When did putting husbands down become a national sport?

[Kosenrufugirl]

I was listening to a mainstream radio station the other day when the DJ publicly reciting a mistake her husband had made recently. She invited other women to join in and a short while later she read out their stories too. I am just wondering... I wouldn't behave like this to a work colleague no matter how much I might be annoyed with their behaviour. I would most certainly not be publicly humuliated like this by anyone without taking it up to the Line Manager. It's disturbing me why this behaviour seems to be acceptable towards husbands and partners. What do others think?

You think having a moan (finding some humour) in public about minor gripes with your husband is “no better” than Andrew Tate justifying the exploitation, rape and trafficking of women?

This whole thread is bloody ridiculous. I’ve no idea what your agenda is here.

Im baffled that you’re “disturbed” “upset” and “worried for your sons” because you heard a woman on the radio recounting something annoying about her partner.

You seem to have lost all perspective.

From what I’ve seen on here what usually happens is there’s a thread on male victims (or one specific victim) which is hijacked by some posters highlighting that male victims are a minority (true), that men are stronger so can’t be hurt (false) and that dv against men doesn’t exist (blimey)

I paraphrase, but it’s not usual for men to do the whataboutery on threads where women are the victim

in my experience…

Why do you think your husband would withdraw his love and affection if you told an anecdote about the time he accidentally threw away your expensive shoes?
My husband would be fine about it- and probably make a joke about being relieved I hadn’t strangled him, or remind me about the time I accidentally threw away his passport.
His male ego can cope with a bit of ribbing.

My husband’s far from perfect and neither am I. I’m not desperately trying to be a perfect wife who has to respect everything he does.

There is a difference between some light hearted ribbing and then being in work or group of friends and slaggin them off, calling them lazy or other names and basically dragging that partner down

This respect thing is odd too. Its quite authoritarian and suggest one partner (the woman) should defer to the other (the man). Demanding respect is abuser behaviour I think and I find the repeated claims of "disrespectful" from OP quite jarring in the context of a relationship.

Me too. Ditto the repeated insistence on being “courteous “ to a husband at all times 😕

It's probably not outright intimidation but it may be coercion. ☹️ hope you are ok OP.

I don’t see much wrong with moaning to your friends that your man is lazy if he is lazy? It’s not sexist is it?

Id assume “slagging off” means bad mouthing a person with no basis or spreading malicious gossip about them.
That’s not what this thread is about.

I am very much ok, thank you for asking. Just a bit sad for the future of my 2 sons currently teenagers. A man takes the wrong pair of a woman's shoes to the charity shop. He gets blasted on public airway for being an incompetent idiot. Where are we heading?

Ultimately, it's about loyalty and respect. You don't slag your family members off in public. Your spouse is family.

If the thread was about men putting their wives down it would go down like a shit sandwich on here and it'd all be about rampant misogyny.

Well its judt a word respect or courteous, you wouldn't behave ins certain way because of it.

This is a person whom you love and respect or courtesy is one of the foundations of that along with trust etc. Otherwise why be with them. Its just basic stuff.

I wouldn’t bat an eye lid if a male radio presenter moaned on air that his wife had accidentally thrown away his best shoes, or reversed into his valuable sports car or something.
I heard a guy on the radio telling a funny story about his wife filling up her car tyres with so much air they almost burst. So what? A vaguely entertaining and relatable gripe about your loved one.

Women really don’t need to start getting all offended on behalf of MEN EVERYWHERE.

Im not sure what the “slagging off” refers to. Is it against the “loyalty” rules to start a thread on here complaining that you live with a selfish man who refuses to lift a finger? Is it ok for a woman to make it publicly known that she’s being abused by a man or is that “disrespecting her man” too?
Women have finally got a voice and you want to silence them by spouting about “loyalty and not disrespecting a man”?

Op please don’t encourage your sons to see themselves as victims in society simply because they’re male.

Your son has laboured under the assumption from a young age that any criticism of his behaviour or actions by female teachers is because they’re man haters who “favour girls”
Theres a lot of dangerously misogynistic material impressionable teenage boys are exposed to online. It’s a massive problem in schools at the moment - female teachers are regularly verbally abused by teenage boys directly influenced by Andrew Tate and IINCEL movements.

I would be doing everything I could to discourage his misconceptions.

If the thread was about men putting their wives down it would go down like a shit sandwich on here and it'd all be about rampant misogyny.

Ahhhh but it would go down brilliantly on Pistonheads or Redditt, or indeed anywhere else on the Internet. Unfortunately for some posters this is a female lead site and they don't like us wimmin having somewhere to go.

Actually this whole thread has a vibe of scold. Couldn't put my finger on it at first, but it's there.

@SmileyClare I am biased here, but those making fun of their spouses publicly are generally not the ones being abused

I don't think telling a story of husband throwing away designer shoes counts as public humiliation, but there are people (both men and women) who are very good at putting down their spouse with a smile at every opportunity

and this behaviour can be part of abusive tactic of slowly eroding public image of your spouse so that they are seen as this lazy, useless, incompetent fools who are just so lucky to have their saviour

@PaintedEgg What you’re describing is emotional abuse.

I was replying to the poster who thinks this site is “sexist” because there are a lot of women on here complaining about their male partner’s behaviour.
I don’t agree it’s disrespectful to men. It’s great that women feel they have a safe space to discuss their grievances. The same if a woman wants to have a moan to her female friends.

A few women phoning the radio with an entertaining story about how their husband fucked up a basic menial task is not an indicator of anything sinister going on in society.

The only sinister thing here seems to be that some women have become so indoctrinated by the propaganda of some men that they apparantly fear for their sons' futures in an imaginary malign matriarchal dictatorship. If the OP is a woman posting in good faith rather than as part of that propaganda, and genuinely believes this, then I do find that a little discomforting.

I have just finished RTFT.

I have read comments stating that if the roles were reversed there would be public outcry. Absolute rubbish. There is plenty of evidence to the contrary. How many radio hosts, tv hosts, stand up comedians say disparaging things about their wives? How many make jokes out of their personal experiences including with family members, friends, every day interactions?

Female DJ tells anecdote of her husband taking her very expensive designer shoes to the op shop by mistake.

Reaction from Op: disrespecting and publicly humiliating husband.

Inciting the putting down of husbands as a national sport.

Criticism of husband for silly mistake is somehow just as bad as all the other examples of men putting women down, objectifying women, oppressing women, discriminating against women, hating women, harassing women, and treating women as completely inconsequential. And two wrongs don’t make a right.

Here is an example of a male DJ using his wife and daughters as material for his show:

Mrs Shaw was still smarting from a stunt in July last year when her husband told listeners that he fantasised about his wife's sister while he was having sex. When Mrs Shaw, then heavily pregnant, rang up tearfully to berate him, he broadcast their conversation.

And:

"When he said he would leave me and the kids for Jodie Marsh, that was it for me. He has two daughters. One of them goes to school. I am sick of him disrespecting this family for the sake of his act,"

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/wife-sells-dj-s-lotus-on-ebay-in-revenge-for-his-onair-flirting-294165.html

And don’t tell me that two wrongs don’t make a right. Sharing an anecdote about your husband taking the wrong shoes to the op shop and how mad it made me is not in anyway comparable or disrespectful or as damaging or as hurtful as broadcasting that you fantasise having sex with your heavily pregnant wife’s sister while having sex with your heavily pregnant wife. Then broadcasting her emotional response for the entertainment value. Or broadcasting that you are going to leave your wife and children for another woman.

I never saw any public outcry at all for this male DJ. The only outcry came from his wife.

It wasn't just any old wrong pair of shoes though, was it? He was an incompetent fucking idiot, and I'm guessing that the reason she called was that his excuse was "How was I supposed to know what pair of shoes you wanted to give away?" Regardless of what was probably very clear instructions...

I very much hope we are heading to a world where "I wasn't listening to you at all, and it's fine to tell you in an effort to defend myself that things women care about don't matter because they are things women care about" isn't an excuse any self respecting man would offer.

I hope we are heading toward a world where it's OK for women to stand up and say that actually, things that women care about do matter, whether that's shoes or equal contribution to housework or any other thing that's important to us.

I hope we are not heading toward a world where parents have raised sons to believe if women have more control over our lives and more empowerment to speak up when wronged then that means men have been humiliated or insulted or have lost their rightful place at the top of society.

The 'Them' and 'Us' paradigm that made women's lives miserable for thousands of years is changing, but it doesn't mean the tables are turning. Hopefully your sons are being brought up to be comfortable with the idea that they are accountable to their spouses or partners and that this isn't a loss but a chance to build stronger relationships.

I am already doing everything I can to discourage my son's misconceptions (that the world is massively screwed against men). I think I am winning this battle. On a separate note, it's one thing to start on anonymous thread on Mumsnet for support and 2nd option. It's a different matter for a well known DJ to publicly shame her husband (also with the underlying message he can't do anything right). Lots of people must know the guy by name. It's no different to putting your spouse down at a dinner party in my opinion. The latter is proper domestic abuse in my opinion. I haven't heard the incident with overinflated tires. I would have reacted to it too. Both incidents are unacceptable in my opinion. Which is why I started the thread (and the poor girl probably didn't know you even meant to check the right pressure before pumping. Just as this husband in question couldn't tell the difference between the shoes)

Well said

Why didn't anyone on Mumsnet started the thread in defence of this poor woman? I would if I heard it. All this kind of sexist talk must stop, full stop.

but I can see how this could ruffle someone's feathers in the same way a bloke down the pub slagging off his wife can be a pet peeve

granted, this is anonymous (and internet even more so)

However, I do agree that in general people who like to make fun of their spouse probably don't like that person very much

Them and Us paradigm is getting stronger with this kind of behaviour I am afraid. Someone mentioned a male DJ with his girlfriend who overinflated the tires. The girl probably even didn't know that the tires need to be pumped to a certain pressure. Someone should have phoned in to explain instead of laughing. As for those shoes.... I doubt my husband would be able to tell an expensive pair of shoes from the cheap pair. They all look the same to him I suspect

Which radio DJ and which show?

people pretending that this is anything but the gender-swapped version of "I hate my wife" humour really are having hard time explaining that calling a radio to make fun of your spouse is absolutely not making fun of your spouse or that spouse deserved it

btw, worn looking shoes are worn looking shoes, whatever label they have on