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.

@AdamRyan FFS, I really am not niave.

I'm pretty confident he's not into necrophilia or Bestiality. If he proves me wrong I'll come back and let you all know.

My understanding is that this thread is a discussion about men's behaviour towards women, not specifically male violence.

I think we all need to look at the bigger picture - the wife booking husbands appointments was a very small example of a much wider societal problem.

The problem is that women are still widely percieved as inferior to men, and we need to look at the messages that we are passing down to our children. I do not act as my husbands secretary, and I certainly would not want to pass the message to my daughter that is what would be expected of her if she chooses to marry.

FWIW, I know several families where the woman happily stays at home or works (very) reduced hours and lets her husband be the breadwinner.

It is often not the woman who is the main breadwinner, in part because of the husband having far more earning potential due to the pay gap which still exists between men and women in professional careers.

These are huge societal issues - violence and abuse against women, gender inequality, boys and men's attitudes towards women - but they all boil down to one thing. That women are perceived by society as inferior to men, and are treated as such.

Do you think Corrigan was "into necrophilia"? What are the odds that someone with that rare and specific perversion would stumble across the naked corpse of a girl in the park?

That's not what this was. Not an utterly bizarre freak of a man who set out with a nefarious plan to get access to dead bodies for sexual gratification.

He was a man out walking who stumbled across a naked girl (who happened to be dead). If she'd been dead drunk or otherwise incapacitated he'd have done the same thing. He saw an opportunity and judged that he wouldn't be caught and he took it. Before he found her, he was just going about his normal business. Afterwards, he carried on. Pre DNA testing, he wouldn't have been caught, he'd have just carried on with his otherwise unremarkable life. An apparently "normal man".

Doesn't that scare the life out of you? Make you question your certainty that this is just an insignificant minority?

And for the record I'm not talking about your damn husband or your specific son.

@herewegoroundthebastardbush it's not going to on my list of day to day things I worry about.

No shit.

I don't mean male violence, I mean worrying about how many men would get turned on by a dead body. I have just so many more things to get stressed about.

If you're a woman, one of the most helpful things you could do is accept that your personal experience, which has obviously led you to believe men are not a problem, isn't that of all women; and to respect the right of women who have suffered through male behaviour to speak about their experiences, without feeling the need to dilute them with your positive counter points.
Because every time you pop up in a conversation where women are talking about their experiences of harassment, assault, rape, or just everyday insidious sexism, to say you're a woman and that's not happened to you, you are perpetuating the idea that it's not a problem really.
Not for most women. Just for a few women who aren't sensible about where they go, who they mix with, who they marry. So those women end up the victims of a tiny minority of bad men that the sensible women manage to avoid.
It would also be helpful if women who feel the need to invest their energies into defending men took time to reflect on why they feel that compulsion. To remember that men have a firm grasp on the reins of power of every important institution throughout the world, and in light of that, what harm do you think comes to them if women want to discuss problems created by them and on occasion generalise about that? No harm will come to men if women like you stop rushing to their defence, and instead allow other women space to speak. Nor will your defence of men afford you any special dispensation from misogyny or protection from the bad men.

@5128gap you obviously missed my posts about my first boyfriend.

I did yes. And if they were about you also being a victim of male abusive behaviour, I'm sorry you experienced that.
But you asked how as a woman you could help, and my answer is that a good place to start is by not defending men. They really don't need you to. The good ones know this and wouldn't expect it, the others don't deserve it, and it does serve to divert attention away from the problem in hand.

Definitely not the mother of daughters. I worry all the time - not about "how many men get turned on by a dead body" (the fact you can be so flip about this disgusting case really, really concerns me also - but about the number of men who think of women's bodies and lives as lesser and disposable, and the overwhelming LIKELIHOOD (not chance but likelihood) my two daughters will fall prey to them in one way or another, in ways I can't protect them from. The fact that for them, assuming they grow up straight, finding, choosing and living with a partner will be the riskiest thing they ever do, and I will be worried for them every relationship they enter because I cannot know, just as they cannot know, if this man will cherish them and hold them up as I spend my life trying to do, or is one of the ones who would, if sufficiently "provoked" by circumstances and opportunity, control, abuse or kill them. The fact that they will, I hope, travel the world, but might just get randomly pushed into a ravine by a fellow traveller who wants to sexually assault them.the fact they are brilliant and will hopefully go to university, but might get their drinks spiked and get raped while on a night out. That they may be stalked and assaulted and killed by a man who doesn't like it when they say no. The fact that it is not all men, but it is almost always men, the victims are almost always women, that it is TOO MANY MEN who think it is their right and need to rape and kill women and if I want them to live a full life, not circumscribe their every action out of fear, there is NO WAY I can protect them from any of that.

You and your flaming attitude are finally getting under my skin (congratulations, it's taken you a while but you managed it in the end). The fact your basic response to the Amber Gibson story is "yeah well whatever, I won't lose any sleep over it" is just... callous to the point I can't understand you, can't understand what your point or intention is on this thread other than to shut women up. That child was abused every which way her entire life, by men - different men, men with nothing to do with each other mostly except a desire to abuse and defile that little girl. Now are you saying she was just really, really unlucky? Or that she somehow brought it on herself, even in death? Or can we agree that's a LOT of fucked up men for one girl to have met in only 16 years of life, and that is concerning?

I do understand probably more than I did before this thread.

I suppose a lot of my life experience makes me defensive of some men/boys because I've lost a couple of close relatives in awful cicumstances which I won't go into again.

My first boyfriend was violent & jealous.

I suppose because I went through all of these things I was happy to meet my DH who has done nothing but treat me well.

To be lashed out and called niave & stupid on here isn't very nice but I can see it is because some women have been badly treated all of their lives.

@herewegoroundthebastardbush perhaps be more like @5128gap And not a massive angry nob.

I never said I don't care about that case.

You basically did say you aren't losing sleep over it because you are confident that none of the men you know behave like that. Which is rather minimising the point.

And here makes a good point. We've heard a lot of "I hope you aren't the mother of sons" but not very much about what it's like to be the mother of daughters (I have both).

The lack of empathy for women is breathtaking

I have too much else to worry about. It doesn't mean I didn't cry for her when I read about it. It made me feel ill.

& upset.

& disgusted

Men definitely need to own this shit. The whole of society needs to work together. But “inciting hatred of men” won’t achieve that.

Personally, I feel compelled to defend men because I think blanket hatred of men works AGAINST the aims you are trying to achieve.

I don’t want to stop women talking about their bad experiences or tell them they’re not real. I want to hear about them and then try to understand why they’re happening and find solutions.

There are men out there doing nasty things and there are systemic problems preventing change and it will take the whole of society to be on board to try and change that. Saying “all men are bad” is just so one-dimensional. It denies the existence of any grey areas and makes it impossible to understand what’s really going on. It also creates an “us” and “them” mentality which encourages more hatred on both sides.

To see clearly we need to see everything. And having a cartoon view of all men as baddies prevents that.

If a woman’s own experiences make her anxious and fearful around all men, because she can’t tell from the surface which one’s going to be a sicko, that’s one thing. But it doesn’t make it true that all men are sickos.

But who has said all men are bad?

People like you and @PaulaZackMayo are arguing against an argument that isn't being made. It isn't that all men are 'bad' (whatever that means). It means ENOUGH men are dangerous enough that men as a group pose the single biggest threat to the life and safety of women as a group. And the ones who are dangerous do not advertise the fact. So it is entirely appropriate, given the level of risk involved, for women as a group to be wary of men, as a group.

A lot of people on here.

Quotes? and 'a lot' needs to be more than one person please. All I see (especially from the people who have engaged with the post substantially) is people saying what I've said: it's a lot of men, the risks are grave, and caution is sensible and acceptable. There are also women saying they have made a point of reducing contact with men in their personal lives and homes as far as they are able, for reasons of safety and for preference. This is also a completely acceptable thing to do, unless you're going to call all nuns and monks (for example) 'sexist'.

OP I do see your point, and I'm sorry those incidents happened to you.
I've had my fair share of awful experiences with unpleasant men but I'm pleased to say that in my personal experience they are the minority.
I know some amazing men and I'm lucky to have them in my life.
I do have to admit that I am wary about men who I don't know, especially when out and about.
It's really sad that a lot of women feel this way around men.

Be as wary as you like. I don’t feel the need, but that’s because of my experiences.

But when you read this long thread of people saying they dislike and distrust all men, it certainly SOUNDS like they think all men are bad. And it sounds like they are encouraging other people to think the same.

And if you think a misunderstanding has arisen, consider giving the same benefit of the doubt to misogynists. Could it be that people are hating on each other and experiencing hatred, yet somewhere in there there are misunderstandings to be untangled?