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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

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Do women use certain terms to 'shame' certain types of men?

639 replies

Enzouk · 14/10/2016 23:58

Just wondering about female perspectives on this. I increasingly hear women calling guys 'creepy' as a shaming tactic..generally I think that the women doing so do it only if they don't find the man attractive. Where as they will pander to a guy who is physically attractive to thrm they will hate on a guy who acts the exact same way who physically is not attractive to them. I have seen women do it in front of groups of friends in a sort of 'lets put this guy in his place' way. Thoughts? And what do you think of women who do this?

Also, i suppose on similar lines...are women more shallow than men with regards to physical attraction?

OP posts:
venusinscorpio · 16/10/2016 00:53

He was a stupid arse. That goes without saying.

Marbleheadjohnson · 16/10/2016 00:58

What's a neg? do I want to know?

venusinscorpio · 16/10/2016 01:01

Probably not, marble! It's a stupid tactic to put you down in a fairly subtle way so a man's advances are more likely to be successful.

Marbleheadjohnson · 16/10/2016 01:01

Oh right. Because no one will see through that

FirstShinyRobe · 16/10/2016 01:04

I just don't get it. Or rather, I do, but it is entirely unedifying. I don't go out to bars that much, but when I do, there's at least 2 neg attempts. (I'm average looking, btw, it's just typical middle class meat market nonsense). It is so blatant as a vulnerability seeking tool that I a) can't believe it's used and b) am saddened that it must sometimes work.

Tell me more, venusinscorpio. I never go beyond the first attempt. Do you know why he used it?

venusinscorpio · 16/10/2016 01:07

Thing is with women with any issues with self esteem they don't. They make a remark about your nose which implies it's big. You take on board that people think you have a big nose, and you're unattractive. Then the PUA can move in.

venusinscorpio · 16/10/2016 01:09

He used it because he was a sad twat. There's not really much more to it.

gonetoseeamanaboutadog · 16/10/2016 02:28

Wow, kua. Just...wow. That is most deliberate attempt to be cruel that I've ever seen on this site. I feel sorry for someone who would stoop to a deliberate attempt to shame someone in such a way, never mind that we don't bring up comments made by posters on previous threads, especially if they have no relevance to the thread.

I will be following this through with MNHQ but won't be visiting this thread again.

CheerfulYank · 16/10/2016 05:27

I don't agree with gone in the slightest but if that's something she posted on another thread, that's awful. Seriously, kua?!

Anyway, as to the issue at hand...I don't understand how some men don't get this. When Elliot Rodger killed a bunch of women because he couldn't get women to sleep with him (maybe because, I dunno, he GAVE OFF A CREEPY VIBE) I was shocked at the comments on news articles blaming women for not "giving him a little every now and then".

Oddly enough when I asked them if they'd have taken for the team if Elliot had been gay, they got hostile. Wink

OP I don't understand why you're just targeting women here. I have a friend who is beautiful. Men fawn over her all the time and tell her how funny she is, etc, even when she isn't. Such is life. What would you have women do? Fuck men they don't want to fuck so that the men don't kill themselves? Do you have any idea how ridiculous and manipulative that is?

I have witnessed women being bitchy to men, I suppose. But I've witnessed far more men being rude to women they didn't think were "hot enough" and I've witnessed COUNTLESS men getting irritable when they were told a polite "no thanks" by women. It's happened to me several times.

CheerfulYank · 16/10/2016 05:29

And your sense of what is "attractive" is not for all women. I don't like the pretty, body building type of man. Channing Tatum seems nice but doesn't interest me.

My husband is tall and thin and bookish and very Catholic and shy. Yessssss please.

Bumbledumb · 16/10/2016 07:45

When Elliot Rodger killed a bunch of women

Elliot Rodger killed 6 people; 2 women, and 4 men. Of the other 14 people injured or wounded by him, 11 were men.

HillaryFTW · 16/10/2016 08:29

His motivation was indignation that women wouldn't fuck him.

Haha, CY, about the "one for the team" refusals,

PresidentOliviaMumsnet · 16/10/2016 08:32

Morning all
Just a reminder of our talk guidelines
Bit of peace and love never goes amiss on a Sunday or any other day of the week
Thanks ever so

LassWiTheDelicateAir · 16/10/2016 10:14

Kua I don't agree with gone on this thread and on many others, but I reported your posts including the one which was deleted and the ones which are still standing accusing her of being a man.

I've not seen anything in gone's posts here or elsewhere to suggest she is not a woman. I really dislike the frequent assumption on FWR that any one who disagrees with the concensus on FWR must be a man.

BertrandRussell · 16/10/2016 11:50

It is deeply depressing but true that there are misogynist women- and women who collude with misogeny for a variety of reasons,conscious and unconscious.

SukeyTakeItOffAgain · 16/10/2016 12:07

Well look at all those stupid deluded saps supporting Trump through thick and thin. Baffling. As if Trump has the slightest amount of gratitude or respect for any of them.

Originalfoogirl · 16/10/2016 12:08

Human nature. People will be more open to attractive people asking them for time or money. This applies equally to men and women, there have been loads of studies done which show this. One in particular looked at charitable giving. An attractive person asking for donations will always raise more money than an unattractive one, whether they are male or female, whether they are asking for money from men or women.

Another aspect is social ability. Generally (and it's important to stress this is a generalism), more attractive people have developed better social skills. Generally they have a lot more confidence and are more likely to have honed their social skills. There's a fair bit of psychology research on that too.

This doesn't mean all unattractive people are useless at making a good first impression, nor at fundraising. And as "attraction" is quite an individual thing, it's rare that it's purely aesthetics which result in someone being written off as creepy.

Women (unless they are incredibly mean and shallow, which most aren't), will not automatically brand someone as creepy simply for approaching them in a nightclub, if they are unattractive. They will look at the whole approach. What is said, where they are, what they are doing.

If you are being told you are creepy, it is probably because you are creepy. Nothing to do with how attractive you are.

VestalVirgin · 16/10/2016 12:15

Probably not, marble! It's a stupid tactic to put you down in a fairly subtle way so a man's advances are more likely to be successful.

One hilarious story that happened to me:

A guy I thought I was friends with (that was not the case on his side, as turned out later) tried to tell me that the guy I was into was using PUA tactics on me, because he thought that if I wasn't into that guy anymore, I'd be into him. And I had told him that I hate those PUA idiots, because I thought we were friends and I tell friends things I think. Unfortunately for him, the guy I was into was not at all interested in me, and therefore had not done anything that could even possibly framed as even resembling PUA tactics, try as he might.
He was very insistent in trying to convince me of this, though.

So. This guy, who pretended to agree with me that PUAs are all sorts of shit and amoral manipulating assholes then tries a very unsubtle "Hey, you look unattractive in x way! But I know a solution for that!" putdown on me.

Since this guy is very socially inept and sucks at anything that involves deception, it might have been an accidental use of PUA tactic, but since I don't much care whether a man a) sees me as an object whose purpose in life is to aesthetically please him or b) pretends to do so in order to manipulate me, there's no way I am going to talk to that guy ever again.

It probably works on women who have very low self esteem and/or aren't able to differentiate between normal behavior and being an asshole bully.

You mighit suceed in making me feel sad by telling me that I am ugly, but you sure as hell won't manipulate me into dating such an asshole who woud say taht to me!

VestalVirgin · 16/10/2016 12:28

The reason why attractive men are not creepy is because attractive men do not approach strange women in situations where it is not appropriate to approach strange women.

Attractive men are never desperate enough to do that in the first place.

The guy you saw approach a group of women and who was happily welcomed?
Chances are, he already knew at least one woman of the group, and/or at least one woman had already indicated interest in him.

Perhaps some attractive men do approach women without invitation, but for very attractive men, there's a chance a woman thinks he caught her looking at him.

Women do not shame men who behave inappropriately anywhere near enough. "Creepy" is just a factual description.
We should have more insults for men who behave inappropriately. And they should hurt way more. But sadly, this cannot be achieved in society at large, as we still live in patriarchy.

almondpudding · 16/10/2016 13:06

CheerfulYank, tall and thin to athletic are supposed to be the most common preferences among women, I thought.

I don't remember anyone mentioning Channing Tatum or body builder types, but maybe missed it.

The typical complaints about incels are generally that men who are short (the biggest complaint), bald, overweight and poor bone structure cannot get interest from women.

user1476625951 · 16/10/2016 15:39

Ok, so this is the OP (EnzoUk).

After writing this thread and replying, I came back the next day to find that I couldn't login anymore so presumably my account was deleted. I did email an admin and got no response. I do find it a little odd that such an innocuous thread seems to have got me banned. Perhaps someone didn't like one of my replies (although if you read back I was always polite), but it does beg the question, if someone disagreed with anything I said to the point where they wanted me silenced then is their argument really so strong and are they simply unwilling to admit some truths?

With that said, I have been able to read through the replies and it's nice to know that some women here have admitted they have seen such behavior as I described and disapprove of it (i.e. men merely being shamed for trying to interact with a woman based on his appearance in a way which an attractive man wouldn't be...the only difference being the superficial appearance).

That Tinder link did make me question certain things and it does expose a harsh truth for a lot of men I think (i.e. that women will often treat them very differently based on their appearance alone). In that experiment the guy could act in a way which practically any woman (or any person) would say was presumptuous, arrogant, even a bit 'creepy' and the women still responded positively. Similar experiments have been done many times over where I found this link and the results were the same. By the way online dating is used to start a very high % of relationships these days so it is not all about sex and understandably men are saddened when they do see things like this experiment which suggest that looks conquer all. Yes, I expect that men also have this horribly superficial reaction too because it is backed up by science (aka the halo effect). I saw an OkCupid link where when asked to rate someone's personality by their looks - the less attractive someone was, the less personable they were thought to be - it was an exact match.

The problem though I think lies in the ease of which women can generally get intimate relationships with the opposite sex compared to men. The fact is that there are a much greater amount of men who as someone said above are 'incel' (i.e. involuntary celibate) and simply do not get sexual interest from the opposite sex based on their physical makeup. Men who are not in the top say 20-30% of looks absolutely have to approach women in social interactions in an attempt to improve their dating lives, otherwise they simply go without. They aren't going to get any success on tinder or OkCupid (as can be seen by stats, women get far more messages than men in general and women will put up with almost any behaviour to be with the best looking men). So if they have to initiate an interaction with a woman then (looking at the replies here), they simply will be called creepy and shamed for doing so. A little unfair some might say. I think some posters here have been very reasonable (i.e. the ones who have admitted they have seen and disapprove of this type of shaming, or the ones who don't mind a guy's approach and simply offer a polite rejection when not interested) but others here seem to think it is absolutely abominable that a man who is not in some way beautiful would dare approach them. This I think is the type of attitude too which adds to problems between the sexes. I imagine that the man who has been rejected and subjected to cruel taunts about his appearance by women he has approached later ends up with a lot less respect for the opposite sex based on his experiences.

Having said all of the above, I do also think that there are men out there who are so clueless as to spoil it for others.. i.e. the guys who are genuine pests, who intrude and get physical without any hint of an invitation and refuse to go away without any real conversation back. I can see why some women get irritated by this enough to snap at the next guy who is a lot more restrained in his advances, but still I do not accept that it is ok to be rude from the outset.

To the posters here who are absolutely rude ('F off...', 'Any guy who thinks he has the right to approach me on a night out can pss off...), I say that like the guys who are pests and let their gender down, you also let yours down. Why? Because rather than even attempting to understand things from the point of view of the opposite sex (as men should try to also), what you really want is absolute control....control to be rude if you want, control to shame a man if you want and control to shamelessly react very positively to the poor mannered 'hot' guy while telling others in your daily life how 'creepy' men can be. Some of you casually admit that you couldn't care less if the very average looking man doesn't have much dating success...but then would you feel the same way in future if that happens to be your son or other close relative? Maybe your hatred does even extend that far. I don't know. One thing I have noticed on my very short time in reading this forum is that there is a lot of anger. Some of that anger I'm sure is very justified...women I know have to put up with a lot of sht...i have three sisters and a girlfriend. It p*sses me off too if I hear some guy sleaze over them without any control. But some of the anger here seems way beyond this too and I do wonder, if you are simply going to ban anyone who offers a different perspective whether you are in danger of becoming your own worst enemies. Who knows, that isn't my concern.

I just wish that people in general could be a bit more respectful to each other and consider the other's point of view.

ageingrunner · 16/10/2016 15:43

I don't get any male attention because I'm fat and over 40. You don't see me whinging about it though do you? Sorry couldn't be arsed to read your post but I'm sure it was all very enlightening. Now fucj off and leave the women alone, there's a good lad Smile

Unicorncatsack · 16/10/2016 15:44

I don't want a random guy coming up to me in a club or bar and complimenting me on my appearance. I find that creepy. Whatever he looks like.

BeyondReasonablyDoubts · 16/10/2016 15:44

I'd been wondering, if you don't mind answering - are you in America, enzo?

BeyondReasonablyDoubts · 16/10/2016 15:46

I'm just wondering what brought you to the feminism section of a mainly female, UK based site, when your time of posting seems to be more eastern Atlantic-ish?