Why are women much nicer than men?

[somewhereintheworld]

Last night my OH snapped at me for something trivial and hurt my feelings. I find this totally disrespectful and I would never do that to him. This was about 10 hours ago and I'm still upset. I read on this site regularly about men who treat women appallingly. For example, cheating on them, physically abusing them, not helping with child care/household tasks, staying out all night, getting drunk, taking drugs etc. The list goes on. I appreciate there's some horrible women out there as well, but I think they're in the minority. I also appreciate that not all men are like this. Why do the ones I've described act like this? Is it the testosterone? Is it because they can get away with it? Is it because some women are reliant on them financially? I think as a species women are definitely nicer than men and don't disrespect them in the same way. Not really sure this is an AIBU but just wanted opinions.

Women aren’t nicer than men. It’s just more obvious when men are behaving badly. Women who behave badly are more likely to be manipulative, where are men who behave badly will just have an outburst.

Women are socialised to be nicer than men. It's expected of us. There's harsher consequences if we're found to be horrible.

They’re not. Women are more manipulative, two faced and bitchy.

How do you know women are nicer? Going on what evidence?

Not all women are nicer in relationships, they’re better communicators though and when they’re upset/annoyed, we rarely turn to violence unlike men. But women can and do say very cutting things and I’d say can be controlling in more subtle ways.

Socially, outside of intimate relationships, I’d say men are nicer on the whole.

But everyone’s different. Why don’t you sit down with your husband and talk it through. I’ve been with my husband 20yrs, we’ve both snapped at each other hundreds of times. I thought that was normal? We’re also kind other times. It’s normal to have ups and downs in relationships as long as no one is actively mean to each other.

Well men commit most of the violent crime, so there is that. And yes I also find them more selfish and less considerate on a daily basis.

It’s a mix of societal expectation along with inherent sex characteristic in my opinion.

Also - just looking on mumsnet you’ll see there are lots of nice posters but also a lot of mean and unkind posters. Majority are women.

A very sweeping generalisation.

in my experience, women are not nicer than men.

Your husband snapped at you, and you’re postulating that this is evidence that women are nicer than men?

You mention cheating, abuse, ducking out of childcare - is this your husband’s behaviour? If so, then it’s understandable you are upset.

Otherwise, go and talk to your DH and clear the air. It’s not good for your mental health to hang on to your anger about some harsh words.

I think the root cause is selfishness. Women are less selfish and more aware of others’ feelings and how things impact the people around them. This makes them nicer.

Men are just way, way more selfish. I think the example that best sums this up is that when you have a baby the mum will check in with the dad “I’m taking a shower, can you have the baby” whereas the man will just take a shower when he wants without it occurring to him that he might have other things to do.

I expect it’s partly biological but exacerbated by socialisation too. It’s clear to me that little girls develop empathy fasted than little boys.

And yes this is all generalisations of course.

They aren't.

I do think that most women are kinder and more pleasant than men. Partly because of evolution and partly because of socialisation. The thjnf that sucks is that while there might have been an evolutionary reason for men to be dick heads right now there is none but we are still.lumbered with them.

From a young age boys are told, explicitly and implicitly, that they are the best thing since sliced bread, and the girls are told be nice, be subservient. It’s not hard to see how that translates to adulthood.

It is a bit of a generalisation but generalisations exist for a reason.

nicer is subjective - men and women can both be arseholes. Also, nice isn’t always good. I’d rather know a good and decent person than someone who is nice.

what isn’t subjective are rates of violence, sexual assault and other criminal behaviours. That is what needs focusing on for men, not niceness necessarily.

Women are not nicer than men and it’s a silly question. What did your husband snap at you about? You would be better off asking the question- why did my husband snap at me and why am I so upset about it. At least that might give you useful information rather than gross generalisations and stereotypes.

The trait you are talking about is agreeableness, as a survival strategy women are more agreeable than men - they also use fawn as a survival strategy over flight or flight. They (men) have the physical dominance so our response to that is agreeableness.

That is why it is more balanced in woman to woman relationships that agreeableness is not as required so women are more inclined to be less agreeable there.

I find older women are less agreeable because their hormones change and also their need to put up with shitty relationships changes.

Women aren't fundamentally nicer than men, they just have more subtle, passive aggressive ways of not being nice.

I disagree with you. Just look at the horrible nasty comments people make on this site, I would say 99% are women, there are some vicious women on here.

Social conditioning and self preservation.
There's a whole load of expectations on women not to be selfish, to be nice and kind, keep the peace, understand others feelings. Men get a lot more latitude. Their rudeness is 'assertiveness' their selfishness justified as prioritising more important things. Their lack of empathy is seen as strength and determination.
Also given we tend to be at serious physical disadvantage, we often have no choice but to avoid conflict and prevent escalation as it could be dangerous for us otherwise. We learn this young.
Being at a social and financial disadvantage can also play a part, as we may have more to lose from a break down in relations.

Women are absolutely not ‘much nicer than men’.

You get a disproportionate perspective from Mumsnet because a) people mostly only post about their relationships when there’s a problem and b) most users are women so are unlikely to include in their posts a long list of all the shitty things they’ve done in their lives. If this was a forum for men, you would see plenty of posts from men being treated like shit by their wives and get completely the opposite impression.

You might also want to shift your focus from the posts about marriages and relationships to the posts about friendship breakdowns, horrid MILs, narcissistic mothers, bridezillas, hen do dramas etc etc, which are very much full of women behaving like total shitbags to others.

Niceness is not gender-specific. It’s just that on a women’s forum, you are not going to see a representative spread of situations and attitudes across the population as a whole. It’s going to be skewed in favour of women, massively.

Some people are nice. Some people are horrible. That’s all there is to it.

Mumsnet does indeed have many posts about women being treated poorly by men. But there are also many posts about women being treated poorly by their mothers, their sisters, MILs, female cousins, female friends etc. Abusers come in all shapes, sizes and sexes.

Read some threads on here. Women aren't nicer than men.

I have an ongoing problem with being targeted by the local children. And very definitely the girls are much nastier than the boys. And they take great pleasure in doing and saying unpleasant things. They are much more vindictive.

Please note that I'm basing this off of my own personal experiences of being around both men and women.

Women are not nicer, they're just better at faking it. Men are straight-to-the-point and are blunt (I'm not saying this is necessarily a good thing. Obviously some men are just rude and were dragged up, not brought up) whereas women are capable of being a lot more snakey, and nice to your face but mean behind your back.

I get along better with women when I'm drunk. When I'm sober, I get along better with men.