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.

Hmm? I was just responding to your quote:

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

You said ‘probably’, so you don’t actually know if the rest did or didn’t do what you seem to be accusing them of (cheating/ paying for sex/ having emotional affairs).
That’s what I was referring to, I wasn’t making any assumptions about your lived experience.
Avoid men if that makes your life easier, I just don’t agree with tarring a whole group of people with the same brush because some in this group behave badly.

My DH has always said that the world would be a much better place if run by women, and that the vast majority are bastards! As for the person who made a point about 'Most firefighters are men, most members of the armed forces are male', that DOES NOT mean that they aren't vile people, you don't generally find nice gentle men in the armed forces, or they wouldn't be able to fight, most of them enjoy nothing more than a punch up on a night out! I also know of a firefighter who is a rapist, so don't give us that crap!!

@Minglingpringle
Just because you have been treated badly by some people, don’t extrapolate from that that everybody in that group is bad.

Let’s reframe that:
If every single person (and there have been many) who has assaulted, abused or discriminated against me came from the same cohort, I would have to be an idiot not to view that cohort as a potential threat.

If every single person who had done it to my friends, family members or neighbours ALSO came from that cohort, I think I’d have ample reason to view that cohort with distrust.

More information here
They were observed again a few years later and all troop members had lower stress markers in blood tests.
Maybe a lesson here for us humans (which did not mean to sound like “poison aggressive men”).

Needing a group to be aggressive just in case someone’s aggressive towards the group sounds very patriarchal and a little short sighted, given that the issue is aggressive males in the first place. Fix the aggression, the threat goes away.

I would be interested to know how many women would force someone to sex if there were no consequences. I'd be surprised if the numbers were not comparable.

There is literally zero basis for this belief of yours. Why do you hold it?

Probably because its a fella who thinks men and women's bodies work similarly, sexually.

That's the trouble with incels.

I’m so sorry about the situation in Sainsbury’s OP, I was on a night out and was ordering drinks at the bar with my husband, his friend and my best friend,?there was a group of lads sat behind us when ordering and one of the lads was grabbing my bum and squeezing it, I said to my friend “I think someone is touching me” I felt really uncomfortable and I absolutely hate confrontation, i told my husband and he flew at the bunch of lads saying how disgusting it was!

the police were outside anyway (always patrolling outside anyway) and I told them what had happened and they literally didn’t give a shit.

so to the few people who are saying OP is unreasonable for not reporting it, I can say that yes sometimes the police are brilliant and others no so much, the advise off the police I spoke to was “it’s best if you go to separate places, try not to bump into each other” there exact words were “you can make an official statement about what happened but it does happen all the time”

my husband was outside saying “my wife has just been groped, made to feel uncomfortable and nothing is getting done about it?” They openly said no, despite the owner of the bar stating she’ll happily give them cctv as they checked it to see what caused the kick off.

some police are just absolutely shocking with this stuff, I was made to feel like I was making a big deal out of nothing, that I should just be expected as a woman to go to a bar and just expect to be touched up basically?

even the attitude of some women outside “ohh it happens to me all the time” these women don’t help make this any better unfortunately.

it’s only ever men that I see doing these things and yes tailgating is another one! Throwing hands in the air trying to take over..

I think things have improved a lot as regards the patriarchy over the past 100 years. I’m glad people have made the effort.

Who’s a pompous old windbag? Me?

nah the mansplainy one messing around with racist and classist stats.

“Men disgust me” doesn’t happen in a vacuum though. There are many valid reasons that lead women to reach this point.
Like I said earlier, once you see it you can’t unsee it.
There are men in my life who I love, and who most women would consider good men, but once you see the casual misogyny, the everyday “harmless” behaviour, you spot it everywhere, and you can’t unlearn it.

I’ve yet to meet a couple where the man genuinely pulls his weight in the relationship - as a partner, a husband, or as a father. I’m sure there are some out there, but I haven’t met one. I’ve met plenty who tell me they are good decent men, whose wives tell me they are, but actions speak volumes.

I’ll never have a relationship with another man because my experience of marriage, of working with men, has put me off. Life is too short.

And this is a perfectly legitimate view, reached by my own personal experiences. It might look like man bashing to some, and I’ll be quite honest that I dislike most men (I take it on a case by case basis though, I’m fair like that) but in rl I just avoid men as much as I can, I would never threaten or insult them.
Unfortunately for women men don’t extend that courtesy to us, and incels are a very real
threat to women.

You sound like an incel.

Yeah, because surviving men raping, assaulting and abusing me over 40 odd years definitely makes me an incel.

Weirdo.

(edited for typo)

Fair enough if that’s your experience.
Regarding other people’s relationships - you say you’ve yet to meet a couple where the man genuinely pulls his weight, even when both him and his wife tell you that he is.
You say actions speak louder than words. But you don’t really know the ins and outs of those relationships, do you? How can you see from outside who does what in a relationship?
FWIW, I know several couples/ families where the woman doesn’t work even though the kids aren’t little. Are these women pulling their weight?

You’re not an incel but you’re using the same logic.

You don’t like what they’ve done to you so you’ll hate the whole group.

Holding on to that kind of hatred is bad for you and bad for everyone else.

I know well enough to see that the split of work is uneven, and mothers are nearly always the default parent.

Being a SAHM when children are little can be soul destroying, and incredibly hard work. I have worked and I have been a SAHM, whilst both have their challenges being at home was far harder.

I just wonder what the Mother & Son relationship is like with women who do not trust any men.

Perfectly fine.
I’ve raised them as well as I can, same with my daughter.
I think people often forget what an influence friends and internet can have on teenagers, a time where parenting can be very difficult anyway.
I trust that my sons are decent, hardworking men, but if they choose to marry and have children I’m under no illusion that they’ll be more than society dictates a husband and father to be, because a parents influence only goes so far.
The status quo is that mothers are the default, and I can’t see any signs of that changing anytime soon.

@MrsTwartle I trust most men. I don't understand the whole some men are dangerous so you should be wary of all men.

I live with my Husband and older teenage Son. I feel safe always.

You sound very naive.

Most arsonists are male, most people who commit war crimes are male, and throughout history women were not allowed to invent things and profit for them.

Yes, not all men are bad. I know a lot of really great men, but as the op shows, there are a lot of bad ones. And history and society have allowed their bad behaviour to go on and become entrenched.

Urgh what an awful thread, Mumsnet at its absolute worst. Let's vilify half of society, and no it's not my experience of life AT ALL.

Statistically, it is.

Very similar to yourself @Nolpp in my youth I thought we had equality. How naive I was. The older I get the more I see it. And the number of men who are both decent and interesting is vanishingly small

It’s not that I think all men are dangerous, I know they’re not.
It’s that in my experience men will take advantage (maybe sexually, coercively, but also in a more benign feigned incompetent way) of women so we typically have to take on the role of default mother, default housekeeper, and I’m opting out of that.
There aren’t enough rewards to persuade me that being with a man is worth it.
I see this pattern over and over. If you love someone enough to put up with it, then fine, each to their own, I’m not judging anyone for living their chosen life.
For me though, I'm making a choice that feels right for me. Men won’t feature in my future in a meaningful way and I’m more than happy with that choice.

@Datanerd never been hit, flashed at, assaulted, raped, abandoned as a child, screamed at, had yr house smashed up, been terrorised by unsafe driving, expected to do all the unpaid emotional labour in the family/at work? never been talked down to about something you are a specialist in? really? none of these things? lucky you.

Are you high??

This isn't "woe is me, people aren't giving me what I want so I'll hate them all"

This is "I have been raped, abused and assaulted by men from age 5 up. Then I was disparaged, undermined and discriminated against by them for being a woman. Not just a few, a lot. I am fucking wary of them."

That's not hate. That's viewing them as potentially harmful until proven otherwise.

@PaulaZackMayo - we have an excellent relationship because I have raised them as staunch feminist allies without a sense of entitlement to women's time, attention or validation; in an household with zero tolerance for any form of violence.