To think it is actually mostly men?

[Nolpp]

Maybe I didn’t get the memo in the past but in the last year or so I’ve been so bitterly disappointed by make behaviour. I look back and wonder if it was always this way but I’m only just noticing. I think part of it is I recently became a single parent and so I’ve had more dealings with men than I would usually, as I’ve had to speak to insurance companies, take car for MOT etc. Obviously I did some of these things before and I know women also work in these places but overall I am having more interaction with men.

Examples…

Driving. Whenever a car is right up behind me it is ALWAYS a man driving. I drive at the speed limit, not under, so presumably they think speed limits don’t apply to them.

I recently donated to a sponsorship for cancer research, an old school friend, quite literally not spoken in over two decades. He then messaged me to thank me for the donation and followed it up with a question about sex and positions he can do after his surgery. Why would anyone think that’s ok?

A colleague, well respected in his industry, tells me when drunk on a night out that he wishes all women conformed to the way of the 50s and stayed at home. He wasn’t joking.

In Sainsbury’s a week ago, a man grabbed my arse in a queue, I was shocked and stepped to one side, didn’t know what to do and said get the fuck away from me. I was next up for the till and the man behind the till said he does it to everyone !!! What the actual fuck? He did follow up to say they had tried to ban him from the shop. I cried in the car afterwards, it was awful.

Waiting for the baby changing unit in Mc Donnalds. A man eventually emerges, mutters sorry but he couldn’t wait, and looked sheepish. He wasn’t unwell, he was downing a Mc flurry when I came out.

Around 7 years ago I used to date someone who had recently got a job as a Judge in the family courts. He was very young to have got this job and in part it was to do with his father being a judge in the same court. Anyway one day we were talking about how money is worked out in a divorce and he said ‘it’s disgusting, women expect to be paid out after staying at home doing nothing with kids for fifteen years, so rather than getting a job of their own they steal the x husband’s pension.’ I am ashamed to say I laughed and agreed with him. I had a good job with no interest in giving it up so I felt I was compatible with this man who I now see was a bit of a monster.

I honestly feel like men make up the bulk of shit behaviour. It probably sounds dramatic but I actually feel sad about it, genuinely sad. And embarrassed that it’s taken me until this late in life to see it.

Yes, I know it’s not all men.

Rant over.

@PaulaZackMayo pretty much yeah. Even the ones I like and love as friends and family, I am under no illusions as to what they’re really like.

Just to add to some of the voices above, my (female) partner's mental health was completely destroyed over her career as a firefighter. The sexism, racism and homophobia was horrendous and relentless for her. I doubt she will ever fully recover and I would try to dissuade any other women from joining the service unless there was evidence of radical change. I'm in my mid fifties and I avoid all men, all of the time now. I will be polite and civil but keep strong boundaries to keep them out of my home and out of my life.

Well the argument that women should stop questioning men because they defend us from the violence of other men is getting pretty old too. Millennia old actually. But still gets trotted out on threads like this ("men make up most of the armed forces!").

Female separatism (which could be perceived as the inverse of the infamous MGTOW movement) is an interesting one. Back in the 80s there used to be a thing called political lesbianism - women who were straight but decided for feminist reasons to have no more relationships with men and turn to women instead, as their relationships with men were inherently unequal and frequently abusive.

A similar trend is women who've had straight marriages and raised children within them 'turning gay' in middle/old age and beginning relationships with women.

I think there's going to be a bit of a resurgence of that spirit to be honest, you already see it among the younger generation with so many teenage girls now 'coming out' - essentially introducing a sexual element to the intense relationships that have often been the most important to girls and young women, their close female friends. When I was raising my babies, I frequently wished I could form some sort of a commune with my mum friends, as we were all so knitted together in child-rearing mode, whereas our male partners struggled and resisted the restrictions and changes that came with it, so we often felt pulled two ways trying to keep everyone happy. Women only communal living is growing more popular among certain demographics of older women: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/aug/24/we-have-brothers-sons-lovers-but-they-cant-live-here-the-happy-home-shared-by-26-women

The fact is, heteronormative culture and the patriarchy which has shaped our world has totally relied on men wanting women for sex and breeding, and women providing that in exchange for sustenance and protection.

In the new world we've created, women can sort out their own sustenance and protection; they have always had to take care of their own sexual needs, and while there was a delightful window of opportunity a couple of decades ago where men seemed to gain an interest in the intricacies of female pleasure, and to take pride in being able to elicit it, the tide of freely available porn is now sweeping that away, as women are expected not only to be choked, spanked, tied up, gagged, called names, spunked over etc, but to evince screaming pseudo-orgasms and 'squirt' as they do it - and if they don't actually like anal and 'deep-throating', are considered odd and prudish. It is not a totally unreasonable thing, in my view, for women to ask themselves what benefits men in general can bring to them that make it worth the risks they also pose, that they cannot provide as well or better for themselves, or each other, with far less risk.

@herewegoroundthebastardbush an interesting read and I can see why that might suit some women.

I may consider it if I'm widowed but for the time being I will stay living with my lovely Husband.

Good for you, enjoy!

@herewegoroundthebastardbush there's a trend a bit like you describe with political lesbian in South Korea that was reading about not too long ago. I forget the exact name of it

My guess is societal pressures to be in a relationship and our worth as women being affected by our relationship status/being a parent. O and the fact that women get paid less than men so once they have children with a man they’re likely to end up at least a little reliant on that…..

I think why these threads get people's back up is because there are posters that are genuinely discussing how there are are more violent men than woman etc but then you get the posters that say - I never talk to any men because every single man is scum and a potential rapist.

Exactly.
Some posters on here voice fully legitimate concerns, while others seem to just really enjoy bashing all men (see comments like ‚men disgust me‘).
Some describe situations where they’ve been (sexually) assaulted by men, while others complain about men liking rugby and football.
There are just so many different things all thrown together, even though they are entirely separate issues.

And the rest probably have and have just avoided detection so far.

So you don’t even know if they’ve done anything wrong? They’re just guilty by default.

I am in my fifties and have had bad experiences with men across the board. For decades. So yes for me it is all men.

Wuld be very interested to read more about that! I'm always interested in how other cultures are dealing with this shift, especially as we're all in different places with it. I thought the Japanese 'herbivore man' trend was a really interesting and poignant counterpoint to the increasingly violent and aggressive western 'incel' subculture.

That’s my point. Understand people, try to help them. Don’t lump them all in a group and say they are all evil.

@AdamRyan

I know, I can't stop crying about it. Can barely sleep thinking about it. It is always men. There was another article a few months back about men torturing baby monkeys and filming it. Then there are comedians "joking" about disabled toddlers, women being raped and generally spitting bile from their mouths. I've got to the point where I wish men would be instantaneously vaporised.

@herewegoroundthebastardbush

www.nytimes.com/2023/01/27/opinion/south-korea-fertility-rate-feminism.html

If a woman feels as if all men are shite, why is it more interesting to start trying to tell them they are wrong than it is to listen and have empathy with the experiences?

For me, as a man, I find it hard to believe that getting into a conversation where I try to tell them they are wrong or cry about my feelings being hurt is going to help matters. Any such feelings doesn't compare to the experiences bring described. It's also reasonable to believe that doing so is more likely to reinforce their feelings than change them. There are other conversations to be had, which are less confrontational

My point applies just as much to small, everyday instances as it does to serious crimes.

Just because you have been treated badly by some people, don’t extrapolate from that that everybody in that group is bad. That’s not going to defeat the patriarchy or do anything else positive.

Defeat the patriarchy by calling out bad behaviour whenever you can and helping men be better, while also refraining from hating them all, so that they have some reason to actually want to be better and not just hate you back.

@Minglingpringle keeping away from men brings lots of positives to my life - safety and peace to name a couple of pretty key things. I don't have the energy to take the patriarchy down. No one has managed it so far and so many have tried so meh. Even reading the replies from the manspainy man on this thread have reminded me of how much I dislike interacting with them. Such a pompous old wind bag. ugh.

She didn’t say it was a belief. But it’s something interesting to consider. It has made me ask myself what my answer would be.

It’s not as impossible as I thought it would be to imagine myself saying yes. But when I imagine it, it doesn’t seem that bad because it’s me and I know I would never actually do it. Which makes what the men said not seem so bad.

Why are you making assumptions based on very little information? My lived experience for over four decades has made me find the majority of men disgusting. I’ve been sexually assaulted, betrayed in the worst ways, terrorised, all by men. In my previous post I said that even the ones that outwardly seem decent have done these things. You sound like an apologist and a misogynist @inamarina

@Minglingpringle huh? you would be rapey if you could get away with it? wha? but you being rapey would not be that bad because you wouldn't actually be actually rapey whilst you were being rapey? i mean just what?

Literally no idea what this means. Either you would or you wouldn't. I wouldn't, not least because there would be literally nothing in it for me. I can't even imagine it to be honest.

A stupid, ridiculous, man bashing post. Have you nothing better to do

Unreasonable can now be defined as "presenting simple arguments and metaphors backed by numbers, which I don't agree with"...

What if you were poor though?

Hush child.