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?

Hey everyone...I'm sorry to just come back now. I had a few problems and difficulties at the weekend and couldn't get the time to be on. Thanks so much for everyone who replied. I will take proper time to read through all the replies, but a lot of what has been said helps me make sense of my feelings. Especially the anger I feel at how women are treated at the hands of men.

Someone asked if something had happened to me to make me feel this way. Honestly - I have been a victim of sexual abuse yes but for some reason I feel ANGRIER on behalf of women the world over who are abused by men than I do on my own behalf. It is on such a massive scale that I can't stand it, and I can't stand it that men are completely silent about it.

Maybe if men stood shoulder to shoulder with women, and spoke out against other men's abuse, then I would respect that and even be thankful to them. But they don't.

As in verbally abusive as well you know. Another response with no substance, at least you are consistent.

I bet Trump would justify his hate policies as 'protecting American interest' by attacking outsiders. Rainbowrd is kindly championing Trump feminism, let's win by being the loudest, dumbest and most hateful!

Ooh I had a post deleted!!!

I see the post calling me completely off my rocker was allowed to stand though. Daft hysterical women and all that.

"Funny that some of them seem to exercise the choice not to do it, and protest against it. "

It's not funny for women to face severe consequences for disobeying the men who refuse to marry uncut daughters while also refusing to let women work jobs where they earn enough to take care of themselves and their children.

Men control marriage and the market, and men have woven it into their culture to let uncut daughters starve to death or become prostitutes, because men don't want to marry uncut girls.

The power you're absurdly attributing to African mothers is power they don't have, hence the tricklings of resistance and men's violent refusals to girls getting educated instead of getting sexually mutilated. Men blow up schools for girls, burn their textbooks, and shoot in the head advocates who want more for girls than rape slavery and domestic servitude.

Male power is to blame for rape. The statistically insignificant number of female rapists (half caught in tandem with rapist men) is not helpful in examining the causes of rape if your actual goal is to reduce rape. No scientist equates the .05% child victims of females with the 99.95% child victims of men if the goal is examining the cause of rape with the intent to prevent it.

Feminists are quite familiar with the knee-jerk defense of male violence kicking quickly to "WOMEN DO IT TOOOOO!" as if it salves their soul to imagine violence as a human trait instead of distinctly male. This here Round 8736476 of that behavioral projection has gone much like the prior rounds.

I know, I know, I'm just like one of the thousands of male child rape tourists in Thailand today for saying that...

Sillage your outraged response to that litany of male perpetrated horrors is valid - as is pointing out that the majority of sexual violence is committed by men against women.

What is not valid is to suggest that the minority of victims abused by females don't matter as much or should be brushed under the carpet. It's also crass, alienating, negative and pointless to promote hatred of men as a class - as it is to suggest ALL women involved in FGM are in no way responsible for their behaviour.

As has been pointed out to you, no one said that but the voices in your fevered imagination.

So are conferences about female sexual abusers legitimate or not in your opinion?

The conference wasn't shut down, it was added to.

I'm only taking this line because people who deny or excuse sexual abuse disgust me - whether that's men making their usual patriarchal excuses for the violation of female children or 'feminists' maintaining that women can't abuse.

Don't care what the ideological agenda is, it's a big no no in my books.

Was the conference legitimate in your opinion?

Take a deep breath, no one here is doing that.

We see your repetitive, unsound arguments and your 'feminist' bashing and know from many years of experience exactly what you're about. It ain't noble fury over child rape.

Was the conference legitimate in your opinion?

You've proven yourself best ignored.

I think that answers the question.

God, are we still on about a conference that happened 25 YEARS AGO? and may or may not have been derailed by nasty feminists.

OP it make me angry too that men stay silent. It also makes me angry that women collude with this to brush feminist issues under the carpet. I know it's painful to confront these issues head on and much less painful to pretend women somehow have a choice or can avoid horrible things happening to them. I still find it incredibly frustrating because until we (as a society) can be honest about the scale and cause of issues we can't move on.

The power you're absurdly attributing to African mothers is power they don't have, hence the tricklings of resistance and men's violent refusals to girls getting educated instead of getting sexually mutilated. Men blow up schools for girls, burn their textbooks, and shoot in the head advocates who want more for girls than rape slavery and domestic servitude

It could be argued that in Africa women can not resist the external pressures to mutilate their daughters. That point can not be argued in the UK and Europe. Within certain communities FGM is perpetrated by women, yes there are wider societal pressures but that does not absolve people of individual moral responsibility.

There are support groups and education programmes to help prevent FGM, there is a choice and many women do not mutilate their daughters but some still do.

Some young men within these communities do not know what FGM is. I know this because I educate them about it and they are horrified they genuinely have no idea what is being done in their name.

I am working with a young woman whose western educated sister is trying to force her into an arranged marriage. She could stop this marriage but is choosing not to.

Women are victims and enforcers. The patriarchy harms us all and we all bear some responsibility for perpetuating it. We have to make personal decisions about where we draw a line. Shaving your armpits? Taking your husbands name? FGM?

Devi we would not still be on about it were it not for Sillage's view that being a feminist means denying the existence of female child sex abusers. Had she not implied such a view I would have let the matter be. To be fair, there is no reason why feminists should be directly concerned with the issue. Their concern is with the oppression of women by men - men representing the overwhelming majority of sexual offenders (for reasons we could argue about all day). However when feminists deny female perpetrated sexual abuse then they make it a feminist issue.

If you have as a child been abused by a woman then someone telling you that you do not deserve a voice or a spokesperson is a very big deal. To a victim that translates as 'ZIP IT'. This view must be challenged robustly because it perpetuates the lifelong misery of victims.

I trust I have made myself clear. I have nothing further to add on this issue.

Except SHE DIDN'T SAY THAT
And the fact you are continually raising this conference shows your true colours #weseeyou

Ok Charlie - go for it then, in order to clarify - answer the questions

No, I don't hate all men. I am married to a man and I have adult sons, all good men. I know what the OP means though.

Most of this thread isn't a discussion about the original question though; it's mostly an argument about something that a poster never said which has been deliberately misrepresented for the purposes of derailing the discussion. As these threads almost always are.

msanonymous initial comment was a derail of the topic.

Sillage could have replied saying the comment was a derail and suggesting a new thread, if Ms wanted to discusd it. Instead she replied with :-

"They stood up and started yelling about how terrible it was that I was detracting from the fact that male power was to blame."

British Crime Survey and police crime figures from 2009-10 show men were perpetrators in:

98% of sexual offences
99% of child rape

So the women who spoke up were correct

The conference these women were trying to drown out was a conference dealing with a subject matter not usually covered; abuse by women.

How can these women's actions possibly be "correct" ? They were rying to deny these victims , (which I see Sillage has described/dismissed even as "statistically insignificant" ) a vehicle where their abuse can be considered.

I agree this caused a derail but Sillage's dismissive posts are pretty bloody awful.

There was a woman stand up thing the other day. I saw men stand next to women. Have you been to women events to understand more. I am sure it's not only women that turn up it's also men who support women.

A woman in America has been charged with rape but not yet sentenced.

"They were rying to deny these victims , (which I see Sillage has described/dismissed even as "statistically insignificant" ) a vehicle where their abuse can be considered."

Oh really?

They tried to have the conference no-platformed? No they didn't.

They tried to discredit the speaker and slander her personally and professionally? Nope, they didn't do that either.

They threatened to bomb the building? They threatened to make all their advertisers pull out? They threatened retaliation to any organizations and people associated with the conference?

Nope, nope, nope.

What horrible thing did these rape-denying monsters in the shape of women do?

"They stood up and started yelling about how terrible it was that I was detracting from the fact that male power was to blame."

BURN THEM AND SALT THE EARTH WHERE THEIR TAINTED BODIES FALL.

"Women are victims and enforcers."

Look, it's a systemic issue. Feminism is about class analysis not saying individuals are this or that or all men are this and that.

It's about looking at patterns of inequities amongst populations and asking why. It's about looking at the way society is structured and how it passes those structures and inequalities on to the next generation.

Yes of course women enforce it. Mothers put their daughters through FGM before the same reason they tell them not to be a "pricktease". Because they are trying to negotiate a way for their daughters in a world that sanctions girls for expressing their sexuality.

Who benefits from the policing and sanctioning of female sexuality? As a class, who benefits? And why is it so universal? It's not about pinning blame on men or women or whatever. It's about asking questions at a class level.

OP, I think the problem is pretty easy to solve. If you want to hate, then hate all perpetrators who abuse women and children and animals as well. If those perpetrators are mainly or even overwhelmingly men, you will end up hating much more men than women. But why the need of hating a whole gender by association?