In thinking we don't actually need Men to diminish, bully, abuse and curtail our rights as women when we seem capable of doing it between ourselves.

[MitsubishiWarrioress]

To be honest, I am fairly subdued on Mumsnet and avoid AIBU. My life philosophy gets me through pretty well without a great deal of confrontation and I mostly achieve what I need and want with major organisations, banks etc with this attitude.

The cheer to fight on MN, (which IS in my opinion, a slice of life, and not just words on a screen (an excuse which seems to be used increasingly to make offensive and inflammatory comments)), seems to be cried almost daily.

The thick vein of Misandry overwhelms and alarms me, and it concerns me that we are raising boys with such negative opinions of their own sex that it is almost inevitable that bad behaviour and treatment of women will follow because, they have such low expectations of themselves within society.

This argument is often used to excuse women making bad choices, and yet is not applicable to men in a lot of instances.

I think there should be far less focus on the feminism aspect of equality and a drive to aspire to greater humanity.

I was bullied consistantly through school, by girls 95% of the time, and I do not hold that this was primarily as a result of male pressure.
The truth is, that some women are not very nice, just as with some men.

I have witnessed posters making quiet comments about something they have done for their men, but avoiding the general site because of the flaming they will get.

So that is 'choice' is it?

Apologising for admitting they are happy with their lot because they will be accused of 'smugness'. I have lost the count of how many times such a post will prompt the [vom] response.

I have nothing against debate, 'cheery' banter, and the passion with which differences of opinions are often aired, but sometimes the vitriolic attacks on fellow women is perhaps just as indicative of the undermining of our own sex as many of the issues in society. Because I presume not many posters have men standing over their shoulders telling them what to type.

I despair. I really do.

Yes, I agree at Toddler level the difference in behaviour is not an issue ISNT, for what it is worth my DS is 12 and DD is 7.
I have two DSS at 25 and 26.

Not acknowledging the differences that arise and treating the sexes homogeneously is IMO a mistake. This is relevant to my OP, and my comments about feminism, the state of certain aspects of MN and societies attitudes, to both sexes, in that unless the differences are recognise, acknowledged and tolerated universally, equality will always be a step away.

I have been thinking about your comments on what my point in the OP is ISNT. And it has bothered me. Not because you asked, but OK, what is my point.

What has given rise to this post is the fact I suppose that I am in counselling. Did I want it to be relevant to my thread? I think I didn't, but can see that without it, it may seem like rambling.
I was subjected to a steady, but not constant flow of bullying (physical and verbal, but predominantly by girls), sexual and emotional abuse(almost completely from my relationships with men) from the age of 4/5 , through to the break up of my marriage and my H walking out on me last year. (I was 40 last year)

There are two different effects. I am overwhelmingly intimidated by large groups of women, and struggle to involve myself with them i.e at the school gate, and whilst I get on greatly with men on the surface, close relationships have been messy, and I am wary of close contact with them.

I am having Transactional Analysis, which apart from looking at my own issues and how to step out of the 'drama triangle', questions for me why any of us behave in the way that we do.

MN has been an enormous source of support, and yet there are huge sections that I avoid. OK, if a group who enjoy the challenge of getting lairy find that an entertaining way of spending an evening, it's not for me but each to their own. But it doesn't stay confined to those that enjoy it and without me having to cite cases, there are many instances at the moment where it spirals and it gets offensive. I still question how this behaviour should be seen as acceptable, and thus normalised.

''Some men are nice; some aren't.

Some women are nice; some aren't.

'tis the way of things. Don't worry about it, you'll get tummyache.''

Headbanger's comment did not offend or bother me, except to say why accept it? Why not draw a line? The feminism aspect is just something I have increasingly notice when I do lurk or attempt to foray into the wider MN. I keep coming across the word 'sisterhood'. Yeah ....

Of course I recognise what MN is also capable of for the better, But it does not IMO, vindicate us as a sex from how we treat each other at times.

The aspect of the treatment of boys and men, is a recognition that very sadly, of the individuals (mainly 3) who contributed to the other aspects of the decline of my mental health, were/are deeply unhappy individuals, who had their own issues (in all three cases relating to the relationship with their mothers).

Maybe they should have been separate threads, but that is the link, and my trying to balance out that indeed, we should be beholden to ourselves to show more humanity at times.

My despair porcamesaria, at what may be a silly site, is that it is a slice of life.

A reflection of 'RL'.

In my mind, if we can't manage to get on on here, how the heck do we hope to turn around any of the things that you mention.
The percentage of people that enjoy a bit of a ruck is quite high given the popularity of AIBU

All that energy being channelled into changing something...... just imagine.

I think that it takes all sorts. There are nasty, rude, bitter, selfish, jealous people and kind, generous, caring people. You can't expect to change human nature.

I don't think there is any such thing as sisterhood really. There are just individuals with their disparate interests and personalities. Often, those who call on the sisterhood to help them out when it suits their purpose, are nowhere to be seen when you go back and ask for help.

I find it interesting in your post MW, that where women have treated you badly, there is no reason or analysis of why. I assume you just accept they were bullies - and your complaint of this site is that women do not treat each other well.

While when men have treated you badly, it is because they are damaged in some way ie not really their fault, well in fact you blame their mothers ie other women.

I am not brainy or eloquent enough to know what to say about that, if anything, but it stood out for me. Do you fundamentally prefer men to women, and thus see a worse side to women and a preferential side to men IYSWIM? I have no idea, just thinking out loud.

You classify women as bitchy, letting ourselves down, unable to have grown up conversations, descending to insults and so on. I say again that men have terrible behaviour traits as well - some "masculine" and IME they can bitch with the best of them.

On MN there are literally thousands of women. Some have very strong views about all sorts if things from feminism to animals to vaccination to buggys to, well, anything. Some views I find unacceptable and so i ignore those threads/topics and of the people who tend to upset me I have leant to more or less ignore them. I really don't see MN as a vitriolic bitchy man hating place. We have sons, fathers, husbands and so on. Some people seem to be quite down on men, but they have their reasons. Others are very pro-men IYSWIM.

I haven't seen the "sisterhood" thing bandied around much myself so can't comment on that.

I am sorry if you are seeing this a lot on MN as it is not how the site feels to me. A few extreme posters should not outweigh the voices of the people you agree with/the moderate voices.

I agree Claig

MW, I too am someone who attracts bullies- you wouldn't expect it if you met me, as I am pretty strong and very seemingly ca[pable- but becuase of my childhood the minute someone starts a bullying type behaviour I crumble, it onlky takes a word and those who are prone to that sort of crap spot it a mile off; I spent the last year of Uni (graduated in 2008) unable almost to speak in class after being very much the interactive one becuase of the whispering and comments that would start immediately behind me, and I would often rteturn home in tears. I am 36, no baby.

Funnily enoough though DH is prone to being quite overt and it does not affect me, I have no qualms shouitng him down but unlike some other people I grew up with I know he would never ever resort to violence.

Anyway what I am trying to say is you are not alone and by and large I agree with yout opinions. TA is a great form of counselling (read a book on it though cannot for the life of me recall why LOL), and it seemed useful.

And would recommend the book I mentioned furtehr down to anyone; goes into baron-Cohen in depth, crux is he thinks that there are S (sequencer types) which are more male and E (emptahiser types) more famle and that most people have both so are balanced but some males (remembering the book focuses on males) are extreme S which at the most extreme is non verbal ASD, and in lesser elds to such behaviours as narrow interests, obsession with viryual worlds etc- behaviours that would (and this is where I am jumping in as have read only bit so far) reinforce more4 negative traits and lead to withdrawal from the real world

I ahve 4 boys, 2 weith ASD and 1 with dyspraxia so of course that sort of thing interests me

I don;t mean the above post to sound aggressive in any way, I think it might do in places,sorry.

I mean if you are intimidated by large groups of women and attuned to them being bitchy and bullying, then you're going to really notice it IYSWIM.

I am sorry you have had some shitty things happen to you in your life. They certainly colour how we see things. On the brand new feminism topic there is a thread called "why did you become a feminist" and it's quite interesting to see the different reasons that women came to give themselves that title IYSWIM. We are all coloured by what has happened to us.

Anyway, also thinking about the girls learning/boys learning stuff. If boys and girls need different teaching styles and activities and stuff, then the natural conclusion is to educate them separately, yes? But I think that boys in single sex schools do worse overall than those in mixed, so what is the solution?

Incidentally the "how should we educate then?" question is not me moving away from my position that actually men and women, while on average they may be different, in practice have lots of crossover and so treating them differently may actually disadvantage many.

ISNT I am not a fan of separate schooling, either for genders or for abilities- I am anti grammar for example.

I am a fan of what I have had to term uni-campus education for want of a better term; I don't understand why we would preach incvlusion for disabled kids and trhen send very able kids here, some boys there etc.

No, I think children should be educated together to promote tolerance, acceptance and general sharing of different talents but streaming and mixed teaching styles should be used mroe suirng the whole school experience; so that whilst they all sahre (as a random example) humanities, maybe there should be gencder sepearation for languages, and separate provisions for thsoe who extremly able or not. I think sharing a setting and spending much time together at lunch, play, assemblies, PE whatever is so important to development of a more eaul and just nicer society

How do you get over this problem in mixed sex schools of the different sexes selecting subjects by what their sex is supposed to be good at though?

And what about the children who learn in a way that is typical of teh other sex?

Off out for a meal now though will be back later

Last thought - that I come at it from a perspective that we are more simiar than different.

If you come at it from a POV that we are more different than similar, how can a. stereotypes which mean women earn less than men be done away with and b. how will the sexes learn to live harmoniously if they are set as diametrically opposed from childhood? People notoriously have trouble with people who are "different" and the answer is always exposure, not segregation.

ISNT I think mixed sex schools would be better than single at dealing with elarning sty7les wouldn't it? Be far better to screen kids foir learning styles and allot groups accordingly than just assume its covered in single sex schools?

As for teh subjects, if a child wants to study what etehy feel is gender appropriate what can you do without forcing? Gender apporpriate may also be them appropriate; just becuase we dont want all girls to be fored into (as an example) child development, do we also want ti to be nona ccessible to those for whom ist s appropriate? Once you scrapped the crap (rules like mys chool where I wasnt allowed to do 3 sciences becuase girls didnt and amde to do typing and child development instead 9and was promptly thrown out fo typing for being generally pissed off with it) there ahs to be a alevel at which you accept that soem peoples choices that are right for them will be in line with gender stereoyypes- and many others will not

I do think things seem to be improving- Dh is studying a degree which is practical (stage lighyting design) and physics based and is 50% girls on teh course. A positive.

I do think we are more similar than different

But I think there are also some traits that are more common in each gender. The majority of people fall nicely into a mixed iddle gropup, the ones that suffer on either side are those at the extremes.

I dont for one minute think we are wildly different creatures or hgave different potentials, and I thbink outside of the extremes most imbalances can be dealt wirh but a complete understanding of the picture is going to give you best rsults. If you ahve a class of 30 where 24 are male (as with ds1's class in Infants) then you amy well end up with a majority of visual ormpragmatic learners, and class teaching whcih inclues a significant prortyion of that is more like;y to be effective than the almost exclusively aural techniques ds2's teacher (class of 23.8 boys) employs

''You classify women as bitchy, letting ourselves down, unable to have grown up conversations, descending to insults and so on. I say again that men have terrible behaviour traits as well - some "masculine" and IME they can bitch with the best of them.''

Hmm.. I do not class all women as bitchy ISNT, and I don't think they are unable to have grown up coversations. Like any AIBU there isn't a great need to disscuss the positives of MN, because there is nothing Unreasonable about that. IYSWIM

I can not comment on why I was bullied by females because I did not have close relationships with them. And there fore have no knowledge of what caused them to do so,

The men in my life, my father, a close relative, two ex boyfriends and my H, I was in a position to get to know closely and about their pasts.

Women on a one to one basis I have excellent relationships with, and the friends I am closest to are funny, opinionated, open minded and we regularly have deep discussions, but rarely does this entail, in fact never does it entail resorting to 'bitchyness' and personal slights. If I have condemned the whole of MN with a blanket accusation of bitchyness, nothing was further from my thoughts. I have expressed that there is a huge support network and that I value it.

These are not always experiences happening to me but to other posters and I observe their comments. I do not intend to quote them, for I feel it is not my right to do so.

What if ending male violence against women involves going back to asking where society fails them as developing young men Dittany? My DS's anger management issues were horrific, and left unchecked he would have gone down a very trouble road.
Two comments on MN rocked my world when I came on here for advice...that he would be better off in care than having me as a mother as I was not in a position to protect him from an increasingly alcohol dependant father,
and that it was no wonder he was disfunctional, having a depressed mother and an alcoholic, EA father.

How many of societies male monsters are created from upbringings like this? Because it easy to say as adults we can make choices despite our upbringings, but the negative indoctrination of a young mind, very much shapes who we are.

I am humbled by what those posters said, and did everything in my power to turn my world around to redress the balance, but not everybody does and the consequences are dire.

I have to go DD is ill..

ISNt can you recommend a book about feminism and what it actually means properly?

I've done religious feminism etc, but in truthn in my rl anyone who has proclaimed themselves a feminsit ahs either seemed to be a man ahter or on occasion given me sym,pathy for ahving bnoys

I know that is not the true message fo feminism, I beleive it equate to being on an equal footing, but would lilke to read something that isnb't too- amgry

As there still hasn't been an explanation of what the topic of this thread is, I'll take it at face value as actually being about the style of posting on AIBU.

AIBU is like being in a pub. In fact, it is so much like a pub that in the evening, some of the people posting on it probably have been drinking. On a thread, you don't have to respond or listening to everyone. You can just choose to listen and respond to the people you will learn something from.

So if I disagree with someone, I will listen to their perspective if they can put together a coherent argument and are interested in a reasonable debate.

If they are deliberately twisting or misunderstanding my comments, or hurling abuse at me, I just ignore them because there is no value in their debate.

So, I would advise people to ignore many AIBU posts. I can see that the OP is coming from the perspective of counselling, but AIBU is a debate with people with whom you have no personal relationship and should be taken as such. It is not akin to bullying at work (which we have to go to) or abuse at home (where we have to live). You can walk out of the pub and into a quiet cafe, and you can walk out of AIBU and into a more sedate forum.

As for the boys at school issue, yes that needs addressing, but it is absurd to take this one issue and reject feminism in its entirety because of it. I don't seem to remember the great feminist marches to get more coursework in schools, so why we are being blamed I do not know.

Clarissimo, a book I really got was was Beyond Power, on Women, Men and Morals by Marilyn French.

It's a long while since I read it, but from memory it clearly demonstrated how the traditional western patriarchal system benefits neither men or women.

good description of AIBU
"AIBU is like being in a pub. In fact, it is so much like a pub that in the evening, some of the people posting on it probably have been drinking."
except that I often wonder whether some have been hitting the hard stuff since early morning

MW sorry about my earlier post. I think I am just having real trouble understanding exactly what this thread is about and was trying to work it out, I'm sorry if i made assumptions/said things about you that were not right.

Clarissimo I think with feminism, there are almost as many different strands as there are women, which is why some people think that it has stalled a bit, as no-one can agree what the important things are. For me it means sometihng different to others, and there are many areas where feminists disagree, often quite violently. Which makes for lively discussions

There is a new topic for feminism on MN here and I think it will have some interesting threads - there is one about how did people realise/decide to be feminists which is interesting. Why not come along and have a look? It is such a wide topic which touches on all of our lives.

Ooh also clarissimo - I may have been at school with the brother but our schools were separated by sex but next to each other, so we mixed travelling to and fro etc. (sounds like your idea for schools!) anyway I didn't know sacha baron cohen but he was there while I was there IYSWIM he was in the year above. So while I was at school with him I didn;t actually know him. Sorry if I made it sound more exciting than it was!

What about all the adverts and images of men as powerful, strong, successful? And that the vast majority of experts interviewed in the papers are male? That the majority of politicians and people leading in business are male? That in employment the higher up you go women fall away?

That men will on average go on to earn much more than women in employment? That images of people excelling at sport are almost always male?

People really think that males are having a terribly bad time? I don't see it in the lives of the people I know, the representations in the media, the reports about the great and good. Our society is still dominated by men, and if that isn't enough for men, than frankly I don't know what will be.

As for violence - I'd rather be punched in the face than raped any day. Sexual violence against women is rife and it is not acceptable.

This "poor poor men" line bugs me so much.

ISNT it really bugs me when I'm assumed to be a certain type of person simply because of my genitals.

Or when someone is stereotyped because of their race or sexuality.

It also really bugs me that men are so often lumped together as some kind of privileged species of domineering power freaks, exerting their will over poor defencless women.

Some men are succesful under the current patriarchal system, but most are not for the same reason that most women are not.

No man (or woman, if you prefer) is an island.

The feckless, lazy, deadbeat adulterers line so rightly pointed out by TheShriekingHarpy bugs me so much too.

I often see it in the media/advertising along with violent, lazy, sex obsessed and stupid.

"ISNT, regarding the idea that there is some type of gender bias when selecting experts or specialists for tabloid articles....well, how do you quantify that? "

Read it somewhere recently - I have tried googling but to no avail. I was talking about all newspapers, not tabloids, I'm not sure where the tabloid thing came from.

"Re violence and rape - both are damaging and cause untold devastation to the victim. So with that in mind why on earth shouldn't there be readily accessible support groups and crime prevention practices in place for both? One of my SILs male friends was recently stabbed in the chest, resulting in a punctured lung. (He was trying to intervene and break up a fight). Not only does he have the physical scars to deal with but the mental ones too. Neither Violence nor rape is "acceptable"."

There are huge initiatives in place to try and tackle knife crime, and gun crime. They are heavily reported on and everyone is very aware of what a terrible thing they are. Did you SILs friend decide not to access medical or police assistance as they were concerned that they would not be taken seriously, I wonder.

Re the gender pay gap. A gap exists before women have had their families, both on average across teh board, and for people doing the same jobs in the same industry. In my old industry the pay gap was 40%. I am fairly sure that all those women are going to their employers are saying "well actually I have different priorities to Dave, as I am female, so I think you should pay Dave 40% more than me"...

This glass cellar business, what about the millions of women doing cleaning, caring, other minimum paid roles? To argue that men corner the market on crappy low paid jobs is preposterous.