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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

I'm starting to hate men

476 replies

Mamaka · 14/07/2016 20:55

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.

OP posts:
iremembericod · 16/07/2016 16:05

Erm, you did just do it again dilberry

RebelRogue · 16/07/2016 16:11

Op i deal with dd in the exact same way. It's not easier for me because she is a girl, i just correct behaviour that i find unacceptable in boys or girls.
You might find this a bunch of twaddle but here it goes... Your son is two. He is a blank slate no matter what's in his pants,and no matter how much you despair "society" hasn't got to him yet. You and oh are his first and most important role models,you two shape how he sees relationships..with a partner,with a child,with friends be it men or women etc. Raise him equally to his sister,when they are that age just as there aren't boys/girls specific toys ,there aren't gender specific transgressions either. If it helps try to differentiate between child behaviour and male behaviour. Applying the whole masculinity behaviour and mentality to a child is bonkers because they have no such notions. Be the voice of reason,be his safe place and sounding board,and aim to raise a decent human being no matter what gender they are. And when society throws him a curve ball ,be it excuses because he's a boy or tearing him down for showing "unmanly" behaviour tell him society is wrong. Because it is and it was wrong on so many issues throughout the centuries,talk to him in an age appropriate way about the various examples,help him find his voice,his confidence and let him think for himself .

As for you,seek some help,reflect on your thoughts and feelings , i don't expect you to reject them but don't let them take over and overwhelm you. You hate patriarchalism and misogyny ,you don't hate men.

DilberryPancake · 16/07/2016 16:26

Saying things doesn't make them true. It's a classic deflection method of argument. I could take literally any piece of conjecture, (which is all your point is too, don't forget) and you could answer 'straw man'.

What do you want me to do? Literally demonstrate my point in front of you by breeding human samples to prove my theory?

whattheseithakasmean · 16/07/2016 18:45

I have to agree, I think saying 'strawman' or 'NAMALT' is a lazy way to shut down unwelcome opinions, rather consider and engage with them. It is, ironically, a technique frequently deployed on the feminism board to silence women who won't comply with the 'all men are beasts' hegemonic thinking. It is a cheap debating technique.

RestlessTraveller · 16/07/2016 18:46

This thread is utterly depressing. I can never understand why some women feel it's ok to lump every man in the universe together and excuse their own terrible behaviour because one or two men have behaved inappropriately.

NotQuiteSoOnEdge · 16/07/2016 19:14

Mamaka I want to post in support of you.

I feel the same. I'm well aware intellectually that not all men are entitled, misogynistic arseholes, but I have only a few truly decent men I can bring to mind as positive examples against the sheer mass of men I have had contact with throughout my life.

My father and my partners have all been emotionally abusive in various ways. I now live alone with my DC, and can't imagine willingly sharing my home again with a bloke. I've done the therapy, so I'm fairly sure I'd avoid potential abusers, but the problem is that, as you said, having woken up to patriarchy, entitlement and privilege in society you can't unsee it. So many men, who are otherwise decent people, are utterly unaware of the advantages they have been given through being male, the assumptions they operate under about what they unconsciously expect from women, and indeed their assumed automatic superiority over women, all of which is now screamingly obvious as an observer. I can't get past it. Or at least, I haven't yet.

So I understand.

If you really 'don't get' where mamaka is coming from, I think you have been very lucky in life.

NotQuiteSoOnEdge · 16/07/2016 19:16

If only it was just a few men.

LetMeJustStepOnMySoapbox · 16/07/2016 20:14

because one or two men have behaved inappropriately.

I don't know, I don't subscribe to the "all men are shit" position, but my experience is certainly of more than "one or two men [who] have behaved inappropriately". But it is misogyny and patriarchy that are the problem, and I see it perpetuated by both men and women. And the OP has stated that it is these she objects to.

It's every time I challenge any one, boy/girl/adult, who uses "...like a girl" as an insult.

It's the men in my social group who won't ever let any of the women buy a round, even the one woman in the group who quite clearly out earns all of them.

It's my ex husband who has reduced his contact time with the children to one day at the weekend, if he doesn't have other plans, because he "deserves to have a life". And the society that allows him to do this without shame or question.

It's the man who offered me compliments on the train. Loudly and across the quiet carriage and, when I ignored him, proceeded to spend the rest of the 20 minute journey becoming increasingly aggressive, trying to humiliate me and deride me for thinking I was better than him because I was reading a book instead of entertaining him, until he was threatening to rape me to teach me a lesson.

It's the man who 24 years ago did try to rape me.

And the man who 21 years ago who succeeded.

And the woman who told me that was what I had to expect if I was going to be out in the world with men, especially alone. And it was my own fault.

It's the game that women are 'supposed' to play in which they are demure, and quiet and ladylike etc. And the fact that those who play along seem to fair far better than those who don't. The friends I have who are in LTRs all subscribe to 'traditional' stereotypes and relationship dynamics.

It's the differences in expectations of boys and girls and every time a boy's poor behaviour is explained with, "boys will be boys" and "it's a boy heavy class, so it's going to be boisterous".

'Consent' is one of my biggest bugbears. I tell children as young as Nursery that it doesn't matter how much you want to play, if the other person doesn't or stops wanting to play or changes their mind, they are allowed to and you must stop. And sharing. Just because someone wants you to share with them, doesn't mean you have to. And already, it's often the boys who have already learnt that share means "I want it so give it to me" and girls who have learnt share means, "be nice and give it to them". I quite often have to explain why this is an important message to the adults too. Because it's part of the discourse.

It's when you look on dating profiles and see they won't date anyone weighing more than 9st 6 who is no older than 8 years younger than them who "looks good in skinny jeans" and doesn't drink beer/pints of beer with a value judgement attached explaining why that's unacceptable.

It's every time a woman is 'slut shamed' or 'fat shamed' or 'skinny shamed' or her motherhood choices are criticised: wohm/sahm; only child/multiple children; younger mother/older mother. Whilst no one even has a thought about men in the same respect. Well, ok, maybe the 'fat shaming'. Sadly that seems to be creeping into men's experience too.

It's every time you watch an American sitcom (the misogyny is horrific!)

It's everytime a girl/woman is valued for their looks above all else (I overheard a conversation today in which someone said that, with all the products and procedures available nowadays, there is no excuse for anyone not to be pretty Shock).

It's my friend who, when I told him I was cleaning the oven instead of doing my medium term planning responded with, "ooh you're good. My oven hasn't been cleaned it years I don't think. I wish my wife was as diligent as you" He responded with silence when I told him that if the state of his over bothered him that much, he could probably clean it himself.

The list is endless and these are only a very small sample of examples. It's not always about violence against women or obvious acts of aggression by nasty men against women. Misogyny is such a prevalent discourse in our society that it is difficult to avoid. There are some people who position themselves outside of that discourse, but their voices don't carry as much weight. As is always the way. And the men get labelled and mocked as wusses and having no balls, and the women get labelled as 'feminazis' and the like by the very men who benefit from protecting the status quo and their position of authority.

And it harms men as much as it harms women because it means men are viewed with suspicion when they take their children to "Mother and Baby Groups"; or are encouraged to not experience a full range of human emotions, and certainly not to express them ("what have I told you son, you're a boy, you don't kiss your dad" dad to his 5 year old son upon picking him up from school) or have their choice of toys restricted ("He's not having a doll to play with, I'm not having him turn into one of them" mum of a child in my son's Reception class. One of what exactly..? A man who doesn't see children as wimmen's work?)

It doesn't need to be like this, but it does need all of us, men and women, to change it in terms of what we expect and accept and how we raise our children.

LetMeJustStepOnMySoapbox · 16/07/2016 20:19

My father and my partners have all been emotionally abusive in various ways. I now live alone with my DC, and can't imagine willingly sharing my home again with a bloke. I've done the therapy, so I'm fairly sure I'd avoid potential abusers, but the problem is that, as you said, having woken up to patriarchy, entitlement and privilege in society you can't unsee it. So many men, who are otherwise decent people, are utterly unaware of the advantages they have been given through being male, the assumptions they operate under about what they unconsciously expect from women, and indeed their assumed automatic superiority over women, all of which is now screamingly obvious as an observer. I can't get past it. Or at least, I haven't yet.

Totally agree.

BabyGanoush · 16/07/2016 20:29

I know a few women like you OP

Remember one of them (single lesbian mum) having tea with me, and her 3 year old daughter. My brother dropped by, he is 6ft 5 and has a beard, and my friend jumped up and said:" don't worry DD! Yes, he is a big scary man but this one is nice, look, he's not so scary". The DD looked terrified. My brother just stood there like a lemon and said he'd be back later.

Ridiculous attitude to foist on a child.

It is really sad to write off half the population like that.

DilberryPancake · 16/07/2016 20:34

But hatred is not a healthy or productive emotion. And turning your perception of other human beings into a binary code of male/female, wrong/right, good/bad is only going to cause confusion and hurt.

We're all shades of good and bad. You talk about seeing the bad in people. It can't hurt to try to see the good. Right?

RiceCrispieTreats · 16/07/2016 20:51

I understand your feelings, Mamaka.

Patriarchy sucks. And no, we can't escape it, which sucks even more.

I think you will only be able to resolve your feelings once you make your own peace in whatever way works for you with the facts that you and your son live in a patriarchy, that you will both be affected by it in different ways, and that the only thing you can do is choose your own actions and behaviour.

I'm sorry it's not an ideal situation. But I think you can find peace if you accept what is, and do what seems right to you in the few things that you do have any control over.

LetMeJustStepOnMySoapbox · 16/07/2016 20:55

We can escape it, RiceCrispieTreats it's just that it will take the people who benefit from it to want to change it to. And most of them don't.

It's not natural law though. So it can be changed.

That's the most frustrating part.

ispentitwithyou1 · 16/07/2016 21:36

Brilliant post soapbox

NotQuiteSoOnEdge · 16/07/2016 22:15

You should definitely spend more time on that soapbox, Soapbox! That is brilliantly written and I am with you all the way.

LetMeJustStepOnMySoapbox · 16/07/2016 22:29

Haha, thanks. It started off a lot longer too. It was heavily edited! Grin

russetbella1000 · 16/07/2016 22:39

Agree, soapbox!...

pallasathena · 16/07/2016 22:54

Spot on Soapbox.

Kr1stina · 16/07/2016 23:00

Excellent post soapbox

Mamaka · 16/07/2016 23:11

Flipping brilliant soapbox, and notquite.
I can't quite seem to explain myself in the way I want to and have been quite misunderstood so will bow out for now but thank you so much everyone for helping me to see it through all these different perspectives. My favourite maybe bring compared to an angry lesbian Grin

OP posts:
Mamaka · 16/07/2016 23:12

*being compared

OP posts:
LetMeJustStepOnMySoapbox · 16/07/2016 23:16

Don't go, Mamaka.

Mamaka · 16/07/2016 23:22

I'll continue reading and learning soapbox! Just can't seem to express myself properly, to anyone it seems....my husband has just mansplained sexism to me and got defensive when I expressed myself really badly and maybe slightly aggressively...

OP posts:
NotQuiteSoOnEdge · 16/07/2016 23:44

I bet you are expressing yourself just fine, and myself and many other posters here have entirely got where you are coming from with no trouble. I think our individual life experiences either do or don't give us this perspective.

Also, it's so clear that you don't ACTUALLY hate all men, nothing like something so black and white. Posters seemed to be deliberately taking the worst possible interpretation of your words. That's their issue, not yours.

You know what you mean. Hold true to that, and keep talking to us! You'll soon hone your skills on here.

Mind you, having sexism mansplained is enough to give any of us the rage!!

myownperson · 17/07/2016 00:18

Mamaka I'm glad you posted this thread. I have found the discussion and some of the posts really helpful to read. And I completely get where you are coming from.

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