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.

They have almond but they haven't been very coherent. John Rawls has tried to do that but not successfully. The thing is, to distinguish between positive and negative liberties you need a non-relativistic moral criteria. And liberalism rejects the existence of such thing.

Aristotelian virtue ethics, which places the emphasis on moral character, makes much more sense IMO. Feminists like carol Gilligan have offered interesting interpretations of this, rejecting liberal ethics as masculinist.

Probably because they've got something to hide. What is your point?

I'm not saying power isn't abused or that some censorship is wrong. But to decide whether an example of censorship is right or wrong you require a moral criteria. That is, MOD reports which indicate the abuse of power arguably should be in the public realm while rape threats and videos of women having sex with animals should not be. You cannot simply say all censorship is wrong and therefore the Snowden leaks AND bestiality porn AND everything else without distinction should be in the public realm. Freedom cannot be your ONLY criteria without appeal to an ethical one.

Please start your own thread John.

And you can't just say because those things are illegal. They have still been made illegal on the basis of some sort of consensus that they're morally wrong.

And yes, Buffy, sick of you appearing on FWR and promoting beastiality.

Of course censorship can be corrupt. In itself, without a context it is neither god or bad. It depends on who is doing it and for what reasons.

Off to work. Speak again soon maybe.

Yes NQ , know your place = helpmate to the male of the species! DEf have no right to impact negatively on HIS life !!!

", as a feminist, say: 'well, both parties are making a free choice and therefore there is nothing else to be said about the matter'?"

Seriously, read the room. Or at least any one of the dozens of threads about prostitution in this section, which would show you very few posters here hold this view of prostitution.

Stop saying "as a feminist" and going on to post some viewpoint when you are well aware there are many branches of feminism.

You must have been here at least a month, as you've posted in the Sex topic. Have you picked up nothing about the tone and demographics of MN whilst you've been here?

Are we in bizarro land?

Mamaka, that's not a good thing for your DH to say. Sorry your mum is unsupportive; IMO, parents are often more vested in keeping their grand kids' parents together than in what is right for their own child!

Hi Mamaka, I did post briefly on your other thread in Relationships but the stupid took over. I'm sorry that both your threads have been taken over by men and their desire to have their feelings and opinions heard and that trumps your desire to have your own thread to talk about what you want to talk about.

It does kind of prove your OP though .

Your thread in Relationships is interesting in one way because it really shows how much women are socialised to put men first and how they will bend over backwards not to offend a few men's feelings on the internet. I also think that despite a wealth of evidence women have to think that it is only a small group of men who are violent/sexist/feel entitled to use women's labour for themselves without return.

A wise woman on here once stated and I think Theydontknowweknowtheyknow alluded to it earlier, women are the only oppressed group that are expected to live with and love their oppressors. We could argue as to the level of expectation in today's society but heteronormativity is still what is promoted and there are penalties if you step outside that.

So its like a cognitive dissonance. The contradictions between told to be wary of men and their violence and encouraged to live with men is a hard circle to square!

In your OP you mention about the affects of your feelings on your DC. (There were some truly nasty replies to this on your thread in Relationships. I was quite shocked and wondered if they saw the irony of what they were accusing you of and what they were saying and how it might affect their DC). I think these feelings could be positive on your DC. Teaching them the effects of male entitlement on women and that male entitlement is wrong. They need to know this. Children get so many messages about how men are better than women, they need the counter arguments. It is an uphill struggle though. My eldest came home the other day to tell me men were better than women (he's 6). This is apparently because men landed on the moon and women didn't. A part of me inside died a little. Yes it was slightly tongue in cheek but these are the messages he is getting and he'll get more on top of more. I felt I was saying Yeah...but... to him (I was a bit shocked). I eventually said to him that women weren't allowed to go on the Apollo mission, not that men were better than women. I talked about women being denied access to traditionally male spaces, even education and how we are still battling against that. A few days later I found out about Margaret Hamilton (google her - she's a fascinating woman) and how her software got the rockets into space. It did feel a bit like tokenism but hopefully some part of him will remember it isn't all about the men.

So any counter to these messages they receive can only be good .

You might also want to point out that women were members of the space program, in fact they cope better with space flight due to the higher percentage of water in their bodies. However because of sexism/patriarchy/paternalism etc they were deemed "too fragile" for space.

Or...to put it in words that a 6 year old might understand "They decided not to use women because the men might embarrassed that women were better than them" Then point them to Valentina Tereshkova

I like! Thanks slug.

Mamaka I think I'm going to abandon your other thread. It's been helpful in a way as verbalising all the stuff in my head and trying to organise a mass of untutored thoughts on the subject onto the site has made me more confident. But I'm a little too daunted to post here!!

I love reading this thread, and some posters, particularly Buffy, are amazing. I wish I had their knowledge. I know far more than anyone would wish to, due to my experiences, but I don't have the back ground history and research knowledge to be truly useful, I think.

I feel a little alone and embattled over there too! So I shall come and lurk here.

Thank you, Buffy.

Can I admit to enjoying your irritation? The more irritated you got, the more pointed and funny your comments became, until I was laughing out loud.

It's remarkable how obtuse people can be.

Jacquetta: no doubt some posters have objected vehemently objected to prostitution. But at the same time some of them assert that personal choice is the foundational value of feminism and moral value judgements about people's sexual behaviour should be eschewed. That is a contradiction.

And I have repeatedly stressed that I am not reffering to all branches of feminism. Indeed, I have reffered positively to Andrea Dworkin, Kat Banyard and Carol Gilligan.

Sorry about repeated 'objected'.

Positively potty for Andrea !