Are the majority of men good guys?

[Musings32]

(nc incase outing)

There was a discussion in my place of work today which has really got me thinking. Some of the men in work were talking about how the vast majority of men are really good men, treat women well, step up properly as fathers and husbands and are completely dedicated to their families and kids etc and it's only a small minority of men who aren't or who justify abuse/ cheating/ not parenting presently enough or act in otherwise disrespectful ways towards their spouse/ family/ women.

I was actually really surprised at how many of the women in work agreed with them because I would have said the majority of men tend to let women and children down in lots of ways and can be really harmful or unreliable.

Personally I haven't had good experiences with a lot of men throughout my life and my marriage taught me that you can think you really know and trust someone and still not know what they are actually capable of- that someone can love you but still be profoundly selfish and justify anything to themselves. I also work in a field where I see the worst of people in general a lot of the time, and it's noticeable that male violence and abuse tends to be more prevalent. I then thought maybe my own experiences and line of work are skewing the picture so I thought I'd poll it to see what others think, maybe to either (hopefully) give myself a reality check or to know I'm not crazy!

So:
YABU I believe the majority of men are "good" men
YANBU I believe "good" men exist but are in the minority

'Good' is all relative for sure.

My DH Of 25 years is one of the good ones. Not controlling or jealous or violent, does more than his fair share of housework, cares about his kids, definitely wouldn't cheat, generous in sex.

BUT he still fails to take on any of the mental load of parenting, has no idea what the kids,are doing when or anything about school/college etc.

And, he looks at light porn, and does tend to grope me at times when I don't want him to, and will cajole me into sex when I don't really want it (just keep on until it's easier to just do it, mostly I don't really mind)

All of this is on the edge of 'bad'. And yet he'd definitely be counted among the good ones. So to an extent I think male behaviour in general is negative for women.

I'm in my mid 50s. If I look back through the people I have had dealings with and had a serious impact on me, I would say that overall men have been nicer and reliable than women.

It's the passive aggressiveness of women I can't deal with, especially as they tend to think that because their unpleasantness is not in your face, it makes them perfectly innocent of wrong doing.

Saying that, in real life, I avoid generalisations. It's not about good or bad, it's about differences and the ways these are managed. Being upset, hurt, frustrated doesn't mean that person is right and good whilst the other is wrong and bad.

It's not just about what a man does in public. Or how he treats the women he cares for or those he is motivated to look good infront of. It's what he does when no one is watching.

If we ask another question of how many men consider pornography normal and healthy. We get a another insight into men's low bar. In my opinion any man that happily consumes pornography isn't a good man.

Just look at the Gisele pelicot case in France. Not one man called the other men out.

I'm am with a "good guy" but I view him as a exception and his behaviour didn't happen by chance but hard work and commitment to change some of his gender shaping. He says himself most men don't have integrity.

Subconsciously almost the bar for men seems to centralise around what they DONT do.

They don't hit me.
They don't regularly go out and get pissed up
They don't cheat.

I find that kind of sad because that actually sets the bar at zero. Literally any small thing they do do brings them into above average 🙄

If we ask another question of how many men consider pornography normal and healthy. We get a another insight into men's low bar. In my opinion any man that happily consumes pornography isn't a good man
That's your opinion. Many women would disagree. Many women eatch pornography too.

As for the Gisele case, thank God most men are horrified by what happened and would never ever have considered getting involved.

Should we point out one case of a mother who killed her kids and then say that this shows how evil women are?

All men have one thing in common: they were brought up and raised by women. For those who believe that men are shit, Should we question the role of mothers in bringing up such monsters?

It doesn't matter really. All of the good guys knows someone who isn't and never says or pulls them up on anything. They're passive.

So in my head, if they can allow behaviours that make women feel unsafe without comment then they're just as bad.

All the men I know are lovely (friends and family), but then again all the women I know are too as otherwise they wouldn’t be my friend!

I don’t think men are any more ‘bad’, than women are gold digging/nagging/martyrs (or whatever the female equivalent stereotype is).

In my experience they are all a waste of time but that is probably partly me being bad at choosing but I do think the majority of men have at least one of these issues: porn addiction, lying, cheating, substance abuse, controlling/abusive behaviour, laziness(not helping with housework etc), bad hygiene, commitment issues. Ive never dated someone that didnt have any of those

I think modern man is actually generally good. I only know a few shit men.

My best friend though seems to find them ALL! How I have no idea.

All the men in our family are decent men but I don’t think that is true for the majority.

My DH works in a male dominated highly corporatised professional industry and says that many of them are ‘family men’ and decent but he also tells me that these men ogle the few young women who work there and they make sexist comments. So they’re either ‘good guys’ who are unwittingly driven by their dicks and haven’t caught up with feminism or they’re essentially just vile cheating neanderthals underneath the veneer.

I think the power imbalance and their testosterone driven impulses have a lot to answer for. Most will succumb to it. Most will not have the self control for integrity over base urges. This is why many religions and cultures expect women to be closeted and covered and ‘modest’. They know men are sexually driven and won’t self control, so it’s easier to put the whole responsibility for male lust onto women. And then if women are victim to it, they just blame the woman for being ‘immodest’ or ‘dishonourable’ or ‘sinful’.

So no. The majority aren’t good guys. But then we do have choices about who we marry and procreate with…

Leys not forget also that just like good looking people tend to be more attracted to other good looking partners, good people tend to be more attracted to similar.

Maybe it some women made more effort to self reflect on their own behaviour before putting all the blame on men, they would also be more attractive to the 'good ones'.

Yes women also watch pornography. They mostly consume different pornography to men and relate to it in a different way.

How horrified are these men about the Gisele case? Just enough to comment infront of others? Enough to change laws, protest have conversations with their males relatives and friends about their behaviours? Enough to stop watching pornography have conversations with their own children. I'm certainly not hearing any men discuss any of that.

This thread isn't about women but men. Yes lots will of been raised by a mother and a father surely that's a mute point. They all at some stage gain their own agency to change and decide who they want to be.

Have you seen how many men leave their wives when their wives get cancer? It's something like two thirds. And how many single parents are men? Also men are responsible for nearly all sexual violence and most physical violence. Not to mention men use prostitutes. So no, I don't think most men are good guys. There are just too many examples of bad things done by men.

You’re not going to get balanced responses here.

I’ve only ever had a handful of negative experiences with men - all the others are good, kind, decent people.

Totally agree. I see examples of misogyny day in and day out. A lovely family man was talking to me about Strictly the other day. He's genuinely one of the nicest men you could meet. I've known him all my life. He referred to one of the dancers and said, she seems really nice at first but I think she's actually a right bitch. I was so shocked at how casually he referred to her as this for seemingly no reason. She's just a dancer on a show fgs. My ex referred to one of his exes as, a tart of a woman. Another ex shouted at a woman that she was, a stupid split. I could go on and on with examples. All nice guys on the surface but all have deep contempt for women.
Women would do very well to be reminded that Germaine Greer wasn't wrong when she said, women have no idea how much men hate us.

In my experience, yes.

@Meadowfinch Most men I have worked with, think bringing in a salary and not getting caught with another woman, qualifies them as good dads.

The sad reality is that there are an alarming number of women that think similarly.

It might be a majority but a slim one. On average women still do much more housework and childcare than men. I think the stat is something like women and men think the split is 60:40 but when independently verified it's actually 80:20 in womens favour. So interestingly both women and men think that things are much more equal than they actually are. So men are stepping up to support their partner and children more than in previous generations but not enough would be my summary. Women are still generally happier single and men are still generally happier being married as they get more out the deal. More divorces are applied for by women.

Just look at th split between mums and dad's at the school gates. Look at the amount of men who refused to do their share of home schooling in covid and the effect on womens careers. Look at the gender pay gap. All evidence that things have got better but aren't equal.

Not to mention the figures on violence and sexual assault. Official bodies estimate that 1 in 30 women will have been sexually assaulted this year. 1 in 5 have been sexuslly assaulted in their lifetime. 1 in 5 women will experience domestic abuse by a partner in their lifetime. Look at things like the French lady who was drugged and raped by her husbands friends - there was no shortage of men volunteering to join in, and not one person that he mentioned this to thought wtf and called the police

So it might be a minority of men that are shit but:

• It's a significant minority
• the above stats are just ones who have committed criminal offences. When you add in men that are just nasty / lazy / sexist it's a lot more
• with things like gender pay gap and household chores gap and childcare gap, there is clearly a long way to go for true equality. I wonder out of these men, how many of them took shared paternity leave? How many of them work part time to accommodate school pick ups and drop offs? How many of them organised their last kids party, or regularly organise playdates? Do they regularly get up in the night with children when needed? Do they take emergency leave for sick kids to the samw extent as their partners? Do they organise the shopping/ cooking / kids packed lunches? This is what equal parenting looks like. I do know men who do and did this but they are still in the minority.

I think so, too.

I have a lovely soft gentle family man, he’s a huge advocate for women’s rights etc.

When left with a bloke friend at a festival drinking spent the entire evening by all accounts perving at the younger women, and both of them were acting like horrid middle age men.

So even the nice blokes when in the company of others turn n to massive sexist knobs. So no I don’t think there are “real” nice guys I think there are just ones that know how to behave and mask their real needs.

I really agree with this.

Most of the men I know are good men. I'm thinking of family members, old friends from uni, colleagues, my friends' husbands, DH's friends (we've been together for ages so I know them well). They're all family men and treat women with respect, with a couple of exceptions.

In the cases when couples I know have split up, it has sometimes been the man cheating and leaving for OW, and sometimes the woman cheating and leaving for OM. Slightly more likely to be the man but not by miles.

To me some of this is less about men being bad or good and more about the environment we operate in.

In general there is an expectation women take time off when they have a baby but less so that a man does. There is also more of an expectation women do childcare.

My OH and I aim for a fair split and we largely get it but god it’s hard work sometimes. I still vividly recall when I called to check in with my husband one evening and he let me
know he had had to leave work to collect our sick child. His (female) HR person’s response had been “can’t your wife do it”. He said it delighted him to reply “It would be a bit of a long trip from Moscow so no but honestly even if she was here she covered the last couple so it’s definitely my turn and I feel like it’s not appropriate for you to ask me that unless you also ask my female colleagues why their husband can’t do it” That’s far from the only time we’ve run into that kind of attitude at his work and weirdly every single time the comments have come from a woman (one who works obviously as she’s at work when she says it).

Anyway when you say there a less dads at the school gate let’s be fair that you see that not simply because men are bad but also because of a whole raft of societal pressures and conventions that are in play. It applies to things like the house too. Often women do more as they feel the pressure more to have the house a certain way/feel judged if it doesn’t meet a particular standard. Men don’t feel that so they are much more likely to take a bit of a slapdash approach and think that will do.

Yep,

My husband is definitely perceived as a good guy, and he is by all accounts. But I caught him looking up local women online, and he works in a male-dominated environment, so it wouldn't surprise me if he joined in with chat about women.

So, it depends on what you define a 'good guy', someone who isn't a murderer, abuser or rapist is a good guy? so yes, the majority of men are good guys.

I work in a female-dominated environment, and we welcome men to our teams, there is no sexism. Yet, in male-dominated environments, they talk shit about women and point out their looks. I told my husband to stop telling me what his colleagues were saying about women, as it made me feel so sad.

One of his colleagues pointed out a woman walking with her young son, commenting on how fat she was. This woman was just out walking with her child, yet he felt entitled to make comments on her body. This is not a one-off either, it happens all the time. More than we think.

DS is taking me and DH out for afternoon tea because he loves us so much.