Are the majority of men assholes?

[chocolatesaltyballs22]

Firstly I'm not a man hater - I've been married twice and am still married. But increasingly I'm starting to think that the vast majority of men are arseholes or display some kind of arsehole behaviour. Example this morning, but there are lots more.

Swimming at the gym, all lanes empty except the one I'm swimming in. Bloke gets into my lane and does splashy front crawl, almost whacking me in the face with his big meaty arm every time he passes me. So I move lanes, because obvs he's more important than me and should have his favourite lane to himself. 🙄

After my swim I go for a quick jacuzzi - this is a 10 person jacuzzi with three men already in there taking up every available space with their arms stretched across the back of the jacuzzi as far as possible. So I approach thinking one of them will make space for me. Erm no - I have to force myself in and get dirty looks for daring to go into their 'man space.'

Contrast this with the very polite behaviour of MOST of the women who use my gym.

I'm happy to say my DH is in the small minority of men who aren't aresholes (although he's by no means perfect - who is?) But if anything happens to him I will happily remain single and sexless for the rest of my days rather than try to find another decent man. (Also worth saying my first husband was a narcissist and I wouldn't piss on him if he were on fire!)

I wondered the same. I swim regularly, and it is always, always other women who swim in the wrong lanes. Especially frustrating when other lanes are empty. Not sure, however, if they don't realise, or just don't care.

And don't get me started on the women who are in the wrong lane and stop for a chat at the end 🤣

Men as individuals are often lovely but men as a cohort are awful.

Not sure the majority are, OP though they might be, because even "nice" men know that they are superior and entitled. A lot don't make it obvious, but its there in them somewhere. It comes out at moments of stress, or in situations like Gyms where they flex their male muscles, as it were, feeling entitled to dominate and take up space. The previous poster who pointed out that "chivalrous" men are often misogynistically patronising was spot-on.

Ahem, we're just bobbing on here to ask for a bit of peace and love, please.

We've had to delete some posts breaking our Talk Guidelines - please do take a read of them and bear them in mind when posting. Thanks.

Yes.

Nice to see how low women’s safety ranks with you

Yes it ranks much, much lower than my feelings over my ds, dh, dd, db, etc. sorry for you that you've had bad experiences, but to want men exterminated as a whole proves my experience of women being worse.

My DD - now late 20s said the other week that she has never gone a single week at the gym without having a man either gawping at her, winking and nodding and trying to engage in conversation, or trying to tell her what to do/how to do it etc...

It got so bad and so exasperating, that she just stopped going. She and her DH are moving into a much bigger house soon (5 bed with tons of room/ outbuildings/3 acres of land,) and she and her DH are going to build their own mini gym.

She also had an incident in the swimming pool in our local town when she was 17. She went for a half hour swim, and this middle aged man kept staring at her, CONTINUALLY staring. After 15 minutes or so he swam over to her and said 'fancy swimming with me?' She said 'NO I don't.' and swam off. The man called out 'SLAG!' She ended up leaving the pool - VERY upset and angry! - and complaining at reception. The response from the man on reception...? 'Oh that's just Alan, he's a bit funny. Ignore him. You need to grow a thicker skin!'

I can't even put into words how absolutely fucking livid I was. I wrote a letter to the council, as it was one of their pools, and told them what 'Peter' the man on reception has said, and got a polite and apologetic letter back, saying they will deal with this matter and will take it very seriously.

Got a voucher for 10 free swim sessions for DD. She didn't want to go again. I went with her though which encouraged her to go a few more times. Never saw Peter on reception again. And the 4 or 5 times I went with DD, 'Alan' was not there either! How fucking DARE they dismiss my daughter's worries and fears and complaint, and say she needs to grow a thicker skin!

Sadly this is just the tip of the iceberg. Women being constantly harassed by men when they are trying to do sports/have a swim/go for a walk or bike ride etc... And lots of these men are married too IME! Their poor wives.

Men get away with manspreading because we live in a patriarchy.

Do what you can to fight the patriarchy or it will just continue and get worse.

It is almost always men that ignorantly invade women’s space (like the swimming space) or take up what more space than necessary (spreading their arms out in the jacuzzi).

Another example is spreading their legs while sitting on public transport as if their massive bollocks require them to take space from the people sat next to them.

On hot summers days I would love to spread my chubby thighs and let some air in. But I don’t. Because I’m not an ignorant selfish pig.

@Aptique Yeah. One extreme post probably by a troll proves that there is no such thing as male entitlement.

😘

If men want to run the countries and start wars, surely that is on them? We can vote for peace keepers but if no one offers peace due to lack of representation what can we do? Men will always be the biggest casualties of war, which is sad but they can't exactly blame women for it.

Not necessarily in public spaces, but from dating experiences yes. Undermining comments if you seem secure, neglecting to respond, not bothering to plan thoughtful dates, preferring to talk about themselves rather than ask questions, keen to do degrading sex acts, lacking in commitment and loyalty, most of all - not pulling their weight domestically.

Meanwhile most women I know plan sweet things, know their boyfriends inside out, make sure their homes are nice, make a huge effort with their family.

Social conditioning which we as women have the power to change for the future through our parenting of sons.

No.

Where I live there is a huge demesne. There is one part that is cordoned off as a dog off lead area. It is heavily signposted that dogs are off lead. Every single day there are joggers in high vis, running in this field.

Now any dog owner knows that there are certain dogs who love nothing more than to chase something bright and shiny that is travelling faster than their human and every single day there is some dick swinging self entitled man jogger causing havoc in the dog off lead area. We explain that they have acres of land in this demesne where they can jog to their hearts content with no dogs off lead and the same response is shouted at us time and time again "I'm entitled to jog where I want."

The dog off lead area is right at the back of the demesne, the furthest from the carpark and the muckiest by a country mile but yet these men, and it's always men come into this area. I would swear they're just itching for a fight and to pick on women, yet funnily enough when our 6ft 4in male dog walking companion is with us, the joggers never say a word.

I was walking the dog on a public footpath and some arsehole entitled male shouted, very loudly at me from behind, to 'beep beep'.

It gave me a fright and I instinctively moved on to the wet, muddy grass, to see this lycra clad twat, jogging along!

I thought you cheeky bastard. I hope you break your ankle.

Would he have shouted for a 6ft 4 male to 'beep beep'. I highly doubt it.

This was 2 nights ago and still pisses me off when I think about it.

I agree with you OP, most blokes are arseholes*

*Apart from my husband, brother and nephews 😜

@FMSucks @SweetFemaleAttitude you're opening a whole other can of worms with your dog talk, you'll get the dog haters on next! (But I agree with you both - twats!!)

Yes yes re the dog ones though. I notice that the cyclists who insist on riding at speed, silently, past me and my dog are always men. Women cyclists usually make some effort to get my attention and/or slow down (many men do too, but the ones who don't do it, are 95% of the time, men). And absolutely, one wonders if they'd be as rude when my DH Is walking the dog? I just came back from a walk in the woods, very much a family walking area, and the paths are quite curved so you can't see very far behind or ahead of you. Some man came racing up behind me. I heard him in time to quickly check dog wasn't going to get over excited, but he gave me this death glare on his way past.

The longer I am on this planet, the more arseholes I have met. And yes, the huge majority of them are men.

In fact its fair to say that out of all the men I have ever known most have been arseholey to some degree. Possibly 'entitled' is a better way of putting it, which just makes them come across as arsehole like.

Even the men I thought were really great blokes, most have done something very arsehole like down the line that has really opened my eyes to the fact that, yes, most are. Its pretty depressing to be honest.

But I also honestly believe they genuinely do not for a second think they are in any way shape or form ever an arsehole. Or that their friends are arseholes. I think because they are blind to it all and just, well, entitled throughout most of their lives.

I was blind to it for a long time. Until I started noticing. And now its just everywhere.

@Bookworm20 I don't think they see it either. I do wonder how many brothers, husbands and fathers actually talk to the women in their family about cheating, for example, if they have done it. I doubt everyone knows their siblings real relationship history and how they treat people behind closed doors.

YES to this! The rudest most arrogant oiks who cycle on the roads are MALE CYCLISTS! Never have I experienced a rude and arrogant female cyclist. I am sure they exist before some smartarse come along and says 'have you MET all the female cyclists in the world @SweetBirdsong 🙄 But I HAVE NOT MET ONE. Women on bicycles are polite and courteous IME!

Agreed and I am only 35 and not taking any shit lol. Can't you tell.

God knows what I'll be like when I'm menopausal lol. Probably beating them out of the Jacuzzi with a stick most likely 😂

LOL you cannot generalize milllions of people like this. Everyone is different and people change over time.

In last years novel 'The Men' it explores the 'what if' scenario if all men suddenly disappeared from the world. Initially there is a vast reduction in sexual violence and assault but it also looks at the collapse of industries and utilities chiefly run by men, power outages and lack of policing etc. It is the less immediately obvious fallout that dominates themes as the power vacuum that men have left behind is replaced by.....women.....who prove to be just as amoral, capacious, power hungry and corrupt as the men before them. Obviously it is novel but it certainly did not entertain the idea that it was all peace and harmony with just thr sisters in charge.