Mums of sons. (Hard hat on for this)

[Daniagainagainagainagain]

Apologies for the grabby title. I've NC'd for this as I have a few running threads currently with very outing and personal details on.

Anyway back to the point.
I see SO many threads on here where the topic about the thread is about a guy. It's not even necessarily bad about the bloke in question, but so many many posters just seem to hate men. Not give them the benefit of the doubt. Tear them a new arsehole for merely posting on MN asking for advice. There was a thread recently about a woman seeing a really nice guy, a gentlemen as she described him where he had been separated for literally YEARS but wasn't divorced. Turns out there were cultural differences meaning divorce in that country is very rare. People kept saying 'throw him back in the sea' 'he's a liar' one poster called him a wanker.. there was no evidence that he was a wanker and the OP seemed happy with the guy. Just more people clutching for their moment to berate men. It's always the guys fault on here no matter what.

It's always the same posters more often than not berating men, shooting them down, and just hating them. I wonder, do these women posters have sons? If so, do you think your sons are exempt from such awful insults because 'my boy would never'? I can't imagine these posters talking about their sons like that. So do you pick and choose, is it one rule for your sons and one for all other men?

Before it labelled being 'cool' I have just got out of a 10 year abusive relationship where ex cheated multiple times to the point of police involvement. I am not naive to think some of these guys deserve what they get.

AIBU? To think there's huge double standards? To call strangers with no reason to, wankers, but to also think the son shines out of your son's arses?

I know I'll probably ruffle some feathers but I'd genuinely like to know. And yes I have DC.

That's a good point.
I do wonder how women are portrayed over on dad's net!

I think the imbalance is probably much higher here as you and many posters have said it's heavily a female platform and I haven't found the imbalance IRL too much, much more on here. But useful insight thank you!

OP you’re adding nothing to this thread and I doubt very much that you’re getting anything constructive from it. It’s quite painful to watch so perhaps an idea is to actually hide the thread?

What? I started the thread because it's a topic and I'm interested in the responses. The thread has just got back on track with responses relevant to the topic. If you think I'm not adding anything then simply don't look at the thread.

But I am still going to post and reply and read the replies on here as it's a topic I'm interested in as mentioned.

I'm free to do as I please and post as I please.

I stand by my advice. Your responses have been hostile at times throughout the thread and the more recent posts are painful to read. This has not been a good thread for you and sometimes it takes more courage to step away rather keep digging.

@Starlingexpress

I have been accused of doing things I haven't done. Some posters have said some vile things to me, for example telling me I'm trolling about my cancer and DV threads, and for my sick child.

Why doesn't their behaviour get called out? Why do I have to remain silent and step away from a thread? These are real life experiences I am going through, it's soul destroyingly tough. I'm going to defend myself. Perhaps from the outside looking in I should step away. But I'm not doing that without defending myself. And hopefully proving these posters wrong that I am not posting from separate accounts.

Why aren't the posters accusing me of such horrible things being asked to come away from the thread, that's what I'm wondering.

Its because you attempted to belittle posters who disagreed with you with vulgar misogynist language and insults, and in doing so lost their respect for you. Prior to that, people may not have had respect for your opinions, but would have largely afforded you the courtesy of keeping it objective.
Once you start with the nastiness, insults and the particular form of crudity you chose, then people struggle to see you as a woman going through a tough time and see you as a bit unsavoury. Like those low life men who use women's bodily functions to insult them. Fewer people will challenge those who upset you, because fewer believe you're who you say you are.
I'm not saying thats true, I'm saying that when all people have to go on is your language and tone then that's the outcome.

I'm truly sorry for all your health worries, and those of your little girl but respectfully, I think you need to reflect on some of your earlier posts (especially the deleted ones) and reflect on why people have responded in kind. Calling people who disagree with you bints, telling them to shut the fuck up and using all manner of crude sexual insults was only ever going to go one way.

I see what you're saying, but before I said anything crude myself or 'nasty' I was called pathetic, uneducated, lacking intelligence.. the list goes on.

I was called those things for merely starting a thread and expressing my opinions.. so I'm going to defend myself.

It really looks like on here that people can say whatever they like to the OP (happens time and time and time again) and no, I won't post any examples before someone asks me to. But as soon as a OP bites back, they are the nasty person. They are horrible.

Nothing that I said deserved for me to have my cancer and my DV relationship used to belittle me and make me feel like shit. Especially someone with faux concern of my child, insinuating I'm a shit parent neglecting my child. When no one knows me. No one knows about anything like that in life.

But one thing I won't do is be spoken to like shit without firing it back. Perhaps it's good to be the 'bigger' person. But my 'bigness' is not measured by quirky observing insulting behaviour and keeping reluctant to defend myself.

I'm not condoning what I said. But I'm not having me take the blame for some of the disgusting things that have been said to me on this thread. It's nothing they'd say IRL or to anyone's face. If they did say to a cancer patient that they're lying, then their face wouldn't look the same as it once did.

I don't want anyone to pity me, or feel sorry for me. I'm good here fighting my own corner in my life and getting on with things. But it would be nice for people to back off out of touchy subjects, rather than use them to beat somebody down.

Please see my post I've just typed.

My insults were thrown after I was called a number or things. But that obviously doesn't get seen. It's always the OP that's in the wrong, and only the OP.

No, that's simply not true. You were dishing out some choice words from very early on in the thread. I think things may have started to go very sour after your comment about knowing any women who have been murdered, but I accept that this opinion is subjective.

I'm not asking you to justify yourself to me. You asked a question, and as someone who's been watching this thread descend into a hot mess, am merely offering my opinion as to the answer. If you want people to accept you as who you say you are you will find it difficult if you continue to use the language and tone of the worst sort of man. Do with that as you choose.

Perhaps you didn't see the comments made to me about my intelligence and being called pathetic.
The thread blew up pretty quickly, I'm not saying I'm innocent. But If my comments deserved a huge pile on, then why didn't the poster who made the disgusting comments about my cancer get anything?

It's double standards.
And as I mentioned before, the OP of a thread is much more in the firing line of any insults on any thread.

OP we only have what you write to go on and we respond to that. You've devoted yourself to telling women to be nicer to men, using misogynistic and aggressive language in the process. I considered it unlikely that a woman who has escaped a domestic abuser, with a sick child, while dealing with cancer, would spend her time this way. I read you as being an angry dishonest bloke. Sorry if I got it wrong.

But I never gave you a reason, no matter what I wrote, to accuse me of lying about my cancer, and the nasty comment about my little girl.

I may be a lot of things but I am a damn good mum, managing on my own. Not a neglectful mother who needs to check on her child.
There was no excuse for that.

I am still waiting for mumsnet to come back and confirm that I am not A, a bloke and B, not posting form different accounts. I did by bit to try and prove otherwise and I got more and more insults and accusations thrown at me.

I truly haven't posted from any other account aside from this one. I don't have any other accounts. I used to have another account but my abusive husband got access to it.

It's probably best to stay on topic in future. If you want your entire life story to be considered before anyone responds, don't name change.

TBF I haven't RTFT but whenever I read a post about how awful a man is/how badly they've treated a woman lardy lardy lar my first thought is, no matter what we're lead to believe, it's actually the women that give birth to these admittedly tiny at the time, males.

At what stage in their life's do these boys suddenly become awful men.
Yes I'm the mother of a boy, now man in his 30's yet never has he been an awful person, moved out now, family of his own long term relationship, 10 + years he's never been awful to his partner and doesn't shy off when it comes to childcare/housework.
I'd openly say if he and his DP needed to move in I'd be happy to let them...well, for a while anyway..but you get my drift.

I've a sibling, bitter as heck where men are concerned, that has boys and none of them have any respect what so ever for women, 'both ner do wells' probably due to not having any boundaries when younger, but as long as they weren't under her feet or causing trouble to her it was fine...the minute they left school and the police started knocking her she'd make out it wasn't her fault.

One now in his 40's has 7, yes 7 DC with different women, but then again they each knew about the others before continuing to enable him to have more, knew he refused to wear a condom, but non the less went for it anyway.
Some of is DC are of age now where history is repeating itself, sad to see but seeing their GP and father not loosing out to much in life its to be expected.

IMO unless something happened over night in the blink of an eye women have some responsibility in how their sons have turn out, nipping bad behaviour in the bud instead of saying " they're only young" is where it all starts, when they're young....not when they've reached early teens and have spent their younger years doing as they please, no rules, no authority, there's no way you're suddenly going to get them to listen to you, only thing left is for the rest of us to hear the "what do you expect me to do about it" speel.

Parents whether lone parenting or not should be bringing their sons up to be gentleman and their daughters to expect less.

I will edit to say I'd hand on heart be ashamed if my DS had of grown up to be an awful person, but I also think for some they have no shame so it'll always be someone else's fault...
As someone said on MN before people will always know and want their rights but never their see where their responsibilities lay.

I think OPs do get a hard time sometimes. I’ve actually been accused of being ‘the thread police’ on occasion when I’ve tried to stand up for an OP when I feel people are just being contrary for the sake of it.

But, the other side of the coin is that, as an OP, you’ve started the discussion and said, very explicitly in this case, that you’re prepared for opposing views… but you were very unpleasant to someone who disagreed with you on page one.

I also think the stance you took in your OP was very incendiary by its nature; telling women that men are, as a group, unfairly treated by women isn’t quite the same as telling black people to quit finding fault with white people… but it’s not a million miles away. You seemed to have no grasp of the dynamics of the situation you were attempting to analyse.

The name change fail was unfortunate but it undermined people’s confidence in you further. (Still not clear how it can have happened either!)

I, for one, am deeply sorry that you are having these health issues and wouldn’t wish that on anyone.

I still don’t understand where the impulse to defend men (who are still fine btw!) came from.

@Fluufer

Why are you still being so patronising.

I have explained. God knows how many times. I DID NOT WANT MY PERSONAL CIRCUMSTANCES INVOLVED.
I had an innocent error, which I have tried to prove, and my 'life story' got dragged into it. I have only defended it.

I was getting a pile on about the 'name change' I explained I had personal outing threads on the topics of cancer and DV and my daughter. Everyone else was insulting me, and making some really shit comments. You included. Saying i was lying, trolling about cancer and making nasty comments about my daughter. I know you and the others were wrong about the accusation. And hopefully MN will be along soon to confirm. Hopefully then you can see how hurtful your comments have been.

Yes I've said some hasty things that weekend nice, but as I've said before, I'm going to defend myself.

If you're still going to @ me can you please stop being so patronising.

I’m sorry, what?

It’s the mother’s fault that sons turn out to be violent/abusive/disrespectful? Where’s the dad in all this? And why do daughters not turn out like this too?

What a lot of incoherent nonsense.

@BernardBlacksBreakfastWine the last and only bit of 'proof' I can give you, is that if it was done under a different account, it would come up in my screenshots below as 'username unavailable'. I know no one ever wants to give the OP the benefit of the doubt on here, but sometimes OPs do need that. As in this case I am genuinely telling the truth. I can't prove or defend myself anymore on the name change until MN come along and let everyone know. I am in conversation with them via email and they are looking into it. I didn't know that others didn't have the ability to change their username in one thread like I did, therefore is assumed everyone would know what I meant.

I started the thread as it's a topic I'm interested in. Only a few posts into the thread I got sarcastic, unhelpful and rude replies. It's a topic worth discussing as there are quite a few posters that do agree with me that it's a problem. Whoever views it as a problem is a matter of personal opinion and that is fine. There have been some really helpful and insightful posts on this thread that have opened by eyes up to the other POV. But that didn't need to come with insults about my daughter, my abusive relationship, and my cancer.

Thank you for your kind words.

Half the time women don't want a dad in their DC life...it complicates things.

I actually deleted a paragraph about DD's due to not wanting to derail the post from being about boys, but absolutely girls turn out the same...

You didn't need to detail any of that though did you? You would completely justified to never want to talk anything other than what you've been through, but it was a complete unnecessary derail and you've been nothing but rude for half the thread. If you don't want personal things discussed, don't bring them up needlessly. Like I said, I'm sorry to hear all that you've been through, but it's irrelevant.
At the very least, constant name changing suggests you don't have the courage of your convictions.
None of my comments have been delete, btw, so which of us is objectively being horrible?

This is the common response to accusations of dual standards. I think I have an explanation

this place has a culture. Things that are broadly “acceptable “. In the example above the man posts, the prevailing culture is “man is wrong” so those posters who feel fantasising is wrong will feel comfortable posting. They’re in line with the culture. Those that think it’s ok won’t generally feel able or comfortable to post.

when it’s the woman, the opposite. Different posters yes, but in the majority it’s those who align with the generally accepted culture who feel most able to post. That generally accepted culture is broadly anti men.

@Daniagainagainagainagain you dragged your own medical history (and all the rest of it) onto this thread. No one else had anything to do with your massive information dump AND EXCESSIVE USE OF BLOCK CAPITALS so I don't know why you're blaming other posters for your oversharing.

It's not relevant to the topic and has no bearing on the conversation. However, I am sorry you're going through serious health difficulties.

According to recently revised Mumsnet rules, no one can change their user name during a thread. The original name used on the thread ought to be the only one possible - it's in Site Stuff if you want to look it up. According to Mumsnet's own rules, there's no way you ought to be able to post on one thread under three different user names.

As that's the case, it's perfectly reasonable for people to have treated your name change with scepticism.

You started a contentious topic and have been aggressive, insulting and used revolting sexualised language when challenged.

You were also disgustingly dismissive about women murdered by their partners and flippantly asked "do you know any personally". And failed to apologise to those of us who said yes, we did.

I think it's a bit rich for you to kick off about bing challenged when you've responded in such a less than ideal way yourself.

That generally accepted culture is broadly anti men.

I agree with your general point about prevailing culture. I do not agree that that culture is ‘anti-men’. It’s a culture of holding men to account in a way that doesn’t happen in our wider, patriarchal society.

As they say, when you’re used to privilege, equality seems like oppression.