Are all fathers creepy?

[Alex122022]

My experience in a different thread (on swimming pool changing room etiquette) has been quite interesting: there seems to be a widely shared opinion that all men are creeps and there are never any innocent explanations for their behaviour.

While I completely agree that a father in a women's changing room - especially when there are older girls - is inappropriate, I can easily see how this could happen without any ulterior motive. Be it simply ignorance or lack of judgement.

I experienced the same on playgrounds: playing hide & seek with my daughter? Mothers approach my DW and tell her that "a perv" is watching the children. Playing with DD - well meaning mothers asking her whether she is ok or needs help.

AIBU to think this is a bit excessive?

You're doing it again. Nobody said men going to a playground or clothes shopping is inherently creepy. The way men choose to behave when they do those things can potentially be creepy or perceived as creepy, but it is perfectly possible to do those things without being even slightly creepy.

You aren't acting in good faith though.

Some posters expressed their incredulity that men could actually want to go to the playground - or clothes shopping - and other posters agreed with that quite vociferously. Indeed, it was used to demonstrate that the idea that I would go clothes shopping with my daughter was simply a pretext that I could enter a single sex changing area.

It wasn't.

I was not referring to any specific person, but simply commenting on your safeguarding gobbledygook. I seriously hope that your real-life persona is different if you have any safeguarding role, because your claims here are outright dangerous and put vulnerable people at risk by simply ignoring potential dangers.

I see Darvo fully in play here.

No you are trying to push a MRA narrative and undermine safeguarding.

It visible from outer space.

Op. Go and speak to some men. Men that haven't got women's Spidey senses tingling in playgrounds. You're probably more likely to listen to those.

You are actually endangering children with your approach, because - for whatever reason - you minimise the actual risk to children by focusing on a small, visible group.

I have decided to report your post as I believe it spreads dangerous misinformation that puts people at harm.

🤣 could you be more obvious.

@MiddlingMarch yes, my dad was a single parent and he never went into women's toilets etc. He carried me into the men's and I covered my eyes until we got to the stall. There was no 'well TECHNICALLY I should be allowed to' - that attitude is just weird and unnecessary. Why would a man want to make women feel uncomfortable in private spaces?

"Hi ladies! I wonder if you can help me with something. I have noticed that men who put their hands in women's handbags without asking are assumed to be thieves.

This worries me because I can imagine scenarios where I may want to put my hand in a woman's handbag without asking.

For example, maybe my hands are really really cold. Maybe she is unconscious and I am looking for id. Maybe I need a small amount of money and I'm sure she won't notice. Maybe my daughter is interested in a similar bag and I want to see what the internal size is so I can tell her.

And some men even have their own handbags! Surely those men, of any men, would not be putting their hand in a woman's handbag for the purpose of theft? Surely it's far more likely they simply want the shared experience of handbag ownership?

So how can I, for my own benefit and convenience, get women to relax this idea that anyone shoving his hand in their handbag without permission is probably up to no good?

Sure, 99.9% of the time the man is a thief, but is having women treat every man who they find trying to his hand in their handbag without permission as a thief, is a blanket social expectation that every man has to ask whether it's ok to put his hand in a woman's handbag, just to protect women from the 99.9% the time the man is a thief, really worth the cost of upset to the man 0.1% of the time when he is not?

Is it not more fair that women to give every man the benefit of the doubt and accept the 99.9% likelihood that they will be stolen from than to unfairly suspect a man of theft?"

It's not MY approach. As I said on the other thread.

It IS safeguarding.

If you want to look out for your daughter go on a safeguarding course and actually follow the principles rather than shouting at women on the internet who say things you don't want to listen to and have no respect for but pretend (badly) that you do.

You aren't remotely interested discussion. You aren't remotely interested in discussing creepy men.

You are going 'well I'm not a creepy man and it's not fair I get looked at with suspicion'. That's all about you. Well mate, it's not all about YOU. The whole point of safeguarding is it DOESN'T centre privileged males. You can't cope with not being the centre of the universe. We get that. But it's still tough.

Men who do this enable creeps if they aren't creeps.

Women and men who understand safeguarding understand why this is problematic.

OP "But what about me?!"
MN "Yeah? What about you? You are irrelevant."
OP "But that's not FAIR!!!!!"
MN "Welcome to our world. We know life's not fair a hell of a lot more than you. Your point is?"
OP "But I'm not getting what I want. That is unacceptable. Safeguarding doesn't work."
MN "Actually making sure that men don't get everything they want in life without question IS the point of safeguarding"
OP "But how am I supposed to do x task with my daughter?"
MN "Sure beats us why it's up to us to explain and micromanage your interactions with your daughter because you are too lazy to work it out for yourself. It's not like we have to work out how to manage the same thing with our sons all by ourselves. Stop using women as your labour. Get off your arse and work it out yourself"
OP "But you are all sexist witches who hate men and treat them like shit"
MN "No actually we have plenty of time for men who don't act like selfish twats and listen to women and understand why safeguarding is important"
OP - Stomps around like Kevin The Teenager wondering why MN don't have time for MRAs.

I'm sorry - but you don't seem to understand safeguarding at all. You completely ignore so many aspects - but also red flags - to make it fit an ideology that seems to be more important for you than children's wellbeing.

If indeed you cared about children's wellbeing, your first question would obviously be regarding the daughter and other children - but you dismiss this out of hand.

And the discussion is no longer about me - it's about you peddling dangerous nonsense about safeguarding which is putting children at risk because you simply ignore so many high risk scenarios.

Obviously, someone who wants to see creeps everywhere will do so - but constantly crying "wolf" only helps the wolf - no-one else. I don't think that you want to support dangerous men, do you?

Blah blah blah.

Yes mate. You know best. I know my place. I should defer to your superior wisdom and knowledge.

Argument well made there.

You are actually endangering children with your approach, because - for whatever reason - you minimise the actual risk to children by focusing on a small, visible group.

How is saying all men should stay out of female single sex spaces focusing on a small visible group?

Because don't you there could be a Rose West wannabe in there, and we need a Big Strong Man to protect us?

.

They focus on "creepy behaviour" - this is well beyond men going into female changing rooms They claim that people acting with good faith do not endanger safeguarding, which is completely untrue.

🙄

Who on this thread thinks that all men should be excluded from female single sex spaces and who thinks we only need to exclude creepy men?

Difficult question, but after a huge amount of thought and consideration that I don't want to get naked in front of my very nice but male friends (who completely understand safeguarding), I think I'm going for the former. Strangely enough I have no desire to watch them pissing either.

I think we should only exclude the creepy ones. Which would include any of them who saw the sign on the door indicating it was only for women but for some reason decided he could be an exception. Either because he was a creep who actively wanted to be in there with women, or a creep who thought he was a special important person who's rights outweighed those of women. So only the creeps. Definitely.