Was Greer Right When She Said Men Hate Women?

[LastGirlOnTheLeft]

I have just skim read The Female Eunuch and like everyone else, the stand out line to me was that men hate us but we aren't aware of the extent, and neither are they!!

Do you think this is true?? My DH, my late father and my brother, all immensely like/d and love/d the women in their lives. I hate to think it is true, but if it is, I want to know! I want to know my enemy.

For stories read fantasies, lies, projection, whatever.

This is all the rape myths stuff, even if the result isn't rape. It makes life very difficult for women and girls who have the temerity to go outside while looking young and / or having a reasonable body and / or large breasts and / or noticable (esp blonde or red) hair and / or ... add as many as you want.

IfNot I have become much ,better over years and experience (I hope) of telling quite quickly which men see women as people first and which men see women as women first.

The former group are very very very rare.

young pretty women had privilege because men want to fuck them

Of course, because being a member of a group that is seen as a resource to be exploited by a more powerful group is the very definition of 'privilege'

I know, it is a double edged sword, being young and attractive to men. Aside from the abuse angle (and I had my fair share, although luckily fewer aggressive incidents than most it seems) when you are favoured by men in the workplace because of your looks, it's still because they are not seeing you as a person first and foremost. It's all about feeding their ego, or the possibility that you might reciprocate with some kind of sexual favour.
Having said that, I was definitely someone who used my pretty face to wrap men round my little finger in the past-probably because I really felt I didn't have much else going for me! (I know different now).
I have come to the conclusion that the whole of society is set up in a way that makes both men AND women value looks in women over and above anything else.
We are there to decorate, and if we can't do that we can facillitate, and if we won't do that, well what's the point of us, really?
It is useful, getting older, to be able to efficiently detect the misogynists because they don't bother being fake-nice (nothing in it for them).
Although, objectively, on a good day, I am still quite attractive so I imagine I won't really see the full picture until I'm post menopausal.
By then I could well be living in a remote cottage with several dogs and a shotgun .

I believe Greer

"We are there to decorate, and if we can't do that we can facillitate, and if we won't do that, well what's the point of us, really? "

To do the shitwork and look after children.

I don't really understand the idea about using looks to get what you want, I'm not sure how that works. I find the idea that all attractive / young women somehow have this knowledge and what's more than that they use it to be really dodgy. Is this why so many men think that when a woman is friendly to them there is something else going on?

I may have got stuff because of what i looked like (?) but how would I know?

I have to say as well that now I am over 4o and into age of invisibility I feel much more comfortable going out and about, and in my work people listen to what I say more.

I wonder what this stuff is about looks getting you stuff? - Men dont' give real money and power to things they consider to be ornaments.

☆So you know all men?? Shock horror, there are some nice men☆

I live with a lovely man, yet he can spout some shite at times that really raises my hackles. Only recently when told of an elderly female friend being mugged and her entire bag being forcefully taken from her, he actually said 'what does she think will happen if she is outside so late at night'
ok I managed to not rip him a new one, not sure how tbh.
but without knowing what time she was mugged or where, despite knowing she is elderly and lives alone in a secluded area, he still managed to victim blame.
I said something along the lines of women are allowed out from the kitchen sink these days and it was half 4 in the afternoon outside her house dear.
He did look shamefaced. didn't make me any less livid. Wonder what he would think of me if I was mugged at half9 in the evening.

Sorry I posted too soon and then got distracted.

My point was even the really really nice men have some misogyny in them.

Rape culture is very real. This ingrained idea that some women deserve rape, if they dress 'slutty' or get too drunk...it's very pervasive in society.

My point was even the really really nice men have some misogyny in them.

Yes, and women.

I've caught my mother saying "well what did she think she was doing walking home alone?" - it's like ingrained or something - she's usually quite feministy. She loves to tell the story of how at school in the 50s she said she wanted to be a doctor, and was told to go into nursing or social work - and pissed off she's always been about it.

I don't really understand the idea about using looks to get what you want, I'm not sure how that works.
It works in pretty small and innocuous ways, really, not saying women actively sleep their way to the top-I do think that's a myth. But I did a lot of travelling when younger, and I was given various job opportunities and access to people who could help me out, and I had no qualifications or experience, just a winning smile, so I can't say that I wasn't trading on my looks-because you use whatever currency you have I guess.

I find the idea that all attractive / young women somehow have this knowledge and what's more than that they use it to be really dodgy.

Yes, it's a dodgy idea to verbalise, because men will, on the whole, jump on that and say "ha!see! I knew it!".
But it does happen, although I'm not sure how much young women actually realise that is why men are nice to them, or let them get away with stuff, or give them preferential treatment.

I used to work with a lovely young woman who happened to be blonde and beautiful. She was in the "not a feminist" camp. Her immediate boss was always inviting her and other young colleagues out for drinks (on him) and she would go, and have fun, and say what a lovey man he was. I told her that however lovely she thought he was, he noticeably wasn't inviting out the 58 year old secretary and buying her drinks, and that he probably went home and had a good old tug thinking about my young colleague, and the faint possibility that she might get drunk enough to...
She laughed in horror, but she didn't really believe me. I do worry that I am too cynical about men these days to be able to have a functional relationship!

When I was younger I did a lot of things that make my middle-aged self look back and cringe (like spoiling my ballot paper for the student union Women's Officer, as I thought the post was unnecessary )

I thought that I was an equal to my peers, my friends and my colleagues. I thought I was a "man's woman" because I had lots of male friends and would gravitate towards the groups of men at parties etc, and they happily let me join in their conversations.

And then I got older, (crucially) had children, and began to see what happens as one becomes an older, less attractive female. When my brilliant, talented female friends drop out of the rat race. When untalented men get promoted into senior positions. When women sacrifice their hobbies because of the demands of work and family, but their partners still manage to find time for a serious mountaineering hobby (or whatever).

Age has definitely radicalised my feminism.

IfNot - your colleague was me, back in the day. The amount of senior men who would take me for lunch or buy me a drink was quite astounding - and I thought that all they really wanted to do was be a good mentor, help a young colleague succeed in their career....

I think there’s two sides to the men like young pretty women shtick. I think they like young pretty women because they are nice to look at but also because young women are more naive and less cynical so will put up with more shite. I also think young pretty women are artificially set up against older women as anything older women say that is cautionary regarding men is dismissed with the reasoning being they are jealous of young pretty women and bitter in their old age.

I 100% agree with that Krabby. Divide and conquer.
I recognise a lot of what you say to Olenna, especially about the women taking a back seat and the mediocre men rising to the top.
My Oh so successful male friend thinks that such men (him) are where they are because of hard work and talent. I think it's because their face fits, and because their female counterparts have taken a back seat due to kids so they are no longer competition.
I wish women wouldn't do that, but I get why they do.

It's not inherent in men to belittle and abuse women. It's a cultural thing. That's why some of the aggressive sexual behaviour edges off when you get older. You become a person with property and therefore aren't seen as easy pickings to scapegoat anymore.

Whilst I've experienced lots of nasty abuse from the more aggressive males, I've experience sexism at some level from most men and also some women.

The me too campaign and everyday sexism was my daily experience from about 13 until mid thirties. But all along there is the usual derogatory stuff we seem to accept as normal. Like the shit work at home being beneath some men even when you point it out. Or the watching of films and TV programmes that have gratuitous violence against women. Die hard etc. Rape scenes like in taken where the women are property of either the father of the traffickers. How women and girls are represented in the media as assistants to the men or objectified. We've all been sucked into it. I find watching violence in films awful but I've been laughed at for feeling this way. It's horrible and weird.

And in our daily media nationally or locally. Little ongoing things like who cleans the toilet in the TV ads. The language used around women. Dancing on ice having the female ice skaters girating to all the single ladies as if it's empowering. It all feels like we're constantly ridiculed.

It's similar to experiencing scapegoating in a dysfunctional family or relationship. I don't think it's hate as such apart from those who have antisocial dis orders. It's more we're dysfunctional and we scapegoat women, children and others who aren't as physically strong.

Also what is 'success'? Is it having loads of money? That's how it's measured in our culture and therefore women aren't as successful.

But what if we redefined success so that raising children to be well and healthy was enough. Not to have a long career and get rich. Because lots of women can't do that so if we play at those rules we'll always 'lose'. If we say success is health and happiness we can have a shot at being valued when we chose to raise kids over pursuing a career.

Weeelll. At the moment, for me, yes, it's having money, because money gives you choices, and property and freedom, and it insulates your kids from future poverty.
Being healthy etc is all good, but women need economic power. Or I do, at any rate!

"I find the idea that all attractive / young women somehow have this knowledge and what's more than that they use it to be really dodgy.

Yes, it's a dodgy idea to verbalise, because men will, on the whole, jump on that and say "ha!see! I knew it!".
But it does happen, although I'm not sure how much young women actually realise that is why men are nice to them, or let them get away with stuff, or give them preferential treatment."

Yes this is kind of the point - maybe pretty girls do get stuff (whatever it might be) but lots of them aren't looking for it and if it happens they aren't aware it's happening. The spin that men put on this is that all pretty women are knowing, manipulative, and trying to get stuff from men. I was attractive when young and I disliked this type of attention, I got in trouble, really, for not smiling prettily and looking impressed when more powerful men expected me to. If people (men) gave me stuff then it wasn't because I was trying - and therefore that's not on me, is it.

I did get served in pubs incredibly quickly which doesn't happen any more - at the time I put it down to making eye contact and smiling rather than dismissively waving notes, and I'm still not sure it wasn't that as women served me really quickly then too but it certainly doesn't happen any more!

Anyway point is - men paint a picture of women and girls who they deem attractive of being inherently exploitative, manipulative and sexually knowing, even when we are very young (underage). This is a lie and a dangerous one, all it is, is an excuse for men to treat us badly up to and includign rape (she knew what she was getting into / she was asking for it).

Certainly there are women who do exploit their looks and men too - but the story goes only 1 way.

Yes, it always confused me why men would speak aggressively about young and beautiful women who were with older and wealthy men, accusing them of being greedy, shameless gold diggers. They had nothing to say about the men targeting the women for their looks. And even less to say about the imbalance of wealth and WHY young women might feel marrying money is their only chance of ever attaining it.

Men see women as their entitlement and their right. They also see money as theirs, with women out to steal it from them.

“My point was even the really really nice men have some misogyny in them. “
Utter bollocks. Waiting for you to say all black people have some element of criminality in them. You’re going down a dangerous road with your bullshit stereotyping. And I’m the one who gets called naive.
Maybe pick who you spend your time with more circumspectly.

My point was even the really really nice men have some misogyny in them

But it’s not that those men are nasty themselves or anything, but that most men have been taught at some point in their lives that woman = weak and that weakness is not a good thing. Not a manly thing.

Don’t be a girl. Boys are taught to define manhood as what girls are not.

“My point was even the really really nice men have some misogyny in them.
Of course it is because it’s a cultural thing and both men and women have been brought up in that environment and therefore have assimilated all of those values.
That’s why women can be seen and heard being very misogynistic. And they accept so much too.

Absolutely nothing to do with criminality and race.

The proof of the lifetime of conditioning in cultural misogyny is when a man does something bad to a woman. Can a "nice man" or a "nice woman friend" resist wondering and then at some point asking what we did to cause it, encourage it, or bring it on ourselves.
1st rule of misogyny: Women are responsible for what men do.

Whomp! There it is! Maybe pick who you spend your time with more circumspectly.