Are all men potential abusers?

[MsLydia]

Because I'm starting to feel like they are.

I'm aware that my feelings are based purely on my own experiences and I think I actually want to be told I'm wrong.

I have reached a point where I am so fucked off with the society we live in that I feel like I want to take my children and go and live in some sort of community of women (do they even exist?)

Foodunit, excellent posts!

Foodunit - I do know people who have had abusive relationships but I know many more nice men.I am just a normal person on the minimum wage in my 20s.

Perhaps BeeBee12 your maths is a bit off then, because if you know of more than one abusive man, then you must know at least two million 'nice guys'.

I don't think its plausible that one individual could know this number of men intimately enough to judge if they are abusers or not.

To know if a man is an abuser you need to know how he acts behind closed doors. There's a strong will to believe that sadists, control freaks and abusers are very rare and the overwhelming majority of men are 'lovely' - hence juries disbelieving rape victims, victims of domestic violence, prostituted women, etc.

"There's a strong will to believe that sadists, control freaks and abusers are very rare and the overwhelming majority of men are 'lovely' - hence juries disbelieving rape victims, victims of domestic violence, prostituted women, etc."

Why is that though? Why do we have this need to believe the best in a man, yet instinctively look for malevolence in a woman?

Bery intetesting debate. Also I always wanted to know where does this dreadful, medieval, myth that women lie come from?

Its power isn't it? The rich are seen as more respectable, reliable witnesses than the poor, white more than non-white people, men more than women, etc. Its just a sign of women's low status.

Yes definitely. One of the rationales maybe that developed to keep women out of decision making roles (too emotional). But I feel like its more than that, like Ghoulia says, some myth that women are natural liars . And that it is connected to men's distrust of our sexuality in some way, this popular idea that women are so ready to use their sexuality in a malevolent way.

I remember that awful Italian case and being surprised at how quick the people I knew were so quick to believe that Amanda Knox was the evil genius behind it whilst Raffael was just being manipulated by her. It was very strange.

On the thread about socio-biology 'stressed men like bigger women' there's a woman on it that fiercely defends the idea of female 'dishonesty' rooted in 'biology'. Its very strange, she has a real affection for the idea that I can't quite fathom.

But I still hold that its about power: eg a white woman is more likely to be believed by a jury if she is raped by a black man, and a rich woman is more likely to be believed if she were raped by a poor man, etc, even though as a woman there will always be jokes outside court about her maybe 'wanting a bit of rough' or some racist slur.

I think FoodUnit is right about power and that is a good example.

Foodunit good posts!!

In response to the OP, yeah there are good men out there but unfortunately it seems they're never around, right? For instance, I was one who used to think that all men were evil or that I just didn't deserve a good one.

After the abusive relationship with my ex, I was briefly counselled by a therapist who accepted to see me a couple of times (she used to counsel alcohol or drug addicted people), I was waiting for an available slot with an abuse and rape therapist.

Well she told me something that I won't ever forget "lovely, sweet people are like givers - abusers are takers - when they meet one of the givers, they do their best to lure them in. You need to start recognising the takers".
At that time it seemed like gibberish to me but it worked quite well for me, because I met the man of my life after my ex. Of course, it was luck too. but I always wondered if I would have been interested in him before having been in an abusive relationship. I don't think so.

The concept seems stupid but it's actually right. Remember that abuse is a choice, so the abuser actually chooses to abuse people, the abused doesn't but... it's possible to scare them off from the beginning.

As foodunit was saying in a previous post, abusers are more attracted to vulnerable people because they can get away with the abuse, they understand they can manipulate this person. Learn to recognise the abusers, to see the red flags and steer clear of them... even though everyone can be an abuser or a murderer, not all of them chooses to be one.

Good luck

Wow, mudbutton, that's just about the most awful racist bullshit I've ever seen on MN. Reported.

Do not engage with the moron called mud button, he's from a well known military forum where they've been trashing MN for the last couple of days. The Naafi bar is populated by the kind of men who like talking about their use of prostitutes in Africa , they are fond of sexual references to disabled children and rape jokes abound, the lowest of the low in fact and the type that give the military a very bad name. As an ex military wife I think they are shameful.

Because we live in a patriarchy men have more means to perpetuate and get away with abuse.

Really good posts by FoodUnit there.

I suppose all people have the potential to abuse but most will choose not to.

Many people also seem to have little in the way of concrete values which they hold and observe consistently regardless of context. So in e.g. one working environment with good management and enforced codes of behaviour they can be a nice and trustworthy colleague, just by conforming to the status quo. However, in another, toxic work environment they would simply sink to the lowest common denominator and be as abusive as they could get away with.

I think both men and women can be like this, but as men are not always socialised to observe and maintain moral values or traditions (that's a woman's job), maybe it is more common from men?

On the thread about socio-biology 'stressed men like bigger women' there's a woman on it that fiercely defends the idea of female 'dishonesty' rooted in 'biology'. Its very strange, she has a real affection for the idea that I can't quite fathom

Ah, but if you knew something about human biology, it would be a lot easier to fathom.

"Ah, but if you knew something about human biology, it would be a lot easier to fathom."

I'm afraid your baseless, confused circular thinking is impossible to fathom - because it doesn't make sense. Human biology is nothing to do with it - apart from perhaps your tendency to support the dominant group perspective bias - which I believe is a residual group survival mechanism.

I don't think it's fair to feed the stereotype of an abuse victim being chosen because they are weak/vulnerable, what MerlinScot's therapist said about the give/take dynamic is more fitting. Many strong people have been messed up by abuse because abuses are often attracted to the power of breaking someone down, little by little. So because they want to give, share and care for another person a strong individual can unwittingly be just as likely a victim. A users come in all shapes,sizes,creeds,sexes and have different MO's.

Everyone has the potential to be hideous to another person but those of us with morals and a conscience choose not to. I dont believe that not intervening makes you just as bad, sometimes it's hard to know when and what is appropriate in a given situation.

I also agree that women only environments are hot beds for emotional and psychological abuse. Men are more likely to abuse physically where women are more likely to be subtle abusers, because we use our brains more, not because it's in our genetics to lie and manipulate. Having spent 3 months in a women's refuge feeling like I was back in a school playground I've decided being surrounded by only women forever would actually be a living hell for me. Some of the "professionals" were as bad as the residents!

Just my opinion/experience.

I absolutely do not want to feed stereotypes, but even an overtly 'strong woman' (not that I like this term since it suggests the opposite 'weak' women- which is loaded with steroetyping and blame) is vulnerable to an abuser, simply because she is female, with the vulnerability (rape-ability/ impregnability) of female biology and the whole of patriarchy working against her.

Yes women's refuges can be a mindf*ck but imagine if they were mixed hostels? Naturally there's going to be lots of troubled people around who are homeless, but women's refuges are not the only kind of 'women only spaces'.

I lived in a women's shelter as a little girl. It was the only place we were safe.

Mum would stay awake at night to make sure no one took our meagre belongings because lots of women were in desperate situations and needed money or to be blunt, addicts.

However, we had warm beds, meals, an actually decent toy room. My brother, my mother and I felt safe and got to act as a family.

I believe that same refuge is now a small chain and have much tighter security.

I cannot praise them enough. They literally saved my mother's life.

I'm afraid your baseless, confused circular thinking is impossible to fathom - because it doesn't make sense. Human biology is nothing to do with it

As I said, if you had a grasp of basic human bioogy you wouldn't find it baseless, nor hard to fathom, and you'd be able to follow the arguments rather than be left confused.

Ignorance of science is not a valid reason for it to be false.

What is hard to fathom is why you'd bring an argument from another thread into this one. Not very helpful to OP!

Apologies if my use if the word "strong" implied the converse was weak. I was lacking a more suitable antonym for vulnerable. I wouldn't have considered myself vulnerable when my abuser found me, I knew what I wanted from life and how to get it and he saw an opportunity to screw up someone else's life besides his own for a change!

Also, not bashing refuges. I couldn't be more grateful for the one I was in, without it I'd be dead now. Just noted the amount if bitching, back stabbing and looking down on people (considering we should have really been forming some sort if sisterhood) was surprising.

But, as I said, anyone can make another persons life hell if they do wished, it's just most of us don't.

What is hard to fathom is why you'd bring an argument from another thread into this one. Not very helpful to OP!

I didn't, Food Unit did, which is whay I called her on it.

Fwiw the evolutionary/sociobiological argument would back those who say all men are not abusers, in fact it would predict it's highly likely only a small minority are, and a small minority of women would be too.

Which is what the statistics say of course....

facepalm