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.

@Natalya123

I am concerned with and deplore all violence but this thread is specifically about violence against women, which seems a wholly acceptable subject on a site called Mumsnet. As for men resolving it, they could certainly make a start by not perpetuating the attitudes of people like Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross to name but a few. A while back I was watching a panel show (I think it was QI). One of the guests was John Bishop the comedian. Now, up to this point I had quite liked him although admittedly I hadn't really seen that much of him. One of the questions on the show involved the word decolletage. John Bishop said he had never heard the expression before but he then said "from now on when I'm out with my sons we'll be able to shout look at the decolletage on that instead of look at the tits on that." So this seemingly nice bloke is very happy to encourage his sons to view women as nothing more than objects and also to shout at them in the street. For women this is a daily barrage, on television, in the press and in real life. That's not what I would call a civilised society.

Men killing themselves is very different to being murdered.
There is some research to suggest male suicides are higher because males choose more violent means so are more likely to succeed. So again, male tendency to violence is likely to be a factor.

The way to prevent male suicides is to focus on male behaviour. And the way to reduce murder of women is to .... focus on male behaviour....

@ginasevern men can't win with you. I said my Husband called the men out for fighting and you said he was lying.

This just sounds like a slightly crude joke though. It's like the thread in AIBU titled 'I want his job and his balls'. Nobody suggested it was literal. It's bad taste no doubt but a lot of comedy is about exaggeration/joking over things you wouldn't actually do. The press would be all over him if he actually did this in the street. He'd be cancelled immediately.

@PaulaZackMayo

I didn't specifically say your husband was lying but from my experience men can and do feed into a certain rhetoric. I've heard men speaking on the phone to their wives at work about babies and all things domestic and lovely and then immediately join in with unpleasant (or worse) jokes with their male colleagues. Do their wives know? I doubt it. Some of it is peer pressure I suppose but it's time this cycle was broken.

@Natalya123

Who knows whether he'd do it in the street? Plenty of men do. This was a while back so he might think twice now but only through fear of, as you say, being cancelled. I don't think jokes objectifying women, about rape (male or female), disabled people, animal abuse or the vulnerable serve society well and to be honest if that is the definition of freedom of speech then I don't want it.

Yep men are the scourge of the earth tbf. Imagine no male egos ever! No wars for a start..

Women can be just as bad driving though, it's always women I notice who don't stop at zebra crossings in my area anyway.

We wouldn't need armed forces if it weren't for men starting wars.

Genuinely can’t imagine a female Putin.

Neither can I.

Most men think Putins a massive nob.

So, the point you are making is that many women and men are the victims of a certain toxic masculinity? So, we’re all on the same page.

He needs to find better jokes. Why should women I his audience be subjected to that?

I'm not sure we can say this. Plenty of women do unspeakable things when in power.

Irma Grese was one of the most sexually sadistic nazis. Elizabeth Bathory was even worse. Wu Zetian strangled her own daughter and poisoned her niece amongst many other killings. Bloody Mary burned hundreds of people at the stake. Isabella of Castille founded the Spanish Inquisition.

That's before we even get to the Rose West, Myra Hindley, Lucy Letsby types.

Tbf I agree but when you start limiting free speech it's a slippery slope. I find people like Jimmy Carr etc pretty grim.

Hmm. It’s not comparable though is it? . The figures for women doing this stuff are so small they are basically exceptions that prove the rule. Men’s violence is a daily hum drum occurrence. Depressing. I wish it wasn’t so either but not facing it doesn’t help.

@Natalya123

I'm off to google and research all this stuff I know nothing about!

The first 5 that is.

I actually don't think that joke is that bad. He's taking the piss because 'look at the tits on that' is such a stereotypical laddish thing to say and sounds ridiculous with decolletage. He's just joking that he says that with his sons.
I think sometimes it's important to realise when to be offended and when to lighten up. Female comedy has surged in popularity, which is fantastic, and it is often very crude and takes the piss out of men, it works both ways.

I would really hate to live in a society with limits on comedy and free speech.
There's a line most comedians won't cross now, which is good as it used to sometimes go too far (Frankie Boyle for example) and I detest jokes that are too personal (the Rebecca Adlington one springs to mind) but comedy has to push boundaries and have a shock factor, and it appeals to all different people, not everyone is going to like all comedy.

Yes if we actually sat down and discussed it, we would probably find we don't really disagree!
(Except maybe about comedy) 😂

Agree with this. It was actually Frankie. Boyle I was thinking of, not Johnny Carr btw.

I don't know your history with men. You don't need to tell me at all. There are many woman who have amazing relationships with men at work and in their personal life.

These women are not stupid enough to think there aren't bad ones and support their loved ones if anything bad happens.

A lot of us aren't going to erase all mem from our lives. Some men give lots of positive contributions to our lives.

Most men I talk to know some men can be awful. So they live their lives being good people.

My Son's Girlfriend's Mum has actually said you've got a good one there.

Also agree that finger pointing doesn't help and collaboration is the key. With a few exceptions, most violent men are a product of their environment. I think they deal with it differently to us due to testosterone and to some degree socialisation.

Plenty of studies show that testosterone has a huge influence on behaviour. Plenty of others show that it doesn't cause violence on it's own and state that plenty of men with high levels aren't violent. However, alcohol alone doesn't cause violence either, yet we know it can be a huge factor.

Interestingly, CEOs consistently have higher levels of testosterone than normal men. I speculate that the issue is how that dominant nature is manifested. Some men conquer with violence, others with power/money, but either way having a lot of testosterone makes you want to be dominant. This seems fairly obvious in evolutionary terms and male animals are nearly always more violent.

Look how neutering calms down male animals and conversely how they become more unstable as levels rise (e.g. male elephants during 'musth' when their testosterone levels rise by 4x).

In fact, I was wrong. Bull elephants see a rise of between 60-140x times in terms of testosterone (just googled it). Apparently, the most placid elephant can become truly vicious.

They've been documented attacking female elephants and chasing other animals like giraffes during this phase.

Talking about comedians. We went to see Micky Flanagan and he was talking about Naked Attraction. These women are not being dragged off the streets to be in it.

There's not much attractive about it from what I've seen!