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.

If it makes you feel better, my father is AMAZING and my brother is pretty cool too. I had nothing but good heterosexual relationships to model my relationships on ....

And it's a trashfire.

Maybe I had too high expectations and got dragged down into the gutter? It was shocking to me in my early teens when I saw how badly many men and boys behave ...

Just wanted to be the voice to dissent, tbh. I know so many women who had awful male role/ relationship models growing up who have the most amazing family lives.

And I'm a warning - just because you have a shining paternal/ mum + dad relationship example doesn't mean that replicates in your adult life ...

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).

I see this really clearly now. So many man are utterly reliant on their emotional support humans. They are scarcely able to function and without going from their mother to a willing wife, they would be lost.

Women are so much more able to cope in life than men, and now even in the workplace they haven't got the range of soft skills necessary for them to function optimally.

Which men would this be then ? 😂

Interestingly, I have known 2 men who truly take on the share of “wifework”. In fact one of their wives, when pregnant and discussing cleaners etc, actually said she didn’t need one as her house stayed relatively clean and tidy, only needing minimal input.

guess what? It was her dh in the background putting on the laundry while cooking dinner, taking something upstairs while going to the loo, grabbing the hoover while sorting the washing…

both these men lost their mums at an early age.

My DH does more 'wife work' than me. He works full time. He's better at it, I'm pretty useless. I'd fall into the typical man stereotype. I am disorganised and messy and incompetent.
I do have some qualities, I hope, but if I was a man I'd hear 'typical man' a lot.

That last sentence is exactly what you are doing!

as already pointed out, this thread is not just about you. Your experience is not definitive.

Do you abuse and kill women? Do you abuse children? Do you commit more knife crime? Do you intimidate, harrass and stalk women?

If the answer is "no", then your conforming to "male stereotype" seems quite benign and harmless to me.

And by identifying yourself as "incompetent" you are also not conforming to male stereotype. It's women who deprecate themselves and call themselves denigrating names. A man who does what you describe would see themselves as "hard working and a family man", not incompetent.

No, but I don't know any men that do those things and when someone says 'typical man' they're not usually referring to child abuse and murder.

You don't know a single man who intimidates women? Really?

No I don't, not personally.

This is actually true but what people NEVER mention is that the students were given course credits for taking part so it was suspected that a lot of the young men just did the survey for the credits and gave silly answers for shits and giggles.

But going back to the main topic, I'm uncomfortable with disliking any demographic simply because they possess certain attributes outside of their control (e.g. their sex). It's literally the definition of bigotry. Literally.

People always point to the '98% of sex crimes' statistic as justification but the fact is that it's still a tiny minority of men that commit heinous crimes. Granted, it's a much higher number than women but it's not even 'a fair number of men' that do these things. It's a small number.

I mean, if two men a year beat their wives to death with a coconut you could say '100% of coconut murders are perpetrated by men' but it's still just two blokes. Obv an extreme example but that's pretty much the dynamic.

I maybe have an unusual take on it but I believe it reflects reality when I say that a small % of men commit the very worst crimes but a much larger % of women are just toxic, passive aggressive, and manipulative.

So the unspeakable crimes are obv much worse but what people actually regularly encounter in real life is women being bitchy and backstabbing each other, not people they know regularly being murdered. If this isn't true then why do women hate working for other women so much? Even more than men do.

Why do women collaborate better with men than their own sex? Why are they less likely to help another member of their own sex? Why do they dislike working with women senior to them when men don't have this issue?

I don't think all this can be blamed on the boogeyman patriarchy. Men provably work better together so it's more likely this is a big factor in the patriarchy. I feel like it could even have it's roots in biology with women competing with each other for mates like men do, but doing it in a passive aggressive way. Certainly, many women seemed to find other women at work bitchy and unsupportive in the thread I linked above with all the studies.

I love women. working with them, hanging out with them - never experience bitchiness at work or in my social life and I find women work collaboratively far far better than men. I also have lots of female friends and every single one of us without exception has been seriously sexually assaulted or raped. its not a small minority of men.

'Online dating circles'? 😂

I'd be a bit hesitant to listen to serial daters. They're often bonkers people that can't keep a relationship and are bitter about it. Probs a fair few posting here!

The data does not agree with you.

Arguably having a positive relationship with 'good' men is what reinforces the belief that women and men are equal (intellectually anyway). I've always been very close with my dad and from a very young age he treated me as his equal - consequently I grew up into a very confident and successful woman (impervious to the constant slurs of bitch and ice queen!). It took me a long time to understand how lucky I was to have this upbringing, and I used to dismiss other women as 'weak' - because I lacked the understanding of how they had been indoctrinated practically from birth. Of course good men exist - if we as women want to be able to believe in the possibility of a world where all humans are liberated and equal, we must see men as our equals, the other half of humanity. However, this does not negate the violent, past and continued subjugation of women by men. The existence of a few good men does not change this reality

what data? im not sure there is data saying women are bitchy and back stabby and passive aggressive is there? that they collaborate better with men? ive never heard that or seen any studies that show that.

👏 totally agree with everything you said here.

Surely Mumsnet threads alone are enough to give a good representing of what happens in mostly female environments. AIBU is toxic, it's impossible to say anything that's remotely against the party line without vicious put downs, belittling, aggressive posts.

@Natalya123

Online dating is an exceptionally difficult world for women to navigate these days, with the number of unhinged men out there. With respect, you sound like you haven't got a clue. If you're in a successful relationship or happily single, good for you. But don't slag off those of us who are trying to make it work.

Tell me you've not read the thread without telling me you've not read the thread....

@Natalya123 lots and lots of evidence (including from the fire service itself) that it has a culture of misogyny. not a huge leap to imagine this spills into interpersonal relationships.

sorry i dont understand, ive read the whole thread.

Sorry, I may have been the bitchy one there. 😂 I do find OLD forums a bit desperate/cringy though. Nothing wrong with actual OLD tho. I've used it to good success.

And yes it does attract weirdos tbf. Confident men generally chat women up in real life.

I posted this earlier in thread. There are many more studies with similar results.

@Natalya123 thats interesting, i cant relate to that at all - ive very surprised. its not saying that women are bitchy or back stabbing or passive aggressive tho is it?