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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

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I'm starting to hate men

580 replies

Mamaka · 14/07/2016 22:43

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.

OP posts:
Theydontknowweknowtheyknow · 16/07/2016 17:14

What really gets my goat is that so many men seem to believe that war is natural and that men, by being the ones to go to war, are the braver ones and have protected women.

Without once asking themselves what they are protecting women against.

Grimarse · 16/07/2016 17:23

Firstly, I am not saying it's okay. I am saying it happens, and maybe there is a biological component. And maybe that biological component is large, maybe it is small.

As to how we deal with it? As Tei says, men are more likely to be victims in crimes like murder, knife crime, street assaults etc. So you'd think that in a Patriarchy, we'd do something about it. Because with a Patriarchal mindset, we should look after our own. We might not do anything about female victims, because apparently we see them as less than human.

So why doesn't a Patriarchal society at least try to address male on male violence?

And as for the OP - when you look at the stats, added to your personal experiences, I can see why you mistrust men. Because frankly you can't spot the arseholes - no-one can. I think mistrust and wariness are perfectly valid standpoints, and you can only review you feelings towards individuals once you get to know them.

BuffytheReasonableFeminist · 16/07/2016 17:53

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

VestalVirgin · 16/07/2016 18:12

So why doesn't a Patriarchal society at least try to address male on male violence?

Because it is patriarchy, not all-men-archy. And probably also because men are selfish assholes. You decide.

Without once asking themselves what they are protecting women against.

Exactly.
Men protect women against other men, and take that as proof that they are great, when, in fact, even the best of men are only helping a woman solve problems she wouldn't have in the first place if men in general didn't exist.

Davesview · 16/07/2016 18:21

I have a strong disliking for men (I must admit here to being one so apologies for that) anyway after nearly a lifetime I have reached the conclusion it was all because of my father a nasty little man who has now died & this bought back many buried bad memories from childhood but in passing he had one final trick in store for me ;-(
I should say I did everything I was capable of to try & get his approval love & acceptance all I got back was rejection, was I an unwanted child - he would never admit if I was you see to the outside world he was a nice man behind closed doors a different story.............this may be of topic but I wanted to share the irony of being a so called man yet hating them ;-)

Batteriesallgone · 16/07/2016 20:35

Not sure about all the 'it's biology' argument.

If I walk past a closed cake shop, and I'm hungry, I don't just break into the cake shop and steal some cakes.

Our bodies give us urges but it's our minds that choose to act on them or not.

Felascloak · 16/07/2016 21:06

I don't hate all men but I am very wary of all men. I wish I wasn't like that but unfortunately life experience has shown me that trusting a man is generally a bad idea.
I don't really care whether mens violence and entitlement to sex is innate or socialised, I only care that it's there and I have to work round it. I wish men would treat women with the same consideration most of us give to them.

JohnJ80 · 16/07/2016 21:37

Not sure hating half the population is the answer, however understandable that might be.

Atm feminism is beset by contradiction when it comes to gender politics. Certain quartets deny gender identity completely - believing it to be wholly encultured. If only we could stop being 'men' and 'women' and just be people then the patriarchal system will come crashing down. Others believe there is a biological basis to gender, and that the genders should try and establish as equitable a rapport as possible.

The problem with the social constructivist model is that even if as a culture we were able to stop ascribing gendered identies, there remains the problem of what to replace them with. And this is where I can sympathise with men. It is still acceptable, even if you are a feminist, to proudly be a 'woman'. The positive associations of femininity abound; but what positive associations are there of masculinity in a deindustrialized economy? None. Just violence, neurosis, sociopathy and sexual pathology. It's like an original sin - a disease. In short, it is incumbent on men to reject their masculinity while women can keep femininity if they choose. Well, there is a problem with that: patriarchy is a binary system. Femininity cannot operate without its opposite. Furthermore, women can adopt masculine traits if they choose. If they predate on young men or watch porn it is empowering. If men do the same however they are patriarchal oppressors.

Part of feminisms' problem is hard economics. Now the patriarchal, industrial economy has gone and with it (largely) the financial dependence of women on men, it has fell into a confused identity politics. Market capitalism has had a field day with feminism, co-opting it into another consumer driven lifestyle culture. Meanwhile, porn proliferates, rape skyrockets and the sexual dehumanisation of women and female children becomes normalised. Because they predicate everything on individual choice, liberal feminists have no coherent response to this. Romantic love they decry as a patriarchal conceit; so what should be the nature of heterosexual compact be? Does anyone know? It just seems to be about sex these days - and just pissing off when your partner starts to lag behind your utilitarian standards (largely the preserve of dickhead males I know). Feminism responds by trying to take on men on their own terms: empowerment through fucking or reclaiming patriarchal derrogations like 'slut'. That's a truly crap place for feminism to end up. It therefore becomes very easy to think that there is something inherently wrong with 'men'.

Please do not think I am inveighing against feminism per set or denying that most of the violence and grottiness in this world is attributable to men; just that much popular feminism is in a mess.

Felascloak · 16/07/2016 21:39

If [women] predate on young men ..... it is empowering.

Hmm
Marmalade85 · 16/07/2016 21:47

OP I really relate to your post. I've become a severe man hater since having my DC 7m ago. It seems when you have a baby that women make all of sacrifices while men carry on as normal.

JohnJ80 · 16/07/2016 21:51

Buffy: very interesting and eloquent comment. However: you say violence is rooted in gendered power relations - in the cultural stories we tell ourselves. Would you say it is as much the responsibility of women as men to challenge those stories?

And if men and women are to reject these conventional gender identities, what should they replace them with? Should they just arbitrarily fashion their own identities? But then how is it possible to create your own identity in a sociocultural vaccum? Surely, identity is co-created?

You see: lib feminism seems to be very incoherent in this regard. For all its purported opposition to the 'capitalist patriarchy' and insistence on cultural socaliztion, it buys into the late capitalist notion that identity can be self-fashioned through a process of choice in a kind of identitarian marketplace.

It can't.

JohnJ80 · 16/07/2016 21:59

Fela: all I went is there is a tendency of (some) self-styled feminists to respond to women who make sexual approaches to eighteen year olds with 'yeah you go girl'.

That isn't good.

LassWiTheDelicateAir · 16/07/2016 22:08

If they predate on young men or watch porn it is empowering

Mickelson Jagger is 72 and his 29 (?) year old girl friend has just announced she is pregnant. Hillary Clinton is 68. If she were to divorce Bill and take up with a 25 year old man here political career would sink without trace.

So far as porn, there are women who are pro-porn. I can't deny that. It is not empowering.

LassWiTheDelicateAir · 16/07/2016 22:09

Mickelson??? Mick Jagger

JohnJ80 · 16/07/2016 22:18

Point taken Lass. My point stands that are women who fetishize 'cougars' as liberated feminist heroines while castigating the likes of Jagger as as old grotbags (which they are) are being hypocritical. Any middle-aged person, male or female, hitting on 18-25 year olds is a bit of a twat.

BuffytheReasonableFeminist · 16/07/2016 22:18

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

JohnJ80 · 16/07/2016 22:21

Agreed Buffy. If I ever change my name by deed poll it will be to Mickelson Jagger!!!

Mamaka · 16/07/2016 22:36

Marmalade I hear you Flowers

My husband just mansplained sexism to me. Oh and his mansplanation was entirely wrong yet when I pointed it out his fragile ego couldn't cope and he became defensive.

OP posts:
Mamaka · 16/07/2016 22:36

I really don't want to hate men but they really don't do themselves any favours!!

OP posts:
VestalVirgin · 16/07/2016 22:41

What does this thread have to do with "cougars"? Nothing. That's derailing, let's not do it.

I don't really care whether mens violence and entitlement to sex is innate or socialised, I only care that it's there and I have to work round it. I wish men would treat women with the same consideration most of us give to them.

This. What we know is that the status quo is shit and we want to change it. We also know from experience that nicely asking men to be more considerate, will not help.

JohnJ80 · 16/07/2016 22:49

VestalVirgin: I used it to illustrate the inconsistencies of post-feminist concepts of gender in a wider deconstruction of sexual politics. It did relate to the issue of whether sexual aggression is inherent to men or not - which is relevant to the OP's point. Another poster picked up on it and I in turn responded to them. It's not derailing, just the kind of tangent that any long thread is bound to go off on at points.

JohnJ80 · 16/07/2016 23:00

Furthermore: Of course asking violent men to change will not help. Out of interest, what do you think is the answer? Simply taking power away from men and giving it to women will not work. If, as many feminists rightly insist, women are as human as men, then they have just as much capacity to abuse power. Or maybe you disagree? If you think they don't however then you fall into the trap of believing women are inherently different (kinder, more nurturing, more peaceful), which is of course itself a sexist trope. And if you believe that you also by default accept that men are inherently different too (brutish, violent, power-seeking). In turn you then have no choice but to reject feminism as powerless to challenge what are inherent propensities of either gender. Do you see the bind?

There's a quote by philosopher and theologian Simone Weil that I can't recall exactly: she talks about revolutions and says you can't solve the abuse of power with a revolt of the oppressed. She says that trying to do so is an illogicality - that it would be like expecting the lighter weight on a pair of scales to exert the most weight. In short, you cannot fight power with more power. That just reinforces violence.

BuffytheReasonableFeminist · 16/07/2016 23:31

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

JohnJ80 · 17/07/2016 00:34

Exactly. But then you have to confront the fact that both genders are equally capable of abusing power.

It just seems to me that when feminists say they want to end patriarchy they don't really know what they mean - or at least they have only a vague idea of what the post-patriarchal world will be like.

Of course, a lot of feminist activism is concerned with addressing single issues and making incremental changes: lobbying for parity of pay and reforming the justice system in favour of rape victims. Of course that is all great. Buthen they talk about overthrowing patriarchy with a capital P - the whole of western heterosexual culture basically - that is when things get complicated. Do people think this can be actively brought about, and once it does then rape will all but disappear from the earth and sexual equality will reign? I do think patriarchy will evolve into something new, but only very gradually over centuries as we move further away from the agrarian and industrial economic systems that required male domination. But a culture of sexual objectification will I fear get worse. Feminists fail to understand it in all its complexity; it doesn't merely serve to subjugate women anymore.

Have you heard of the 'attention economy'? Simply stated, as the market system of industrially produced goods is being replaced with a digital economy, human self-concept is changing. In the past it was select goods that were scarce and had the most value: status was conferred by a yacht, Ferrari or designer kitchen. But online everyone is vying for attention. It is what gets the most hits or clicks that has the most market value.

What does this have to do with feminism? Well, think of Kim Kardishian. She was born into enormous wealth and privilege and has no need of any more money. And yet she puts sex tapes and nude shots of herself all over the internet. Why? She doesn't objectify herself for a man - to get a job like a woman in the 1950's does. She does it because it brings her attention, and attention is POWER. Basically, attention economics have come to characterise human social and sexual relations. This is why more and more young people are creating their own amateur porn and pages of selfies: they are responding to a economic imperative to turn themselves into commodities. There is even a website called fuckbook; it is like Facebook but contains pornographic pictures of young people who want to meet up and fuck.

Some people call this post-humanism. Gone is the humanist and judaeo Christian concept of the human being having an inner quality that had no price. In portfolio societies many people just desire to be SEEN. Love will not survive in such a society.

This explains the way many young women with feminist ideals seem conflicted. In one sense they reject objectification as dehumanising; in another they recognise that being wanted and desired in the attention economy is a source of power. In feminised sectors like marketing or PR a successful image is a route to economic success. You may say that men don't have to do this, and that is partly true. But weirdly they are becoming part of it as well, but aren't able to navigate it as well as women. That is why younger women now enjoy greater economic success than men: they are masters of their own image.

JohnJ80 · 17/07/2016 00:59

Buffy: one more point. As a socialist and a humanist, I admit to not liking a lot of feminism these days - or at least sexual liberationist feminism which more intelligent radfems like Dworkin (potty as she might have been) were able to see right through as another legtimization of male sexual entitlement. It is also complicit in the rise of sexual consumerism and porn culture.

Consider this: when a boy used to fancy a girl he would ask her to a dance and turn up at her door with flowers. Now he swipes right on a phone and gets straight to 'Hey babe how bout a good fuck'. Courtship culture was questionable I know - 'sacred feminine' on a pedestal etc etc. But it still formed the basis of a potentially loving relationship. Feminists sought to destroy all that though - destroy coupledom and romance; and what are they left with? A meat market basically. Which girl do you think was happier: the one brought the flowers or the one who received the dick pic?

Night. Maybe chat tomorrow.

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