Please help me to not hate men

[LastGirlOnTheLeft]

I have a wonderful dad and husband. I have sons, and I love them all to pieces. But I do believe that I am starting to hate men. When I read about their abuse of women and children and animals as well, I really feel HATE!!

I don't want to hate them. I don't want to be anything like those god awful woman haters, those soulless losers who obsess over women and who are lost, probably forever. I am NOT like them, because I do feel love and like for the men in my life. Just no other man.

Any advice?

i mean traditional concepts of masculinity and femininity. Sometimes men are raised to be or raised in a group that encourages them to behave in a certain way or have certain ideas about gender. I do think misogyny hurts men as well as it hurts women altho obviously the effects on women are greater.
I just mean to say its not the men themselves you are hating but the way they have been encouraged to think and act.
Its not that easy to break out of and these men who hate women are not happy men. You dont need to hate them because they already hate themselves.

Well as the mother of two lovely boys I'd be horrified if they brought home a girl who felt they had an additional duty to 'prove' themselves purely by virtue of gender. I would think that it was the attitude of 'more to prove' that led to women suffering oppression so to return the favour rather than be a bit more forward thinking is pathetic.

i mean traditional concepts of masculinity and femininity. Sometimes men are raised to be or raised in a group that encourages them to behave in a certain way or have certain ideas about gender. I do think misogyny hurts men as well as it hurts women altho obviously the effects on women are greater.
I just mean to say its not the men themselves you are hating but the way they have been encouraged to think and act.
Its not that easy to break out of and these men who hate women are not happy men. You dont need to hate them because they already hate themselves.

Oh well that's that cleared up for me then. Thanks for telling me what I actually think.

I despise being told that 'misogyny hurts men too'. It should be enough that it hurts women.

Well I'm also a mother of boys and I wouldn't be horrified by that at all.

I'd be horrified if my boys did not grow up to understand they were at an advantage from the minute they were born due to their sex, and did not recognise that women were entitled to be angry about it.

"Well as the mother of two lovely boys I'd be horrified if they brought home a girl who felt they had an additional duty to 'prove' themselves purely by virtue of gender. I would think that it was the attitude of 'more to prove' that led to women suffering oppression so to return the favour rather than be a bit more forward thinking is pathetic."

a) I'm not a girl. I'm a woman. So no danger.
b) it's by virtue of sex, not gender
c) you SURE that that's what you think causes oppression? Really sure?

Sillage are you saying that the little boys and girls who have had their lives reduced to a living hell by female abusers should not be spoken for?

If so that is appalling.

Misogyny doesn't hurt men at all. Why the hell do you think the patriarchy exists? It's for the benefit of men.

There is a difference between being aware there is a socially constructed advantage and being part of challenging that and having to accept unearned hostility!

Female sex offenders acount for just 5% of offences in Australia and half of them co-offended with a man
aifs.gov.au/publications/exception-proves-rule

All the UK stats I can find are download links but also suggest female sex offenders are around 5%

BUT WE AS WOMEN HAVE TO ACCEPT UNEARNED HOSTILITY FROM MEN. That's literally the whole entire point.

If you mean do I think the root of oppression was that men felt superior to women and created society around that then yes....really

clear enough for you this time?

Stop trying to derail this conversation, msanonymouse.

If my sons were to use that advantage and become part of that fine, however given they are being raised to treat all people well and be aware of societal disadvantage then NO you do NOT get to discriminate against them and say it is okay because men before them have been crap!

Devi, are you saying that lone female abusers do not exist? If you worked for Childline and a child phoned up and told you they were being abused by their mother (as many do) would you choose not to believe them?

BUT WE AS WOMEN HAVE TO ACCEPT UNEARNED HOSTILITY FROM MEN.

If it was only hostility! It's also widespread abuse and exploitation. And all men benefit from it, regardless of whether they think they perpetuate it.

Interesting the op made an insinuation about men in general, a contentious one, yet never bothered their arse to come back,,,,

I don't mean to derail the thread but I can't just let this go. It's awful.

I'm genuinely bemused you think I need your permission to 'discriminate' against your 'lovely boys'.

Okay MrsDustyBusty many people on MN have benefitted from societal advantage by luck of being born a certain ethnicity, their sexual orientation or by privilege, does that mean they should accept hostility as a result? Regardless if they have used it in anyway to harm others??

i think men do have something to prove though as a general rule because men and women really need to meet in the middle and its not women having a problem with expressing masculinity thats happening is it? Its men (not all men but large numbers) who have real problems embracing femininity in themselves. There doesnt need to be as big of a gap between the expectations and roles of the genders any more because of modern technology and progress in science and healthcare etc but for some reason a certain section of men just cannot deal with this.
Im certainly going to be teaching my son that his value as a man and a human being has nothing to do with how traditionally masculine he can be and that masculinity is not mutually exclusive to femininity, it doesnt need the contrast to exist.
Its fine if you are naturally inclined to behave in a way that your gender traditionally did but that doesnt mean that you are any better or worse of a human being than someone who isnt. And it doesnt mean that your whole identity is being threatened or is rendered meaningless.
What really drums it home for me is that women wear trousers happily and face no ridicule or aspersions cast on their gender or sexuality for doing so and yet for men to wear skirts its not so easy. It really tells you how men are encouraged to feel about themselves and their masculine identity and how they do have a long way to come to break out of that.

hack you can raise them how you like and I'm sure they're absolutely lovely but they still have privilege over women because of their sex. And I can pretty much guarantee they aren't aware of half of it, because they don't need to be.

You don't need anyone's permission to do it, but to claim it should be okay is another matter. Discrimination is wrong even in retaliatory form.

When you do it you are quite simply no better than the first man who exerted the same discrimination over a women.

I will educate my sons on such matters and be aware of societal advantage but I would never feel anger or resentment towards them for something they did not cause. They didn't choose their sex anymore than you or I did.

Well yeah, actually. I completely see why some people might feel rage about the fact that having been born white and middle class I'm automatically advantaged. I feel rage about it myself, and while I can't dismantle societal systems myself, more's the pity, I would never seek to position myself or my family as an exception to those systems.

Yep, I accept fully that I have unearned advantages over other people due to being white. Even if I'm not aware of how I might contribute to the discrimination against people of colour, I have to accept that they might feel hostile or threatened by me.

I'm OK with that because I'm not a snivelling low life pitying myself for all the advantages I have never done anything to gain.

msanonymouse, you've made 6 posts about the extreme rarity of female child sex abusers here.

If you truly believe in equality and care about raped kids, your next 594 posts will focus on male child sexual abusers and you won't return to the 1% until posting 594 points of attention paid to the 99% of child sex abusers.

I think you don't really care about raped kids, but you could use your next 594 posts to rub it in my face that I'm wrong.