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.

overnightangel just seems angry that women are talking about something she doesn't agree with.

I guess you'll have to cancel those drinks with her eh, lettuce?

And Ray's going to argue about about lions and zebras now - how predictable. Men are a danger to women Ray - that's what we've been taught from an early age. "Don't walk home alone/get a taxi/stay with friends/hold your keys if walking through a dark car park, have your keys ready before you get to your front door, if you're meeting someone on OLD meet in a public place" etc etc - it's not because of wolves on the run - its because of men.

I'm sick of NAMALT - because we know that - but we don't know which men are like that. Unluckily for us, the ones that may assault us don't wear a sign.

Ugh, it's like when you've just recovered from a cold and you come down with norovirus. You've just got rid of 1ARSEHOLE2KIDS and then Ray pops along to mansplain that we should all feel so grateful that we are at risk of men.

I can recognise that Just by the fact of being born in the West that I have absolutely won the lottery of life. Can you say the same lettuce, whether you are Male or female?

Actually that’s much more complex than that u less by ‘being in the west’ You mean being born white and not seen as an immigrant/Different.
So yes being born in the West is a privilege and so is being white.
However being white isn’t enough anymore to not suffer from unfair system. Being white but from Poland will attract quite a lot of behaviours that are NOT a privilege.
Being British but black in the U.K. will not put you in a position of privilege either.
The ones that REALLY have a position of privilege are the able white men (the disabled ones will struggle too).

Maybe have a read around race. I’ve learnt a lot from reading book around that idea. Incl the fact that the behaviours you find around race and black people are often the same that you find around immigrants, whatevervtheir colour or around women. In effect, they are about putting someone back in its place.

Worth noting that the people who ARE in a situation of true privilege often dint see how privileged they are. Becaus their reality is so natural to them that they can’t even conceive that it’s not the case for everyone else.

Look at youR example about hav8g to move to the other side of the road.
Instead of asking for numbers to try and show that really women don’t have ny reasons to be afraid, listen to women. How many have come forward with the #MeToo movement? How many have been assaulted, as in being touched when they didn’t want to, in public transport, in a lift, in the street? How many have been called names, wistled, had comments about their butts or their breasts made to them? How many have learnt to be afraid and careful about men because, OVERALL, their experience is that they are NOT safe (because of behaviour above). And yu would like us to think that you moving t9 the other pavement is a PRIVILEGE??? You need that it’s a privilege to feel frightened and in high alert a lot of the time? It’s a privilege to always csan environment to see if there is a potential threat? What about that guy a bit further down in the bus? Is he going to cause problem, how am i going to deal with him wo causing a scene, because that would likely play against me and Make things worse?

Please instead of trying to say ‘oh look at great I am and there are plenty of nice guys like me you know’ Listen. Just listen to what women are saying and their experience. And accept that this is our life, our day in and day out life. And these are men who actually have created the environment where women are frightened, frightened of men.
If you have an issue with it, take it with the men who behave like this. Not women.

Mansplaining. How about you just grow up?

And actually, the fact that most rape is done by family members and people women know is telling us that really women cannot trust ANY men. Because the ones that are close to them, the ones that they should trust are actually the ones that are the most likely to rape and assault them.

And then some people wouod is to convince us that somehow we are really rpiveleged and we should learnt to just recognise that.
That sounds very much like put up and shut up tbh.

Mansplaining. How about you just grow up?

I will, once I finish celebrating how privileged I am to have to be afraid when I walk home alone in the evening.

Lettuce what are the statistics for stranger sexual assault please per capita?

How does any woman walking down a street at night know the person behind her is a stranger? Do you think they turn around and say 'Do I know you? Oh no that's fine, as the rates for stranger rape are so much less than someone I already know so no problem, I'll just continue down the road in the dark with you behind me safe in the knowledge that I now have a slightly less chance of getting raped or murdered'.

And do you think the rates might be less because not only is it hard to prove rape when you know the person, it is even harder if you have NO FUCKING IDEA who it is that attacked or raped you?

Hmm... I don't think men hate women as such, but some of them do hate it when women expect to be treated as equals.

There was poll recently mentioned on here. 15% support feminism whilst 85% support equal rights.

Because feminism isn’t about fighting for equality between men and women?? That’s news to me.
Or is it that feminism have been given such a bad name (be men frightened to loose their privileges??) that people (women??) are now frightened/uncomfortable to associated themselves with femists?

Ray: Lettuce do you recognise your privilege at all?
Lettucepray: What privilege do you speak of?
Ray: There are lots of privileges both men and women have. I am not about to list them here. Google it.

Why is Ray targeting Lettucepray for his sea lioning display on this thread? Anyone know. It is an exquisitely painful example of badgering by a person oblivious to how it appears to others. Deplorable.

RaySwan

And how about you realise it is YOU who has white male privilege (I'm assuming) and believe it or not you are not this great caring guy that you obviously think you are because you deliberately and proactively dismiss the reality of womens lives.

Ray, it is YOU that needs to grow the fuck up!! Yes I know, bet you don't like women who swear.......

thebewilderness

I know exactly why he's targetting me...I knew what type of man he was at the very start of 'ray' chat....men don't like it when you see through their veneer.

I don't think men hate women. I think they need us and want us. However, I do think they want to own us like a procession and control us. All the disrespect and abuse we receive from them is their PA way of trying to put us back in our box because in general they don't like it when we show them that we are equal or better, which dents their masculinity.

Because feminism isn’t about fighting for equality between men and women?? That’s news to me.
No it isn't. Feminism is the political movement for the liberation of women. It was the capitalist backlash that mocked Feminism and reduced it to equality for both men and women and turned it into a product they could sell. We are reaping the results of that mistaken understanding right here and now.
We were warned about the pitfalls of equality over 100 years ago.
"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread." Anatole France

Ray’s not insulting me.
I agree with him

Germaine Greer’s statements is bollocks

“overnightangel just seems angry that women are talking about something she doesn't agree with. “
Not at all @terftastic, just bored of the whole “if you disagree with me you hate women!”
It’s fucking boring and does more harm than good. Describing yourself as a radical feminist is just a “notice me” self serving pose. You don’t care about other women, just yourself, and want to be noticed. It’s like talking to children

Ray's an MRA. He did the same 'concern' shit on a thread about rape.

No man ever comes on the feminist section and argues about figures for rape/sexual assault, or uses the words 'female privilege,' or NAMALTs all over a thread, unless they're an MRA. We see you, Ray.

Anyone is entitled to agree or disagree with Greer - but Ray comes on and belittles, as one example, women's experience of sexual assault.

I thought we all want to kill our dads and marry our mothers. Maybe because we can't we feel so disappointed and blame our mothers and starting hating all women.

Ray: "What I’m maybe suggesting is that there are violent people, regardless of sex."

• It's statistically and medically (testosterone) proven men are more violent than women. I mean you are right, women can be violent, too, but men are more so, men are stronger, and men live in a position of power in society. So sorry, but you're just another one of those people that in order to 'counter' a feminist point, brings up "oh but look at poor men, we have it bad here and here, I don't see feminist doing anything for us". Fyi men as a group allow parts of their group to be viciously violent against women on a fairly large scale. Ergo men as a group hate women.

Anyone else get really fed up when other women would rather back someone like Ray then actually support other women?? Men hate women...women hate women.....

Men think of women as functioning in relation to men. We are there to support and facilitate them, to look after them, provide sex, enhance their idea of themselves, help them manage their emotions, above all give them our attention.

What men really hate is when women demonstrate that we are autonomous beings with our own personhood and opinions and needs and aims that we may prioritise over the imperative to exist primarily to support and meet theirs.

(Namalt etc)

overnightangel - why not discuss it then? Your first post on this thread was:

"Blind ignorance will get you nowhere." Which isn't that constructive.

And then to describe the nice men you have in your life. I have nice men in my life too - but as I said in my first post- I think men love, and will protect, the women in their lives, but do not particularly care about the equality of women as a group.

It may not be "hatred" - it may well just be ignorance or a callous disregard in most cases. But certainly I agree with Laurie Perry "Women had no idea how much men hated them until the internet was invented" !

Describing yourself as a radical feminist is just a “notice me” self serving pose. You don’t care about other women, just yourself, and want to be noticed. It’s like talking to children
This is one of the most confusing criticisms that people level at women generally and Feminists specifically. Women trying to bring attention to ab issue they consider very important is dismissed as wanting to be noticed.
HELLO? Of course they want to be noticed. They are talking about something that they consider extremely important. When there is a problem it is our responsibility to draw attention to it in hopes of remedying it. The "doing it for attention" criticism is absurd on its face.

Of course, even the men loving and protecting the women in their lives has some devastating exceptions.

Two women a week are killed by just those men in their lives - usually because they are trying to leave, or have left them.

Rather shows that those men saw those women as their property - and will not tolerate 'their' woman exercising her autonomy.

When I was at uni and just becoming aware of feminism, I had a lightbulb moment. I was constantly reading about 'penis envy' - it was a very popular theory at the time, and suddenly thought: this is bullshit. the real, deep, entrenched envy is birth envy. Men can't get over the fact that women can grow babies, including baby males, inside them. They are so jealous they had to create religions which state that actually it was a man-figure who first created humans and 'gave birth' to the universe, not a woman at all.

I found out later that my lightning bolt theory wasn't new and of course loads of feminists had independently worked this out. But I do think it's true. The hatred stems from overwhelming jealousy that we can make, inside us, what they perceive to be the ultimate creation: another one of them. All this discovering new continents and trying to reach the moon/Mars etc stuff stems from their innate sense of inadequacy that they can't grow a human life inside them.

“What men really hate is when women demonstrate that we are autonomous beings with our own personhood and opinions and needs and aims that we may prioritise over the imperative to exist primarily to support and meet theirs.”

Yes that’s what 3.5billion people think, thanks for pointing that out.
Nice for one random angry woman to speak on behalf of all men. Have you ever met a real live man?
It’s seriously embarrassing some of the posts on here.