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.

Well, I guess I'd like the help without being called blinkered, prejudiced, irrational, abusive. Those people have missed the point of my post and it kind of gets your back up. Oh and where is the help?

I don't believe that every single person posting on the feminism board shares your universal hatred of all men irrespective of whether you know anything else about them.

Dilberry can I please ask you to go back and read my op and tell me which bits of it you are having trouble with?

It's difficult to know how to start defending billions of people. Apart from saying it's crazy to hate people for no good reason.

Well, I do find it difficult to engage with bigots, it genuinely upsets me that people nurture prejudices against any group of the population. What would help you open your mind and accept men as fellow human beings, as flawed and as capable of greatness as all of us?

Perhaps read Shylocks's speech in The Merchant of Venice - 'if you prick me, do I not bleed?' Or perhaps Nelson Mandela, when he resolves to walk away from Robben Island without bitterness and anger. Strive to walk away from hate and anger towards love and acceptance.

but it's devastating that what is such a normal experience for so many men - having someone loyal, kind, truly listening, really being with them, having their back, laughing at their jokes, respecting them and doing everything they can to make their life nice - is so freakishly rare for women.

^^this

Whatthe - your last paragraph is helpful thank you but when precluded by calling me a bigot when I've opened up with a difficulty I'm having (which is obviously based on really shitty experiences not just something I've whipped up in my head) it grates.

I focus on my future man, my DS.

He sees his mother working full time to support him, attending all his school meetings and appointments and paying for him 100%

At 11 he's independant and helping around the house. He supports me and himself, makes tea, cooks simple meals and helps with shopping and washing.

No way is he growing up to become the misogynistic A hole his father is.

I won't stand for it and I nip all that in the bud. I hope he turns into a respectful and fair young man, it's my mission to do so.

I am sorry I upset you calling you a bigot. Your views seem bigoted to me and I think I felt irked that you had gone to the feminist board to seek to validate them. However, if you really do wish to open up and learn not to hate, then that us brave and wonderful and I salute you for trying to protect your child from what you now see as an unhelpful prejudice.

I am sorry you obviously have not enjoyed the steady rock of a loving and supportive father and I genuinely wish you well.

But if I said, a Polish person pushed me once, therefore all Polish people like to push people, you would think I was being horribly racist.

This is no different. You can't blame the many for the actions of the few.

And the shoe could be on the other foot. If I were a man, I could say my ex was a bitch, therefore all women are bitches and I hate them. But that would be a horrible thing to say!

Dilberry - perhaps it would be better if the word masculinity was used instead of men.

The concept of masculinity which encourages selfishness, power, strength, violence and a lack of empathy is what I hate. Individual men have a certain power to subscribe or not subscribe to the behaviours of masculinity but overall it is difficult for men to not be part of their 'group' and will get called and labelled 'homo' or a 'pussy' if they don't follow the crowd.

Whatthe - yes I am trying to protect my dc from this unhelpful prejudice which is why I'm here, however I'm also trying to protect them from the much more deeply ingrained prejudice against women that is still rampant, which is why I also posted on the feminist board.

I've never had a loving and supportive man in my life. Ineedmore - I enjoyed reading your post and hope I can do the same. Misogyny - that's the word I've been missing.

Iremembericod, thank you! Put beautifully. These are the tools I wish to teach my ds - discernment to see what these behaviours really are and strength to not follow the crowd.

I am sorry you have never had a loving and supportive man in your life. I have so many lovely friends and family members and I guess a sheltered existence, because no one I know, of either sex, would dream of calling anyone a 'homo' or 'pussy', that is really shocking to me. Mumsnet is good for opening you up to the variety of human experience. Sexism exists, but I don't encounter the kind of nasty masculity suggested on this thread and I am sorry for anyone who has. But that sort of masculity is not practiced by all men, let me assure you.

So women are incapable of:

selfishness, power, strength, violence and a lack of empathy

And I really don't see why strength is in there as a negative characteristic.

I'm not sure if you are deliberately trying to be obtuse but I will just hope not.

Are you so blinkered that you cannot see that very different behaviours are expected of females and males?

whattheseithakasmean

Perhaps you could take a glance at any newspaper or news show and see what behaviours are being exhibited by men and women. Who are the ones perpetrating violence and mass murders?

And really, do we still have to say NAMALT? Really?

Hmm, this thread isn't exactly going as I'd hoped but I guess that's what happens when you open up in a public space. I think what I was hoping for was acknowledgement of my feelings and maybe even a little understanding from others who might have experienced similar feelings, help and tips for overcoming the feelings and starting to feel more positively about men, and perhaps even ways of finding the more decent supportive men that exist. I guess that should all have been in my op.

Well shouldn't you be pleased that I am failing to act according to my assigned role as female by being confrontational? Smashing paradigms!

I think that suggesting that men are sinners and women are saints is not cool at all.

Dilberry can I please ask you to go back and read my op and tell me which bits of it you are having trouble with?

You don't answer the questions dilberry, you simply bat them off with ludicrous straw man arguments.

Mamaka - I completely empathise with your feelings. I have been there. I do have a very few good men in my life now, who do not subscribe to shitty masculinity expectations (not in every aspect though I will say, but then the demarcation point is not straight)

I simply don't have arsehole men anywhere near my life and will challenge shit male behaviour. Saying that, it becomes exhausting challenging it all the time and I find myself more and more just perfecting my sneer instead. My sons are mid teenage now and despite me desperately trying to instill non-horrific masculinity in them, they do show occasional shit behaviour. I find that inevitable and a journey of self-discovery for them. Unfortunately, masculine behaviour is respected so they are just fitting in, finding their way etc. but they do question, we do talk about it and I do not judge them. I just hope they turn out to be decent men.

Thank you iremember - someone earlier on this thread said that once you see male entitlement culture you can't unsee it and like you said I am finding it exhausting, and that's just seeing it not even challenging it! I have recently started challenging it in my dh as that is the safest place to start, and I'm doing it in front of the dc. It is slowly (very slowly) but surely taking effect.

My gorgeous little son is only 2. I started with things like, zero tolerance towards smacking or pushing his sister, regardless of tiredness etc, helping to understand and respect what no means, and not excusing bad behaviour with "oh but he's a boy". Of course my dd gets the same treatment, but I find that easier because it feels that I can treat her how I would like to be treated, but possibly I'm a little harder on my ds because I hate shitty masculine behaviour so so much?

Oh god, not the 'straw man' trope again. How many times do we have to hear that bloody line?

I just had to look up straw man and that is exactly what you're doing dilberry!