I'm starting to hate men

[Mamaka]

I posted this on relationships but didn't get any response:

I've noticed recently that I've become more and more anti men - I think since having my first child. So many factors that I could mention and probably many deep rooted issues contributing to this but the long and short of it is why do women have to suffer and sacrifice at every turn?!

I don't really want to feel like this. I have a son who I want to bring up/am bringing up to be a feminist but I'm worried about how my hateful feelings towards men are going to rub off on my dc.

I suppose I am asking if there is a way I can combat these feelings and start to feel more positively towards them.

Erinaceus - thank you I actually found that quite helpful.
I'm bemused that in both this thread and an identical thread that I posted in relationships people are misunderstanding my words to the point that they're talking about something completely and utterly different and referring back to things I didn't say.
I genuinely want to know, did I write it in a way that could easily be misconstrued?

You used the word "hate" and the word "man" in close proximity.

Even though the post itself was clear you are looking for support and advice with your feelings, some posters, especially on your other thread, want to use those words as a stick.

Glad you've come back!

Hate was definitely not a good choice of word I'll give you that.

But from what I've read on mumsnet before, especially on the relationships board, posters don't have to be perfectly articulate and use exactly the right wording for readers to not only understand but also gain an often very accurate insight into the situation and give excellent advice, often advocating for the right of the woman (or man) to be free of abuse etc.

Um, yep, all that is true.

But since feminist and man-hater are erroneously synonymous for some, you kinda kicked the hornets' nest

"But since feminist and man-hater are erroneously synonymous for some"

Oh dear. I didn't even think of this. Now I feel stupid. I don't keep myself up to date with feminism (which is why I've found this thread so confusing) so I just posted what was in my head without thinking it through. I've only added to the anti feminism vitriol.

Mamaka, I also wonder if those who criticise you for simply naming your feelings with concern and seeking advice on them are so vocal to those men actively showing their true hate for women online (tweeting rape threats, for example) and showing no such worries about their opinions. See the "reclaim the internet" guest post.

Seriously, mamaka, don't worry about it

The man hater shit has been going on since the suffragette movement. Don'tcha be taking that one on your shoulders, hey?

Haha thanks jacquetta. Weight off.

That's helpful buffy, thank you, and it's exactly what I've found myself doing over the last few months as I've become more aware of the sexist culture around me. I've withdrawn and people really don't like it.

Hi mamaka

Which people don't like it? Family members, friends, colleagues? Male people or female people or both?

Mainly family members of both genders. I suppose sexism is entrenched in my family and I can't expect much more from them. But it still hurts. When I first told my mum about my marriage difficulties she advised me to stop nagging and be patient.

Yes Mamaka I just saw your OP as being honest and seeking help. But Buffy and the others are right about fuelling discomfort. The need to prove we don't hate men gives way to a lot of virtue signalling.

It comes down to who you meet and what you have been taught. Naturally you should not hate anyone based on their sex. Whether you were taught to hate men or learned to hate them yourself through personal experience your feelings are irrational and unfounded. I'd recommend just associating yourself with better men.

Whether you were taught to hate men or learned to hate them yourself through personal experience your feelings are irrational and unfounded.

Being taught things or learning them through experience makes them founded and often rational, but well done for dismissing everyone but you!

I'd recommend just associating yourself with better men. Thank you for your recommendation. I will file it appropriately.

I'd recommend just associating yourself with better men.

Why say stuff like this? It's so unhelpful and slightly victim-blamey.

A good source of reading material that relates to the perspective erinaceus has just outlined, is bell hooks.

I have not read bell hooks at any length. It is on my to read list. I read and continue to read FWR.

From memory, the period from when I started to realise what patriarchy is, to when I was sufficiently not blind with rage to start reading took about a year.

One of the books I read was Feminism: A Very Short Introduction by Margaret Walters. This book gave me an historical perspective on feminism in Britain. After I had read it, I felt more informed about the origins of feminism in Britain, as well as how far feminism has come. Starting with a book written in the time I was living in when I read it from the perspective of the place I was living in at the time meant I could relate to the story told in the book. I found this helpful.

explores the question "why do we hate?" and is less than one minute long.

In terms of who you yourself with, I follow the same boring approach as I outlined before.

What is good enough for me? Make a scale.

...get to know the person...

Is this person good enough for me? Depending how good they are for me, I may allow them to be close to me or accord what they say authority. External factors intervene. For example, I might be employed by someone, or married to someone, or related to someone by blood, or wedged next to someone on a bus. At all of these times, I have choices. There are no rules, only choices. If I find myself without choices, I use my imagination.

The scale is fluid, multidimensional, and context-dependent. Other people move on my moving scale over time. It is an imaginary scale. I made it up myself. I am making it up as I go along.

Hi all

First of all I would like to offer my apologies. I have re-read my comments from yesterday. They came across as domineering and insensitive.

I did respond directly to the OP, encouraging her to believe that there are good men out there. However, reading some of the responses it seems that many women have very good reasons for finding that difficult to do. Women may decide to steer clear of men for reasons that I, coming from a male perspective, am ill-equipped to understand and am in no place to judge. Buffy: your point that women avoid men while men attack them really made me think.

However, if one were, as a man or woman, to endeavour to think about how gender relations can improved (although of course it is in so sense obligatory to do so) then perhaps a step back should be taken and an analytical eye adopted.

We now all of us live in a very fractured, unstable, hyper-sexualized landscape where there is a lot of tension between the sexes (due in large part, it hardly needs to be added, to the behaviour of men). Some feminists have some urgent and important things to say about this; but others, though well-meaning, are sometimes complicit in what they critique.

New concepts of masculinity are emerging, but slowly and painfully. Working class men in particular are struggling to adapt to an increasingly service sector economy (as attested to by a skyrocketing suicide rate in that demographic) but I digress..

What this means is that are no doubt lots of reasons for women to hate men (sexual abuse and exploitation, domestic violence) but no means of addressing it beyond of course raising boys not to behave like this and doing all we can to police those who mistreat of women. As for deep rooted cultural change, it is a bit more difficult. In many ways we live in an economy that is predicated on using and exploiting others. As an economy, that is what we do. So now the old world of the nuclear family and mass male labour has gone (some of which of course was bad), it has only been replaced with one of individualism, consumerism and exploitation. And judging from some of the terrible things that continue to happen to women every day - particularly sexual abuse - it seems like another system where they are the victims despite any false promise of empowerment from libertarians and post-feminists. Added to that, many men are economically exploited and oppressed but rather than blame the ideology that oppresses them they blame women - just like the poor do immigrants.

Of course, this discussion was perhaps intended as an opportunity for women to share personal experiences and I weighed in...maybe it seems like I've weighed in again, but only wanted to clarify my point so as not to leave a bad taint.

Just end by saying here are good men out there. In spite of everything, we are all human beings.

John - posting this thread was actually my attempt to "think about how gender relations can be improved" (in my own life). But posters have been choosing to read and understand it in whatever way suited them best.

I would say racism is different though because you can live your whole life without really integrating with other races. Not so with gender.

And we are brought up to be wary of men as girls growing up.

We read newspapers and watch the news which is full of male perpetrators. Women murdered by ex boyfriends or current partners. When we hear of an attack somewhere in the world we may pause before we make assumptions about the ideology or the mental state of the attacker but we can be pretty certain of the person's sex. Yet that bit never gets discussed.

And then right after we are told not to wear skimpy clothing or go out at night in the wrong neighbourhood we are told that it is only a few individuals, that women kill too and that if we dislike men as a group we have a problem, that it is our fault because we are mixing with the wrong men.

That it is wrong to dislike a whole group based on the actions of a few even though we are told to be wary of that whole group based on the actions of a few. Otherwise we are being naive and will be asked "well what did you think would happen?"

But if we stop to ask "what is about gender that is driving this violence?" If we attempt to join the dots we are cast as manhaters. Feminazis who want female supremacy. So we stop identifying with feminism because no one wants to be associated with that.

It's all very contradictory and confusing.