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

Yes, the majority are good guys. They get snapped up quickly and are "keepers" so they rarely re-appear on the scene, so remain "invisible" to everyone else as they're not out on the prowl.

The minority are the "Bad" guys who are the dishonest ones, the "players", the serial adulterers, etc. They're the ones who are "out there" on the prowl so they're more noticeable.

One good guy will be "intimate" with a relatively small number of women. The bad guys could be "intimate" with dozens, hundreds or thousands of women over their lifetime, so will make more of an impact and leave a more noticeable trail of destruction/anguish/heartache behind them.

Not sure entirely what you’re asking OP, but I like to think that most people are intrinsically “good”, ie would help someone in need etc. Such a general, honest, nice person.

However, I feel men are so driven by sex that it causes them to lie and cheat and become aggressive and cause all kinds of hurt.

I think a nice woman is more of than not just a nice woman.

I think a “nice man”, possibly has a job helping others, good to his mum, a great dad, can still be out cheating on his wife, lying left right and centre and just not give a shit.

I have never cheated on anyone ever, but I've been cheated on twice. I have always been fair, respectful, loving, caring and done my best by any partner I've been with and thought my ex was doing the same but actually he started seeing another woman the week I gave birth. I know I was a good wife to him so in a way it made it easier to walk away because i knew i didn't deserve that from him.

In most cases I know personally where men have really let women down or been abusive etc, I'd say they specifically chose women who were willing to go out of there way for them, be really compassionate and give them the benefit of the doubt.

This is a really interesting way to think about it! And probably is a big part of what puts me off dating now I'm single again in an older dating pool because it does feel like the 'good' ones are harder to find - but because presumably more of them are already invested and involved in their own marriage and family.

I think all human beings are flawed and capable of both bad and good.
I don't think there's any such thing as a completely good or bad person.
That being said I do know that men are capable of harming me more than women as a group and so I am more careful around men. Because when you come across a dangerous man it can have a big impact.
But I do not think the majority of men are like that. However as the saying goes "if you were told one sweet amongst the handful in the bag could kill you, would you still eat sweets out of that bag?"
Luckily most men in my life have been wonderful. Wonderful father, wonderful husband, wonderful male friends.
But I have had an horrifically violent ex boyfriend. I have been date raped. I have been flashed and secually assaulted. I have been punched in the face whilst being mugged. I have had an ex who was emotionally abusive and controlling.
When I've had issues with women being very fucked up people, my life and physical and psychological safety were much less at risk. Altho it's been difficult to deal with too.. men have had a much more negative impact on me that fucked up women. And so I do hold some residual fear of men as a whole group, yes. Which I think is understandable.
I do not believe the majority of men would harm me. But I do think the whole social system makes it quite easy for men who want to seriously harm women, to continue to do so.
None of the men who have harmed me have seen any legal or even social consequences for it.

I'm not sure this is fair when its actually women who do most of the work around men's mental health and hold the majority in the community and voluntary or caring sectors
This is incorrect. The most predominant charities focusing on men suicides are led by men and supported by more men than women.

This assertion is also biased as community and caring sectors are more likely to offer PT roles which are more likely to attract women.

In the 10 plus years I have been on MN, O have never seen a thread started to repress concern about the high rate of male suicide and what we or society could do about it.

Also any person claiming they did everything right in their relationship and put all the blame of the breakdown on the other is in my view unlikely to have an objective view on this matter.

Yanbu. I think people view an absence of nastiness as good but I think most men are at best neutral. They are not actively good.

I have only had abusive relationships with men!

I don't want to say too much incase outing but I work in this sector. The vast majority of conferences I've been at, or forums I've attended have been predominantly facilitated or attended by women when on the topic of male heath or male mental health and its been noted by the men who were involved in setting these types of events up, how common it is for women to be more involved and more likely to attend. Obviously yes, there are some notable providers lead by men, but many providers at grassroots level will be engaging more often with women, worried about men or acting on behalf of men in a company having been tasked with wellbeing work. The challenges of getting men to engage with these topics is notorious.

"This assertion is also biased as community and caring sectors are more likely to offer PT roles which are more likely to attract women."

And why do women more often than men require PT roles? Because they are often the ones taking on the lions share of caring responsibilities in some shape or form and have to take a financial hit to do it.

"In the 10 plus years I have been on MN, O have never seen a thread started to repress concern about the high rate of male suicide and what we or society could do about it."

Why is this a womans work? Why is this for us to fix? Why would there be threads on it when women often are using this platform for their own support needs. And equally, I've seen plenty of threads from women who are worried about their partners mental health, they perhaps aren't then as equipped to mobilise an entire movement around it given that they will then be left holding everything else.

"Also any person claiming they did everything right in their relationship and put all the blame of the breakdown on the other is in my view unlikely to have an objective view on this matter."

And if this is aimed at the experience I shared then I think you need to take a good long look at what exactly it is that you think justifies starting to shag around the week your wife is about to give birth? I'm more than happy to take accountability for myself in my relationships, if i get things wrong I own that and try to do better and not repeat mistakes, that is part of being a good partner. As I said, this isn't about some ridiculous notion of perfection, but I think most people can reflect on their relationships and objectively decide whether or not they treated the other person well or not on the whole.

I’d put it like this, there are a lot of genuinely good men, until it comes to sex. Whenever men have disgusted or disappointed me, it has almost always involved sex:

• A cousin caught viewing indecent images of children.
• The son of a friend caught meeting a 14 year old girl he met online (he brought a bottle of whisky to the meeting as well).
• A 60-year-old neighbour who was going to Thailand to sleep with underage girls. He told someone one night in the pub, while drunk.
• Another neighbour who had convictions for viewing indecent images of children.
• A 60-something work colleague who was offering sex for rent to young girls (and didn’t think he was doing anything wrong). He also saw nothing wrong with offering young women fleeing the Russian invasion of Ukraine a room in exchange for sex. He would angrily defend himself and genuinely thought it would be a good arrangement and “advantageous to both parties”.
• A rich (and ugly) elderly neighbour who joined a dating agency, went to Asia and returned with a very pretty teenage wife. Not only did he think he’d done nothing wrong, he used to go on about how he’d ‘rescued’ her from poverty (no my friend, if you’d rescued her you’d have used your money to set her up in a flat and help her find work).
• A man who lived next door to my sister and regularly saw prostitutes because his wife was disabled and he “had a right to a sex life.”
• My ex-husband’s repulsive brother, who not only visited prostitutes but used to review his experiences on a website, giving them marks for “eye contact”, “enthusiasm”, “breast size” and so on.
• A nice, happily married man with grandchildren who is now in prison for historic sex crimes against an ex-partner’s little girl.
• A man from our local church caught trying to import a sex doll from China. The doll was one of those expensive, high quality ones but it was in the likeness of a child. His face was in the local paper, yet he seemed to feel no shame and was soon walking about the village again.
• Observing my father in law ogling a 12-year-old girl playing in a pub garden. She had long, bare legs and he was virtually drooling.

I could go on and on. When it comes to sex, I honestly don’t think I would trust any man. I haven’t included the endless examples of cheating because I’d be here all day.

My male colleagues in a wealthy industry, all respectable family men - married or engaged with children, are currently working out what hookers they can book for after the staff christmas night out, and whether or not they should just go to one of the europen cities to a brothel instead.

I have learned that if men think they can get away with sex elsewhere, they will do it, including "not my Nigel".

Depressingly, I’d agree with this

There's a lot of road between 'abuse' and 'parenting presently enough'.

Are the majority of men (in modern, western cultures - let's keep this at least vaguely manageable) actively, intentionally abusive? No.

Do the majority shoulder their fair share of the domestic load? Also no.

Do the majority respect women? I suspect a majority think they do. But many - quite likely most - don't actually give them very much thought most of the time.

What do statistics tell us?

If women make up more than about 1/3 of a group, men judge it as being 'majority female'. If we speak more than 1/3 of the time in a conversation, men think that women have dominated it and spoken more. So we are half the population but they don't think we should take up half the space. That doesn’t sound very respectful.

If you phrase the questions carefully to avoid actually using the word 'rape', 1 in 3 male US college students say they would commit rape if they knew they could get away with it without consequences; 1 in 6 say they have actually done so. Not a majority, but certainly too damned high.

What about passive evil? Not acting, but not preventing action.

Fifty one men were prosecuted for the rape of Gisele Pelicot, and another 20 or so are known to have taken part but weren't identified. They were actively evil.

Three turned up at the house and backed out at the last minute because they didn't think she was consenting - but they didn't report it to the police or do anything to stop the other men. The male doctor who treated her injuries and infections and must have had some suspicions over the years. He didn't report. The male pharmacist who advised on and supplied the drugs didn't report. The male town mayor (as far as we know, not directly involved) tried to shut down press coverage because 'It wasn't that bad - nobody died and no children were involved'. None of these are 'good people'.

Well, treating the person they chose as a life partner decently and loving and caring for the children they created is a pretty low bar for 'good', isn't it? I can't imagine anyone sitting round singing the praises of a woman for this basic stuff. However, if that's the yardstick, then yes, I dare say a lot of men meet it.

I love your optimism and hope it doesn't cost you dear.

Why do you say that's a low bar for good? I would say a lot of women don't meet it, either. (Depressingly)

And if this is aimed at the experience I shared then I think you need to take a good long look at what exactly it is that you think justifies starting to shag around the week your wife is about to give birth?
Of course it's not aimed at your own experience, I have no idea what that is. As it happens, my job means that I get to hear both sides of the story. It's quite an eye opener how when you listen to one side, it would be easy to conclude that the other person treats them very wrong...until you hear the perspective from the other side....and then you realise that noone is right or wrong, but communication got lost somewhere, following my trust and then respect.

Men are often accused of being lazy, not doing enough at home, until you hear that that same man is going through hell at work, is under huge pressure and stress, gets no sympathy, ever when he comes home, wish he too could work PT and spends more time with his kids, but it's not option because his partner refuses to work more hours, and always complain that he never does enough.

It really isn't about good or not good. It's about couples finding themselves overwhelmed by responsibilities and instead of working it out together turn life into a competition as to has it worse.

Well, 97% of women report having been sexually harassed. The question is what percentage of men are responsible for that. Or ask a group of women what age they became aware of receiving unwanted sexual attention from older men - I feel confident the majority will say between 11 and 13.

I think it’s a tricky question because as lots of posters have said what does ‘good’ mean? It doesn’t have to mean perfect. It’s also subjective. And it’s also worth bearing in mind that different people get different versions of the same people. My grandfather was a wonderful grandfather to me, for example. But based on what I know about him I don’t believe he was a good person.

Or people are happy to stereotype men.

I mean, imagine if you said all immigrants must be a drain on the country because people wouldn't be talking about it otherwise.

I'm in my 40s!

Men are only as faithful as their options.

It is well known and absolutely accepted that women carry the majority of the burden for all caregiving, throughout the world. It's not even a discussion, I have no idea why anybody would try to pretend otherwise. Some Western women are getting wise to it and saying No thanks, but they are still in the minority.

And yep, there are bad women in the world, not sure why anybody ever thinks this is any kind of a gotcha either.

But unfortunately, your original musings were correct. And I speak as one of the lucky ones in a great partnership who married really well the second time.

Just because the majority are not active rapists, child abusers wife beaters doesn't make them good guys, good dads, or good husbands. The bar is incredibly low for men.

This is based on reality, the news, other women (if you bother to listen to women).

As I said, as we age we experience more and more of this reality. When I was young I too was a bit of Pickmeisha cool girl. Or, if you want to be kind, it's just that women are suicidally empathetic and raised in a patriarchy and it takes them about 3 decades plus to really switch their critical thinking on.

If women were in charge of the world, if we were the sex in ascendance, maybe we'd be lazy, unkind and entitled too, as a group. I guess we'll never know.

Most of us are a bit stupid and try to give men the benefit of the doubt when young. Then you live a bit, you see a bit. You grow out of it.

The majority define it from the perspective of agreeing that this is how a decent person behaves, that does not mean that that that is how the majority behave at all. A lot of people are all talk when it comes to upholding morals.

Even many of the cheaters and the abusers etc will hold the same view of what constitutes a good man, but for whatever reasons they excuse themselves or paint themselves as a victim of circumstance etc, in their minds they're not a bad guy, or a 'real' abuser, they're just controlling because they love their partner so much, and that's completely fine and different.

The shit dads who think that a decent man does the very best that he can tells himself that it's not his fault, if it was up to him he'd have the kids 24/7 and then proceeds to make no effort whatsoever and blame it on the ex, and still tells himself the kids are his 'world' and probably even gets the tattoo to prove it!!

So the majority can agree on what constitutes good morals but that does not mean that the majority actually behave that way.

As for looking at it from the objective stance,

Well yes the countries with less murder/rape etc are going to function better than those with more, but that doesn't necessarily mean that society is functioning well here.

Just because men might behave worse in other countries doesn't mean that we should be grateful that they're not murdering or raping at the same rate as they would in other countries. This is like what I said men say to women when they try to break up with him, they pick the worst man they know and say at least I'm not like him, as if you should then be grateful that he isn't the worst man you know and should then tolerate whatever crap he wants to throw at you.

In countries rife with violence, men may have grown up to be desensitised or traumatised which makes it more likely that they will perpetuate harm, so it shouldn't be surprising that men in less violent countries behave better, the baseline expectation is higher, if they acted the same as men from more violent countries then they'd actually be worse than them, because there's less of a reason for it. As the standards increase in civilisations, we are allowed to expect more from men and not be treated like shit and to expect them to try their best to be at least decent fathers, the fact that society still functions does not prove that the majority of men are able to do that.

There's a growing trend of women deciding to be single for life rather than ever having to deal with a man again, and then on the other side we have men who are equally critical about women but yet are still obsessed with wanting them, if the trend continues, which I believe it will, especially because we also have a growing trend of women wanting to remain childfree, then we're going to end up with a lot more bitter, angry men and that never bodes well for women or for society.

They always say NAMALT, until it comes to their daughters and then suddenly it's 'ALL men are like that', and 'I know how teenage boys/young men think'.

The really good guys I know don't get offended by people complaining about toxic male behaviour and how common it is, they see it and acknowledge it.