MEN

[Bleakhouse1879]

I have been reading alot on here these past few days about many posters unfortunate experiences with their partners. I read stories of wives & girlfriends being raped or sexually assaulted by their partners, being beaten up, treated like dirt, robbed and belittled.

As a man, I am disgusted to hear that this sort of childish almost psychotic behaviour is so wide-spread with so many supposed 'men'. It has genuinely opened my mind to what is happening in my country. These sorts of behaviours were common place but still wrong during the 1950's. No person in Britain in 2015 should be subjected to this sort of disgusting behaviour.

No proper man would hit a woman or force himself on her or want her to feel anything less than tip-top, especially if his partner was the mother of his child. I don't think these people have the right to call themselves men and it doesn't do justice to the men out there who do want to treat their partner as a princess.

I hope any women who have been ill-treated in the past, don't tar all men with the same brush. We aren't all violent, misogynistic bullies. There are genuinely decent people out there and I hope the majority of my fellow men feel the same and it is just a case of a few bad apples

This one isn't even a very good one

We used to get a far higher calibre of person trying to put us back on the straight and narrow.

Bleak, well done for this thread, and of course (as you are learning) one or two bits of your OP doesn't sit well with the global perspective and could be open to criticism. I'm reading you as being honest-hearted, so do please stick with it and learn?

Whilrlpool, with respect, that is your own interpretation of my comments.

My comment which you have quoted was intended to exemplify that if the OP's own perceived shock of realising that so many women are subjected to such high levels of abuse by men (from which he had ascertained by reading "so many posts" on mumsnet) came as such a surprise to him (he openly admitted that he was naive of the issue), then it would be an even bigger 'shock' to learn that women can and are as equally abusive.

sonny - it would be an even bigger shock to learn that women can and are as equally abusive.
Trouble is....that, in any known universe currently, isn't the case.

Besides, as this thread is nothing to do with what you are claiming, how about taking that claim elsewhere? I'm sure you have a point, just not this one?

I would add that your comments are an insult to every WOMAN that posts on mumsnet about their abusive mother, sister, MIL, etc.

As I expected, and have risen to the bait, I am not an MRA, nor am I a WRA or PRA.

But I can write with confidence of that fact that I have survived several years of abuse and endured incredible amounts of hardship, isolation and emotional pain, in order to protect my own FEMALE daughter from her own mother abuse.

I was simply trying to alert the poster to the fact that abuse is not strictly a gender issue, and to fight abuse requires an understanding that all people are capable of perpetrating abuse.

Cool,

On this earth it is the case.

This thread is about abuse, if you are unable to hold an intelligent debate on the issue then why not restrain from contributing rather than telling me to 'do one' (which could be considered as controlling 'abusive' behaviour).

I'm sorry to hear of that story sonny...but it still doesn't give you authenticity to exercise that difficulty across this particular thread - as I say, find somewhere else to do that.
And certainly, abuse is gendered, to do with the dynamics of how it is perpetrated, and how it is legitimised.

If you have those issues, post elsewhere about them. Otherwise you will come across as bitter and skewed.

Ironic

I know I said I was going but Sonny honestly? Are you fucking kidding me? Yes some men have been debased and raped by a series of women. The trauma they feel is terrible. Men have experienced severe physical and emotional domestic abuse perpetrated by a female. Do you know the sex of the majority of perpetrators of men who have reported rape? Do you know the sex of the majority of the physical abusers reported by male victims? It's male.

Male to male rape, male to male domestic abuse and male to male child sexual exploitation figures are higher than female to male.

If a female does sexually abuse, exploit, rape, physically assault or murder a male (child or adult) it is almost always reported (Portsmouth nursery worker, women involved in paedophile rings etc) Why? It is news because it is a rare occurrence. How often are ALL the male to female rapes, sexual assaults, physical domestic abuse incidents and child sexual exploitation cases that happen in a week fully covered by the media? It doesn't happen because it would take too long to cover. Read the Rotherham serious case review and then come back to me and tell me I should put aside the worry I have for females in my community to concentrate on the female to male abuse

Er...show me where women are as abusive as men? Anything as evidences to back that up? Any resource/paper/research etc? I don't wish to make this anymore difficult for you, but you seem to be inviting it due to unresolved frustrations.

Male posts about shock at Male perpetrated abuse against Women and Men

Male alerts poster to the equally shocking Female perpetrated abuse against Men and Women

and you want to quietly usher me away from the thread in order to concentrate on your own victimhood. And then patronise me by stating that own experiences of abuse are clouding my judgement. Well, cheers, I may just exercise my right to contribute to an open thread on a parents forum. I won't refer to your 'issues'.

And I see you have now drip fed that your daughter has been abused by her mother. Female to female abuse has been thrown into the mix of a thread that was just starting to open an honest dialogue about male attitudes to women but now you are going to turn it into evil females abusing their dc. I. Give. Up.

If a man has been abused by a woman in one relationship it is still likely he has been raised in society that promotes and encourages male privilege. It is not like that in addition to that one abusive relationship he will have suffered an entire life of restriction and harassment based on his gender. It is also more likely he will have financial resources available to escape said relationship.

If a woman suffers abuse by a man in one relationship it is highly likely she will have been suffering all kinds of other abuse from the whole of society all of her life until that point. It is less likely she will have the financial resources to escape and also highly likely she will have the extra burden of childcare to consider.

It just isn't comparable is it?

is it equally 'shocking'? Maybe in your own head sonny, as this is where it's been created. Any evidences to support your claim? No. So I'll disengage, thanks.

and you want to quietly usher me away from the thread in order to concentrate on your own victimhood.

And the victimhood of the 45,859 sexual assaults reported in 2015. Would quite like to think we might just be concentrating on that.

It's the little things that make such a difference.

I had an incident with DS weeing on the toilet and not wiping it up. I tried nice/encouraging ways of dealing with this and then got firmer. Then had a melt down. DP - who has always cleaned the toilet after his own use of it - just could not understand why it incensed me so much. It's because, as a woman, so much of my past life was spent picking up after men - time I could, and should, have been better spending on developing my own life just as they were. Yet as women we are still socialised to think it's petty to moan about housework/dirty socks being left around.

Man seeks to adopt higher victim status than all women who are being oppressed and abused simply because of being female based on being the victim of one incidence of abuse. Man gets stroppy because people won't accept his status of superior victimhood. Man calls posters victims in loaded way...

Yep, covering yourself in glory there...

Listen to offred Sonny, she's giving you the intelligent and reasoned debate that you are obviously seeking.

Getting a bit back to the thrust of the thread, if I can, I was recently co-presenting a session on working with people with learning difficulties. My female co-presenter stated 'Calling someone stupid, an idiot, a mong is the last inter-personal taboo.'

I didn't have whatever it would have taken in the circs. to say "Well no, calling someone a cow/bitch/slag/frigid/tart/ etc is still very much acceptable toward any female, who compromise 50% of the population - despite the 2010 Equalities Act."

The abuse the OP derides and makes explicit is so much accepted and subtle and used on a seemingly mild level to maintain a sense of control, by way of everyday language that is termed normal, and even my white MC female colleague didn't account for it.

fwiw.

Being a woman means frequently being sexually harassed when walking down the street in the middle of the day with your kids, having to think about whether it is too late to walk the dog on your own in case you are attacked, being regularly sexually assaulted in bars/pubs/wherever there are crowds, picking a seat carefully on public transport or guarding your body from assault by carefully picking your position if there are no seats, wondering how what you are wearing could be interpreted, picking your words carefully so you aren't just dismissed when men are talking, listening to a constant flow of derogatory remarks/jokes/banter about 'women', being treated as a slave, losing control over your own life, getting paid less for the same work, expecting less from a potential career etc and then on top of that the worry of abuse and violence from people who are meant to love you...

Is there a single man out there who can possibly imagine having to put that much thought into just existing?! Never mind the much higher risk of being abused by an intimate partner if you are female.

Maybe gay men come close actually but they are also part of the 'other' class which is discriminated against by men as a class (which now I think includes some women).

I think sonny has a point
Does abuse need to be categorised

One small powerful word covering a huge spectrum of types