Do men despise women.

[Loomineer]

On another thread read comments about women not realising how much men despise them. It got me thinking how in my relationships I've looked back and thought god. They really despised me.

My best friend is in a relationship where to me her dp treats her like he despises her.

I am not a man hater by any means. I just wondered what other people thought.

Bumbley - you're completely floundering here. It all arises from power and control - Men wanting ownership of women and their children - and women with no equality and little power. The fact that men would act to 'protect' their property is little comfort to most of us! Feminists have had to wrestle for every single piece if power and freedom they have in society - from the married women's property act and the vote to the marital rape laws and Equal Pay.

Would you have been one of those anti-suffragettes that didn't think women should have the vote, I wonder?

Actually, it is the action of women (mainly on MN) that make me not want to say I'm a feminist. I'm not alone in that view either. There have been many threads about it.

I don't agree that there 'are so many' out there at all. Have you heard of confirmation bias?

Sorry, that should be 'some women'.

That made me laugh. What have the MN feminists done to you?

Have they tried to oppress you? Threatened violence to you? Or are they simply arguing for the emancipation of women.

Funnily enough, a few of the MN feminists have been threatened with violence, by the men's right's idiots on here.

"The fact that men would act to 'protect' their property is little comfort to most of us! "

Really? You think that historic man should have left us to be butchered by other men rather than defend us when they were more capable of it? I'm quite grateful that they protected us tbh!

Women did have "little power" at a time when physical strength was important for survival. You don't seem to want to acknowledge that women ever actually needed men to survive.

"I realise that you are focussing on control and power. I was offering a possible explanation into how men may have come into control and power and why that may have actually, at one point, been beneficial for women."

You seem to have missed/are ignoring that.

And, just to be clear, just because I can recognise that men were more dominant in the past and that it may have been beneficial for us given the environment at the time, does not mean that I think they need to be in control now.

No, many of them just say an awful not of things that I disagree with. "Men despise women" being one of them :)

OK so if we accept that actually, yes, all men despise all women, intentionally or not ... are they justified ? Furthermore, what can be done about it ?

Why would you accept that?

Should we also accept that "all white people despise black people intentionally or not" as well?

Women and children were butchered in the olden days - whole towns and cities of them on occasion. Even with this 'male protection' you keep going on about. Women were carried off as 'property' by soldiers too.

You seem to think this is an excuse or reason for the social, political and financial oppression of women continuing to this day. I don't. Women are equal human beings - they shouldn't be subject to some sort of protection racket by men.

How many more would have been butchered and carried off if the men just stood by and didn't try to defend them?

"You seem to think this is an excuse or reason for the social, political and financial oppression of women continuing to this day."

Ahem.

"just to be clear, just because I can recognise that men were more dominant in the past and that it may have been beneficial for us given the environment at the time, does not mean that I think they need to be in control now. "

Again, recognising that men may have been dominant in the past for reasons other than 'social conditioning' and/or 'because they despise women' does not mean that I think that they should be in control in today's society. As I have already pointed out, some of the characteristics that previously gave men an advantage are actually considered to be undesirable in today's society.

Why say you turned off feminism by women who are feminists then? It's feminists in every generation that have chipped away at the patriarchy and campaigned against the oppression of women.

Read up on 'oppression' - how do you oppress a group of people? It starts with de-humanising them. That comes from despising them - seeing them as lesser - but it's not as simple as that. Men, as a group, also need women - to continue their line. They want sons to continue their name. They also desire women - it's their very desire for women that gives women that tiny bit of power they have always had over men. This can cause men's fear of women - they fear this little bit of power that women have over them in such a male-centric society as ours.

But I fear this is getting too much into the 'feminism' that Bumbley doesn't like.

Excuse me Muggins

Please don't go making blanket judgements about 'all men'. I personally don't despise women, although I do get mightily pissed off with anyone - male or female - who assumes they know how I think simply because of my gender, or my colour, or social class.

Huge sweeping statements that all men despise women, like you just made, just make you out to be angry, sexist, and judgmental.

It just seems from some posters on here that whatever activity men are involved in, their purpose is to oppress women. Why did men stop the Germans in WWII ? To oppress women. Why did men build the pyramids ? To oppress women. The Panama canal ? Fly to the moon ? Discover electricity ? Yup, all to keep the little ladies under control.

I don't agree with the statement "men despise women". Nor do I call myself a feminist because I am interested in equality generally, not just women's equality. I don't identify with much of the feminist movement either.

However i do think if you are going to make statements about natural gender roles and 'biological influences' you need to respect the context you are making them in; a society in which those statements are used to help oppress women.

Bumbley you've been all over the place on this thread. I don't think you know what you believe or are trying to say tbh.

"The fact that men would act to 'protect' their property is little comfort to most of us! "

Really? You think that historic man should have left us to be butchered by other men rather than defend us when they were more capable of it? I'm quite grateful that they protected us tbh!

Women did have "little power" at a time when physical strength was important for survival. You don't seem to want to acknowledge that women ever actually needed men to survive.

I wondered if you'd cotton on to the point about what the men were supposedly protecting the women from. The difference between men and women is not significant enough to mean a man would be required to protect a woman from an animal. Animals can either threaten people or not.

Wealthy men have in the historical past protected their women from other rival men who sought to possess them for political, peacemaking, land grabbing etc reasons. Those men were the ones living under a threat of violence and death because men, as rivals, were killed and women, as possessions were captured, used, bargained etc. Poor women were simply treated as domestic slaves and were not necessarily under threat from men because they were of lower value as a possession. Women are raped in the same way property is destroyed in wars and tribal disputes IMO.

How is any of that not a sign of male oppression? If men did not seek to oppress, control and own women then rival men would not have tried to take possession of them or harm them in order to threaten their rival.

Some posters seem so desperate to stop people discussing male privilege they are willing to make up ridiculous posts in order to discredit them. Wouldn't you agree mugg1ns?

If we were all on the Titanic as it was sinking, would you insist on fair play as all the women were given priority in the lifeboats?
There's still a long way to go before we get to a state of anything like equality. In most countries and cultures, it'll never happen. There's lots of situations where men and women use their gender to their advantage.
Saying that men despise women is not on really.
I know some women who can't stand other women, especially in the workplace.

If we were all on the Titanic as it was sinking, would you insist on fair play as all the women were given priority in the lifeboats?

This is why many men don't want to give up their privilege IMO, self interest rather than malicious contempt.

It's not despising, disliking or anything that negative. The fact is that all men treat women differently in varying degrees. From the new age man who'll deny that he does, right up to the old crusty right wing bigot.
I used the example of a sinking ship, others have used examples of going to war, building pyramids or boys being sent up chimneys etc.
There are numerous instances where you could say, "be careful what you wish for".

New Scientist: The Women and Children First Myth

Seems, apart from the Titanic, and HMS Birkenhead in 1852, it's every man for himself on a sinking ship, with men (and the Captain and Crew) far more likely to survive.

From the article:

We went through a list of over 100 major maritime disasters spanning three centuries to see if we could find data on survival rates of men and women. We ended up with data on 18 shipwrecks, involving 15,000 passengers. In contrast to the Titanic, we found that the survival rate for men is basically double that for women. We only have data on children for a limited number of shipwrecks, but it is evident that they have really bad survival prospects: just 15 per cent.

Q. Why do you think we bought into the "women and children first" belief?

A. The Titanic has been so extensively studied and it confirmed the myth. There was little empirical evidence against it. Lucy Delap of Cambridge University argues that this myth was spread by the British elite to prevent women obtaining suffrage. They said, look at the Titanic, there is no reason to give women the vote because men, even when facing death, will put the interests of women first.

So let's not make this about the Titanic.

Are you saying that women never have an advantage in anything, anywhere or have never used their gender to their advantage under any circumstances?

And there were other class differences on the titanic. Third class was pretty much everyone for themselves, second class all the men have priority to women and children and in first class everyone pretty much considered themselves a priority over the other classes and men gave priority to first class women and children and then got in the lifeboats when it became apparent there were no more first class women and children to prioritise. It's as you'd expect on a ship which was all about class differences.

neil - no but New Scientist is saying that based on their study, 99% of the time men did.

Women do undoubtedly get the better deal over men in family disputes in terms of contact but that is because they leave husbands/partners who have abdicated their childcare responsibilities until the point of the split and it is not about favouring women, it is about maintaining stability for the children. I think women sometimes therefore are able to get a better deal by divorcing a sexist man than staying with him but I don't equate that with women having a better deal.

I don't think any of the crap about women getting taxis, walked home or lifeboats etc is evidence of women as a class being treated better than men, no.

Are you saying that women never have an advantage in anything, anywhere or have never used their gender to their advantage under any circumstances?

Whatever they are, if they exist, they are not worth centuries of subjugation by men. We are full human beings, NeilJames - not 'property of men' to be saved first on a ship even though that doesn't really happen We are your equals - not little baubles for you to own and protect.

Dangling the carrot of 'male protection' in front of women's noses, in exchange for our full human rights, won't wash with me.

Yes, but they aren't even full human rights. The logic behind women and children first is that more women are required for breeding than men and that women are weaker and in need of the protection of men. That isn't full human rights, that's making men the gatekeepers of women's lives and about the value of women to men for breeding purposes.