn.

@Harridan1981

I think the 'cool wife' term is more to do with motivation than action. As in, not the mere fact that someone is cool with a behaviour from their partner, but thinks of themselves as being cooler than others because they're 'ok' with it. If that makes any sense.

So people who trumpet on about being cool with something in order to make themselves sound good.

Yeah this. Put better than I could put it! Irksome posters thinking they're better than others, because they'd be OK with their partner sleeping in the same hotel room as a young, recently-single, female colleague.

To the OP @11GrumpsaGrumping YABVVVU!

@daisychain01

No way does Cool Wives equate to misogyny- it's the polar opposite. It's saying that a Cool Wife is willing to have such a low bar and set such a low expectation for their relationship that they have no issue in their partner getting their entertainment at a stag do in the form of a lap dancer/pole dancer. It's setting the bar so low that perpetuates misogyny, men being entitled to their "bit of fun" for a few quid, and using women as a commodity for their casual entertainment, but still reaping all the benefits of a stable relationship "back home". If that isn't misogynistic I don't know what is.

100% nail on head.

@Bearsan

There is nothing cool about someone being so desperate to hang on to their man that they will put up with anything.

This too. As @Brefugee said in her (very good) posts

YABU. I'm sick of the Cool-Girls (or Cool Wives, or I'm Not Like Other Girls/Women or Pick Me Girls/women) showing up to defend indefensible behaviour by men.

Some of the Cool Girls/Wives are being abused. They put up with, say, painful rough sex because it is more important for them to keep the man interested than look out for their own safety. Often it's just about "territory" or even unrequited "love". Who knows? but it is a well researched phenomenon.

these cool-girl/women often centre the men in their lives to the detriment of their own interests.

I agree totally. I think the way these 'cool girls' try to mock and criticize women who will NOT accept certain behaviours from their men, actually illustrates that they've been brainwashed by the men. It's a huge defence mechanism IMO. Sad thing is, I don't think they realise it.

They'll never have any problem getting a man though, as they clearly put up with any shitty behaviour the men dish out and tolerate it coz they're 'cooooooooooool!' Watch porn honey, stay out til 4am , share a bed with a female friend you met a few months ago at work, let a stripper do a lapdance, go around the sex clubs in Amsterdam. I don't mind, coz I'm coooooooooooooool!'

*It's used as an insult by people who can't either cope or fathom other people having different reactions to a situation than them. Go straight to the insult and high five yourself for being so right and so on point.

Mumsnet is not a place for nuanced discussions unfortunately.*

Yep

I think the term cool-girl ends up being about as pointless as it sounds. One person's cool girl is another person's conservative and it's used by a variety of people many of whom you'd be happy to live without their approval. In the same way some people would call you woke cos you don't actively hate brown people

However your choice of example, strippers really? I think there are women doing it willingly, but I also know there are women doing it unwillingly, or as a last resort, or because they're trafficked, or multiple other problems. Willfully ignoring that part of the industry is weird for both men and women. I don't think it's necessarily indicative of trying to be cool as it is a lack of consideration generally for other people and their situation

I agree totally. I think the way these 'cool girls' try to mock and criticize women who will NOT accept certain behaviours from their men, actually illustrates that they've been brainwashed by the men. It's a huge defence mechanism IMO. Sad thing is, I don't think they realise it.

🙄 here we go. Nuance.

What "cool wife/girlfriend" really means is "I have a permissive attitude to men's sexual pecadillos / perversions". If enough women adopt this attitude then what you find is a wholesale degeneration in the behaviour and quality of men. Leading us to the depressing dating scene that most under 40s women are now having to endure.

If women were a little more conscious of how their own standards and behaviour could play a part in shaping the men around them we might live in a society more conducive to respectful loving relationships.

Oh dear lord, like those posters supporting that man having a "glamour" image on view at work!
"They're only breasts" "you see more at the beach" !
It just gives a pass for sleazy and exploitative behaviour.

I’ve been called Cool Girl because i don’t care that my husband has female friends. I’ve also been called cool girl because I don’t care that he’s bisexual.

(No-one has called me cool girl because he has male friends)

It’s used as a phrase by others to hide their own insecurities.

@Harridan1981 I see your point. But when I see it in practice, it's normally just someone stating preferences. I have never sensed an "I'm trying to be cooler than you" undertone, but the statement itself seems so triggering.

@ScarlettOHaraHamiltonKennedyButler ah yes I can see that actually.

Like a more helpful response, which I have also seen on here (with the cool girl insult), is "I am okay with porn in my relationship, but that might not be for you. What are your boundaries, etc" to help the op work through where they are at.

Poster: They're just friends. You can't ban him from having friendships; it's controlling.
Other poster: Well you might be a COOL WIFE but my husband isn't allowed to talk to women!

I think @TrashPandas also put their finger on it (thanks also to @WhileMyGuitarGentlyWeeps for the compliment).

There is a wide spectrum between "anything goes, whatever my man wants to do is fine by me" and "he isn't allowed even to think about looking at another woman or I'll LTB" and most posters, i daresay most women, move along the central part of the sliding scale at various times and under various circumstances.

I'm finding a couple of threads on MN today very interesting. The lapdance one is a bit of an eye opener. (don't want this thread to get zapped as a TAAT because it is a really an interesting discussion) but also the one about the stepmum returning the child to his home at the agreed time. And the reason is that people really do extrapolate and make up scenarios in their heads that indicate to me they have had serious issues around these topics and are projecting.

In the step-mum one it was a throwaway comment by OP about the mum not often asking the step-dad to step in - turned into him practically being accused of being a paedophile. And the lapdance one has people saying everything from "fine" through "he only told you so you wouldn't find out another way" (which seems reasonable to me - no matter what you think of what he actually did) to him being a serial abuser of prostitutes and LTB.

What a time to be alive!

I’ve been following the ‘Porn culture has led to women suffering injuries during sex’ thread over the weekend. The conversation had a number of running themes and points, but a key one was about young women experiencing a dating scene where acts, such as anal sex, are now considered ‘normal’, that many men now expect anal as commonly as PIV and some don’t seek consent or even broker a conversation around boundaries.

This immediately attracted a cohort of posters who came on to say how much they enjoyed anal sex and how others shouldn’t judge.

Fair enough, their opinion (although I’d ague the discussion wasn’t judging women who enjoy anal, they were judging the men who demand it or push consent boundaries to get it).

It was not enough just to make a point, these posters continued to tilt at windmills insisting they were being ‘judged’, whilst feeling it necessary to prove they were nothing like the uptight judgers on the thread, by describing how and why they like it so much. Repeatedly.

So, inevitably other posters became irritated and the discussion started to narrow into an argument around ‘prudes’ and ‘cool girls’ rather than the important issue of women being assaulted and injured under the label of sexual activity, motivated by porn. Which is never ‘cool’ and even less ‘cool’ to activity minimise.

@UglyNameChange I see your point. But, can it not be possible that some woman choose to do things for themselves/have their own opinions/are behaving in ways that are comfortable to them without also pandering to men?

I find it very misogynistic that some women don't accept that other women like or accept things because of themselves, not because of the men in their lives!

What "cool wife/girlfriend" really means is "I have a permissive attitude to men's sexual pecadillos / perversions". If enough women adopt this attitude then what you find is a wholesale degeneration in the behaviour and quality of men. Leading us to the depressing dating scene that most under 40s women are now having to endure.

Depressing compared to when? During my mother's time when a woman wanting to be a working parent was a novelty and, in some cases, frowned upon?

@11GrumpsaGrumping

We live in a sexist, patriarchal society.

Women don't grow up in a vacuum.

Of course women have their own likes and dislikes but many of them are through mysoginist conditioning.