AIBU to conclude women pretty much always outshine men overall?

[Unsddd]

Or is it just me? I find that men, as nice as they can be, are just a little bit shit.

And even if they’re not shit, they’re just not as good as the woman they’re with or a woman of similar age and circumstance.

I see it everywhere. My parents. Friends’ relationships. Colleagues. The sense of entitlement, putting themselves first, not being as organised, not thinking ahead in the same way, letting their mood affect everyone around them…. I am not saying women are not like this, of course they can be. But it’s rare it’s to the extent of men.

Maybe it is just me. I’m old and cynical these days.

MRA detected.

I think Op needs to see a doctor. Being filled with this level of hate and bitterness is really not good for the mental health.

Come on… The OP went a bit further than saying she preferred female company!

Yes, though in my experience, women are far more likely to be emotionally abusive than men. That doesn’t make women worse than men.

If you want to drive on that A road, having a man laying some tarmac is what’s needed!!!!

This doesn’t prove that women are better.

Men are much more likely to go into a burning building and save lives!!!

The standard of balanced argument on this thread is outstanding.

List a whole host of negative statistics about men.

Don’t include anything positive about men on the list and dismiss any attempt by anyone else to do so.

Ignore anything negative about women.

If OP isn’t a wind up merchant, it’s worrying that she thinks her argument isn’t totally laughable.

And statements like “men start wars” like it’s really that simple? It’s terrifying that people who think that comments like that are some profound “truth” walk amongst us and have the vote.

It is staggering!!!

Men (in power) start wars so therefore the young men fighting on the frontline, sacrificing their lives, are “less” than women.

Whilst I do think women (or at least the women who want to hold and excel in publicly significant roles) are constrained by the infrastructure of the patriarchy, I don't agree that women are necessarily better human beings and "outshine" men.

If women were really so amazingly superior why haven't they overthrown the patriarchy to run the world.

Lots of women are happy with a role as a secondary support to men. They want to take the man's name, they want to step back from careers to focus on raising children, they want the man to protect and provide while they make for a happy home. That's not all women (I'm not of that type) but it is a lot of them.

I'm not saying that raising children well isn't "shining" but it's shining in a different sort of way to shining in a career/public office. It's not seen as remarkable because having children is commonplace and doesn't require any particular skill or shining personal attributes. Every single one of us has a mother. Whilst one's own mother is (hopefully) special to them, there is nothing special about mothers generally, in contrast to groundbreaking discoveries and inventions.

Women have been and are involved with discoveries, inventions, politics and business but far less so and often that's because they take a step back for parenting and that's what they want.

So I don't think women outshine men overall. There are different parts of society to shine in.

Women don't want to do those jobs. And in many of those jobs would not be physically capable of doing them anyway.

And it's nearly all men who create conflict and war or engage in violent crime.

OP, you're not wrong but Mumsnet not the place to find agreement. Most people here haven't come across the literature that might make them think differently. Even if they had, they're so part of the patriarchal wallpaper that it wouldn't have an effect. You're shouting into the wrong room.

That's over-egging it. 150 years ago, women were excluded from almost every aspect of public life and had to fight their way to equal citizenhood.

@honeylulu Great post!!!
quote: “If women were really so amazingly superior why haven't they overthrown the patriarchy to run the world.”

Didn’t the patriarchy give women freedom to care about their rights, and have autonomy through technological advancements?

You are welcome!

If you want another good laugh, try to challenge what I said 😀

Not really.

Eve isn't presented as evil in the biblical text. She is deceived, disobeys God, and suffers the consequences, but she is not portrayed as acting out of malice.

Pandora isn't evil either. She's a mythical figure created by the gods as part of Zeus's punishment of humanity and manipulated into opening the jar.

Mary I ordered horrific executions, but so did many male rulers during the religious conflicts of the time. Her actions were brutal, but not uniquely so for her era, and her reputation was later amplified by Protestant historians.

Marie Antoinette was privileged and politically out of touch, but much of what people "know" about her, such as "Let them eat cake", s propaganda or myth. She wasn't responsible for many of the crimes later attributed to her.

Myra Hindley is different. She knowingly participated in the torture and murder of children, so she's a much clearer example of genuine moral evil. Are there evil women? Yes. But statistically even women who contribute to violent crime are a percentage in single digits - 98% of violent crime is committed by men.

So history certainly contains women who have done terrible things, but several of the names on that list are either mythical, heavily mythologised, or judged through a lens shaped by politics, religion and gender.

I think you raise valid points.

We do still need the men though. They do have their good points.
They really have been overvalued and overhyped though directly to the detriment of women, and I think it's interesting how many people have had enough of it.

There actually isn't such as thing as "the patriarchy". Its just "reality".

I understand "patriarchy" to mean a social system where power resides largely with men (?). That is a completely natural scenario - men would always wield power over women, even if only at the most base level of being physically stronger.

But its just "reality". Holding power and running society are what men are for.

Women have different, but equally important, roles. But feminism has completely traduced these to the point where women now understand they are actually degrading.

I think modern women have to some extent lost a sense of themselves and what their natural roles in society are; one side effect of this is that they then resent men whom they understand are in conflict with them, or seeking to suppress them.

On the whole, I don't think feminism has served women well - have women ever been less content, less satisfied or more full of angst?

It seems women today are meant to have several plates spinning in the air at once, yet are unable to commit fully to any of them, and so are left facing a difficult, demanding and yet fundamentally unsatisfying lot.

Women commit just as much evil as men, more even, but its a subtler kind of evil and - whereas men committing evil is seen as very straightforward - women's evil is often framed as a consequence of her being a victim, or even as an empowering choice.

I agree with lots of what you say including patriarchy = reality. Twas ever thus.

I'm not sure what you mean by women realising their natural roles are degrading. Do you mean motherhood? I don't think that is degrading. Reductive perhaps if it's all men think women should want or be allowed. I'm a mother and no regrets, I feel privileged by it rather than degraded.

On the whole, I don't think feminism has served women well - have women ever been less content, less satisfied or more full of angst? This is also very thought provoking and I agree women have a lot of frustration going on about wanting to achieve things publicly and have a family, when the mum is so often the default parent. Whilst a high achieving man can crack on knowing his default parent wife will do the child raising. But overall I think feminism has done women a good service rather than a bad one. We have more options and choices.

I would certainly be less content and less satisfied as a 1950s wife, stultified by a lack of career, stunted education and long days of domestic toil alleviated only by tranquiliser medication. My life isn't without stress but I have a career I love and two children (and husband) I love and I'm pretty happy. If I had the choice to swap and have been born male instead, I wouldn't take it. I'm talking about the western world. If I was a woman in Afghanistan I would probably want to swap!

I think you'll have to be a bit clearer on what you mean by evil and give examples.

Men kill others far more often than women
Men start wars far more often than women
men commit war crimes far more often than women
Men brutalise and act violently within the home far more often than women
Men start street brawls far more often than women
Men fight physically over trivial shit like who won a football match far more often than women
Men rape - women physically can't.
Men commit acts of sexual assault far more often than women
Men riot and damage property far more often than women.
Men commit arson far more often than women
Men predate babies, children and adolescents far more often than women
Men abandon their young children and pregnant wives in pursuit of fun far more often than women

Can you give similarly atrocious acts in which women commit evil more often than men?

Yabvu but I recognise that I would be wasting time in explaining why so I'll just leave it here.

This is an extremely biased viewpoint. Feminism is not what traduced women's important roles to the point where women find them degrading. Feminism has allowed women to see that these are not the only roles.

You ask if women have ever been less contented? I think it's safe to say women are happy at having the freedom to choose birth control, to have their own names on their own bank accounts and mortgages without having to ask a man's permission, to be awarded proper degrees for their university studies, to have domestic violence treated as a crime worthy of police investigation, to be allowed to vote, to enter key professions like the law and the clergy, to be allowed to continue to work after getting married... Some of these rights have only come into existence within my own lifetime and all have only happened within roughly the last hundred years. So I don't think we are in any position to judge how profoundly unhappy some of our ancestors were.

The suffragettes fought for equal voting rights but they “forgot” to ask for the right to defend and die for their country along with men in the First World War!! Some of them chose to shame men to enlist with the white feather campaign.

Exactly.

The place is crawling with them these days.🙄