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.

Coming to feminism later is like someone switching the light on, but even as a woman it is still difficult to shake off complicity and ingrained behaviours and attitudes.

There's no doubt it is also used by some - who really are very definitely not allies - as a way to ingratiate/a pick-up technique.

I agree, adult men I imagine would find it hard to switch off their taking over and mansplaining as it's been so encouraged and applauded all their lives but surely male children could be brought up as feminists?

Archibald - what do you think a feminist is?

Hello Mamaka -

One thing I've done to keep a more balanced outlook is to limit the amount of reading online about topics that I know will be fought with irritating misogynist comments or arguments.

For instance, I'm very concerned about sexual assault, but reading about it online is just fruitlessly enraging, so I avoid those topics and instead donate to a local SA group. That way I'm not just raising my blood pressure for no reason, and someone is genuinely being helped in the real world.

Another good cause is donating to funds for elderly people to support their ailing pets or other causes that directly impact people IRL in a positive way even if they aren't specifically for women. For me, this type of activity acts as a counterweight for all the stress of living in such a male dominated world that overlooks or exploits the elderly and vulnerable.

Others have talked about cognitive dissonance and I think it's a good description. All our lives we are policed with the implication that men are dangerous, but then we are shamed if we say we hate or fear them. I understand hating men, I hated men vocally for years, but now I try to say "dislike" because people don't respond well to the word hate. It's a hassle to self-edit, but so often in life we must adapt to lessen the amount of crap we have to take for choosing words other don't like.

Any woman who has been married for a long time has to go through the shedding of our socialization and take men (or at least our husbands) as they are or choose not to be around men. I have had a lot of success with my own husband in getting him to see where he is dense, but at other times his lack of awareness of women's perspectives is staggering. Some days I feel very positive about our relationship, other days I want to scream, "You never get it anyways why bother communicating!!!"

So, I think the best way to mitigate the stress of dealing with male culture is to do what you can personally in our own life to stand up for yourself and teach your son good manners and boundaries. From what you have said it sounds like you are shaking off that socialization more and being yourself and it's making your husband fussy. Keep it up and he will probably respect you more for standing your ground in the future. In my opinion, it's better to be authentic and disliked than inauthentic and praised anyways.

Just seen this. Have a life, OP, so im not going to read 22 pages but maybe 30 years of anti-male propaganda without any balancing media comment has coloured your attitude.

Just seen this. Have a life, OP, so im not going to read 22 pages but maybe 30 years of anti-male propaganda without any balancing media comment has coloured your attitude.

Ooooch, you seem to come from a parallel universe, where all things are nice and fluffy and the world is ruled by women!

Because here in this world, it's more like 30 years of anti-female propaganda that you get by default. The only anti-male propaganda is observing male behaviour.

Pray, tell me, how do you travel between worlds, and how do I get to your homeworld? I'd love to see it.

Anti-male propaganda?

Oh, my fucking sides! You muppet.

My, you do feel comfortable amongst your friends. I can see why you spend your time here.

If you think women do not participate in genocides (re. Earlier posts) they certainly do. What makes you think women with power will be less violent. History suggests otherwise.

So OP...seek wider counsel xxx Muppet

Actually history does not suggest otherwise.

The figures really are quite clear. Men have directed and ruled and controlled all of the genocides and wars in history. Women have participated in them because we live in society and participate in it. But we have not been permitted to shape our societies. Only to survive in them and make our way in them as best we can. There is no evidence whatsoever, that if women had an equal say (50%, rather than 0.2% say) in how societies are structred and operate, that we would do them exactly the same as men. On the contrary, the evidence that we have is that when women have an equal or greater say in how society works, they organise things differently from the way men do (for example, when charities direct funds to women in developing countries rather than "elders" (ie men) because that way, the whole of hte community benefits, rather than the chosen families in the elder's cliques).

On the contrary, the evidence that we have is that when women have an equal or greater say in how society works, they organise things differently from the way men do

I'd agree with this. But is it because women are socialised to be more co-operative and empathetic? They are coming from a place of disadvantage, of oppression. If women start to come from a place of more equality, more power, more able to act outside the constraints put on them by The Patriarchy, why wouldn't they act in more selfish ways? Power corrupts. Our brains are the same. Why wont we have a continuation of the same shit-show where the poor and the weak continue to be downtrodden?

If women start to come from a place of more equality, more power, more able to act outside the constraints put on them by The Patriarchy, why wouldn't they act in more selfish ways? I don't know. Let's try it and find out!

Suits me

If women start to come from a place of more equality, more power, more able to act outside the constraints put on them by The Patriarchy, why wouldn't they act in more selfish ways? Power corrupts. Our brains are the same. Why wont we have a continuation of the same shit-show where the poor and the weak continue to be downtrodden?

I posted on this upthread (Mon 18-Jul-16 08:59:08). Fictional and real-life explorations of women-only societies and separatist living spaces respectively do retell the same story of a power structure and struggle emerging. However, if one has always lived in a society structured on inequality - as most people have - it is difficult to imagine something radically different. I am inclined to agree with Grimarse that it is not a given that a woman-led, woman-equal, or woman-only society would be less unequal in general. I do think it is worth a shot though. I do believe that at present there is a power differential along sex and gender lines that pervades almost every aspect of life for almost all people.

Yeah, we can only answer the question if we try it.

I think though more equal communities/societies have shown less violence. I'm not talking about western society but smaller tribal type communities where violence against women is virtually unheard of. So suggesting that women would just act like men do now in an equal society is a bit against 'history'.

And of course, women are the life bearers. Generally it is within their interests to be less violent.

Men have directed and ruled and controlled all of the genocides and wars in history.

Explain, please do:
1.bp.blogspot.com/-MnaifNbWYEc/U-PUvF1J0JI/AAAAAAAAJpI/nlzHCOceN7Y/s1600/Margaret+Thatcher+in+Falkland+Islands+after+Argentina's+surrender,+1983+2.jpg

Omg
This post appears to have turned in to 'ask John'

OP- on your original post, I totally sympathise. I don't like holding resentment for anyone at all. However, I was seriously and publicly assaulted a few years ago - witnessed by men who didn't help me and then my husband left me two days after my dads funeral for a 24 year old because 'it's been hard for him' since I was attacked.
This combined with other incidents and I'm sorry to say I feel the same way, I am constantly reminding myself of the lovely men I do know- but it's tough.

Good luck, try and stay positive , your PoV is totally understandable but I hope that lovely men are out there and you encounter more of them xxx

TeiTetua if you look carefully at that photo, you may notice that Mrs Margaret Thatcher is the only woman in it, surrounded by men.

She sat at the top of a system designed and controlled by men. She worked within the parameters set by men. She could only function in the role they permitted her to have, if she accepted their framing of how the world is and works and did not disrupt it too much. Having a vagina within that system, is unusual, but in of itself it does not disrupt the system.

That is true of every single woman leader in recorded history. We are allowed to function in a man-made system, sometimes even progress higher than some individual men, so long as we don't try to hard, to make it more human-shaped instead of just man-shaped. Most men if you ask them, are happy to give us equal pay for equal work; but if we demand that the workplace is fundamentally altered so that it fits the needs of women as much as those of men, they are outraged by what they see as us demanding "special treatment". Because wanting the society you live in to be structured for half the people in it to function as effectively as the other half, is special treatment in some people's eyes.

Honestly, this board has existed for at least 5 years, we've covered this on several occasions, this is feminism 101. Keep up.

So when the system is shit, it is the fault of men because they hold all the power. Women have zero influence. And yet systems evolve over time, and gradually improve the lot of women - laws change, attitudes change, balances in the workplace and the entire education system and qualifications change. And men have no contribution to those positive changes. Is that what you are saying? That women somehow have zero influence, zero input to the system, and yet it (sometimes glacially) gradually changes to give them stuff? If so, that must be men changing the system, mustn't it?

Women have had to fight for every single change. Men haven't just recognised their privilege and relinquished it. It's taken a great deal of energy and work to get the changes we've had. Just having women in 'positions of influence' within the systems isn't enough. They would still be fighting against the tide, if, of course, that's what they are inclined to do.

I would recommend you reading Backlash by Susan Faludi, Grimarse.

It covers this more comprehensively than can be done in a MN thread.

Grimarse

[...] Is that what you are saying?

To whom are you addressing this question?

It was to Basil re her previous post, but it's an open question to anyone really.

I agree. I'm now in a lesbian relationship after 15 years of living with a man. The difference is incredible. And I'm not talking about individual personality of my 2 partners, whether people like it of not both men and women do have specific traits...or it seems the people in our family/area do. All the men/bils seem to act the same childish way and try and enforce this 'man of the house...you look after the kids' type regime upon their wives and I can't stand it.

2 of my sisters have said if they ever divorce they are taking my example and getting girlfriends