To think most women on here hate men

[Tanyahawkes]

Sorry for the rant but I’m noticing a pattern on mn, any post involving a man and a disagreement results in multiple calls of he’s a narcissist, he’s abusing, he’s controlling, leave the bastard!

I’ll admit that a list of posts do involve behaviour that is not nice from dh and dp. So many posts also can be interpreted in many ways too, I just feel like a large number of women jump to the worst conclusion first about a strangers partner, having only one side of a story told in a short version.

for anyone misunderstanding me, if a post says the partner is hurting physically, calling names, cheating, putting the op down, then yes I agree, ltb (so long as the post is true) it’s when a post says “great relationship, today partner upset me and we couldn’t see eye to eye” and everyone calls the poor guy a narcissist etc

I remember laughing at 'bagspreading' a while ago. 😂 When a woman puts her bag on seat next to her and takes up two spaces.

Yeah, I agree that women are more often put in a situation of financial risk/opportunity cost. What would be interesting would be to see stats comparing the number of women that have financially benefitted from marrying vs those that ended up worse off. However, I don't think there's any practical way of ever working it out.

I also think that men are on aggregate naturally more competitive than women so it's not just the maternity element that affects women, although I'm sure some will disagree with that statement.

@WalrusOfLove I would have to disagree with you about competitiveness there because in my experience (certainly not backed up by any stats) the women I know are absolutely killing it and the men are coasting.

Pretty much every woman I know left home for university/in their early twenties and set up on their own/with housemates, travelled, worked hard at their jobs, got their promotions etc. while I know very few men who left home until at least their 30s when they were ready to marry or in a LTR. And in instances where my friends have broken up, the majority of the men have moved back in with their parents and the women have continued living independently (and before anyone says, it's not as a result of women getting the house in the divorce etc).

I'm in my thirties and I have only ever had one male manager, all the rest have been women. My female friends are career-focused, financially savvy and building up their assets. I can't say the same for my male friends.

I think there has been such a significant shift in the last few generations and we are still not fully cognisant of the extent of the changes or their effects in terms of male/female dynamics.

Women expect more now and I am noticing that more and more of the women I know have the confidence, ability and financial stability to live their lives independently of men if their expectations are not met.

Aargh! It's too early in the morning to roll my eyes so hard!

I think a large part of this is the encouragement/cultural narrative of female empowerment the last few decades. I do notice that a lot more women seem to view their job as a source of self fulfillment whereas with men it tends to be more about the £££.

Naturally men are more likely to coast because they don't need to try as hard as us - they still outearn us in spite of all the factors you mention. I do think testosterone plays a massive part too - CEOs and men in positions of power tend to have higher levels of testosterone than the average male.

I don't know many men in their 30s still living at home though. Even less in the construction/trades sector I work in where people own their own house three years earlier than graduates on average.

A lot of the Indian guys I know do live at home until their 30s though (I work closely with a few Sikh-run businesses).

@PamPamPamPam

This is really interesting: I have noticed the same phenomenon (and I am about 20 years older than you).

What’s particularly interesting is that this massively changes the financial dynamics around marriage, cohabitation and the creation of the family. Some of the ramifications of this haven’t really been fully digested by society.

When I came of age in the early 90s it was taken as read that marriage was a) something almost everyone did b) something all women wanted and c) that getting married would set you up financially (with the unspoken assumption that you probably wouldn’t have to work or not much).

For a lot of women those assumptions are no longer true. Many if not most of my close girlfriends out earn their partners significantly, mainly because they are smart women who have worked harder and been more focused. This makes marriage a far less attractive prospect for them and in fact in some scenarios an actively dangerous prospect. Some women now have far more to lose by marrying than they will ever gain.

This has massive implications for the relationship between the sexes. A man’s financial primacy historically was one of his main appeals for women and it allowed him significant leverage in how the relationship operated: emotional, sexual obviously but also in terms of the division of labour in the home. The quid pro quo that existed for generations of “you look after the kids and house, keep yourself looking nice and don’t answer back and I’ll pick up the tab” is risibly out of date for most couples. Thank God.

When I see “boy mums” coming on here railing over the injustice of their little princes having to play on an even playing field with some little girl I can’t help but think they have not really woken up to this new reality. They are setting these boys up for a very rude awakening indeed.

@Thepeopleversuswork I agree with you, there has been such a huge shift that society has not caught up with it yet. And it's not just in terms of finances and the world of work. Again, anecdotally, I see so many women who now actively eschew marriage and LTR as they are getting their needs met in other ways.

Most of my female friends have maintained incredibly close, supportive friendships. We all make time for each other, support each other, give each other advice etc., and this support does not wane or diminish even when one of us is in a relationship. I think certainly in my generation and with so many people choosing not to have children, women understand the importance of building one's own tribe outside of the traditional family unit.

So when you add in financial independence, emotional independence, a fulfilling career and a strong and supportive social circle, it creates the kind of woman that may be deemed to "hate men". When in reality, it's merely a woman who knows her value and will not settle for less than she's worth. She may very well find the right man that values her, but she also might not, and that is also okay.

Someone once told me when I was a young woman to never be financially dependent on a man, because the one who controls the finances has the power. The person that gave me that advice was my father, and I've never forgotten it.

"I think a large part of this is the encouragement/cultural narrative of female empowerment the last few decades. I do notice that a lot more women seem to view their job as a source of self fulfillment whereas with men it tends to be more about the £££."

@WalrusOfLove I think this is true because the world of work has enabled so many women to be in control of their own destinies in ways that just were not possible before. Our jobs are not just jobs. They can be paths to freedom and independence. Men already had freedom and independence so there may be less of an attachment or sense of empowerment for them.

Working gives us money. Money gives us options. How many posters on this thread alone own their own homes? Drive their own cars? Make all their own decisions? We may take it for granted now but not all that long ago a woman could not even open a line of credit on her own. So yes, work is empowering.

I'm not sure you can extrapolate universal truths from your friendship group though. It's sounds more like your friends are a group of high flyers, which isn't surprising as people tend to associate with like minded individuals.

In aggregate, men still out earn us and something like 40% of women work part time last time I checked. But no doubt the landscape is changing. I remember reading a study a year or two ago about how women out earn men in quite a few American cities now and that the number of men earning <£35k is rapidly increasing as is the number of women earning >£70k.

I think motherhood is a large factor in the pay gap. I remember reading about a decade ago that young women had been slightly out earning young men for a good few years up until about 35-40yo (depending on the study) and I did think it was rather too coincidental that this was the approximate age many women have kids.

However, I'm not sure it's just discrimination that causes the gap. I had a good graduate job out of uni and worked in a team which was 8/10 in favour of women. Most were around the age of 30 and in the five years I was there six went on maternity leave. Only one came back full time and I defo feel like there was a change in priorities whereby they seemed more interested in their families than in proving themselves at work. However, all but one were from middle class backgrounds and had husbands with salaries ranging from decent to very good.

I doubt any would have admitted they became less ambitious but they stopped pushing for promotions etc. I remember this well because as the youngest member of the team it allowed me to climb the ladder more easily and I surpassed most of them in salary by the end of my five years there.

Everyone should be more interested in their families than proving themselves at work though, shouldn't they? Because proving oneself typically tends to be putting ones job front and centre, working over the hours one is paid for, evenings, weekends. Offering flexibility to stay over today, fly there tomorrow, team building next weekend, dropping onto this huge opportunity with a moments notice. With the best will in the world, if you are a parent your responsibilities don't always allow that. And when there are two parents, more often than not the mother is the one who has to step up. Sometimes because its the expected way of things, sometimes because she is already on the lower salary, but it makes it very difficult for her to ever catch up.

@WalrusOfLove

In aggregate, men still out earn us and something like 40% of women work part time last time I checked

This is true. And while I wouldn’t describe myself as a “high flyer” I think my friendship group is a bit of an anomaly. You are also correct that the pay gap only really kicks in at the point where women have children.

But the trends are heading in the right direction. If women’s incomes continue to head in the direction the have trended in in past decades the rationale for women to get married will certainly become weaker.

Also when a woman out-earns her partner, the inexorable drift which you still often see towards stopping or downplaying work because “it made sense for me to work less” or “it works for our family” becomes harder to explain or justify. It’s much harder nowadays for a man to insist that his career and his income has to take automatic priority, particularly if his wife out earns him by a factor of two to one or more.

Yet still we have a culture and a mindset that funnels most women towards marriage and henceforth towards becoming the less economically active person in the partnership. You still hear it all the time on here when posters urge an OP to get married as if it were a no brainer. In many cases it is but increasingly marriage is an expensive financial trap for women.

@5128gap

Everyone should be more interested in their families than proving themselves at work though, shouldn't they? Because proving oneself typically tends to be putting ones job front and centre, working over the hours one is paid for, evenings, weekends.

Yes in an ideal world. But in practice that is a luxury only afforded to the non breadwinner in the family: to the person whose income matters less.

You make it sound like a binary choice as if people are choosing their careers over their families for shits and giggles (and sometimes they are to be fair). But if you’re a single mother on whose income the whole family depends it’s much harder to say “I’m not going to work at weekends because I am putting my kids first” without basically pigeonholing yourself as unreliable and unambitious (and ultimately harming your family’s income). As a single mother with no other source of money that’s a perilous road to go down.

I have been in numerous situations where in theory my employer understands I can’t get childcare at the weekend and it’s not my fault but in practice they see me as less of a safe bet because I can’t do the work so I have had to take the work. A married man (or woman) wouldn’t be put in quite the same situation because there is someone there to pick up the slack.

You can argue that work shouldn’t be like that and you would be right but in practice for many high paying jobs it is a stark choice between being seen to do the job effectively and looking after your family.

Agreed.

The bit I'm conflicted on is that I don't think women should suffer due to biological factors outside of their control, but if we put measures in place then potentially they negatively affect women who want to prioritise their career and don't want children.

Like, if you graft for several years while your colleague is on a couple of maternity leaves you'd feel a bit miffed if your extra years of experience counted for nothing.