To think men just hate women?

[Justsomethoughts]

The more I think about it, the more I conclude that men must despise us. I think the news today about Wayne Couzens has got me pondering… My thoughts as follows:

Ive read so many threads on here about how little men contribute to household work.
Women are expected to do 99% of housework and childcare whilst sucking it up and looking pretty. This percentage doesn’t seem to change much if they also work. God forbid women complain (I refuse to use the word nag, a word only used by men when talking about women!) as they asked for a family and should be grateful they have a husband and children.

We should look visually appealing/maintain our appearance for as long as possible but not too much - that would be ‘asking for it’. If we don’t we will probably be replaced by a younger/more attractive model.

We can’t walk alone at night as we are at risk of harm (by men).

A very large proportion of female homicides are committed by males living with the victim

The list goes on and on. I know these aren’t brand new facts and obviously ‘not all men’ before people come for me but my god it’s so depressing when you think about it.

Yep someone I know said the same 🤦‍♀️

I think a lot do, yes.

but why??

As most perpetrators of violence/murder are male (irrespective of the sex of the victim), I wonder why we don’t talk more about imposing a curfew on men.

It’s all back-to-front, shutting out the non-violent sex from going about their business…

I think you are right to an extent. I think a lot of men like us just fine, as long as we know "our place"
When we're out of that accepted placement, well we deserve all that's coming to us in their eyes.
Very few men have a differing view.

Sad to say even my husband has started to show complete lack of empathy for me as a person.
He speaks about my labours as though they were a day out for him, purely mechanical way of looking at things.
And he has become quite comfortable with the idea that I do everything for the children, which is fine, but I had the youngest 11 days ago, have been on my own since day 2, and I'm lucky that I get 2-3 hours of sleep a night.
Dinner is expected on tye table when he arrives home, and I am to get everything else sorted as he naps on the sofa after finishing his food.
What's worse than being treated like I'm a household appliance is that he now acts like if help is needed, well teenage DD can do it, can't she.

Excuse me? How on earth would you know how much I do? Yes I am a man.

Take no notice.
You're a man, that's a big enough stick to beat you with, regardless of what you think, say or do.

You do realise that boys don't spend 100% of their time under the sole influence of their mothers? That from the age of around 5, most of their waking hours are spent away from her in wider society where they are influenced by what they see around them? That after a certain age the influence of peer groups and media is often far more powerful than anything their mother says to the contrary? Mothers can only do so much. Fathers should do a lot more. Wider society needs to change its messaging. Blaming mothers is the low hanging fruit. Its a societal endeavour and society is led by men. So round and round we go...

No.

It's not remotely like that.

It's a man going onto a space that is primarily used by women for women and then getting upset that he's not been made to feel very welcome.

Oh, I'm sorry. Was the title not clear enough for him to indicate what the contents of the thread will be?

My DH certainly doesn't do 50%, he is currently skiing with clients so I'm always surprised by all these willing 50 % er men but im sure they exist!

This. PP criticised posters for making generalisations, but come on! Pornography depicting degradation, violence, humiliation and torture of women is mainstream and is mainstream around the world.

We are not generalising about men. But men, as a population, are wanking to our abuse and no-one is making them do that. They are choosing it.

And young women are now reporting unwanted experiences of sexual strangulation, slapping, spitting and hair pulling. This is not a few men, this is widespread. And men are choosing it.

That really does say something about how they view us.

I think it’s great that there are some thoughtful men on this thread. It’s all about communication and learning, isn’t it.

Personally, I have to curb my prickly-witch response that all men are dreadful, as that’s patently not true… Oh, that was hard to type! 😂

I don't think men in general hate women - some men definitely do, but on the whole I don't think there's any emotion as strong as hate involved.

Some others have said similar, but I think this is what's going on with men:
Being a man (or more accurately, being masculine) is a very very rigid thing, you are part of a very closed and limited world, where you can only wear certain colours, have your hair a certain way and like certain things. The main focus of being masculine is gaining status - competition, getting ahead, being top of the heap. There is very little room for manoeuvre - conform or you're out. This makes men (all men) very self centred - they are not taught (as women are) to take others into consideration, to take care of those around them, they're taught to prioritise themselves, focus on things that get them an advantage, make sure they're always staying one step ahead.

In traditional patriarchy (which, remember, was around for thousands of years) men were providers and protectors (and many men still see themselves as such, without noticing the irony that they won't provide a cooked meal or a clean toilet, just things that give them status and recognition) and they only ever had to compete with other men. So they went out into the harsh, competitive world of men every day where no one cared about their comfort or what they felt as they battled for status. Their reward for battling was that they would get a woman. She would never compete with him, she was a source of softness and support and kindness and nurturing. He would provide for her, she would give him pillowy rest. That made being a man bearable.

Suddenly women couldn't be hobbled via their uteruses any more. Women changed and became competitors, people with expectations and demands - Disaster! The world of men didn't change - it's still competitive, harsh, uncaring (with some small improvements) - but now men no longer have their reward.

Men now suddenly have to change and do things that were once considered entirely beneath them, like changing nappies and laundry. Some men adapted but loads didn't so they go to the shit male world of work and have a shit time, then go home and have a shit time. They can't cope and they feel resentful because they didn't get the rewards and status they were promised. That comes out like hatred but I think it's more confusion, stress and resentment.

One of the things that informed by thinking was the fact that my DH genuinely didn't know how to clean a bathroom. I was genuinely flabbergasted at the time - it seemed utterly bonkers that a grown adult didn't know how to clean a bathroom - but when I dug in it turned out that

1. his mother always cleaned the bathroom when he was growing up so he had no experience and considered it women's work (and therefore it was repulsive to him)
2. As it was women's work he believed it would be easy, something he as a superior man could do no problem. When he realised it was hard, and required thought and effort and planning, something in him snapped a bit - how could he be finding lowly women's work so difficult? It took him quite some time accept that lowly women's work is actually work and that it's not easy and that his views on it were misogynistic. Very complicated, especially given how simple the task is really.

To be clear I have no sympathy whatsoever for them - women have always had a much shitter time. I would also say I consider men to be inferior to women- they seem limited, unable to adapt and weak in terms of resilience and learning. But they are physically stronger so they dominate and make everyone suffer.

Men need to get their act together in a serious way.

No more than women hate men.

@sprigatito · Yesterday 22:22

The older I get, the more I resent the impact men as a class have on women as a class. The appalling, epidemic level violence is the tip of an enormous iceberg made of contempt, hatred and selfish entitlement.

And at the thin end of the wedge are the "nice" men who feel good about themselves for treating the women in their lives like human beings, while their only contribution to the horrors their sex perpetrates on women is yipping "namalt!" whenever we try to talk about it.

@AllProperTeaIsTheft · Yesterday 22:24

Some men hate women. I think lots more have a veneer of treating women as nearly equals, to the point that they probably even convince themselves they believe it, but deep down they feel that women are there for their pleasure and convenience, and that that is actually how the world is supposed to be. And then there are some actual genuine good guys.

@IncompleteSenten · Yesterday 22:24

Pretty much, yeah.

Mostly not active rage filled hatred but there's widespread low level contempt and very much a feeling a woman's role is at least in part as domestic appliance.

Coupled with typical male entitlement in the form of the belief their wants and needs should be prioritised and reactions ranging from bewilderment to rage if that is not the case, and yeah, it's something that feels very much like hate.

Haven't read everyone's posts yet, but these 3 speak volumes for me. The NotMyNigels do my head in tbh, because their 'my Nigel is a good man who does 50% of everything' and 'my dad treated women like GOLD' type posts on here are always implying that the women saying most men are shits are basically lying...

Even my own fairly decent DH is quite lazy, and does expect the domestic work and home admin to be done by me, but he will do stuff if I ask, and doesn't complain. I shouldn't have to ASK though! Some years ago when the kids were little, he did NOTHING in the house, and NOTHING to help me with them. He worked 40-42 hours a week in a paid job, and I worked 18, and he saw this as a green flag to offload everything onto me. He is 'better' now, but yep, still a bit lazy. Only works 28 hours a week now too. (I do 21!)

He does come out with the NAMALT shite sometimes too, and I just shut down the conversation because it boils my blood.

Oh and @Justsomethoughts I agree that deep down, the majority of men hate women, and the ones that don't hate them, don't respect them very much - and do NOT think of them as equals.

As has been said, they regard them as being domestic servants, and absolutely not as good as them. They want them to do all the grunt work, domestic chores, childcare, home admin, and shopping, and cooking etc. Because it's 'wimmins work.'

Yet, these same men are more than happy to make women pay half for everything BECAUSE EQUALITY...! 🙄

!

This has very little impact on the world, if true.

These women must have terrible families, or have given birth to horrible sons.

⭐@BallaiLuimni ⭐
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

It goes both ways i think some men dont like women some women dont like men.
Cant like everyone.
But on MN it seems all women dont like men.

Men see the female half of the human race as creatures created to service them, and as their subordinates, their property, their prey and their punchbags.

What's the working definition of 'hate' being used here that precludes it from being used to describe what you're saying here.

I agree with this. Any man with an ounce of sensitivity and emotional intelligence knows that when it comes to the treatment of women by men (as a class) feelings run high, and rightly so. The thread title made it quite obvious that this was going to be a place for the discussion of what many women see as a real issue around men's attitudes towards us. A decent man may be concerned and come here to listen and learn, perhaps respectfully venture a counter argument if he had one.
Any man incapable of being here without centering himself, taking it personally and diverting attention towards his own hurt feelings adds nothing of value and only upsets himself, so would be better off elsewhere.

In terms of what needs to change I think one of the main things is to teach men to get out of their own heads, lift their eyes up a bit and see that the world isn't all about them. IME any time a man (either by force, circumstance or choice) starts to focus less on their own advancement and less on how they compare to other men, it does them an enormous amount of good - they become less stressed, more loving and considerate, just overall nicer and kinder.

Being a traditional masculine man is horrible - it makes you isolated and angry. I wish more men could see that and just dump it as an idea.

It's not personal. Most men think they're doing half but they aren't. Women are still performing 70% of the world's domestic labour.

@BallaiLuimni spot on!

I went on strike and the house fell apart!

Men’s tolerance levels are high. However, my burning resentment enabled me to overcome the acute distress of seeing the mounting clutter and disarray.

Strangely satisfying and highly recommended! 😂

I would add that the worst thing a masculine man can be is a girl. Masculinity is a pecking order but women are always bottom of the heap - they can't ever even get to the bottom level. So any man who hasn't addressed this part of his socialisation as man (and every man in the world will have picked up this message at some point) will deeply resent having to compete with a woman - it's beneath him, it's undignified.

I run my own business and down through the years I've worked with many men. Most of them will consider themselves modern, evolved, totally ok with working with women. Until it gets to a point where I challenge them or seem to be doing better than them - then they want me to get back in my place. It can be very very subtle but it always happens at some point. I totally get why it happens - for them, a woman outdoing them is like a child outdoing me - they're having to compete with someone who isn't even in their category in terms of status and respect.

Men really need to address this sort of thinking in a serious way because it is a massive invisible barrier constantly in the way.