To get rid of men from my life altogether

[montecarlo7]

I know this sounds a bit barmy but I've been doing a lot of reflecting recently and I realised that men have overwhelmingly brought negative things into my life.

I made a list of the male friends and relationships I've had in the past and I realised there were only 5 who were good men who brought something positive and there were many who harmed me. I'm almost 40 and single.

I've been raped in what I thought were safe relationships. I've been sexually assaulted on multiple occasions, both by strangers and male friends. I've been harassed and catcalled a lot. Two male friends (both partnered) I made in the last few years ended up sexually harassing me. Not the first (or second) time either. My (male) neighbour in my last home harassed me to the point I had to go to the police.

I've had partnered and married men make passes at me over and over to the point that I don't make friends with couples anymore.

The men I've hired in a business or work context have not brought much positive either.

I do have one close male friend who I trust. But I'm thinking that I'm going to have a policy of no more male friends and stop looking for relationships...I'm going to be single and accept it.

At one point I thought this has to be my fault that the men that show up in my world are not that great. But now I'm getting to age 40 I'm starting to reconsider that it's actually them.

I plan to put my energy into female friendships only. I'm in a very female centred line of work and only work with women which is nice. I stopped hiring men for other jobs e.g. around the house if I can work with a woman instead.

I gave up a hobby I had that brings me into contact with a lot of men.

I know women are not all perfect either, but here's the thing. I've never been assaulted, sexually harmed, harassed, catcalled, verbally abused, or had an unwanted pass made at me by a woman.

It's clear that some men are unsafe to be around and that's reason enough to avoid the whole lot of them.

What do you think?

Never mind that it’s so rare, she’s had to use examples from 30 and almost 60 years ago respectively!

Yep. Most acts of murder committed by women are usually towards their abusive male partners.

Female serial killers who work entirely alone without any influence from males are so rare that I can barely think of any. The only names that spring to mind are Aileen Wuornos (who had an absolutely terrible upbringing and was sexualised by men from childhood) and Joanna Dennehy.

OP I and most of my female friends have talked about exactly this. That if our partners were to go/pass away/whatever, we just don't have the energy for any more men in our lives. Only one of us is openly bisexual. It's not that women are a substitute. It's that men drain us.

There are some great men, like your friend. I love my husband dearly, and he is not a misogynist or an abuser, but he's still tiring. The hot takes that are just male experience, nothing to do with women, but he thinks they're universal. The studied refusal to 'see' when his washing needs doing, meaning I will need to point it out to him again. He'll do it, but he misses how fucking draining this is after many decades.

And that's a nice relationship! He's a nice man! I'm always struck when I go away with female friends how bloody easy we are with each other. We automatically make our surroundings nice, we know how to talk and listen to get the best, truest stuff out of each other. We gently offer help and sometimes even gently accept, but if we don't, nobody takes offence.

I don't think men have an iota of sense when it comes to women. Just listen to what they say, discuss calmly what the next step is, together, and get the fuck on with it. Look at what they like. Is it a ten-minute run-down of a Youtube video you watched about manufacturing? Do they want your pithy, pissy review of something they love? Not likely. Are they a bit upset and could you just hug them and ask what you can do to help? Literally, finding a man like that is like striking gold. No way would I ever willingly sift through the boring dross in case I got lucky.

All power to you. And isn't there a great business opportunity there for more female tradespeople?

Lengokengo, I also had that experience with my brother when I was a teenager, and I just want to give you a hug, because it's totally destabilising at an age when you need the support of your parents. It's completely coloured the relationship I have with my father (who excused my brother because apparently I was cleverer than him and it got to him).

We shouldn't HAVE to be tolerant. There shouldn't be anything to tolerate.
And we don't HAVE to tolerate bad behaviour when it happens. In fact, we shouldn't.

And that's just the one's who admitted it.

I do have a DS and I don't "tolerate" bad male behaviour. A lot of "boy mums" think the sun shines out of their baby boy's arse. I love my DS more than anyone else on this earth but I don't let him get away with this "typical male" behaviour.

Jesus Christ.

Fully agree with everything written by the non-MRAs on this thread. Lucky enough to have some decent men in my life, including a lovely dh (but this is my 2nd marriage after an appallingly abusive first one and I stayed on my own recovering from that for years afterwards).

If my marriage ended tomorrow the only men I'd deal with would be my dad, ds and dbro.

I did have a good male friend who was gay but once I got past the 'awww, fun gay friend' cliche I couldn't unsee the misogyny.

And don't even get me started on fucking tradesmen.

Cats are awesome. I was always a dog woman but then my little best friend died and I couldn't bear to get another dog. Years later a family friend recently asked if we wanted one of her cat's kittens. I was sceptical, having heard bad things about cats, but this little fluff ball is just the sweetest, most dearest little soul in the world, I just love her so much. I just can't get over as well how independant cats are! It's so cool - I can go out for the day, and she's totally fine chilling out, doing her own thing. Then when she hears me come home she comes to the door to see me. It's so much easier than a dog. If my husband ever dies/leaves me, I'm happily getting more cats. Way better than ever going through dating again. I guess some men just cannot fathom how many women are completely competent and happy just living on their own/with pets and not needing a male in their lives.

“Men have very little idea of how much women hate them" - Jeremy Greer.

I don't think you are being unreasonable at all. I am married to a good man and we've been together since were were both 20 but if anything were to happen to him or us as a couple I don't think I would go looking for another man. I have a good and close relationship with my brother and father. I have some male friends but it was an eye opening experience when I was ill a few years ago and was put on medication that caused weight gain and for my face to puff up, suddenly male friend were too busy to meet up but when I lost weight and went back to normal they were back to wanting to hang out and I was left feeling like even for men who are your friend they still see you as a sex object on some level and if they don't want to fuck you then you decrease in value to them.

When I was about 15 I was at a party with my friend who was dating an older guy (he was 19) who lived in a flat share with guy in their early to mid 20's we were in a bedroom while a group of these guys talked about a woman (she was 21 at the time and we also knew) who had slept with quite a few of them, laughing at how desperate and pathetic she was, bickering over who she gave the best blow job to, some moaning that they didn't get a blowie and how they would need to go back for seconds. Now stupid as it sounds I really looked up to these guys and had crushes on a couple of them but listening to this chat I was like they don't even like her and yet they all had sex with her and now they are sitting about laughing at her, the scales fell from my eyes and suddenly they were just a bunch of creeps, even one who seemed so nice and decent and had always been such a gentleman, he was just the same as the rest of them. I just stopped hanging around with them after that.

Boys I dated as a teen were often lovely at first and so thrilled to be with you but very quickly once you were together they seemed to start up with the abusive behaviours, the put downs, the constant hints that you aren't quite as pretty, slim, sexy or cool enough, as they think they deserve and making sure you know the girls that do meet their standards so you are often left feeling like a booby prize and trying to prove yourself which is exactly what they want if I could only go back to my teenage self and give her this insight and tell them all to shove it. When I met my now husband and he didn't do any of that I knew he was a good one and he has turned out to be a good man for the duration of our lives together. If I were ever single again a man would have to prove to me he wasn't a creep or arsehole and from what I hear from single friends many men still behave like the boys I dated as a teenager and think they are doing you a favour by even considering a woman over 40.

Even stuff in the news, that poor Amber Gibson, not only raped in life, then sexually assaulted and murdered by her brother but also some random 45 year old man finds her dead and instead of calling the police he also molests her body and then hides it. I just can't get my head round it at all, how would you ever know which man would do something like that?

So again you are not being unreasonable at all there are good men out there but they are few and far between and most of them are already taken early doors I think.

Its not that women "hate" men but that men repeatedly destroy our trust in them, ignore our boundaries and harm us. We don't hate men but often they don't even see us as fully human but more as sexual objects and for domestic and reproductive utility. We learn to keep our distance, we do not trust them and without trust their is no love, that is different than hate it is apathy, we are apathetic about men.

Probably because we don’t go around murdering and raping them, or have a long history of oppressing them? In fact, there’s very little evidence for such a stupid claim…

It's a quote in reverse by Germaine Greer.

" women have very little idea of how much men hate them. "

It's been truly sad to realise that despite all the things I felt as a younger woman were steps forward, not only do most men not see women as full humans capable of thought and work, they will not speak up when those forward steps are pushed back and our rights debated or even removed. They give themselves away over and over.

It's not even that women hate men, I don't think. Despite all that, it's not hatred, except obviously if we're talking rape and murder. It's just that we're exhausted and depressed. Drained. Men truly have very little idea of how prevalent this is. We'll go on explaining what we mean till the end of time and men will find a way not to listen, but instead to post nippy little comments on a message board. Anything to distract from their part in it.

Sbishka
It's not even that women hate men, I don't think. Despite all that, it's not hatred, except obviously if we're talking rape and murder. It's just that we're exhausted and depressed. Drained. Men truly have very little idea of how prevalent this is. We'll go on explaining what we mean till the end of time and men will find a way not to listen, but instead to post nippy little comments on a message board. Anything to distract from their part in it.

This is so true, when it comes to women's issues their eyes just glaze over. It doesn't affect them so they don't care. Many things that are happening currently in regards to women's rights and spaces could have been prevented if enough men supported us from the early days. Instead we are having to push back against bullshit laws and policies that put us back decades.

I was going to post something similar the other day but held back because I thought I was going to be told I was a man hater LOL.

I don’t hate men, I like some and I’m in a relationship with a man who is kind and considerate.

But I don’t think I have yet met a man for whom I didn’t ultimately end up feeling some degree of contempt.

A majority of them basically regard women as service humans. Of the minority who don’t, most are still incredibly self absorbed, self centred are basically regard themselves as superior and see their needs as a priority.

The clever ones ultimately seek to dominate and manipulate you, the less clever ones become needy and dependent and ultimately it’s very hard to emerge with any real respect for them.

Even my current DP who is by far the best, is still way behind all my female friends intellectually, emotionally and in general resourcefulness.

If my DP and I split up I certainly wouldn’t bother again.

Go and visit women's prisons and see whether they are all nice people in there.

There are loads of horrible women about.

Google joanna dennehy (sp)

See what you think of her?

Savannah Brockhill also.

Approx 93 percent of homicides are committed by men. (See the ONS site for the most recent figures). Yes, rarely there will be a female serial/spree killer, it is so unusual that it nearly always makes headline news and the names are remembered decades later.

Yes, plenty of women are horrible but there are nowhere near the numbers of violent or abusive women as there are men. The numbers of women in prison compared to men is tiny, and the large majority of them are in for non-violent crimes.

Not in the same volumes as men.

Thanks for a brilliant thread I feel exactly the same as many of you. I am relieved that I have two daughters and no sons. If I lost my dh who is a good man and a very rare exception I don’t think I would bother at all. I am actually really struggling to think of good men in my life apart from my husband. There are so so few decent ones. Men fill women’s lives generally speaking with threat, fear, violence, sexual violence, unfriendliness, sexism, harassment. What do women do? Support support support. I wouldn’t mind if my daughters did not want kids and marriage, just live for themselves and get the most they can from life.

Whose talking about Serial killers only?

It doesn't matter whether it's serial killers or individual murderers. The numbers are overwhelming and consistent that nearly all perpetrators are male. And it's not just murder, sexual violence and violence in general show the same kind of skewing.