do you 'side with' women instinctively?

[Ohhmydaze]

Have been on a thread about the mother who has abducted her 4 children from their Spanish father. My initial thoughts on reading the reports was that the mother must have been in a desperate situation to do this. I automatically assumed that she had suffered abuse at her XH hands, rather than assume she was some chaotic, deranged liar. What else drives a mother to leave home and leave her 4 children behind?

My gut reaction is always in favour of the woman in domestic situations

I don?t hate men, I have male friends, I know tremendous fathers-mine included

But if you take an equal sample of women and men, I would bet my socks that you will find a larger number of crap husbands/fathers than you will crap wives/mothers

Im not saying men are inferior/worse than women, but they choose to behave badly in a family capacity more often than women

Do you agree at all?

Anyone who says they never make an automatic judgement about a person or situation is lying or deluded.

I don't think anyone on the thread is saying they stick to their reflex, automatic judgement in spite of evidence to the contrary, are they?

Well no, of course I make judgements based all sorts of things, but they are generally individual judgements based on individual things

I don't automatically makes judgements based on someones sex or "automatically" side with women

I think there are some posters on MN who do automatically side with the OP (usually a woman), and even when other info trickles out that puts a different spin on the situation continue to side with the OP, without critically assessing the position or challenging the OP.

Eg they assess the OP is subject to emotional and financial abuse from their OH; it turns out OP has put their OH through the mill with chronic overspending and chronic depression and the OH is struggling to keep a roof over the family's head and come to terms with what is happening to his wife / partner, and still the response from many posters will be "poor you, OP, your OH is an abusive fuckwit and you should chuck him out". I do appreciate that this response provides support to the OP, and the support is a brilliant feature of MN, but sometimes I feel that the automatic siding with women doesn't actually help the OP.

Xenia,"I spend some time advocating for men's rights too"
I was quite flabberghasted to read that from you.
A genuine question. What mens rights do you think are not working well in this country,that you are advocating for?

Good thread by the way,op

Completely agree.

Eg they assess the OP is subject to emotional and financial abuse from their OH; it turns out OP has put their OH through the mill with chronic overspending and chronic depression and the OH is struggling to keep a roof over the family's head and come to terms with what is happening to his wife / partner, and still the response from many posters will be "poor you, OP, your OH is an abusive fuckwit and you should chuck him out". I do appreciate that this response provides support to the OP, and the support is a brilliant feature of MN, but sometimes I feel that the automatic siding with women doesn't actually help the OP.

I would love to see a single example of this, FamiliesShareGerms. Please share.

No

Somerset, I don't think it's helpful in this instance to give examples. Maybe I should be braver in posting on threads where I see it happening rather than slinking off because I don't feel I'm an expert in abusive relationships and don't want to be the one who says (and gets flamed for saying) "actually there are two sides here". And others can call me on it there and then, rather than me posting links or whatever here to threads with no likely come back from involved parties.

I don't disagree in the slightest - I would just love to see an actual example of a situation where someone is being emotionally and/or financially absused, and there is a poor beleaguered OH in the background dealing with a partner who is going out, frittering their living away on the credit cards.

I'm sure, if you hunt hard enough, you might be able to find an example of this. Whereas the sample of women posting on the relationships forum actually being emotionally and/or financially abused is way, way higher. And yet you choose to focus on the former, tiny sub-set of people, and be moved by their plight.

Be brave, then. Stick up for those people. They definitely need people like you fighting their corner. In the meantime, others can call 'leave the bastard' if they think it appropriate. :)

Somerset, it is best to be moved by both sets.

Yes Families,speak up. If you are right, it is rare that no other posters back you up. and it gets easier and easier to accept the flamings! .It makes you even stronger in RL too.

Xenia,my mind has been doing overtime. Which mens rights have you been advocating for?

sorry i havent been back to the thread since i started it

no-i didnt mean that I would defend a woman no matter what the information available was; i mean as a gut reaction i always do. No ones gut reaction is to wait for both sides of the story and ma,e an informed judgement was all available information has been digested

completely agree with the posters ( somerset)who say that there are far more instances of the man lying about abusive/domestic situations than there are women lying; so if you are working on probability, then I have a better than fair chance of being correct

That said; i don't mind being wrong-it doesn't make me question my visceral response because sometimes I'm wrong. I dont need to be right all the time

I do find it irritating and boring that people call sexism. I know it probably is technically. But its no way the same as sexism against women. It is the same as racism against white people; it isnt the same. I wish there were different words for these reverse isms. My gut reaction (which is generally private) has no impact on anyone else at all.

Do you all reserve judgement, until you've heard both sides of the story, in the case of rape allegations for example?

families i think it depends which part of mumsnet you are in as to whether posters side with the OP; I agree that in relationships, generally people support the OP. In AIBU it seems posters go all out to disagree with an OP

I do have gut reactions to things - as we all do

But they are not based on sex.

I don't know about rape allegations - in that case I probably would "side" with the person claiming to be raped (unless there was evidence to the contrary) but the I would probably "side" with the alleged victim of any crime, rather than the alleged perpertrator.

You have just picked a crime that it most likely to have a woman as a victim than a man. It doesn't really work as you might say "do you reserve all judgement, until you've heard both sides of the story, in the case of robbery allegations for example". Well no - I bet most people would more instinctively side with the alleged victim as a gut reaction - but that's not based on the sex of the person.

No.

It's part of why I don't like to use the phrase "the sisterhood".

In a situation where there are sides to be taken (where there's a decent chance that either party, or both, could be in the wrong) sex is not one of the main pieces of information that I use to decide who I think is likely to be in the wrong.

Ohmydaze actually racism against whoever us EXACTLY the fucking same. I've experienced it up close and it's just as fucking horrible, upsetting and vile. Grow up and look at the ridiculous comment you made. It's extremely offensive.

no it is not the same lisaro because of many reasons; majority/minority dynamics (racism not sexism), context of historical oppression and power balance.

Also racsim against white people (and sexism against men) is usually as a reaction to treatment/ attitudes experienced NOT because of a belief of superiority as it is when it is racism/sexism FROM white people/men

I don?t hate men, I have male friends, I know tremendous fathers-mine included. But if you take an equal sample of women and men, I would bet my socks that you will find a larger number of crap husbands/fathers than you will crap wives/mothers

I'm not sure that's true, or rather I'm not sure you can say such a thing as if both sexes can be judged the same way.

You need to consider the traditional expectations upon mothers and fathers, and the fact that at least some couples still enter into relationships and have families based on those expectations (from both sides). Where the agreed expectation is that the man will focus on earning all or most of the money while the woman focus on bringing up the children, you can't really say the man is a "crap father" for not knowing how to change a nappy any more than the woman is a "crap mother" for not earning a full-time wage.

I say this as one who doesn't believe in such polarised expectations at all, and who has always shared the child-centred aspects of family life equally. But I'm aware not all families are like mine, and I suspect the "crap father" stereotype fails to take into account the reality of voluntary division of labour.

Actually I'm off now because I don't deal with racists. They sicken me.

i have lots of experience of racism lisaro

I agree with Ohmydaze in that it isn't sexism. Well, I don't think it is. Gut reactions have basis in reality. If we side with women at the beginning (subconsciously) it is probably because women tend to be victimised far more than men, so perhaps some of us anticipate that to be the case whatever stories we read. When I read a newspaper article about someone being murdered, my instinct is that a man did it. Because most murders are carried out by men.

Apparently the women lived in Spain with the children, for some reason she left and returned back to UK this somehow negated her rights to have custody of her children in Spanish law.....I think! Obviously more to it than that.....
I don't automatically side with women but as a woman I am biased in favour of my sex......why would I not be?