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.

Theydontknow - exactly!!!

Buffy I'm not sure I've attained perfect clarity yet!

"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."

Sorry OP! But it's a very interesting subject.

I would say from personal experience, once I stopped seeing men in a romantic way, when I stopped expecting heroic things from them (understanding, empathy, progressivism ) and started seeing them just as people raised in a certain system and just taking from that system what is on offer to them, then I started getting on better with them.

And I stopped showing them a modified side of myself that I thought men liked to see. I'm not afraid to say that I'm a feminist anymore. That's all you can do really. Be honest about yourself and what you feel. Which is exactly what you'd done here.

You've done!

Hi Buffy. Certainly, the nuclear family has not gone by any means - but the economic substructure that supported it has been enervated. People are increasingly single and mobile. I completely agree that non heteronormative families are a good thing.

There does seem to be a marked difference between younger and older women's take on feminism (very broadly speaking). I was speaking to a colleague and friend of mine in her twenties (a strikingly bright young woman) and asked her what she thought about porn. 'Well' she said 'if you'd asked me that in 2010 I'd have said I was firmly against; but now porn is just part of life isn't? Everyone looks at it don't they?' And you could see that for her generation porn was as normal as having a cup of tea. I loathe porn. Even this so called feminist porn is vile. It is still being repurposed by men, accessed by children and makes money out of people's bodies. Sorry to bang on it about it, but I do think it paradigmatic of our age and corrupting gender relations.

As for sexual liberationism: obviously gay rights and female contraception were a good thing. But that it was going to get co-opted in two seconds flat by consumer capitalism was inevitable. Furthermore, otal sexual agency - or total agency of any kind - is a myth. We are all subject to invisible forces. Some feminist think power can be reclaimed on that individualist model. It simply can't. Neither is returning an objectifying male gaze to men the answer (not that that happens very much but it is proposed by some feminists).

"Or there's perfect clarity, if you look through feminist glasses." Well yes Buffy! But unfortunately RL is not like FWR

And we have to mix daily with those. ...pfft. ..underthinkers!

You know those people who start sentences with "I know this is politically incorrect but ...." or "you're massively overthinking this" or..."if that's all you've got to worry about in life..." ??

If only RL were the cosy blanket that FWR is!!

Sorry Buffy I don't follow. My point was that porn IS very harmful. Terribly so.

?

And I wasn't reffering to what you people think, or what all feminists think - just what certain feminists think that I have read or spoken to.

At risk of getting seriously off topic (sorry Manuka ) what is your take on pornography? Would be really interested to know. Respect J

Porn? Again? FFS

Porn is just the Internet evolution of the rape culture inherent in a patriarchy. Yes it is horrid; but it is not uniquely so. As a woman I have had 'up close and personal' experiences of rape and sexual assault and so see porn through the jaded eyes of someone who sees rapists round every corner. I don't believe porn is new at all. The attitudes and culture that allowed porn to develop was well established way before the Internet age.

Theydontknow - yes I think that is what I've started doing. Interestingly my dh has just text me from work saying he feels like he is losing me. What he means, I think, is that he is losing that modified side of me that he has always known and loved (because I perfectly fitted the man pleasing stereotype that subconsciously I thought was expected of me) and now the feminist inside is starting to show.

Maybe the thread should have been called "I think I'm starting to love myself more than I love men"

One of the problems with porn, even lovey dovey violence-free porn is, you never know if the actresses really want to be there - or if they just needed the money. You can never know whether it is consensual, or rape.

What must be wrong with someone's mind that they want to watch something that is even only possibly rape?

I've no problem with erotic films that do not have any real actors, and do not eroticise female submission. However, I don't think there are many, or even any at all.

Pornography literally means "depiction of prostitutes", and that's what it is - prostitution. If you leave the prostitutes out of it, it's not porn, if you use the term correctly.

@Batteriesallgone: Yes. Porn is the manifestation of something that was already there, it is not the reason why men rape - men raped thousands of years ago.
Porn is like vomit, a symptom of disease, but making things worse in and of itself, too.

No, I agree I don't think her analysis astute either. Sorry, I should have made that clearer. I was more referring to how she casually accepted porn use as a commonplace, and how sad that was.

I take that point, but there is evidence that women do watch porn because they like it. Woman are showing symptoms of porn addiction. Indeed, that same woman talked about a female friend of hers who phoned her up in tears asking if looking at porn was cheating. Women are no longer just excusing male behaviour than but their own as well.

And this is really the point: I'm not attacking feminism at all really but liberal individualism and moral relativism. This basically dictates that societies should have no overarching values and people should be able to do pretty much as they please so long as they don't break the law. It is this has corrupted feminism - along with pretty much anything else. Just because the moral framework of the past was oppressive and bigoted does not make it right to eschew moral values per se.

And without the context of a moral culture feminism won't make sense - it will just be a mess of competing claims to agency but without any moral criterion by which those claims can be evaluated. And the same goes for any social justice movement. Rather than challenging men to behave in a more moral way, some (and I emphasise some) feminists tell women to 'lean in' - break some balls in the boardroom, enjoy porn - whatever else.

Of course lots feminists call this out as BS, but even they talk the incoherent language of individual rights. Without morals rights don't make sense. This is an amoral nihilistic society where everyone is encouraged to satisfy their own private desires above all else. Feminism, or indeed any social justice movement, will flounder in such a relativistic world. For one thing, men (and this is happening) will just start banging on about their right to call women slags on Twitter or whatever else. I imagine you hear that all the time don't you? 'Bloody authoritarian feminazi tellling men what to do blah blah'. But very often, rather than feminists responding by simply saying that is disgusting behaviour that has no place in a civilised society and frankly fuck your individual rights, they counter it by talking about how their own rights are infringed; but without a moral criterion one set of rights cannot be judged as superior to another.

Mamaka, in what ways do you think your attitude and behaviour are changing you?

Maybe the thread should have been called "I think I'm starting to love myself more than I love men"

Pretty sure you'd have been accused of hating men on the second page of the thread, anyway.

The moment women don't sacrifice their own wellbeing for the sake of men anymore, men claim that that's "hate". You can just as well use the word "hate" yourself, even though it is inaccurate. (Or is it? I suppose we have to invent a new word for what men do to women, "hate" just isn't strong enough with how they use it.)

Buffy, I overall agree. But there are 'sexy feelings' that are bad and should be judged so by society. If you are a man (or indeed a woman) who is aroused by hurting people or who is sexually aroused by children then you absolutely should be ashamed of those feelings (not suggesting that you would think otherwise, but it is a point - albeit an obvious one - that does need making).

Interesting point about how the ethical 'lovey dovey' stuff getting repurposed.

Enjoy your work (if possible).

Every critique of modern feminism centres on how authoritarian it is. Feminism is not in a relativistic phase at all.

As one of the posters on here who most grumbles about Tumblr feminism, I now feel I have to say it isn't all terrible. I dislike its intolerance, mob forming ways, simplistic arguments and obsession with identity BUT...

It is a community of young women. Its focus is both community and women. It is creative, funny and often supportive. I'd rather my daughter was on Tumblr than not. As long as people going into that environment are aware of its down sides, it can be a good way for young women to get into feminism.

Hello Mamaka, I've come across from your other thread.

I wanted to say I had the same experience with my now ex. I woke up to all this stuff through mumsnet, and it started to change my behaviour exactly as you just described. What I eventually had shouted at me was 'You need to stop reading mumsnet. They're a bunch of twisted man-haters and they're turning you into a feminist and I don't approve.' I kid you not.

Helped me see the light much faster though! A week later I got 'you have no right to impact on my life', because we had a childcare conflict, and that pretty much killed it for me.

Yes almond, but this is just a world of one set of people telling others that they are authoritarian for expressing an opinion. Think of all those Oxford Union debates where different identity politicos are all no-platforming each other.

I am sure those online communities can be very positive, but liberal feminism is relativistic. It is not united by any moral principle as such. Neither is any liberal discourse.