Can you talk to your partner about your stance on women’s rights?

[Aurora791]

So just a really general question really as my partner and I are having troubles in other areas of our life and I don’t know if I’m being too hard lined on this. For context, he is your typical alpha male and in a very male dominated profession.

I raised in passing the Jane 5-live question earlier and it turned into a giant debate that has led to him essentially calling me a bigot and saying that he’s found it really offensive that I said women need safe spaces away from men because it paints them all as rapists.

Can fundamental differences in beliefs on the role and rights of women ever be overcome? According to him every conversation turns into something to do with gender, and that I’ve become a rampant feminist since having our daughter (because being a feminist is obviously an insult 🙄 ). The irony isn’t lost on me that I don’t have a safe space to talk about my beliefs around a need for safe spaces!

I’m so sorry, that’s awful.

Mine is a raging terf who talks about it all frequently, sends me articles, shouts at the tv when people are talking shit, goes to events about it. He’s livid, fearful of the incoming government and does what he can to make things better. He has two daughters but gets very annoyed when men say they care because they have daughters as though they wouldn’t care if they had no kids or sons. Biological reality and safeguarding should matter to everyone irrespective of their sex and parent/children status.

I hope you have other people you can talk to.

Mine also very much shares my views.

My husband wasn’t aware of the issues but now is, and is completely in agreement with me. I would find it incredibly difficult if he wasn’t, honestly

Yes, we talk regularly about it. I'm an out and proud terf. My husband completely supports that. We both believe that people can present any way they please, call themselves any name they wish and sleep with anyone they like (legality and consent assuming) but biological sex trumps 'feels' and women's spaces should be sacrosanct.
We have always had a very open and equal relationship and have always talked about politics etc. We have a daughter which informs his view somewhat.

Mine is too! And he also a 'alpha male and in a very male dominated profession' ex forces now in finance, but he like @AnneLovesGilbert's dh is raging and livid about things. He's desperate for the politicians to door step us to quiz them!

My DH is aware and agrees it's all wrong and ridiculous but still doesn't really get it. His brother is a TW which is something DH has really struggled with. He doesn't understand how I can be friendly and polite to his brother but still be a terf. He's a work in progress.

My husband gets it. He works with quite a few terfs too.

I can and do talk about gender with my DH, but tbh he does tend to go on and on about it. We don’t have disagreements on the topic, our disagreements tend to stem from me wanting to change the topic because I am bored to tears and want to talk about something that isn’t doom and gloom or rage bait.

My husband is very supportive. He KNOWS what some men are like. He doesn't take offense when I talk about how men treat women because it's blindingly obvious it's not all men.

I would really struggle to be with him if he didn't have some understanding.

So basically your husband is a prick..And wants to gaslight you into thinking you're a prick. So you don't wake up and get.the.fuck.away.from.him.

Run.

Mine gets it totally but loses interest if I talk about it too much. Mind you, he does that with many topics.

He's the sort of asshole who would turn any woman into a feminist, if not a lesbian. ;-)
But seriously, he's clearly in the wrong here. You're challenging his male supremacist beliefs and he's trying to shut you down with false accusations.

Not all men are rapists but all men are potential rapists. Tell him to put that in his pipe and smoke it, he sounds awful.

Do you mean women's rights or do you mean trans issues?

Truthfully, my partner talks about it more than I do and is very supportive of safe spaces for women.

I can't shut up about it. He totally gets it but is less interested than me
Relatively new relationship, 3 years, so I came out as a terf straight away. I was impressed because he never took any of my complaints about men personally. We now have an agreement. He listens to me about women's rights and I listen to him about his sport
My friend was called a bigot by her husband. He didn't actually believe a lot of what she said. This was several years ago. Checking his NHS trusts policy and having a teen daughter has made him full on terf

Not all men are rapists, but all rapists are men.

DH is great, he understands, he donated to IamSarah.

He's in a very 'male' industry but actually likes to hire women his last team ended up about 60% female.

Dp is much less terfy than me. I aim not to talk about it unless he brings it up, which he sometimes does, at which point I say what I think.

I don't think he has seen as much homophobia as I have, and apparently he doesn't know any trans people, unlike me. He's also not competed in a women's sport, unsurprisingly, unlike me.

He's also quite terfy enough to be cancelled, he just doesn't know it - thinks children shouldn't transition, doesn't think male people should be in women's sport. He doesn't feel the insult though. He doesn't get what it feels like to have mean girls and male celebs inform me I don't have either rights or knowledge of my own body.

He also barely uses porn. I do; written porn. I've been using literotica for years. I've seen it be flooded with porn about changing sex, about the delicious, erotic humiliation of becoming a woman, for a man. And the amazing power charge of NOT being seen as a sexual object, for a woman. I'm not surprised people don't discuss the porn they use, but it's very, very obvious if you look.

He's my measure of where quite a large section of the population is. Doesn't change my views but keeps me understanding how far out on the extreme edge I am. The extreme edge that says sex is real and consequential, without exception.

Thanks everyone, some really interesting comments and thoughts! It’s really upsetting that I can’t air my views in my own home without being shot down, and over something that I feel so strongly about (women’s rights). It just feels like it’s a race to the bottom with him.

We have many issues, but his chip on his shoulder about women’s rights eroding those of men is something I just don’t think I can get past.

If you mean can I discuss gender critical stuff, yes. My DH was aware of the broader issues with TQ+ before I was. He sends me articles and has currently got a YouTube video on the telly which is discussing (well, ranting about) the subject.
He doesn't agree with sex stereotyping and agrees that women need single sex spaces away from men (though he also would prefer not to share the men's toilets with transmen, especially his own daughter).

He's like me in lots of ways. But I honestly don't think men get it the way we do. Just as a white women I don't really get the 100s of micro aggressions that women of colour have and have to still deal with. I am emphasis and philosophise about it. Be abhorred by racism and call it out BUT I don't have to live it.
My family, as have many, have had women (my grandmother) raped and murdered, lots of domestic abuse (aunties, cousins), and then all of us been belittled, and sexualised, poorly paid, talked over and had 100s of me too moments which has seeped into our way of thinking. Can he try and emphasise - yes. Can he really really get it - no.
OP your OH sounds like a dick. The term alpha male says it all. Why stay with someone that acts like he is better than anyone else.

It’s really upsetting that I can’t air my views in my own home without being shot down

I sympathise, but if you choose to be with a 'typical alpha male', surely this is no surprise?

Mine spent our student days in the eighties distributing abortion information with me so he’s absolutely aware of women’s biological realities, and is fully as gender-critical as I am. And is pushing with some success within his own industry.

I get this. This is how he would describe himself, and what was very much my norm in the industry I was in (we met serving in the armed forces). It’s only since I became a civilian that I’ve realised how dreadful my previous life was (so he is right - I have changed, but most certainly for the better).

Yes, he's on the same page as me.