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.

@Minglingpringle I agree with your posts. I think when you do know a lot of good men who are kind you find it hard to understand women who have wrote the whole gender off.

The only thing that my Husband has in common with my first boyfriend is that they are men. Their personalities and how they live their lives are on two different ends of the scale.

This is exactly how I feel.
As for the question what posters disagreeing with OP are trying to achieve - this thread is in AIBU, so it’s not unreasonable for people to share different opinions.
It’s a bit odd to see posters call others naive just because they have a different attitude to men based on their own experiences.
I haven’t seen anyone say that male violence against women doesn’t exist.

Also, a lot of stuff has been lumped into this category of why men are worse than women.

I’ve also noticed this. Violent attacks are one thing, cheating another, not sharing all domestic chores exactly 50/50 (or having different priorities) something else entirely.

It’s not a growing trend.

Women (straight, bi one’s) still very much want and need men and majority stilm have children.

I don’t understand where these ’women don’t need men, they are independent and stay single/celibate/childfree’ comes from and why.

Look just this thread.
So many commenters claiming every woman they know have been sexually assaulted. And yet - they have a male partner and multiple ’lovely’ male friends.
If they and every woman they know really had that horrible expiriences with men, you’d think they’d be smart and stay far away from men. Yet, they do the dumbest and most dangerous thing and live with men. And have children, half of those being boys, many of them will become problems in the future.

Nothing will ever stop from future young women from doing the same mistake and cycle continues.

When posters try and put others down by going about their Nigel I just think of Nigel Harmen now and it's not so annoying.

@GoodDayGood Not being goady just interested. Do you think women should stop having relationships with men and having children?

I'm not one of the posters claiming every woman I know have been sexually assaulted.

I'm not naive though and not suggesting it isn't a common thing.

@itsaquarterafterone

If women stopped having children the human race would die out and the planet would be in a better place. The other life forms we "share" this world with would be free from the cruelty, fear, loss of habitat and god knows what else we subject them to. Just a thought.

@itsaquarterafterone
I don’t give a rat’s ass what other women do.
Not my business.
But the ”every woman I know has been hurt by men, multiple times, but I love the dear men in my life - they are good men” is very tiresome.
Considering many of them look down on single/childfree women, while enjoying the acceptable conventional life.
And whining about chores and what-not.
You’d think they’d made other choices, but whatever.
Again, not my business, but it has gotten to the eye-rolling point now.

Luckily I've got none of those traits.

I'm married to a (dare I say it, good) man and a Mum. I'm not looking down my nose at anybody or moaning about chores. Happy with my choices.

I do know this already.

On this thread at least, the women who say that most of their female friends and acquaintances have been abused by men at some point are not the same ones who praise the men in their lives though.
From what I’ve seen they might say their own husband/ partner is reasonable, but that they still distrust other men.

“My goal is to persuade people not to dislike and distrust all men”

You are on a crusade that doesn’t need to be had. It is not about dislike or even distrust.

How are you going to persuade women to feel safe walking home at night?

How are you going to persuade a woman who has been raped or sexually abused t

There have been commentors who did say exactly that, even have ’many lovely male friends’.

what I’ve seen they might say their own husband/ partner is reasonable, but that they still distrust other men.

And they’d be playing straight into the patriarchy’s hand with that.
”Oh, the dangerous men out there. But not my sweet husband and innocent son”.
Even thought statisticly they are the most dangerous things in women’s lives.

I posted before I finished typing!

How are you going to persuade a woman that she can safely report sa or rape and that she will be heard?

Finding men lovely or not is really not what we have been discussing here.

And I think it is for men to answer those questions not women.

How is it playing into the patriarchy's hand with trusting certain men. I love being in a relationship and I'm not attracted to other women. So I chose to marry a man and I've raised one.

So you are basically pissed off with all women that are with a man????

I have a lovely dh and wonderful ds. However, I had to challenge my lovely dh for calling my wonderful ds a "big girl's blouse" recently. And I had a full on discussion with ds recently about him referring to girls (and girls only) as "bossy". This heavily gendered language bias is ingrained in society, and is just one example. I consider the men in my life to be otherwise very enlightened individuals, it's just a bit of a battle re-programming them.

When I read the op, I was desperate to think of situations in which men had been the protagonists, women the villains. Sadly, pickings were very slim and I had to go for yanbu.

Of course not all men are like this. But you are absolutely correct that the vast majority of uncomfortable, cringey, dangerous, or humiliating etc situations in my life have been perpetuated by men. I've met some amazing ones in my career, too. But sadly they're the exception rather than the rule. My sadness about this, is matched only by my sadness that women too often feel they have to out-man men in the workplace in order to get to the senior positions.

My Husband was worried because I said I'd walked to work through part of the countryside on my alone. This is because he cares for me and because he knows (watches the news and is not stupid) that there are some men out there who aren't very nice.

Maybe stop taking everything so personally.
I’m not pissed off, like I said, I don’t care. It’s just tiresome now.

It’s playing into parriarchy’s hand, because that is exactly what it/men/misogynystic wants.
That all the other men are scary (possible) boogeymen, like men like to claim they are ’protectors’ (from what, exactly, since again they are most likely to hurt, abuse, kill women).
It helps keeping women in line and scared, having low standards, have any man just for fake ’safety’.

Again, try not to take it too personally, it’s about the big picture.

And?

Exactly. Boys are not taught to hold their keys in a way that they can be used to stab an attacker if they're walking home alone. Boys are not taught to ensure their drink is with them at all times, or looked after by a trusted friend, in case of spiking. Boys are not told to stick to well lit paths, and avoid walking home alone. They're not blamed for wearing clothes that attract attention. They don't worry that drinking too much might make them more vulnerable or, worse, be used against them as evidence for the defence during a sexual assault case that has gone to court. Young girls are taught from a very young age how to be invisible. If only we put the same effort into teaching boys about boundaries.

I'm honestly not taking it personally I'm just struggling to understand what you are saying.

I think you are saying that women feel like they have to have a man (any man even if they twats) to feel safe. Is this what you are saying?

I'm genuinely interested and I'm not getting upset or frustrated.

The only thing I'm frustrated with is that my user name keeps changing back.

Nice men know that there are bad guys out there.

It's not hard to understand.

Totally agree.

Maybe stop taking everything so personally

You shouldn't really say this to another woman as it's shutting her down and going against what you are saying.

A lot of people on this thread said they disliked and distrusted all men.

That’s why I bothered to reply.