Is MN feeding unhealthy attitudes towards men?

[Grtscott]

Some threads I've read this morning have helped me to realise that my thinking about men has changed since joining MN. And not in a good way.

There's an undertone that men need to do things the woman's way, or it's wrong. That men should be grateful for any sex that women are willing to give in a long term relationship, even if that peters out to no sex at all.

Men are seen to be babies who can't do anything for themselves, and need to have someone pre plan and organise their lives, but god forbid they fall into the pattern of behaviour of expecting their female partner to do these things for them, as that's what they've always done.

This thinking is observable to a greater or lesser extent across the boards.

I've also recognised where this thinking has affected the way I think about my wonderful man, and sometimes in things I've said to him or actions towards him. I need to watch this in future.

I'm concerned that the general thinking about men on this website can't be good for society if this is the way women think, and are encouraged to think by others.

If women treat men this way collectively and have low expectations around them, no wonder the bar is getting lower.

MN just confirms to me how low the bar is set for men. It baffles me the amount of women who actually defend their behaviour as normal.

There are lots of MRAs who trawl MN looking for grievance with women. Which is both depressing and frightening.

It's not a conspiracy and there are a lot of crap men, but it is skewed due to those with good DHs not being as likely to need to post.

I also think women have always discussed these problems- more pressure to be quiet in past times though- but it feels more overwhelming when you see so many posts the way you do online. It shows the larger scope of the problems.

I do think it's probably best not to read relationship threads too much as it does get depressing.

The rest of the story doesn’t matter. She insists he doesn’t do washing probably because he’s incapable of reading a label and checking how to wash clothes. He did it anyway and did the thing she has been trying to avoid happening. You appear to suggest we should accept basic adulting failures on the basis that “at least he is helping” which is a really low bar. Nobody suggests LTB because someone has shrunk a jumper.

Sounds good to me - I'm older and seen a lot more shit from men. I'm guessing you are mid to late 30s?

Right. So a summary:

MN are the same as incels and make women hate men.
MN posters don't discuss politics or the economy. 🙄
Women should not be given the vote as they are too emotional.
MN is like the manosphere. May be we encourage women to hit and rape their men?

Men really don't like women gathering.

My unhealthy attitude towards men comes from the behaviour of men themselves and not mumsnet.

Im more scared of some of the women that I am men.

Agree on both observations. When the issue is small there can be a question as to whether it is an underlying pattern of behaviour. And when the issue is an underlying pattern of behaviour often the poster comes on thinking it is small. MN is really good at probing these situations in a way that most posters would leave them under the surface. But under the surface trauma surfaces in very dysfunctional ways.

I watched a video recently of a man talking about his responsibility at being abused as a small child, had the interviewer not probed him about whether he really carried that responsibility or whether the truth was he had been groomed by a predator that belief of responsibility would have stayed with that man for maybe his whole life.

That is what MN does many times over. When someone come in with a surface level belief about a problem, MN probes to see if it has deeper roots and most problems actually do. People behave in patterns and if those patterns are destructive or abusive challenging them is necessary for healthy and safe life. MN excels at looking under the surface at dynamics.

No OP - it’s MEN’S unhealthy attitudes & behaviours that feed negative attitudes towards men. MN is simply allowing more women to share their experiences of shitty men and get good advice from other women.

This is all I want to say.

Not read through all posts but I’ve been married 31 years to my husband and 10 years 1st time round so seen and experienced a lot in life in my 62 years . 1st marriage involved mental and sometimes physical abuse , my marriage now, not perfect but we’ve worked through it and happy but not without its faults.

2 out of 3 marriages fail and I’m guessing a lot of relationships are same if not worse odds .

Of course posts are going to be about men and their failures , bad habits, affairs etc.
I don’t know if there is a ‘dadsnet’ but if there was, don’t you think a high proportion of posts would be about women, relationships etc , there’s some bitter and nasty men out there as we know (as there are women of course )

It takes all sorts to make a world, and there’s a high proportion of women who have a real hard time with their man so posts are mostly going to be negative .

For those of us lucky ones who have a ‘good’ man posts can seem a little one sided against men.
For me personally , I’ve seen both sides of the coin, and yes I think a lot of the posts are justified .
‘

There's every point arguing against it if you have another view. If you have a compelling argument that resonates with others, and/or you can support it with evidence then you have an excellent chance of people agreeing with you. Blaming a site of 8 million for having a collective 'attitude' that means you are a lone voice, ridiculed and left out in the cold, isn't a proportionate response to holding a minority view. Why not either defend your view, or if you feel you can't, consider whether you need to find a more persuasive argument or robust evidence, or perhaps even reflect on whether you are right?

Sorry I don't know how to respond directly to a few people who responded to me. Firstly, thanks for the respectful tone and not jumping on me for having differing views (was actually a little anxious when I saw I'd been responded to directly!) Clearly I'm a Reddit novice as I didn't understand half of the terminology you were using! I've never come across the vile stuff you referred to but I don't doubt it's there. When I log on, I see a stream of posts about personal finance, films and tv, travel, parenting, local news etc. Basically the things that interest me. I notice if someone says something that comes across as insulting or abusive there, it gets down voted and kind of disappears. Where there's a discussion about e.g. how a co-parent has done something wrong, it doesn't automatically descend into a feeding frenzy about how awful that person is. But just to back up what some of your are saying, I referred back to the study on male / female hate speech - and it was actually based on male and female hating forums that are posted on Reddit! Anyway, on Mumsnet, I see lots of discussions with a general undertone that men are useless, pathetic, stupid, manipulative, a waste of space etc I guess if I saw women discussed the same way it would make me feel quite disgusted. I wonder whether this is part of the global trend that has emerged the last decade or so of divisive politics pitting the old against the young, men against women, native against foreign etc. Maybe I'm reading too much into it?!

It comes from decades of being on the receiving end of shitty treatment from men and witnessing other women also being treated badly by men. It doesn’t come from nowhere!

April's Day Fool thread.

I find there is a lot of black-and-white, simplistic and emotionally-biased thinking, not just when it comes to men but in general.

This is an interesting post.

I don't think it's sex and financial support that is the motivator to date. I think it's the belief that they are seeing a good man and enjoy his company.

Good men in year 1, 2, 3 etc can change over time to be less good men. This can be due to a number of factors. Work, career, children, lifestyle etc

The way the woman treats them, and how they're interacting together, can be one of those negative factors. This is the truth that a few posters have acknowledged further up the thread. Some women are crap partners, or become crap partners, due to life factors around them.

I'm no longer shocked when people post on threads "why did you have children with him?" thus failing to acknowledge people change over time. Both men and women.

MNers rarely hold back from saying what they think of shitty behaviour from women.

This is true, but I personally have never seen anybody saying "Women are rubbish/women are just useless/why do women do this?/I hate women" in response to a post about one/a few specific women who have behaved appallingly.

I think that, by dismissing all men en masse as useless/nasty/selfish/terrible people, as well as being unfair to the decent ones, it also gives an automatic free pass to the shitty ones who indeed should be held to account for their actions and behaviours - as though they couldn't possibly be expected to be any better, because men are all just inherently dreadful and they can't help it, bless 'em.

To answer your title, no.

I think Mumsnet does bring awareness to the negative ways in which men behave, and as always, people complain about the negative more than they praise the positive. But there's often mention of really lovely DHs, so I don't think it's all doom and gloom - it's usually fairly balanced, for the internet.

It also highlights (often unintentionally) the sadly low standards and blindness to bad behaviour and abuse that many women have, and the way they cling onto relationships with terrible men.

I read threads on Mumsnet and they just make me think how glad I am, in a world of rather awful men, to have found a very decent, good one. We support each other, make each other very happy, and work amazingly well as a team in life.

I think if you find you're thinking differently about your husband because of what you read on here, maybe it's either highlighting issues you have niggling under the surface that you haven't wanted to face up to, or you're a little suggestible and may need to step away.

You also appear to be saying that (somehow) women complaining about men's bad behaviour is why men behave badly, and why the bar for men is getting lower (?), which is both nonsensical and amusingly misogynistic.

If a woman in her forties has sexual dysfunction and she refuses to engage with medical advice, dietary or physical changes, etc; she's a problem too.

That is not a lack of understanding or compassion, just intolerance for poor excuses. If you do not care enough to engage with anything that will help to improve circumstances, you're short changing your partner, to the detriment of the relationship.

I find the sex board users the most realistic and down to earth about both sexes

<checks date>

<parks thread in the bit bucket>

Of course the rest of the story matters.

How simplistic to think it doesn't.

I remember a particular thread that made me feel very uncomfortable and overtly had more of the views that Ive seen over other threads but were less overt on those other threads

It was about an OP whose daughter had beaten up her brother. OP was proud of this because she said that the brother had pushed or hit the daughter first. As it turned out, he was defending himself from her (younger but bigger sister) in quite rough play. I never know if these things are all made up stories and you can never question it if you doubt it otherwise you get deleted, but not only was OP pleased with the daughters aggression, the vast vast majority of posters on that thread had this kid down as some mini Andrew Tate who 'wouldnt be using his misogyny again having had it kicked out of him by the sister'. Despite the fact that she had been the aggressor from the start

I mean at least wait until they're 18 before you really hate on them!!

Do you think that Mumsnet is leading to an increase in women being violent towards men? Or an increase in women murdering men?