The lengths women will go to to appease men

[FeliciaJollygoodfellow]

I've been thinking about this, we see it all the time on MN where women don't want to ask their husband for a break from the baby, more support for their work - all sorts of stuff really.

My friend's ex left her last year - text her telling her he was going to his mums and never came back. Trust me when I say there is loads more to it!

Anyway, she's back on her feet, doing online dating and having fun. Except she's just set up a new Facebook page as there is one bloke she doesn't want to be contacted by anymore. Apparently she can't just unfriend him, and to be fair she's shown time and time again that she will be nice and engage when really she needs to just tell him to fuck off.

I understand why, because I remember being all-accommodating myself when faced with a bloke I'd had maybe one date with that I didn't really fancy - but then I also don't understand why, as a couple of these blokes have just completely cut off contact after a couple of dates (and after being totally all over her ) so clearly, men don't feel the same compulsion!

I'm sure it'll be a depressing read but I was wonder what other examples there are? I'm sure there are many.

(Just to add - this bloke is 51 and sent her a dick pic. She still won't block him)

[VestalVirgin]

I usually cut contact with men who wanted me to be their girlfriend, because I figure it is better for them. Won't help them to accept that there'll be no relationship when I'm constantly talking to them, would it?

However, I usually only go on dates with geeky guys, the sort who are socially awkward and shy. Never got any aggressive reactions.

With an asshole who threatens me, I would have no scruples to cut off contact, either, and I'd do it for my own sake.

Does your friend tell those guys she meets online where she lives? If not, why does she fear them?
Male violence is a problem, but it is less of a problem when you only meet the man in question in places with lots of witnesses.

[FeliciaJollygoodfellow]

Lass - come one, you've been on MN long enough to have seen the many many threads that are started in that ilk! It often comes with a 'we share a bank card' type comment, quite often on an account the woman has no actual access to. Not saying it's right, and in an ideal world no woman would settle for that crap - sadly, we are very far from ideal.

I know in my youth I was guilty of going along with a boyfriend's wants rather than saying no, because I wanted him to love me. Included fairly innocuous things like agreeing to drive yet again so he could drink; going round late at night because he was 'lonely'; changing his bed for him as he didn't see the point.

Those can be seen as compromise I suppose - but only when it wasn't always me that was doing the compromising!

[ScabbyHorse]

After he assaulted me I used to appease my ex if I felt threatened by him. It was mostly unconscious, and it's only now I've left him that I understand what I was doing and why.
I'm now with a new partner who does a lot of cooking for my son and I (Yay!) however, hes a chef and can be fussy and I get an almost visceral reaction when we're cooking together in the kitchen for instance. It's as though his criticism is an actual attack on me and I feel physically threatened. I guess it's the trauma of the previous experience. It's through a lot of counselling that I can see the reasons for my 'overreaction'.

[LassWiTheDelicateAir]

Also, do you think that there are any women these days who have been socialised to expect men to do less/no housework and to accept this as inevitable?

I don't know. There seems to be an assumption on here that this inequitable sharing is inevitable and there is nothing women can do about it. It's a bit infantilising.

[SomeDyke]

"......your assumption that women can't take control of their lives."

Your assumption that all women have to do is take control of their lives. All problems solved, job done..........

I don't think so.

[SpeakNoWords]

Lass, do you think that a woman should leave a man who will not do his fair share of housework etc, if she has refused to do it for a decent length of time?

Also, do you think that there are any women these days who have been socialised to expect men to do less/no housework and to accept this as inevitable?

[LazyCake]

Personally, I don't feel as though I appease men or treat them any differently to women. I do try to be polite to everyone I meet and avoid hurting feelings, ridiculing or being cruel or dismissive. If I did really dislike someone and want to have nothing to do with them, I'd adopt a cool, neutral demeanour.

However, I notice a BIG difference in the way women and some men respond. Some men are SO pushy, demanding and insistent and I find this really unnerving. I'd probably find it unnerving behaviour in a woman also, but in my experience women never do act this way! In fact many men don't either. But there is a group on men who seem not to be able to take no for answer. Is it that they are simply no good at reading signals, and mistake polite indifference for a green light? Or do they simply not care how I feel about them, and how uncomfortable their demands are making me? Is it from these group that rapists come?

[LassWiTheDelicateAir]

Stop blaming women for not being sufficiently controlling of men

It's got nothing to do with blaming or controllin other than your assumption that women can't take control of their lives.

[SomeDyke]

"....so why, then in a domestic scenario allow a situation to arise where housework and childcare isn't shared? "
If it were that easy (age, education, work, choosing a 'good' man), then there would be no incidents of domestic violence in that group either.

It's feminism 101 -- such things (whatever the things are), don't happen because the women concerned are uneducated, or stupid, or poor, or don't have their own money (although those things are disadvantages, obviously), but the common factor here is that they are women (and the other person concerned is a man).

Stop blaming women for not being sufficiently controlling of men!

[LassWiTheDelicateAir]

But I'm not just talking about women feeling threatened. More the fact that we see a lot of posters on here asking about normal levels of housework by her husband, and how it becomes easier to do it herself rather than challenge her husband again as to why he's not done it. Just let him sit on his arse again

But this is the bit I don't understand. Most people on here are probably under 60; most have had access to education; most have experience of working outside the home; probably had mothers who did too; most probably did not choose a Neanderthal as a partner; most realise families do not resemble 1950s ideal marriages - so why, then in a domestic scenario allow a situation to arise where housework and childcare isn't shared?

"It's easier to do it yourself" well don't do it. Beyond ensuring children are fed and go to school appropriately dressed very little else will result in the end of civilisation as we know it if it's not done.

Sorry but in 2016 if the wife-work problem still isn't sorted out in your own homes that seems an abject failure of applying feminist principles to practice.

[WhenSheWasBadSheWasHorrid]

The op reminds me of a Peep Show episode where David Mitchell accidently proposes to Olivia Coleman.
He decides he will have to marry her, to avoid embarrassment.

I think a lot of the time (with friends and dates) the issue isn't one of avoiding potential violence from a man but avoiding social embarrassment.

[TheEmperorIsNaked]

There was a thread at the beginning of the year about men who are 'strategically incompetent' that really resonated with me. Basically men who presumably deliberately do a bad job of housework so their wives stop asking them.

In our home I am responsible for literally everything except the car and that's because I don't drive. DP did have one bill to pay but he never bothered with it and I got sick of worrying about the threatening letters so I took it over myself. He transfers all his money into my account, bar a bit of pocket money now so he never has to think about whether we can afford things and gets to look like a poor, emasculated man when he has to ask me how much petrol he can put in the car.

He can't remember that wood and non-stick pans don't go in the dishwasher and can't remember how much detergent to put in the washing machine. He doesn't understand that you have to adjust the temperature on the iron for different fabrics and can't work out how long to cook food for - even if it's a ready meal . He has flooded the bathroom several times and does stupid things like put toast under the grill and then sit down to watch TV.

Leaving him to get on with things results in a bloody disaster that I have to deal with. I don't do everything in the home to appease him, I do it because he's trained me to fear the consequences of him doing anything at all.

[FeliciaJollygoodfellow]

And it's a fact that men don't have to be big physically to be threatening.

But I'm not just talking about women feeling threatened. More the fact that we see a lot of posters on here asking about normal levels of housework by her husband, and how it becomes easier to do it herself rather than challenge her husband again as to why he's not done it. Just let him sit on his arse again.

i think appeasement is the wrong word isn't it?

[TheEmperorIsNaked]

NAMALT = not all men are like that.

I didn't say that DP was a big burly man. I said he was bigger and stronger than most women, like most men are. He certainly isn't tough.

Of course not all men are nasty bullies who pick on women, but some of them are and I don't know which are which. It isn't about size either. Small men are still usually more capable of violence (physically if not emotionally) than large women.

Same reason that I don't feel comfortable around unleashed big dogs. I don't know what their propensity for aggression is, but I do know that they could overpower me if they chose to.

[Theydontknowweknowtheyknow]

NAMALT = not all men are like that.

[Theydontknowweknowtheyknow]

Sorry to be clear, the example I gave was what happened to one of the Argentine backpackers. The other one was stabbed to death.

[Theydontknowweknowtheyknow]

But that's the whole point isn't it. You just don't know what the reaction would be and the only thing you can base it on is your own personal experience, accounts from other people and the news about what might happen when you reject a man.

It's not like all men would be a threat -of course not and no one's saying that - but you don't know for sure about each individual man.

When you say no to a man he might a) take it all fine and dandy, can't blame a guy for trying b) be mildly fed up c) call you a bitch and a prick tease d) crack your skull and put you in a plastic bin liner.

Of course D is pretty rare but not so rare that it doesn't serve as a deterrent to other women.

[oliviaclottedcream]

I thought you were talking about the level of fear in the individual. That's how I read it..

If I knew what NAMALT means I might be.. Oo course men in general are physically bigger and stronger than women. Don't be daft! I just don't care to lump all men together as a generic group, who all have a share in the guilt of being men.

You don't really know how these men you refer to, feel about your DP being all big, stronger and tougher do you? You don't know for certain how 'the male ego deals with the fact that your DP could if he chose to stamp on them and dominate them physically? I don't either, bit I imagine that these men respect and fear him slightly and know their limits with what they can do to him (or push him), emotionally and physically.

[TheEmperorIsNaked]

How do you know they don't?

Because they aren't worried about upsetting him.

Are you really saying here that you don't believe that men are generally bigger and stronger than women? Or are you saying that despite their difference in size and strength that they would never use that to intimidate women? Or perhaps you are arguing that NAMALT?

[HapShawl]

Tbh I thought the word "proportional" would make it clear that we are talking different levels of threat from different men, but that's just me

[oliviaclottedcream]

That's how I read the word "Them" when applied in this context. Men as a generic group all sharing in the guilt of being 'men'. But that's just me, you know what you meant...

Other men are not especially vulnerable to my DP's size or strength so they wouldn't feel the same level of threat

How do you know they don't?

[TheEmperorIsNaked]

DP is not a bully but he is bigger and stronger than most women. No woman would have to appease him but if she has learnt through experience that some men become intimidating/aggressive towards her when they are upset then she may choose to avoid confrontation with him.

Other men are not especially vulnerable to my DP's size or strength so they wouldn't feel the same level of threat.

In addition to this some men feel entitled to bully and harrass women. This is why we have a law to stop men on building sites catcalling to random women passing by. They don't do it to other men.

[HapShawl]

I didn't say it did, did I? "Them" doesn't have to mean "all men", it's you who is choosing to make that interpretation

[oliviaclottedcream]

So, you say -- the threat they feel from them as if it's a given that all men get a kick out of bullying and intimidating women. A bully is a bully and just as likely to dominate men that they see as weaker. A man does not equal a bully.

[HapShawl]

So what?