If we (women) were firmer...

[ButWhyIsTheGinGone]

and immediately ejected inferior specimens of men from our lives, men would be forced to up their game. I don't know how I feel about that statement, but it's just striking me more and more when I read this board. I'm talking the liars, the emotional abusers, the physical abusers, the financial abusers, the neglectful, the adulterers, the ones who expect to have a family but continue the young single life, the general no-hopers...etc.

I have been cheated on in every relationship I've ever been in, and I've also demeaned myself by begging a cheat to stay...so I'm certainly not going to start pointing fingers at people who find it hard to end relationships. But how's it got to the point where women live lives of utter misery and pain? How come even the most undesirable losers of men (see above characteristics) can get lovely partners and treat them like crap? Funny how the world works sometimes.

Sorry - just musing really. Any thoughts welcome.

I'm not defending Bad Boys, just pouring scorn on those that blame them for not getting laid.

BBJ, I'd rather lay responsibility at the feet at those who are shits. Why would you do otherwise? Especially in a society that punishes those who stand up to those shits eg the vilification of single mothers etc. Spreading the blame 50/50 is nonsense.

I totally agree, but most of the time the woman is subconsously doing it. I met DH at 18 but I went for a man that is very similar to my dad who my mum has been with since 14 very hands on father not got any issues with drinking, smoking and not controlling, so I suppose I went out and was imediately drawn to men who are exactly the same.

Was with ex from 16 - 17 he was also extremely similar to my dad. I never even really thought these things until years later. That is probably why I have never been treated badly by a man as you go for what you know.

Aye

I am not absolving the fathers of responsibility

but some mothers baby their sons, not all but some, I have seen 25 yr old men with their mothers at job interviews (actually in the interviews) and have had mothers of men that I have fired from jobs ring up to complain.

I know of men that will never leave home becasue their mothers do everything for them (several where the fathers left because their sons could do no wrong in the mothers eyes)

My parents taught me how to wash clothes, iron, cook, clean etc. but some parents don't and this includes mothers.

'Any man that moans about Bad Boys getting all the girls is a tede. '

And any woman who moans that men are compulsive liars, abusers and philanderers is a frigid, nagging hag, and probably a lezzer too

Nowt wrong with being a lezzer. Wish I was sometimes.

You are comparing apples with oranges, Rick. Men complaining about some other men vs women complaining about some men. Most women like men that are themselves and just get on with stuff whilst treating women like the human beings they are. That's why most people are in happy relationships because (I hope) most people are like that.

BBJ "I'm not....but" Yeah you are. Where are the men stepping up to the plate in all of your scenarios?

First line Aye

not absolving fathers of responsibility

but you seem to be suggesting that it is entirely the fathers fault in this.

bringing up a child in a nuclear family is the responsibility of both parents.
In single parent families I am not discounting NRPs but not all are feckless, in the same way that not all RPs are fantastic.

I've had a think about your posts, BBJ. You think it's a mother's place to raise a child, yes? Either you have a shit father and it's her fault, no father and its her fault or what? Where does a good father fit into all of that?

Let's get that bar raised, BBJ.

Lizzie, me too!

AR, I was being slightly flippant. The 'why do women like bastards' scenario is a tired cliche, but so are a fair amount of complaints about men that I see on here. A guy who uses this complaint is usually being lazy. Men can spot other twatty men at twenty paces, even if a woman can't. It's then up to you to present yourself as the superior being/better option. It isn't usually too difficult!

My P likes to say he's not a bastard he's a git. He never does enough to be a complete bastard, but does enough to show he doesn't value me, or think of me as an equal person that it's now become more than I can deal with and I'm ending our relationship tomorrow.

I deserve someone that is nice to me, and really cares about me. Not someone that is a bit useless but not useless enough to be a complete bastard. That's killed a lot of the self esteem I spent a long time building back up. Today is my last straw. Fucking off to watch MMA with single mate's, taking one of my books and a bottle of wine from my place when we don't even live together (after 6 years of living together and a year of not) without an "I love you", "Happy Valentines" or even a kiss is where my line is drawn.

Now I just need to stick to it, and it is going to be hard. He's much more intelligent than I am, I'm depressed and have very little confidence and he's a salesman so he's good at talking me round.

Sorry, maybe I should start my own thread. Ignore me.

Aye

Lets break it down

You think it's a mother's place to raise a child, yes?

no already posted "bringing up a child in a nuclear family is the responsibility of both parents. "

Either you have a shit father and it's her fault, no father and its her fault or what? Where does a good father fit into all of that?

Projecting much?

already posted "My parents taught me how to wash clothes, iron, cook, clean etc" thats both parents Mother and father.

so thats both your arguements blown out of the water.

all I'm posting against is your insistance that it is just the mans fault.

but given the personal replies that I'm getting off you, I can't be bothered.

You what? I just think shit people should bear responsibility. I don't rank passivity or maintenance of a status quo by someone with less social power as equal to shitness, that's all. Shit people keep being shits. Passive people get on OK when the shits aren't around. Ergo, let's focus on the shits.

I know good men are out there. I am related to some of them. and choose to have others of that ilk in my life.

MaybeSheWill - yes, start a new thread. Let's get your standards raised.

There are a lot of people who still see women as the property of men, though. I am not surprised the OP is aware of this through bar work; there have been threads about it on here, too. As far as some people, particularly some men, are concerned, a woman who is not visibly owned by a man is 'fair game', and if they see a woman or even several women in a group but without a man, in a bar or club, men like this will go and pester the women for attention and/or sex, and will not go away without proof that these women are another man's property. Or a punch in the face; that's effective but gets you talked about.

I often wonder about this too. I can only speak from my own experiences, of having been fortunate enough to have a lovely husband who is very supportive and has a very even and kind temperament. Being with him makes me realise that if anything was to ever happen to him, I wouldn't put up with any nonsense from anyone else as I know what a good relationship should be like. I feel valued which in turn has given me lots of self esteem and confidence. I have never been in an unhappy relationship but would imagine that it starts to normalise after a while and you don't realise maybe quite how wrong the situation is.

Why is it men are bastards, half of each affair is a woman (well mostly)
Most of us do our fair share, some do more
Its a surprise but women can be unreasonable at times
I am not my Father and my son is not me
if we stopped all the sexist crap and got on with life with honesty and respect half of the posts on here would vanish.

Smally rant over, retires back to the housekeeping !!!

What strikes me a lot is the number of women who come on MN asking if they are "justified" in breaking up with someone for reasons x y an z. The fact that they're not happy doesn't seem to be a sufficient reason for them - they feel they have to have an airtight, solid reason for leaving someone, like outright abuse or cheating. I often wonder where this attitude comes from - the idea that you must hang onto a relationship no matter how shit it is and put your heart and soul into making it work even if your partner shows zero interest in making anything better. My DH is great but if he started behaving like a shit I would give him a solid time frame to improve things and then I would leave. I don't see the point in staying in a relationship just for the sake of it.

I do think women take on far too much responsibility for maintaining relationships. That's why we see so many posts on MN from women asking how to deal with their inlaws and complaining that they buy all the presents for their husband's family. Why do they take it on themselves to deal with their husband's family for him when so few husbands do the same for their wives? I got drawn into this early on in my relationship with DH to a certain extent. At one point I was working ridiculously long hours and I was fretting hugely about getting bedsheets washed as DH's parents were visiting. At that point DH was home for much of the day finishing his PhD. It suddenly struck me - why the fuck was I fretting when DH couldn't give a shit? I just didn't bother washing the sheets. Of course it was I that MIL asked about the sheets to which I replied "Sorry MIL I don't know, you'll have to ask DH." When DH asked me about the sheets later I tore him a new one and told him from then on he would be responsible for sorting things out when his parents visit, while I'd be responsible if my parents were visiting. It took a while but he got the message eventually, though I know MIL still judges me if things aren't quite right in the house.

I agree with what others have said about women being trained for a young age to be "nice" and accommodating, to not be a "bitch," which over time erodes their ability to stand up for themselves and leads them accepting heaps of shit in relationships.

I shall be aiming to raise my daughter to be her own person and not pile the pressure on her from a young age to be attractive to the opposite sex like my mother did to me. I was miserable without a boyfriend or any kind of male attention. Ironically it is being with my DH that has helped me grow in confidence to know that if our relationship ended I would actually be fine and in fact not immidiately, desperately seek to replace him in my life. My mum, OTOH, had my dad undermine her constantly so that she believed she was a second class citizen to him and when he left her she struggled a lot. Even now, years on she is still searching for a relationship to make her feel good about herself. It would have been so easy for me to follow in her footsteps and find a man who I felt indebted to for being with me.

MIL is a clear case of a woman believing men are superior to women. She had her father treat her abusively, then replaced him with a husband at 19 (having DH at this age, too). She did leave FIL, but overlapped with other bad relationships and her boyfriend is differently abusive. She won't stand up to her 14 year old son because as a man its "normal" for him to be aggressive to her and treat her like shit. She told her oldest daughter to return to the man who had gotten her pregnant at 15 and was beating her, to "talk things through". Its all normal to her. Fortunatly DH and I were able to support SIL to leave the fucker and she learned that its actually NOT normal to be treated appallingly by her partner.

Both my mum and MIL are from very different backgrounds and there is an almost 10 year age gap between them, yet both have struggled with asserting themselves over men, or even putting their needs first. It's going to take a long, long time to erase this type of thinking in society.

Men and women are both vulnerable to the manipulations of one another. Men and women were historically raised in completely different "cultures" and learn to manipulate in gender-specific ways.

Women exert tremendous power over men, but in a completely different way to how men exert power over women. Men's power is usually physical and economic, and therefore easier to see, and more visible in the public sphere. Women's is usually emotional and sexual, and therefore much more covert.

Most abusive relationships include a dynamic of abuse -- a hidden dialogue, if you will. It does take two to maintain an abusive relationship, even when there is one obvious aggressor (i.e. usually the man, who can easily kill a woman if he so chose, and is therefore more immediately dangerous).

...when I put all of this together in my own mind, all I can say is that the answer to the "power-drunk men vs downtrodden women" war that feminism uncovered some decades ago, is for all of us to raise our children to respect the personhood of every person, including their own personhood. Not for boys to learn that they shouldn't hit/hurt girls, or for girls to learn that they shouldn't let a boy hurt them, as examples. Those goals are too narrow IMO.

SolidGoldBrass - totally agree . I've been single/no sex for three years by choice. I still do not feel able to face being vulnerable with a guy. I just cannot take anymore hurt. I will be very firm in future and i do not want male friends as that is usually their route to hurt and abuse (try to).

JUST SAY NO TO ANY KIND OF ABUSE

oikopolis please tell us more about women's tremendous power over men.

I'm not being an abuse apologist by saying that women exert power over men, if that's what that smiley means.

I'm simply pointing out that in a society where emotions, family and childrearing are "women's work", it's inescapable that that's where women's power lies. Human beings are intelligent. They will attempt to control a dangerous or unpredictable situation in whatever way they have available to them, and women's lives are typically more dangerous and unpredictable than men's... so obviously they would use whatever power they had. That is a morally neutral statement, it's not one of blame or shame at all.

And women are not innocent sweet angels in any case -- the idea that women are somehow morally superior to men is just the same old misogynistic propaganda that the Victorians spouted once upon a time. Women are just as good/evil as men. We are just as human.

We don't have the same kind of [obvious, visible] power as men, but we [women] also seek power and control over the people in our lives... that's human nature, not male nature. And we also need to address our own manipulations and attempts to gain control... which are all part of the cycle of abuse, of course -- something that was started by men's physical dominance, but has been perpetuated by BOTH sexes buying into it.

And many many women DO buy into, and support, and actively perpetuate abusive power dynamics. This is why many mothers encourage daughters to return to abusive spouses. it's why many little boys are taught that showing fear, anxiety, or even tenderness makes them deeply unacceptable. Etc. etc. etc., ad nauseaum. The list could go on forever, for both men and women.

Because I believe this, like I said, I don't think the "sex wars" will cease until we change the narrative from "women should be treated better by men" to "human beings need to treat other human beings with respect and dignity".

I guess I am talking about the anti-oppression movement, more than anything else. The power dynamics in all our lives are never ever simple. They are incredibly complex, and they are not gendered, or dependent on gender alone. And we all have power, so we are all responsible for examining how we use or abuse it.

Men are afraid of women having power, which is why society has been set up to remove it from women by force. What men fear is the way in which women can create life in their bodies and men cannot ie a man can only get children with the co-operation of a woman. So all human society has been set up to remove, as much as possible, a woman's opportunity to choose when or whether to have babies. So her sexuality has to be owned by a man and she has to be convinced that this is what she wants. Access to contraception is decided by men, not women. Marriage conveys ownership of a woman and removes any right she might have to refuse sex or impregnation.

Yeah yeah, your marriage isn't like that, your man isn't like that, blah blah. Of course not. There have always been decent human beings trying to interact decently with one another. But it's dim to ignore the roots of misogyny, rape and domestic violence and the lingering effect they still have, in the way abortion, contraception and single motherhood are still so widely demonized - they are all about women deciding for themselves how their lives will be and rejecting male ownership of their bodies.

I don't think there is a "war" between the sexes. However, men are oppressing women worldwide. Patriarchy is the norm now in cultures across the Earth, so the balance in power is clearly unequal. Doesn't mean that we women are innocent angels who do not abuse others - no one is saying that. But male abuse and violence against women - especially their partners - is epidemic. Just look at this forum! That is why we are adressing this.

Access to contraception is decided by men, not women.

Hey????!

Please expand and qualify..