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.

😴

No

@herewegoroundthebastardbush I don't date men anymore. I used to but now I chose to only have intimate relationships and friendships with women. So I guess you could call me a political lesbian but I am more attracted to women than men sexually overall so Im not sure if that would be strictly accurate. I am also (seriously) looking into communal living in a women only space post retirement. I have been discussing this for years with a group of close friends and the older we get, the more serious we are about actually doing it. I don't hate men at all but I am wary of them and find very few men interesting enough to have more than a passing conversation with. I have been on the receiving end of a lot of male abuse tho and have seen the consequences of male violence up close at work over several decades so its very difficult for me to relate to the 'not my Nigel' posts on here.

So how come you've not seen her being aggressive to me? You have sided together because she is agreeing with you.

I thought you were calm but she wasn't. She was taking the piss out of everything I typed and tried to belittle me. So while you are coming off as intelligent I don't know why you have posted this.

Some good ones? That is hardly a ringing oendorsement.

And in the news tonight two more examples of hate and violence directed at women- a young girl murdered in Croydon because she didn’t want to go out with a boy (another statistic added to the counting dead women website).

Then you have Laurence Fox ranting in vile demeaning misogynist language about a female journalist’s shaggability (or lack of).

@rolypolyholymoly I think communal living is really interesting idea, generally, for later life for a way to stay independent until an older age than people otherwise might

I've just read this and I can understand what you are saying.

I'll admit it's hard for women to understand who do have good men in their lives and have been treated awful by women.

I should never have opened this thread. I've just had my Son and his friend talking to me. They are young, handsome and charming. I feel only love for them.

I'm going to leave this thread. I will not engage another moment with some of the nasty women on here again.

I feel sad about the awful things women have gone through because of awful men. My first relationship was not good.

@spookehtooth me too. I don't want to be isolated in my older years and i want my kids to know Im happy and they can live their lives.

See this is the kind of thing I'm interested in. I personally found my approach to men did a massive shift after having children, and having daughters. Suddenly what I had known about men in the abstract - that they were the vast majority of rapists,murderers and child abusers - became a clear and present danger in a way I hadn't understood before. Couple that with an enormous reduction in sex drive (likely linked to breastfeeding) and it felt like I was actually seeing men clearly for the first time, rather than through a film of patriarchy where they were very, very important figures (I was a big romantic in my younger days, and very highly sexed). I realised the men I knew were, to a large extent, enormously dependent on the women in their lives to understand and manage their emotions, maintain their relationships, enable and organise their social lives (to say nothing of domestic labour and child rearing labour). Also frequently selfish, not cruel as such, just very damn sure that what they wanted mattered most in pretty much any situation. Whereas as I developed deeper relationships with other mothers, I became aware of this huge reservoir of strength within so many apparently ordinary women, this giant capacity for love and self-sacrifice, of bearing hardship and finding solutions and workarounds, of being able to offer each other really meaningful listening, understanding and emotional support in a way I didn't see any of us getting from our male partners (but were dishing out in spades to the men, kids, family members and friends around us). It just shifted my perspective.

My cloth is cut now, essentially. I love my partner, he's family, he is a good father to our daughters, and I don't want their lives disrupted by too much change. But I do want my girls to think really, really hard about what a man can add to their life, and how much it's worth giving up to get those things, whether there are other ways to get them without giving up so much. I also used to be very "ooooh porn's no big deal" cool girl - there's nothing like having daughters to make you absolutely recoil at the thought of them ever being naked and vulnerable with the kind of man who gets off on the kind of thing that is most prevalent in mainstream porn today - all the slapping and name calling and stuffing of every available orifice like it's some sort of competition, the reductiveness of the roles available, the language and the inagery. Modern day porn is holding a mirror up to the majority male sexual psyche and it's not a pretty picture at all.

The idea of communal female living - especially at particular points in life e.g. the early years of parenting, and retirement - with men sort of visiting the herd, like elephants - is quite appealing to me. I hope your plan with your friends works out!

@herewegoroundthebastardbush I can relate to a lot of that. I have daughters too and things changed for me when the first was born - in the same way that you describe but also because that is when my Exh started becoming (seriously) abusive. Menopause led to a second and more profound shift - now the veil is completely gone and I will not labour for them anymore. re the communal living, I have already changed my life to live semi communally and am planning on moving to full communal living in about 10 years. Exciting!

Brilliant post, thank you

@rolypolyholymoly @herewegoroundthebastardbush really insightful thank you, and I relate to a lot of what you both say.

It's useful to see if someone has form for being a bully.

@PaulaZackMayo if you see any forms of bullying report it. Otherwise go away and leave me alone.

Interesting to hear about whether society is changing. I think it is; fewer women having relationships and children.

My friends daughter who is 17 said something interesting the other day about boyfriends; she said they were for chavs.

Not sure I liked the expression but she clarified that she and her friends were interested in their schooling and future. And that seems to be a change in attitude.

Nothing to do with a culture of sexual harassment, I suppose?

https://www.itv.com/news/2023-02-22/sexual-harassment-complaints-widespread-in-fire-service-new-data-reveals

OK, you'll find someone else to argue with.

This.

I have had a brush with some Kent female Range Rover drivers, but other than that...I am with you, just look at the way men respond to questions on car forums as opposed to female-only car discussion groups.

The things you have listed must be an attractive woman's problem. By myself no problem but whenever I am out with my very striking friend...I always some really unpleasant attention. Exhausting.

Most if not all charity workers who abuse women and children in developing countries, where they are supposed to help them, are men.

When I attended my last comprehensive first aid course, where most attendants were men, we were also told (by a man) that statistics show that, in an emergency, a woman will go first to the most vulnerable victim, often children. A man will go to the most attractive woman first.

My friends who have done stints in MSF tell me horrendous stories of what some of the men there get do do in their free time... sometimes in their work time. Yes, not all of them. But whenever there's one... it's always a man.

Sorry, but the motivation to join uniformed forces by many men is not ¨helping others¨. It is the "saviour syndrome" and the ability to hold power over others, and then go on and boast about "I'm a paramedic, baby, I save lives" to their prospective sex conquests.

Guess the sex of every single Oxfam worker involved in this recent scandal, one of many: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/15/timeline-oxfam-sexual-exploitation-scandal-in-haiti

I have several times applied to join the volunteer firefighters, when they announced they were "desperate for volunteers". I have a background in health, first aid, and now health crisis and disaster relief. Guess the number of times I was called back. Yes, big fat zero. Often these men-dominated professions and groups prefer to be surrounded by more men.

I strongly recommend anyone who hasn't, read 'the whole woman' by Germaine Greer. Despite being written in 1999, it is frighteningly accurate and covers all aspects of society.

Women throughout history are vilified because of their ability to bear children - the one thing men cannot do. Why the concept of virginity? The sanctity of marriage? Because how else can men ensure their progeny and therefore their claim to land and power. This hatred of women's ability to bear children combined with male physical strength has resulted in the toxic belief system still in place today. The first rule of sexism - women are always at fault, men are never to blame

Also it's pretty disturbing that any expression of rage or hatred (both entirely valid human emotions) by women towards men is considered so taboo. Male rage against women is not only accepted but a cultural trope - Google will be more than sufficient to anyone wishing to identify individual examples of this in art or pop culture. Women expressing any dismay let alone hatred towards men however is a cultural taboo. Despite the fact that female hatred towards men does not affect the lives of any men in the real physical sense, it's still not acceptable. Feminism as a concept is the idea of female liberation - those in power never relinquish power willingly.