Are men and women growing apart generally?

[Lifeisntbad]

Just had a chat with a friend about this. My male and female acquaintances sometimes (with some exceptions) seem so different in outlook that I wonder about this. Obviously they are different from each other as well.
In my immediate circle of 40 /50 somethings the women are generally resourceful independent sociable and open. Many (not all) of the men are depressed, with no enthusiasm, slightly isolated and in some cases a little bitter.
While in one way gender differences seem to be blurring which can only be a good thing, in other ways men and women seem increasingly on different paths, coming together perhaps for having children and then diverging again.

I suppose i’d add; obviously is irrelevant if what you want is to not have a partner/kids, to that...

It’s the angry bitter men who profess to only want a wife and kids but somehow have managed to be angry and bitter with the women who don’t want them and their crappy attitudes...

The ones who are not prepared to see women as people worthy of respect but who are equally desperate to have a wife, almost as though their self worth is entirely dependent on it...

The trope is that women are meant to be the needy insecure dependent ones but IME there are far more needy insecure dependent men who simply can’t function in life without having a female partner...

‘The trope is that women are meant to be the needy insecure dependent ones but IME there are far more needy insecure dependent men who simply can’t function in life without having a female partner’

Yes, this 100%

I agree, there are more needy men, and men are about 4x as likely to commit suicide. In other respects this thread has become an echo chamber where the only view tolerated is that relationship problems are almost always the man's fault for being a selfish pig, the solution being greater equality. It must be great having a one size fits all solution like that but it doesn't square with reality in my experience which is that both men and women can and regularly are lazy, entitled, vindictive and selfish.

I know several strong relationships where one partner (not always the man) does a lot more work outside the home and the other does more of the domestic stuff but overall they put in about the same effort, these work just as well as those with a more 50/50 split.

No-one apart from you is saying ‘relationship problems are almost always a man’s fault’.

What we are talking about is how systemic sexism affects relationships... you don’t agree that it exists but really all you have, in the face of reems of scientific research, is your own opinion re how happy/unhappy other people you know are...

Why on earth do you think your own personal opinion is more valid than research?

And to be very clear what I am saying is that the men and women who are happiest are the ones who share the burden of a family as equals. The women who are least happy are the ones who do the most shitwork and the men who are least happy are the ones who simultaneously depend on and hate women and are consequently alone now that women are seeking equality.

Completely gobsmacked by some of the posts here.

Mentioning MGTOW as a positive movement when it's complete and utter misogyny? Men are only depressed if they don't have subservient wives? Give me a fucking break!

There are so many factors at work here but for me it boils down to the fact that men who've grown up with male privilege all their lives don't recognise it and simultaneously don't want to lose it.

Even if a woman works, who gets the call and drops everything when a child is sick? Usually the mother. Even when housework is divided completely equally, who's the one stuck with the mental load of the family which is utterly exhausting? Usually the wife.

I know of many pretty equal relationships that work well, but the woman is still the one picking up most of the shitwork and mental load. This would describe my marriage - we are very happy and I think he's an excellent husband and father but there are still several aspects of our children's care that he's completely oblivious to.

As for the sexual assault / harassment stuff, don't get me started. I'm sick of seeing men distance themselves from the stereotypical "sexual predator" when pretty much every guy who's assaulted me is just your average guy. I posted about this recently and a guy I know made some dismissive comment about sexual predators and how he would never harass a woman - the same guy who made a Facebook comments about my (completely covered) breasts while I was pregnant (he's old enough to be my father, I've known him since I was a small child). Too many men refusing to acknowledge their role in this issue - when almost every woman has been harassed at least, and almost every man says they'd never do such a thing, what's going on? I've spoken to my husband and length about this, and he's more respectful of consent than any man I've ever met, but he completely acknowledges that as a young man he was a complete dick when he was rejected, and that he has treated women like crap in the past. This stuff is so ingrained that it takes a lot of awareness of acknowledge your role.

Also, depression is an illness. If someone is depressed, it's because they're ill. Let's stop blaming partners for this. eh? I'm 35 and have lots of friends who have been married 5-20 years and I don't have any friends who are divorced. Many of the men were the ones I was friends with initially and they're all very happy, but that may be because they're all decent human beings who treat their wives like partners overall.

I am not convinced that there will be many men who have not seen the darker side of 'men' in their lives - workplace, friends, acquaintances and even themselves. I too would doubt any man who said - "Never me or my friends"

From my own life I can point to:

Having three ex girlfriends who had been raped before I met them (one as a 14 yr old in a 'stranger rape', the other two by someone they were on a date with or who was their partner - one answered "well it wasn't rape really" when I mentioned to her that it might have been)

A female friend when we were teenagers whose boyfriend said he would dump her if she did not sleep with him, he then proceeded to offer to share her with friends when she relented (against my advice)

Laughing when a girlfriend once showed concern because I may have 'blue balls' like her ex who suffered from it regularly

Flattening a boyfriend of my sister's who said some pretty foul things about her to his friends which she (and then I) then found out about. His defence was it was banter!

Receiving an 11:30 pm call from an employee in tears because my then business partner had offered a 'financial arrangement' to her.

In my previous professional capacity I met both men and women who had been in abusive relationships - more women than men. (Mine was not a legal or healthcare capacity but one in which the relationship was quite close and the high level information was often pertinent)

In my first job out of University I was one of 4 men in an office of 30+ women. Their views and experiences of certain things were very clear to me. In that job, it was more often the women who were promoted but, in the end, I was moved to a different department to a higher grade than my then female manager and even I found that uncomfortable - even though I was brilliant (this was the same female manager who used to 'tease' a male friend and I about our 'tomcatting ways' wanting all the details and patted me on the bum a couple of times though )

Did I always treat my girlfriends correctly? No

Did all my girlfriends always treat me correctly? No

Have I been the perfect husband? By no means

Have I sulked due to my wife rejecting my advances? Yes.

Has she ever used the words "I'm not you mother!"? Yes

My main concern with this thread is that it is soooo black and white at times (as MN often is) and, more often than not, the demographics of the site membership mean that there is a danger of 'men' in general being seen as the enemy because anything they do wrong is due to privilege, cold calculation and misogyny.

Truth is, I do think men and women are growing apart in society. Both have their part to play in the reasons and solution for this.

Most men want a true partnership as much as the women in their lives do. I just don't think we're very good at explaining to each other how we define what that is and accepting each other's 'red lines'.

back to my cave now to go and play on FIFA before doing a cursory bit of hoovering before the wife gets home - I'll make sure to put the dishes next to the dishwasher

Zero, im glad you're aware of these things. If more men were, if I think it would make a massive difference. Recently during a discussion about this stuff, my husband told me every woman he's ever been with has had difficulties with some intimate act or other because they've had a "bad experience with that". It's only really dawning on him now what that meant. He knows I was abused as a child and assaulted by four partners in a row. He says that by the time he was 16, multiple female friends had confided in him that they'd been abused, and as a teenager he thinks pretty much every single one of his friends pressured and coerced their girlfriends into sexual activities to some degree. Unfortunately too many men don't acknowledge these things and I don't believe any man who says they've never seen it, let alone been guilty of it themselves to some extent.

I think there needs to be acceptance both ways. Both sexes have their lenses and, even within sexes, perception of the prevalence of any injustices they see can be magnified to above the others in importance.

There are societal 'norms' which mean women get a raw deal and some which mean men do.

Either side continuing to point to the other's advantages or denying their own exist just polarises the discussion rather than getting to the point where the causes can be identified and addressed.

Many men have the choice to do more with their children and choose not to. That is the arena where men really do lose out but it is more possible than ever before for men to be more involved with their children and they are, by and large, choosing not to.

Women still lack the same degree of freedom to choose.

It’s simply not true to imply that women need to spend even more time seeing how badly done to men are. They aren’t, there is still significant privilege attributed to being born male, just as there is being born white, or rich, or able bodied etc etc

This isn’t a ‘both sides need to see how the other side suffers’ issue, it is an issue of privilege which shouldn’t exist...

Tammy I'm perplexed as to why, if your relationship is good and your DH is a great husband and father, you still say the bulk of the shitwork and mental load falls to you and he is oblivious of some areas. They can't both be true, surely. If your complaint is that it's always mum who makes the doctors appointments etc, why continue this pattern in your own home? And if your husband is so keenly aware of the abuse suffered by his previous partners then i cant see why he leaves most of the mental load to you. Or is this some deal you've made between you?

Yes because if things are unequal it is always because women have chosen it to be so...

Can you honestly not conceive of the idea that this is a systemic problem dogfish? That women end up in this position very very frequently because of their male partner’s choices, by default, and that once it happens the choice the woman has really is ‘is this bad enough to leave over?’

Precisely Offred. These injustices suffered by men are the result of a patriarchal society. If you're going to lumber women with the majority of the responsibility for childcare you can't then complain when they're more likely to get custody. If you're going to treat women as comparatively weak and feeble, you can't complain when women are treated more gently. Women didn't create this situation.

And saying "oh I know women have it shit, it's awful" is a handy get out of jail free card for then saying that male privilege is not an issue, I guess.

I am literally stunned that the reasons behind situations like mine are unclear to some people. My point is that even at the better end of the scale, women disproportionately do more of this physical and mental work, in relationships where men would claim it's equal. That's rarely the case.

Tammy my post wasn't complaining about injustices to men, it was just asking why you still do most of the shitwork despite also saying you have e a good relationship. It's not clear to me why you tolerate it. If a partner did that to me, even if i couldn't afford to leave her, until she shaped up I'd make her life so miserable that she would find it easier just to do the shitwork.

The injustices comment wasn't aimed at you.

You're saying that from a male perspective. I am not alone in this being the situation in my house. Just been out with a group of other twin mums who all say the same.

You really need to stop telling women what you would do if you were a woman...

You don’t know, because you are a man....

If you are simply saying what you would do about things as a man there is a clue there and you should perhaps have more of a think about why women might not do as you would do... and here’s a clue; it’s not because women don’t mind/have chosen/like doing a disproportionate amount of shitwork...

And if you are a woman (like me) who left over shitwork, even if you end up with a reformed ex husband who all of a sudden takes on the shitwork equally, you run the gauntlet of public opinion; ‘bitch taking his money, his children and his house’ ‘you are so lucky he helps you out so much’ you are socially ostracised and have to start from scratch... whereas men doing an equal amount of shitwork get ‘oh he is so good’ and you are most likely still the one who has to fit around the DC and the ex....

When my twins were 3 months old, one got whooping cough and I had to stay in hospital with him for a fortnight. The other twin had to stay at home with his dad. The way people spoke to and about my husband taking care of a baby on his own, you'd think he'd cured cancer or something. Or nurses would say things to him like "oh well, at least you'll be used to waking up in the night to help now" when he'd been doing that anyway. Is this insulting to him? Absolutely. But why are these ideas out there in the first place? Certainly not because women decided they want all the work and responsibility of having a child and doing all the care.

Do you have kids dogfish? Are you honestly telling me you carry half the mental load? I'm going to say you don't, given you characterised it as "making doctors appointments etc". I bloody wish.

Here is a small selection of the mental load I'm carrying at any one time:

• their schedule: when they last ate/slept/were changed and when they'll need that again
• are we running low on nappies/formula/wipes/baby food?
• meal planning and online food shopping. What's in the cupboard / fridge / freezer so I don't duplicate stuff
• preparation of multiple medications
• when do medications need to be ordered? When will they run out? When will liquid ones expire?
• what size clothes are they in? What clothes do they need right now? What can I stash ahead so I don't have to worry about growth spurts?
• which car seats are we going to buy? What's best in terms of cost vs safety?
• do they have toys to meet their current needs? What are their current developmentsl needs?
• have they got clean clothes? What needs washing first?
• what chores have I done and what still need to be done?
• what errands need to be run?
• when are all their hospital appointments? Have I replied to their consultants email / rearranged the ones we can't make?
• what days am I working and can I take them with me or do I need to let DH know that's he's having them so he can work around that
• what's causing their eczema / nappy rash / other rash / allergic reactions? Amending their diet / shopping as necessary

And that's just off the top of my head. There is more? Do you think all this is equally split in most households and most women would leave if it wasn't?

My DH is very hands on, doesn't think of it as "helping". But he's not up to speed on all this stuff, and that adds massive pressure and exhaustion to me on a daily basis. Obviously I'm not going to leave a loving and fulfilling marriage with a man who dotes on his kids and loves me to pieces because I'm essentially the project manager of our lives. It's the way it is. Could I insist he takes over half of this stuff? Sure I could, but the primary caregiver is always going to be carrying most of this stuff because it's most practical for them to do so. In most cases that's the mother, although of course not always.

Offred I only said what I wouldn't tolerate as a man, which, as a woman, you didn't tolerate either.

As for the gauntlet of public opinion, if as you say you dumped him because he didn't do his share and then the divorce settlement was the usual kind of split then he'd be more likely to be judged socially, I'd have thought. Anyone who socially ostracised you sounds like a tosser, unless it was on other grounds.

We aren’t divorced as it happens and I got so much crap for leaving him I have relinquished any claim on ‘his house’ because it is less stressful... he is living in his house and i’m in privately rented on housing benefit...

My point is it is very hard to leave as a woman in that position. Not that no women do. More and more women are running that gauntlet and it is more worrisome than simply those people being tossers.... it is the common assumption of most... women and men.

You are starting from a position of inequality and facing further inequality compounded by contempt...

Tammy, I've no kids. If i did i hope I'd do the 50%. And if you think it's so unfair that you're doing more, and if as you say you could insist that your husband does half, i don't understand why you don't do so. I certainly don't think you can really complain about the patriarchal system when you have it operating in your own home, and could change it, but don't. Getting up to speed on car seats and kids clothes is not rocket science and if you're so committed to equality couldn't you start at home?

Jesus fucking Christ.

Thank you for mansplaining how parenting works to me, despite the fact you haven't done it.