Is it just me or does most men suck?

[peanutttttt]

Exactly just that. I really hate dating now a days, because you just never know if someone's intentions are genuine. Like how do you know anymore? Men of all ages just suck and at this point I have given up. I went on a date with this man, the connection was great before the date and the date was great. I even got a kiss at the end of it but never heard from him again. Like how weird! I don't dwell on it. It's just annoying I wish people would be honest now. I can't stand it. How's everyone else's dating life going? Because my love life is an absolute joke.

Society encourages them. Hell, I have to say it... even women encourage them (all the twenty/thirty something women who could well get a man their age but somehow find a man leaving his marriage and kids attractive? Just why?

It's the opposite side of the same coin.

Men who have proven histories of marriage akd raising a family are seen as stable.

Many younger women place their value on their attractiveness to men.

Naivety and believing the script.

Internalised misogyny and believing they are worth more than older women just as the men do.

Believing they are 'different'.

Also this is rubbish , women earn on average 82c in the dollar to men . This is NOT just in a small percentage of men that sit at the top of the tree
Please bag your assertions up . You seem to have lots to say about how men are skewed against in the courts and only the ‘ top few ‘ men get benefits . Have you in fact done any gender studies?

@Washingtofold

Also this is rubbish , women earn on average 82c in the dollar to men . This is NOT just in a small percentage of men that sit at the top of the tree Please bag your assertions up . You seem to have lots to say about how men are skewed against in the courts and only the ‘ top few ‘ men get benefits . Have you in fact done any gender studies?

I'm based in the UK. I have been to client meetings on pay differentials and I know this where the difference is (the glass ceiling issue).

I also put arrangements in place to make sure they had somewhere nice to grow up in which is possibly to my own personal detriment

I dunno. I think this shows shows male privilege. The fact that, once split up, you see putting arrangements in place to make sure your kids have a nice place to grow up as meaning you are a really top bloke rather than just seeing it as the taken for granted thing that of course you should do. The fact that you see this as ' being to your own detriment' - rather than just what you should obviously do. That really does sound like male privilege to me. The bar is so low for men that even when you do what should just be normal you give yourself a pat on the back for your exceptional decency.
Meanwhile throughout history and across the world women are just getting on with doing the best for their kids without a soundtrack of applause, and often a whole lot of criticism.

@Oreo01

Whether you personally are paying child support is not what we are discussing

This quote needs backing up

‘At the extremes men are more disagreeable hence why most people in prison are men. Men are more aggressive but its something like 60/40 (if you were to take two random people of the opposite sex).

The majority of domestic murders are committed BY MEN against women , same with rapes and child sexual assaults . This is not EVEN close to a 60/40 split

Sorry but you clearly have no idea

You’ve provided not one bit of data or wveidebcenfor your wild abd mysogynistic claims

No one including me is telling you about your lives experiences or what to accept . I’m telling you to get the stats and the data before you start spewing so called information that is factually false !!!!

This ISNT about You . Sorry , I know as a man that may not be something your often told , but this is about women and THEIR experiences in the world
If you want to be able to engage in intelligent and indented dialogue , research and understand what women are dealing with and don’t bring your personal ideas about some tiny top percentage of men being the bad guys into it and other men being so hard done by by the courage mats and that pays are not really sooo bad or unfair ...

@Oreo01

A quick glance at the statistics seems to tell the whole story: Men commit more acts of violence than women. The U.S. Department of Justice sponsored a National Crime Victimization Study in 2007. This evaluation found that 75.6 percent of all offenders were male and only 20.1 percent were female. In the remaining cases, the victim wasn't able to identify the gender of the offender. According to these results, men commit violent crimes more than three times as often as women [source: United States Department of Justice].

Where do you get 60/40

@BuggerBognor

Where to start, a system skewed against men when it comes to relationship breakdown and the subsequent child access arrangements regardless of fault when the relationship ends

Factually wrong. The starting position in the family court is 50/50 time with both parents. If fathers don’t have that, there is usually a reason - be it that they are not willing/able to make childcare fit around their job, that they don’t want it, or that (when older) the children have expressed a preference to remain with their mother.

I know of only 2 couples where the man sought (and got) 50/50 child access. In both cases, the woman had an affair and my suspicion is the men did it as “punishment” (aided and abetted by the courts) because neither man had the mildest inclination towards helping with childcare/wife work until the break-up.

The pay differential doesn’t really kick in until the children arrive - it’s pointless looking at women in their 20’s early in their careers. There are plenty of us (me included) who have taken a massive drop in pay/status to raise our DC. And yet the divorce courts favour a “clean break” financially, removing any responsibility from the man to make up for the consequences of that joint decision.

You really do seem to lack insight into male privilege.

Yes its 50/50 but there's a whole host of reasons why it doesnt play out like that. Your assertion that the only men going for 50/50 are doing so to punish their ex kind of suggests your views are a bit biased.

Most women instigate divorce. If that's what you want go ahead but accept a clean break is a reasonable consequence.

Great strides are being made with equality even from my parents generation to mine. If you've been through divorce as a man and done the right thing by your kids you have no privilege. It's a lived experienced.

It's so clear that male / female views are so polarised in theUK. No wonder divorce rates are so high

And after teaching I studied humanities and gender issues and know how the rest of the world works !!!!!!!
It goes much much deeper than the glass ceiling issue

@Oreo01

Great strides are being made with equality even from my parents generation to mine. If you've been through divorce as a man and done the right thing by your kids you have no privilege. It's a lived experience

So considering that divorced women almost ALWAY end up much more financially worse off that their husbands how are they privileged

How also are they privileged when many many avoid child support ...and child care reapinisbilties

If so many men want full or equal care of their children why are they not also willing to give up their careers to do so as so many women do

Try being a divorced woman
Or a woman going through the divorce courts .
Or trying to survive a violent or abusive partner
Try being a young woman and old woman or hell , just try being a woman .
It’s a lived experiences !!!!!

A d yes male and female views are completely polarised , mainly because males are coming from a position of huge privilege and refuse to acknowledge it as you have shown

All this is not to say that you are not one of the few men who take responsibility for their children , who want to see them and pay child support etch .
However , your personal experience doesn’t give you the knowledge to come here and tell women who are on the other end of the literally millions of men who don’t do those things , and who have experience abuse and violence that the courts a re skewed in favour of that and that women are almost as violent as men .

This simply is NOT true.

@washingtofold and @oreo01 I've been reading your debate and just wanted to chime in and say that it is a depressingly good example of what happens when a woman ever stands up and and says "hey, I've got the shitty end of the stick here". A man always comes along to tell them otherwise and "what about this other not-really-related issue". "Calm down dear" if you like.

I'd also like to offer my opinion that the reason men also find relationships more difficult now is that they aren't prepared to actually listen to the one they supposedly love when she points out where life is stacked against her. More and more women are prepared to fight against this bullshit, which equals a less harmonious relationship. Just my "lived experience"

@abacusnights

I also put arrangements in place to make sure they had somewhere nice to grow up in which is possibly to my own personal detriment

I dunno. I think this shows shows male privilege. The fact that, once split up, you see putting arrangements in place to make sure your kids have a nice place to grow up as meaning you are a really top bloke rather than just seeing it as the taken for granted thing that of course you should do. The fact that you see this as ' being to your own detriment' - rather than just what you should obviously do. That really does sound like male privilege to me. The bar is so low for men that even when you do what should just be normal you give yourself a pat on the back for your exceptional decency.
Meanwhile throughout history and across the world women are just getting on with doing the best for their kids without a soundtrack of applause, and often a whole lot of criticism.

Well it's more how things transpired and I think I would be judged well in the circumstances of what happened in my situation but I'd rather leave it at that.

[quote PoTheDog]**@washingtofold* and @oreo01* I've been reading your debate and just wanted to chime in and say that it is a depressingly good example of what happens when a woman ever stands up and and says "hey, I've got the shitty end of the stick here". A man always comes along to tell them otherwise and "what about this other not-really-related issue". "Calm down dear" if you like.

I'd also like to offer my opinion that the reason men also find relationships more difficult now is that they aren't prepared to actually listen to the one they supposedly love when she points out where life is stacked against her. More and more women are prepared to fight against this bullshit, which equals a less harmonious relationship. Just my "lived experience"[/quote]
I'm just disagreeing. Which is my right.

@BuggerBognor

Your assertion that the only men going for 50/50 are doing so to punish their ex kind of suggests your views are a bit biased.

Yes, willfully misrepresenting what someone actually wrote always helps when you have no valid points to make in an argument. 🙄

Most women instigate divorce. If that's what you want go ahead but accept a clean break is a reasonable consequence.

No thanks. Spousal maintenance is available for a reason - albeit awarded too infrequently. Women (and often their children too) should not be expected to live on the breadline because she did “the right thing by her kids” and accepted a lower paid job, often to facilitate a man’s better-paid one. Well done for not being a cunt to your kids though - although I’d be very interested to hear your ExW’s side of the story.

The misogyny is practically visible in your posts and you are - perhaps unintentionally - proving the OP’s point.

Again this post is full of projection.

Misogyny is a dislike of women. Point exactly to where I've shown misogyny and not just disagreed with others points of view.

@BuggerBognor

It’s not projection - I’m married, never been divorced and my DH entirely supports my world view of the difficulties faced by women, having seen me go from earning more than twice his wage (in my 20’s) to half (now, in my 40’s with DC). Perhaps because he’s BAME and understands how privilege works and what it looks like?

Your misogyny is implicit: this thread is full of dreadful accounts written by women of how badly men have behaved towards them, evidence of male violence and privilege is everywhere at both an individual and societal level, and legion evidence of women being underpaid relative to a man. And by saying “I disagree” and you come across as dismissive and arrogant.

Every woman on here knows a man like like you.

OK but argue on the points. We may not be as far a part as you think.

So you went from being paid far more than your partner to far less. Why did this happen.

The point about pay disparity is based on client meetings where women said (i.e. women at the clients in senior positions) that they didn't feel there was a pay disparity in their work force aside from the execs all being men which skewed their figures. A lot of the office based middle management were women, like HR and finance etc.

I'm not saying this to be deliberately awkward itsjust based on what I was told and what I understand the drivers to be. If there's evidence to the contrary please share it.

I went to a charity breakfast not too long ago and we were 18 woman there. 15 of us (all in similar age group 45+) are single/divorced/widowed and not one of us are looking for another relationship.

Some had tried dating again and it just didn't work (myself included) and we are all of the opinion we are just better off as we are.

15 out of 18 is a lot! And we are from all walks of life, actually met through our dc in school.

I recently tried out OLD. It was ok to start with for a bit of a laugh, but then it gets so very tedious. There are a few that will just reply one word answers, and I get the impression that they think they are God's gift to woman and we should be falling about for them.

So yes, I agree with you OP.

@BuggerBognor

What happened is we became parents and - with 2 big careers - one of us had to take the hit. As the mother, as is so often the case (for many different reasons), I stepped back into a lesser job so I could take care of DC. Meanwhile, DH has been promoted from clinical work into management and has grown his private medical practice over evenings and weekends. (Guess who looks after DC then?)

I don’t take any pleasure in a “victim” mentality, but when the odds are so heavily stacked against women (especially mothers) it’s galling to see that dismissed out of hand.

What happens though if more of us than not want to stay home and do the lion's share of child caring? Is the answer to go against this and force an even split or pay women to look after their own children? Or is the wanting to look after DC purely a social phenomena and we could look to disrupt that?