I'm starting to hate men

[Mamaka]

I've noticed recently that I've become more and more anti men - I think since having my first child. So many factors that I could mention and probably many deep rooted issues contributing to this but the long and short of it is why do women have to suffer and sacrifice at every turn?!

I don't really want to feel like this. I have a son who I want to bring up/am bringing up to be a feminist but I'm worried about how my hateful feelings towards men are going to rub off on my dc.

I suppose I am asking if there is a way I can combat these feelings and start to feel more positively towards them.

Oh Elendon

When I heard a man had shot two others and then shot himself, and it's not terrorism according to the police, I thought immediately that it was going to be a man who had killed his family through some perceived slight.

Granted it's not yet been stated whether they were family, but the two women were known to him. I wonder what 'terrible crime' they committed that meant he thought he was justified in killing them.

And people on this thread get all 'it's wrong to be wary of men, that's sexist!' What world are they living in??

*If you are a person who has been repeatedly harmed by a number of different black people you are likely to be cautious around black people.

If you are a person who has been repeatedly harmed by a number of different men you are likely to be cautious around men.

It is not racist, or sexist, if you have had experiences which lead you to feel a rational caution, if life has taught you to be wary.*

Sorry, but of course these are examples of racism and sexism. I think there's a difference here between understanding and excusing which are two different things. If you've been hurt by a number of different men I might understand why you would feel that way but that doesn't mean it isn't also a sexist viewpoint that can be excused. You're taking the actions of a few and applying them to a whole gender or race. That's what prejudice is.

Hi NotQuite. I wonder if you have thoughts on this. I was reading on the feminist chat board yesterday thoughts that abuse can be about lack of education (and messages from upbringing, criminal justice system etc) around consent and that some men pushing the boundaries or worse re consent could therefore be changed by education. This seemed at odds with what I felt - and I think is reinforced on the relationships board - that there is at heart an abuser and that wouldn't change. I may be misunderstanding both boards. How does this sit with your understanding.
If you want to answer, sorry to directly ask your thoughts. May be too off topic.

Never mind, it is off topic. It seemed to tie in with some discussion but I see it's still on sexism/racism.

I don't think you understand abuse.

Drink, money, stress make abuse worse, but they don't cause abuse. Abuse is a way of thinking, a set of beliefs about oneself and the importance of oneself and ones emotions relative to ones partner and/or children.

It's very easily summed up. As I said on the other thread, my ex shouted 'you have no right to impact on my life' at me, because I expected him to look after the children whilst I went to a meeting.

Abuse is not an act of violence, is not being ill, is not being drunk and is not being poor. It's the beliefs, entitlements and self-aggrandisement at the expense of others, usually family, which underpin it which are the cause of DV.

And that IS socialisation.

Ghost, if it was only a few, I would agree with you.

I disagreed with using racism to explain this, so I shall concentrate on the sexism.

Have you ever been on the 'Everyday Sexism' site?

I'm not tarring whole swathes of men for the actions of a few. My lived experience and that of hundreds of thousands of women the world over is not that men are generally ok with a few bad apples. It's actually that the man in front of you is more likely to be harmful in either an overt or benign way than he is to be a man who understands sexism and agrees it should stop.

What on earth is your connection between the lack of travel of people in rural China and whether you did or did not make a sexist comment?

Although that must win deflection attempt of the thread, so kudos for that.

And you haven't answered my other questions. You know what I think sexism looks like? Rather than thinking you should apologise for making an unpleasant remark, you seek to blame the other party for forcing you to make it. But I'm eager to hear what you think sexism against males looks like.

Hello MyOwn.

I have lived and breathed this stuff for four years straight now, including two and a half years of court. My anecdotal experience is that in spite of two parenting courses, two DV courses and many court hearings in which he had what he was doing wrong spelled out to him, if you met him today you would still get the 'injured victim' routine declaring innocence and 'can't understand what he was supposed to have done that was so bad.'

Most DV programs are gloomy about outcomes and genuine change is apparently rare. A more usual side effect is a more skilled abuser, unfortunately.

So yes. As one of the core beliefs of any abuser is that 'they aren't doing anything wrong, so it must be someone else's fault', I guess I do believe that an abuser is an abuser is an abuser. And that they don't change.

Education is a difficult way to describe what's needed. How do you change a persons mindset? The person they were shaped to be as they grew? Their core? It's hard to do this even if one desperately wanted to. And abusers generally don't want to, they are more interested in not being wrong.

I'm sorry Dilberry, but I'm not going to answer you any more.

You don't need to. You have already said everything you need to. If there was an easy explanation for what you have said, you would give it, happily.

Abusers generally are more interested in not being wrong.

Apologies for cutting and pasting your post NotQuite. This is so true to my experience as well.

It's particularly sad to see people so angry about sexism so happy to dole it out and be so unwilling to examine their own behaviour. It's so clear that some of the things that have been said, again not least the title itself, are not ok. People have expressed horror, disgust, and shock. A those feelings are seemingly ignored entirely, dismissed rudely as ignorant and anti-feminist.

We should all have rights. All of us. God, people are even bringing up murder as an excuse to justify their unfairness. That's outrageous!

I believe this is just an extreme pocket of MN. But it's disturbing to read, all the same.

Goodness, I didn't realise all the court time etc you'd been through. Holy crap. Reality of separation/contact etc kicking in here. Trying to make sense of everything.
Yes, I get what you are saying. I may go back read the feminist chat thread. Thanks for explaining your thoughts.
(I thought I may have driven you from MN )

I don't know why you are assuming I meant male socialisation. I didn't. Anyone can be socialised to abuse. It just happens to overwhelmingly be men who suffer from the toxic mix of messages our society gives them, who swallow it all without awareness, and then unwittingly hand it on within their own families, to the detriment of their partner and any children.

Boys don't cry.
Boys will be boys.
Dolls are for girls.
Kitchens are for girls.
Housework is for girls.
Run like a girl.
Throw like a girl.
Head of the family.
Breadwinner.
Childcare is for women.
Men are in charge.
You've got to be ruthless to succeed.
Money is everything, the measure of your worth.
A woman thinks she's your equal? Ignore her, sideline her, criticise her, forget her name, call her babe, trash her clothes, her looks, her body, her voice, pay her less, expect her to look after the kids then criticise her for not being committed to work. Exclude her from your clubs, your networking, your old boys network and then criticise her for not being in the know. Talk down to her, patronise her, insult her, intimidate her, stalk her, hit her, sexually assault her, rape her.
Anything but value her as your equal.

And if you do value her? You're pussywhipped, a fag, a weakling, a dweeb, not one of the boys, don't have 'killer' instinct, you're soft, a waste, a lefty do-folder, a GIRL.

I honestly don't know how you manage to be so completely oblivious to the harm being done to men, which gets passed on and dumped on women and children.

'I don't know why you are assuming I meant male socialisation. I didn't.'

As if this whole time you meant men and women!

NotQuiteSoOnEdge
I take your point about me checking out the 'Everyday Sexism' forum. I don't doubt that women encounter such casual sexism in a way in which men don't. It's a patriarchal system we live in as has been said on this thread many times and obviously I'm not disputing that.

I'm not tarring whole swathes of men for the actions of a few. My lived experience and that of hundreds of thousands of women the world over is not that men are generally ok with a few bad apples. It's actually that the man in front of you is more likely to be harmful in either an overt or benign way than he is to be a man who understands sexism and agrees it should stop.

Well I don't find that very convincing as an excuse for maintaining a preconceived set of assumptions about men I'm afraid. It still reads like sexism to me.

As for your stress on socialisation, it's easy enough to agree with your list of gender stereotypes because they're all so recognisable but don't you think, as other have said up thread, that it might be a bit more complicated?
To take figures from Mankind, in 2014-15 2.8% of men (500,000) and 6.5% of women (1.1million) experienced partner abuse. That's one man for every two women. Male violence against women is obviously a very serious problem and I wouldn't want to downplay it, but it's not completely one sided is it? Why aren't all these women being effectively socialised into their subservient roles? Why is there evidence of domestic violence in same-sex (lesbian) relationships?

Notquiteonedge

"I'm not tarring whole swathes of men for the actions of a few. My lived experience and that of hundreds of thousands of women the world over is not that men are generally ok with a few bad apples. It's actually that the man in front of you is more likely to be harmful in either an overt or benign way than he is to be a man who understands sexism and agrees it should stop."

i love the way you now seem to be a spokeswoman for hundreds and thousands of women. Do they know they elected you?

The conclusion to be drawn from your post is either that at least half of the world's population don't understand sexism, or you don't.

I'm going to guess that the person who doesn't understand sexism is you, particularly since you seem utterly oblivious to your own.

So, to summarise. Extremely sexist women complains that nearly all men are sexist. Fails to see irony.

I don't hate them. They have their place - to drive the bus, serve me in a shop, care for my teeth, deal with the damp patch on the wall or in whatever other capacity they are required. (Women do all of those things and everything else equally well). There are even quite a number of men who are friends.

No desire whatsoever to have any form of closer liaison or entanglement. Been there, done that and to do so again would be very limiting. Freedom!

I don't maintain a preconceived set of assumptions. I am wary, with due cause, until I get to know what they are like.

I tell you that the man in front of me is more likely to be harmful to me than not, be it emotionally, physically, sexually or psychologically, and that that makes me wary, and you say I'm sexist.

That would seem to imply it's sexist of me to make sure I don't get drunk when out and about, to ensure I stay with a group and don't walk home alone, to guard my drink so it doesn't get spiked, to not invite someone I've just met to my house. The Police advise all this. If I did any of this and got attacked or raped I would be told it was my fault, I was asking for it. But according to you, acting in this way, protecting myself from the dangers society accepts are prevalent amongst males, ie being WARY of men, is sexist.

I'm not going to dispute your figures, as I know about them, but they are not the whole picture. What is left out are the figures for all the male-on-male violence. Be you man or woman, the most likely source of danger to you is another man. But hey, lets get hung up on the vastly smaller and less impactful amount of violence meted out by females, because no one has ever tried to derail a thread about the male propensity to violence like that before. Oh wait...

If I thought you were seriously listening and engaging with me I would continue talking, but it's become clear to me you are only interested in proving me wrong. As I have lived through a lifetime filled with more abuse and sexism than you can count, an emotionally abusive father, sexual harassment as a teen, sexual assault at university, being invisible as a female on a male dominated course, having my life ignored by my father because I'm not male, being financially screwed over by a husband, further sexually abused by subsequent partners and finally so completely a victim of domestic violence by my DC father that we were all given a years non-molestation order.

I've gone from a position of total ignorance of how I ended up where I did, through four years where I have done nothing but read and learn and done serious therapy, to now, where I'm able to see that you are wasting my time and energy. So forgive me if disengage, I'm not prepared to argue the toss with you any more. It's not me who is mired in denial about the general nature of men.

I don't hate women. They have their place - to make me a sandwich, do the hoovering, massage my back, clean the floor or in whatever other capacity they are required (men do all these things equally well.) There are even quite a number of women who are friends!

• .....molestation order, I think I understand sexism. And the everyday sexism website proves I am hardly alone.

You don't understand sexism.

You have had bad experiences with men so you conclude that all men are harmful.

That is sexism, and you are guilty of it.