Men, what is WRONG with you??!

[Aliceclara]

My God! The thing that strikes me when I read a lot of these posts on Mumsnet is have men lost their way? Why are so many men incapable of behaving like decent, kind, caring, responsible human beings? What makes some of them entitled, arrogant, immature twats? Some of this must come down to upbringing. I have two grown sons and they would never behave this way! And if it's down to upbringing, is the responsibility for this down to inadequate parenting, inadequate mothers? I don't know the answer, but I think it's time the decent men made a stand against this. Too much misogyny, too much violence against women, not enough equality. What the hell is happening to society??!

[quote Aliceclara]@boobot1

No. You are completely misunderstanding and simplifying what I am saying. I'm talking about the very specific relationship between mothers and sons. The early interactions between male and female and what is acceptable. I'm not discounting a father's influence at all. My original post was asking people where they think we are going wrong, and why a growing number of men seem to think it's ok to treat women as less than themselves. Why do you think some men grow up with the idea they can behave however they like with their partner? Why do some men treat everyone well but when they get home it's the gradual eroding of kindness and equality in the relationship? Where do you think this behaviour comes from? I'm genuinely interested to hear your reply.[/quote]
I don't disagree that mothers have a part to play both in the values they instill and in the way they allow themselves to be treated but male role models have a huge impact on the way a boy will behave. Peer pressure I think also has an influence. There are so many variables, mothers are only a one facet that I think has diminishing influence the older they get.

@Aliceclara Not that you have to, but you have yet to respond to my comments and I was very clear that I wasn't trying to personally attack you, just get you to engage in a discussion about the line of thinking you and others have regarding your children.

I just wonder if you can see it as not a personal attack but an interesting point that could be discussed.

@Cam77

Britain has quite a large, menacing and violent youth segment, say males ages 12-20, which doesn't exist quite so out on the open in most other European countries. The young mobs who hang around looking for trouble around shop fronts and underpasses. They mostly grow up as violent thugs and then throw in the British binge drinking culture and it's a recipe for disaster.

Clearly you have not lived in many (any?) other European countries.

@Jux

There's not much women can do about mysoginistic men. Men need to call it out. Men need to stop admiring or chuckling over the bloke down the pub who's become self-employed so he doesn't have to pay so much to his ex (it's NOT for his ex, it's for his KIDS). Men need to call out other men who are disrespectful towards women. Men need to stop supporting each other by commission and by omission in their bad treatment of women and children. Men need to grow up, and expect each other to grow up.

So much of the behaviour is tacitly approved by other men. Why would a shit bloke change his ways if he can just go off to the pub, to work, or wherever and know no one's going to call him out? Why isn't he shunned and find himself friendless when he's unfaithful, careless, violent?

Decent men need to act. They're the ones who'll be paid attention to.

You're right, but as a guy who has tried and continues to try these things, what happens is that bit by bit we shed our sexist friends and contacts and end up in small social bubbles of like minded men who try to be feminist allies, and our influence outside that bubble wanes.

You're still right of course, it's just a frustrating reality of how it tends to go, in my experience. I hope it still has a bit of an effect, little by little.

That's what happens with women and friendships too NewLevelsOfTiredness and with couples and their couple friends. Everyone gravitates towards their comfort zone, especially with the people they choose as friends.

There's often less choice about workplace environments, or those looser social, sport and community groups we're thrown into by virtue of having one thing in common. Those can be the places where a bit of polite dissent, or lack of assent, makes a real difference.

Surely the point is that, over time, there's a societal shift from 'their bubble' to 'your bubble' in a broader sense. From one set of values being the social norm, to the other. Sexist dinosaurs becoming pariahs.

Sometimes that shift is gradual, sometimes there's a sudden tipping point and everyone has to jump to one side or the other

The thing is that, at work and in those wider social, sport and community groups, as well as in the domestic sphere, women don't have a choice about reacting when this stuff happens, because it happens to us.

Lottiegarbanzo yes! It is the more formal social interactions where the work needs to be done.

NewlevelsofTiredness, of course, but women do it all the time. Every time that sexist bastard from accounts appears and makes a remark we can choose to titter along because he's "only joking" or we can look at him stony faced. I spent nearly 20 years from age 18, working in environments surrounded by men who thought they could goose me on the stairs, or trap me in a corner and grope my breasts, make remarks about "Pinky and Perky" when I entered their office etc etc etc. At 18 I laughed along (miserably) but from the day I heard about sexual harrassment at work being/becoming illegal I would proclaim loudly "you know that's illegal, don't you?" - especially if there were other people about - and it stopped sharpish.

Thereafter, wherever I worked, it was only dinosaurs who tried that sort of thing and they were easy to deal with because their behaviour was so unusual and NO MEN CONDONED IT. Their bosses took those sort of complaints very very seriously. My bosses did too, so did colleagues. Everyone was on board especially men. That was mainly men policing men.

If you're over 60 and female you will almost certainly remember what working was like back then. Avoiding X because he was the bum pincher, or Y because he'd get you in a corner and try for a grope. That guy - never go in the stock room with him. Oh it went on all the time, everywhere.

You couldn't even walk home alone without some bloody curb-crawler trying to pick you up. Not because you looked like a prostitute, but just because you were female and alone and they could.

Part of the change is due to illegality, but a lot is to do with men not finding it funny when their mate/colleague tells the story.

A very thought provoking thread. I think the tide is turning, but we are still 2 orv3 generations away from equality. My partner and I are both late 40s, my Mother is the stereotical housewife who has facilitated my father, and to a point my brother into being helpless. Its a source of many heated debates, I have railed against this however my sister, who was once a complete rebel has managed to find herself in a marriage with a misogynist and is a martyr to her whole family.

My partners mother worked and he had a very different upbringing, and as such 2 out of 3 siblings seem to have turned out OK, but when the chips are down his parents still revert to the stereotype roles.

A friend of mine has a husband who is both sexist and racist, though they both deny it. He is of the view that political correctness has 'gone mad', and of course my freind agrees with him, because she doesn't really understand politics (according to him) and that 'it's going to swing the other way' (In favour of women, blacks and other monorities) which I point out to him means that you agree at the moment we society is biased towards the white male. He won't have it, he can't see his privilege.