Not all women

[phoolani]

Reading yet another feminism thread that didn't hit double figures replies before someone interjected with 'notallmen...' And the original post didn't even talk about all men, just about 'so many men...'
Have you ever seen an opposite example? Of men interjecting a 'notallwomen' in anything disparaging women as a whole?
I had a quick Google and came back with nothing.

Olenna, ah yes, much better examples. Also, using their 'sexual currency' to favour alpha males over beta males before settling for a beta male as their currency loses value and royally screwing over the beta. Or something.

According to MRAs, the "dreadful thing" that women do as a class is a) trap men by becoming pregnant;

I know plenty of women who trot out this one too. 'She got herself pregnant'.

My MIL for one. Who then thought it was positively scandalous that I openly encouraged my sons to carry condoms.

I can't speak for the women of mumsnet but all the women I know who NAMALT in real life have husbands / sons who are angry, dictatorial, maybe they've experienced male violence, been raped etc

As is frequently said on here "anecdote isn't data".

Anecdotally the only man I have been frightened of was a relative with known mental health problems; on the other hand I was very scared of a group of female bullies at school and the only person who has ever hit me was a woman.

There was an utterly ridiculous comment on a recent thread along the lines that all men will go bad but a few, not all can be trained.

phoolani - are you sure our little pink lady brains can deal with large numbers?

Datun - of course, we are temptresses as well who may well cuckold a man by getting pregnant with another man's baby...

Aren't we also all golddiggers who trap men for their money?

We also 'lead them on' (so they spend their money buying us drinks and the like) and never 'give out'.

OlennasWimple

I wish the focus would shift from it being the sole responsibility and therefore the fault of women.

Like the 'don't drink and drive' campaign. I wish police stations and clubs had posters saying 'men! Use a condom' or 'wrap it' or something. Just to subtly shift the focus to where it ought to be.

Definitely, YetAnother!

In other words, it's that Margaret Atwood quote that “Men are afraid that women will laugh at them [or humiliate or trick them]. Women are afraid that men will kill them.”

We friend zone all the 'nice guys', too. God, we're awful, really.

I know men commit crimes against women and that the statistics show us that there are a depressingly high percentage of them. I currently know two men who have been guilty of DV and EA because their ex-wives are my friends. Over the course of my life I have mixed with a very wide variety of people. When I was drinking (I'm long term sober through AA) I hung round with some fairly dodgy types, and for 18 months I was in a violent relationship myself. It couldn't happen again but I learned a lot. I ran into a lot of men I didn't entirely trust and was sexually assaulted more times than I can be sure of.

I suppose the whimper that is NAMALT stems from knowing men who, for example, couldn't under any circumstances force sex on anyone. If the men you are really close to wouldn't dream of DV, let alone rape, it's hard not to feel an urge to spring to their defence. But it's a given - or should be - so I try to button my lip.

So in the absence of data we don't talk about our anecdotes, Lass?

Unless you have proof about who NAMALTs in real life?

I don't know how we live with ourselves.

When I was a teenager a girlfriend and I used to go to a bar in a hotel a lot of business travellers used. We'd sit there demurely accepting drinks until we were well away, then slope off to meet our penniless boyfriends in the music pub.

We reckoned they had it coming, trying to pick up girls 20 years younger, but we were pretty naughty ourselves.

We don't get it here, it's a lot more mellow, but Reddit groups are bigger and you get a lot of posters who are very outspoken against all men. Real deep hatred. There seem to be lots of feminists who have had appalling childhoods with abusive fathers and later, growing up as damaged young women, they have entered into a string of horrible abusive relationships. They have never known a good man, and hate the whole sex.

My own view is that if men are irredeemable, immutable, then feminism is a bit of a lost cause. They will never allow us to achieve our ends. But I think there are enough men who like and respect women for us to make strides. These men don't have to do anything particularly, just to support women when they call for specific changes. I think most emotionally stable men feel as revolted by sex and violent crime as women do.

Then there's the whole other issue of the women who support male oppression. I think it's only a sad 10% of women identify as feminist, whereas about a third of the women questioned by the Fawcett society thought that a woman who was drunk and wearing a short skirt was inviting rape. And FGM is done by women, and it is women who refuse to change their traditional mutilation. Women are often all too keen on enforcing the patriarchy.

I thought of starting a thread on the topic. Women beware women, it's the title of a play.

I thought of starting a thread on the topic. Women beware women, it's the title of a play.

That will set the fireworks off!

Xeno, did you say "and another thing" in a Columbo accent?

Of course!

Well, Datun, as a feminist I find it depressing how many women are only too keen to enforce patriarchal views on other women. Even on MN I've seen threads talking about how some woman has trapped their son/brother by getting pregnant all by herself.

It's a real issue. It's far too common. It troubles me. Perhaps because I haven't got a sister I have always felt a strong sense that women are my sisters When women say that a short skirt invites rape it really upsets me.

Yy, Prawn and Datun!

Why is that, do you think? Is it "just" internalised misogyny? Or is it (subconsciously, in most cases) following the male lead in how things are viewed, because it's easier to hold onto the coat-tails of power than create power for oneself?

Olennas

because it's easier to hold onto the coat-tails of power than create power for oneself?

I'm sure it's partly this and partly that roles are so ingrained it's viewed as the natural order of things. The Mars/Venus thing makes a lot of sense to many woman because that is how they live. It's sexism in giftwrap.

And, of course, it's exhausting sometimes.

I've been thinking about it for a few days. Not that I haven't thought about it before, but this time. It was this thread and the Fawcett one that started me off. I became a feminist in my early teens, but if I hadn't it might have been easy while secure in a happy marriage to assume that anyone who objected to male dominance was just making a fuss. As a wife I was never oppressed in any way.

But when I consider it, no. That wouldn't have happened because my life experience taught me that NAMALT but quite enough of them are exactly like that to make feminism necessary.

I wonder if some women feel safer in conventional relationships even when they are far from equal. Some women definitely do marry for material benefit. I look at bloody annoying John Cleese with his Alimony Tour bitching about his expensive divorce and think that blokes who choose trophy wives have only themselves to blame.

I don't know. There are so many possible causes and explanations that I could ramble on ad infinitum.

I really think that female rape apologists mainly do it because they want to believe that it only happens if you take stupid avoidable risks. And others have experienced it and downplay it as it helps them process it. With male rape apologists you see the misogyny and contempt they have for women.

I wonder if some women feel safer in conventional relationships even when they are far from equal.

I think it's fairly easy and safe. And, of course, it's a deliberate choice for a lot of women.

I'm still learning a lot about feminism. And it's the history of women's rights that really got me hooked. There is so much that all women take for granted today but is only recently won and was a massive uphill struggle.

I was dipping my toe in the feminism waters when the trans ideology kicked off and that's what really nailed it for me. I could see everything being swept away because men.

And I don't think I'm alone. Lots of women are suddenly questioning their rights, status, lives. And because the misogyny is so stark it's an eye opener. This kind of self congratulating, ego-centric misogyny is not something that people tend to encounter in their day-to-day lives.

That's a good point, Venus. Both times I was raped I was travelling, and it was that which made me vulnerable. You can hardly claim that women shouldn't travel. Or perhaps some people would...

I've been encouraged by the number of women who have popped up after lurking on trans threads and declared themselves feminists. The Spartacus business back in the summer was truly exhilarating.

"There was an utterly ridiculous comment on a recent thread along the lines that all men will go bad but a few, not all can be trained."

Yup. The comment was from someone I hadn't seen on FWR before.

Sadly I think they would Prawn. I have travelled loads as a solo female and people have thought I was indulging in very risky behaviour. I was generally careful but some risk is unavoidable. And I've been lucky, so far. I bet I'd have been judged if I hadn't been.