Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Feminism: chat

Original poster

Men as protectors

264 replies

SoftDriftedSnow · 24/04/2016 23:21

Is it ever really true, except in their own minds?

A new study shows that marriage (or rather, the expectations of marriage) is detrimental to women. www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/04/22/wives-become-less-stressed-after-their-husbands-die-study-finds/

When you add in the rates of violence against women by men, why does this myth of men being protectors prevail?

And if it doesn't (not convinced) why is it still perceived by a significant proportion of people that women without a man are lacking? Maybe that's simply still function of perceived worth being determined by the man you get?

Rambling, but thinking. (and I am pretty much convinced the answer is "patriarchy", to nail my colours to the mast. And, yes, I know that many of you don't know men who think like that).

OP posts:
lorelei9here · 25/04/2016 20:18

Grim, you don't think it's up to men to protect women if bears and wolves turn up....?

Grimarse · 25/04/2016 20:23

My wife would take them both with one arm tied behind her back...

Chrysanthemum5 · 25/04/2016 20:31

Sorry it was to the OP - the mobile site didn't load properly so I only saw the first couple of posts

lorelei9here · 25/04/2016 20:32

Right, so what's with all the red herrings? I find this board very confusing. I feel like I should learn and benefit from it but it always goes weird.

lorelei9here · 25/04/2016 20:38

Oh no my last post was to Grim! Sorry.

Grimarse · 25/04/2016 20:46

Lorelei, sorry if I have mislead you. I have found the whole thread confusing. The OP seems to have done the usual thing of picking an old, outdated concept and tried to shoehorn it into current thinking, in order to present yet another weapon of the Patriarchy designed to crush women under our heel.

lorelei9here · 25/04/2016 20:50

I thought the OP was simply asking "why does the idea of man as protector prevail, when the need for protection is usually caused by men"? Which seems to me a very reasonable question.

lorelei9here · 25/04/2016 20:53

OP also asked "why is it still perceived by a significant proportion of people that women without a man are lacking? "

I would love to know the answer to this one. and add that many women seem to be horrified by the idea of a happy single woman. Though as a pp said, men are starting to get this crap too. That's a whole separate thread though.

Grimarse · 25/04/2016 21:07

Ah, okay. Well, she doesn't appear to be here now. For my part, I think it's crap. The idea of man as protector does not prevail in current UK society. But I think she suggests it as a device for yet another thread about male violence as a tool of female oppression.

And as you say yourself, the idea of either gender being single and happy is an anathema to some people. Why do you think it's a separate thread for men though? Why do the reasons differ?

LassWiTheDelicateAir · 25/04/2016 21:08

Lorelei, sorry if I have mislead you. I have found the whole thread confusing. The OP seems to have done the usual thing of picking an old, outdated concept and tried to shoehorn it into current thinking, in order to present yet another weapon of the Patriarchy designed to crush women under our heel

Sorry Lorelei but I tend to agree with that.

"why is it still perceived by a significant proportion of people that women without a man are lacking? "

Is it perceived that way? By whom?

And if it is, (and I'm not sure it is a given) then I agree the people who are most likely to think that are those women who make such a big thing of being a Mrs.

lorelei9here · 25/04/2016 22:19

I feel I'm repeating myself but to answer questions

Man as protector in UK society - I am frequently asked by some friends, family (serial offenders), colleagues, neighbors even random folk at social things
Are you nervous going home alone?
Are you nervous living alone?
Do you get scared at night without a man?

The subtext is "are you worried about male harassment/crime " and to a large extent i don't blame them because they've swallowed those lies but I do get cross because it's like saying "you must get yourself a man or you'll never be free of male harassment/crime". Um...!

As for people thinking less of singletons, the barrage of stupid questions and concerns proves that. I cba to detail them. Well here's my favourite for a laugh "but you're pretty, you should have a boyfriend". i usually look innocent and say "oh dear, is that the law?"

I didn't mean single men and women needed a separate topic btw, sorry, I just meant singles. A single male friend recently had his dad tell him "at least if you were divorced we could tell people you had tried to have a relationship". I mean FFS. Another guy I know has just sorted his third divorce and is taking a leaf out of my book and opting to stay single. He's been asked "but will your life still have meaning" and "don't you think you should get settled?"

I really must try to dig out the statistics mentioned by my colleague.

To focus on the OP point, I do think a lot of women know, deep down, that's its protection from men because of men but they don't want to lump men together which I do understand.

thatsn0tmyname · 25/04/2016 22:24

If I was walking home alone at night, a man would be a useful deterant rather than a protector.

thatsn0tmyname · 25/04/2016 22:26

Gggrrr, deterrent.

lorelei9here · 25/04/2016 22:38

That's, I think that is probably what Op meant, deterrent being part of the protection men are associated with.

EBearhug · 25/04/2016 22:39

I am currently on holiday - alone. A couple of people at work seem to think this is amazing. I just think, if I wait for someone else, whether friend or partner, if don't go alone, I'll never get to see the places I want to see. This way, I get to do what I want. I just don't really get the people who think it's amazing - but then I have met a lot of independent travellers. I suppose if you've never done it, it would be nerve-wracking, but when I've been on a group holiday, there's all the worry about what if we don't get on, and so on - that seems a far greater risk to me! (Not enough to stop me, mind you.)

I think my point is - part of it depends what you are used to.

LassWiTheDelicateAir · 25/04/2016 23:00

Are you nervous going home alone?

I've lived in cities since I was 18. I go on city holidays on my own. I'd never thought twice about walking home on my own at night until about a year ago. I was walking home at around 2 in the morning one Saturday night/Sunday morning and started thinking should I be doing this.

And do you know what made me think that? You won't like the answer- all the posts on FWR about how terrible and dangerous it is to be a woman.

lorelei9here · 25/04/2016 23:12

Well Lass Ive been asked that question all my adult life living in London. I've been on M.n less than a year and am hardly ever on this board so it is definitely not .mn that alerted me to the question it's 22 years of real I've experience of being asked.

lorelei9here · 25/04/2016 23:13

Life not I've! Honestly autocorrect has weird ideas.

EBearhug · 25/04/2016 23:21

The only time I've ever felt nervous walking home was when I was living in Hackney. I was with a boyfriend and we had to cross a narrow footbridge. It was difficult to avoid the group of people shouting at the two police there, as there wasn't much space. I was worried a riot was about to kick off. But I've never been worried in normal circumstances.

EBearhug · 25/04/2016 23:25

Mind you, we were never allowed after dark to take the footpath that crossed through the woods, not even in a group, in case of poachers, in case they mistook one of us for anow animal. I may have grown up with different concerns from urban-dwellers...

DPotter · 25/04/2016 23:26

Years ago when I was at uni studying Psychology we spent time looking at the Camberwell mental health surveys from the 1950/ 60s ? They showed that the 'happiest' people were married men and the 'unhappiest' were married women, with singles and widows / widowers in between. So there's nothing new in this survey. But why - well- Phd's and whole careers have been spent trying to get to the bottom of that one. I didn't read the report as meaning husbands are 'protective' but coupledom as being protective in the mental health sense , not from physical threats per se. Although I'm always wary of how general journalists report scientific findings

lorelei9here · 25/04/2016 23:57

Ebear, yes you grew up in a totally different place than I did and yours sounds much nicer. The thing you describe in Hackney is the sort of thing I just meh at because I think, why are people so fucking noisy. Loads of that sort of thing where I grew up.

I do sometimes wonder if I'll get punched for eye rolling at some anti social network ncident but it's hard not to, my sister does it as well.

lorelei9here · 25/04/2016 23:58

DPotter, I am so not surprised. Reminds me of being at school and being told what wife stands for.

singingsixpence82 · 26/04/2016 04:07

lorelei - EMK is a dating coach so I think he is just saying that men like to feel that their efforts to look after their partner are appreciated. So if a man says "it'll be dark by the time you get back to the station, can I pick you up?" and you'd rather just walk any way, you're always better off saying "I'd rather walk but I really appreciate you looking out for me" rather than "no, I'm perfect capable of getting myself home safely thanks very much". And if you're indifferent between walking and getting a lift it might be good for the relationship just to take the lift and make your man feel that he's looking after you (which he is - although the same scenario works with the genders reversed). At least I have never read anything more into it than that.

Grimarse" "In which case, isn't the use of the word 'protection' misleading? You seem to be saying that the requirement in a relationship is for caring, not protection."

You are illustrating my point! It's only misleading if you see protection and emotional care giving as being completely different things, which I suspect many women don't, in certain contexts such as modern relationships at least. Personally, I see protection as being about caring for a person in large part and it's only recently that I've kind of been coming to suspect that men don't see protection as involving any element of emotional support.

lorelei9here · 26/04/2016 10:58

Singing, thanks, i was on my phone when I posted and couldn't get a sense of what the guy was saying.

In a dating context, those comments are doubly annoying. For a start, if you are meeting someone for the first time, you'd be better off not walking with them surely. Also, then it's just pretending to be someone you aren't to snare the person - then again, I think a lot of the time that's what dating is about!

I used to see that "letting someone look after you" thing - even a parent - as being quite inocuous. Now I see it as a huge PITA. There are times I just indulge people of course, it's part and parcel of life, but playing the little woman who needs protecting while you're dating sounds insane. But "dating culture" seems insane generally. Och well.

Swipe left for the next trending thread