Can some think like a misogynistic twat but not act like one?

[RebelRogue]

I've been mulling over this for a while.
OH's actions are in the walk the walk realm.
No "crazy" exes,he's actually friends with the main two and so am I. We help eachother out and there is a lot of respect going both ways.
Doesn't expect me to cook,clean etc and didn't even when I was a SAHM. If I did anything fine,if I didn't also fine, and he'd do it himself or we do it together at the weekend. I actually don't cook for him anymore and he does the dishes for everyone when he's done eating.
Was very supportive of me going back to work,looked at ads with me,helped with my cover letter and pays for childcare.
When DD was off sick for a longer period,he took one day off ,I took one and someone else looked after her for the other day. He attends all parents meetings with me. He supports DD in anything she wants to do,be it football or having his nails paintef and hair styled by her.
He doesn't watch porn or is in any way pushy with sex. Most days he won't even try if he knows I'm poorly,tired etc, and our sex life has taken a massive nose dive in the past 6 years,but he'll never complain. He will scratch my back for hours if i struggle to sleep but won't make a move even if he is turned on.
Knows about my wild past and never commented either positively or negatively,the past is in the past.
I have full access to all his accounts, I've never witnessed him to be aggressive towards me or anyone else.
There's loads of other things and ofc he has his moments when he can be an idiot or a twat ...

So you might think what the problem is?
The problem is that any time we discuss any feminist issues,big cases in the press with women as victims etc he is the embodiment of all the Daily Mail comments into one person. From victim blaming,to NAMALT ,to probably the same amount of men are abused too. It's like hitting a brick wall of stubbornness and misogyny. No argument works or makes a dent.
Sometimes I'm horrified by the things he says (which have never actually been aimed at me or any other woman he knows).

So how can someone that acts(is?!?) nice think such awful things about women? Every time we have one of these debates I'm left reeling and wonder who/how he really is.

P.s. We've been together 10 years and lived together for 9 so that would be an awfully long time to simply put on an act.

Yes, I think it’s something most, if not all, ardent feminists struggle with.

I also, thankfully, have one of the proper, decent, good ones. He is wholly respectful of women and wholly committed to being a feminist in his thinking and in his actions (as much as he can) but I still had to do a lot of work to actually make him understand (as far as he can). And there still will always be a divide. There is a chasm that simply can’t be overcome. They cannot know. But they sure as hell can try to at least put themselves in our position and to work to translate that into some kind of understanding.

I still think you need to bring it up to him. Every single time. And if he really can’t ever have any empathy for what it might mean for you as a woman, and hence for other women and girls, then I’m afraid that he is someone I could not properly respect long term. I would lose faith in him.

The doctor test is a good one. My DH now does all the medical appointments for the children as he noticed that everything got listened too much more carefully when he took the children than when I did. Every single time he has taken the children some action has resulted, whether its a referral, a prescription, a dressing or some actually useful advice. I generally walked away with a 'watchful management' and being made to feel like an over anxious neurotic women.

The moment of realisation was at a hospital appointment we went to together he noticed a total change in tone when he entered the room late. (he'd been just outside reading an email and listening in, but the consultant didn't know) then when the big important man came in and said exactly what I said everything got done.

I've used this to say that is life for me and as he has a concrete example that impacts on his children he is a lot more believing about other things now.

Grasspigeons that’s both depressing and helpful that you had such an eye opening moment for him. I also send my ex with my DCs for appointments if I want anything to actually get done. Female GP and still she fobs me off, whether about my own health or that of my DCs. Send XH and it’s all taken very seriously.

We're used to double standards in the case of men who talk the talk about women's rights but behave like shits behind closed doors, but, as this thread demonstrates, it happens the other way round too!

I've seen this myself and think it is partly an unacknowledged need to protect other men and their behaviour.

Do you watch The Mash Report together?

I often compare the patriarchy to apartheid.

He is in the privileged group. There were white South Africans who didn't agree with apartheid, but they still benefited from it, and probably had a black maid at home.

Bring the discussion right bang to home, when should your dd expect to be assaulted when out with her friends?

perhaps he thinks all men are like him so therefore in these other cases the women must be at fault.

Yeah, male privilege at work.

n one hand he refused to buy dd a toy hoover as he didn't want her to grow up thinking housework is a woman's job, on the other hand he thinks that any woman going clubbing should expect/accept that men will feel them up,hit on them, try to get them into bed

Ask him if he would do that to a woman who was out and if not why not. And if he thinks men should have behaved that way with you or your daughter?

I have a feeling he's very defensive of his younger self. I met him when he was already "grown up",past his clubbing and "pulling" days and playing the field. He was single between his ex(had been with her 7 years) and me.

So I don't know how he behaved in his youth,but i have a feeling he did grope,leer etc.

And even if he's not like that anymore,in criticising and calling out that behaviour he takes it like a personal attack on him,hence the defensiveness and refusal to listen to reason.

I think men are conditioned in to thinking that, even if they are one of the good ones, they must stand up for men who behave unacceptably (with the exception of men who rape/murder 'nice' female strangers). I believe (from discussions with male friends) that the thinking is they might make a 'mistake' at some point and wouldn't want to be made to pay heavily for it. But I find this baffling- having sex with someone who does not want it, cat calling, touching someone inappropriately etc etc are not mistakes and not something that these male friends would ever do. So surely actually the men that they are defending, and the excuses that they use, are an insult to all good men.

Added to the denial that PPs have pointed out (these good men would feel the need to try to change things if they admitted to themselves that there was inequality) this seems to make men who act like they respect us arguing against us.

The male friends that I have discussed this with are much like OP's DH- their behaviour suggests that they respect women as equals but whenever there is an example of other men not doing this their response is 'we don't know the full story though, do we? Perhaps she changed her mind/led him on/lied/looked older than she was (delete as applicable). Also, the fact that we have had female prime minsters now means that any woman can get to the top in any industry if she really wants it. I know this to be true because my male friends work in a variety of male dominated industries and have never seen or experienced any discrimination against women!

Very interesting thread.

Agree with pps about this weird cognitive dissonance.

I was bullied at work by some very unpleasant men (one ringleader)

At the time, there was one new starter who was fairly supportive to me.

(He also expressed this opinion and his dislikes of the bullies to other employees who - independently and without prompting from me - said that he had done this )

I left the workplace (for other reasons), bumped into him, and (perhaps naively) made a point about thanking him for his support at the time

(as I genuinely felt grateful and hadn’t thanked him at the time, and from a practical feminist POV didn’t want him to “not be supportive” to someone else if the occasion happened again)

He made a point of telling me (politely but firmly) that he couldn’t remember ANYTHING about this situation at all.

Of course, I wasn’t expecting a catch up counselling session - he’d been decent at the time.

But I was somewhat hurt and confused by the “gaslighting”? Especially as he seemed a fairly confident “I’m my own man” type.

I’m really not a clingy/ socially pushy type, wasn’t asking him to “do” anything, and didn’t even “name names”

• it was still like he wanted to disown his own kindness

I reckon:

(1) he had started socialising with some of the men involved and so didn’t want to feel guilty about this

( or even was worried that by talking to me it might get back to the workplace, and he’d be the guy being excluded by other men) .

It’s down to social power and feeling part of a dominant group - keeping and maintaining that status.

(2) sounds a bit paranoid but I was fairly scruffy and sporty and tired looking when we bumped into each other ?

Whereas we worked together in the summer, and I was wearing a lot of sundresses out of uniform etc.

I get the feeling to him I was only “someone to take interest in and support” if I was pretty and presenting as conventionally sexually and sociably desirable and middle class looking ?

Oppressed and crying in the changing rooms looking sexy is good feminist, cheerful and wearing a Michelin man coat is bad feminist.

Note how all these sycophantic dudes latch onto Meghan Markle and Emma Watson when they talk about racism and feminism

but if the poor old immigrant cleaner in their office is treated like dirt, then it’s someone else’s problem.

Overall, I don’t think there’s an easy answer to this question?

I’ve met men who are very verbally “right-on”, but who are weird sexist misogynist creeps.

They never contribute much practically and, a lot of the “women’s causes” they want to help will involve young girls and sexuality.

I’m very wary of the kind of guy who, when I say I’m a feminist, is all “I agree with you 100%” - often they’re sexually desperate and would do Hitler salutes dressed in a clown costume if it got them sexual access to attractive women.

I agree men can’t share the life experiences of women (yeah fuck off LM)

I don’t think it’s worth alienating oneself from men or Othering them - we all have areas of internal inconsistencies.

I also think there’s a lot of women disrespecting and judging and bullying other women, which really doesn’t help at all.

I’m now at a life stage where I’m trying to just take every situation - men, women I meet on a pragmatic case-by-case basis (loving many but trusting few, I guess?)

And it can be lonely feeling someone close to you doesn’t “get” stuff but then loneliness is the human condition

Disagreeing with feminists does not automatically equal misogyny. It really is the same as anyone disagreeing with trans activists as being transphobic. It also astounds me how accusations of transphobic/misogynist/racist even work as those words have precisely zero power over people who genuinely are any of those things.

Also how you feel about something doesn't always and neatly correlate with reality. I hope when this trans debacle has run its course we'll all know this.

The trans debacle has nothing to do with this. That's actually one thing we agree on,it's all bonkers.

I think all men are misogynists, how can they not be? It's baked into our society, it's absolutely everywhere. For men to not be misogynistic they'd have to live in a soundproof, lightproof box for their entire lives.

I was in the same situation with my DH but he turned it around and while I don't think he can ever fully get it (and admits that himself) he definitely rooted out a lot of the misogynistic attitudes he has and is willing to confront each one as they arise (and they do still arise).

Men are brought up with the absolute belief that their viewpoint is the Right One. Everything they see centres around them - everything is about men, the images of men are all about power and strength and action. They never have to even consider that there might be another viewpoint. So, for most men, when they are adults and they're confronted with the idea that maybe they've benefited from the oppression of the other half of the population, it's too much to take - it's like being told the world you live in and everything about yourself isn't quite true or real. It's easier to say 'oh it's not that bad, you're exaggerating.' I'd imagine that as you believe, he your DP has assaulted women in the past but he can't accept that because that would make him a Bad Guy and he's a Good Guy, that's his identity. Maybe Good Guys grope every now and again, what do women expect? It's hard to accept that actually he should have looked more closely at what he was being fed, to see that it was actually shit.

It takes a very big person with a lot of character to say 'I was wrong, totally wrong and I now see I was wrong.' There aren't a lot of people like that. I think some men start to develop that sort of character as they get older - there's a memorable interview with Dustin Hoffman (who has a well known reputation for being sexist in his youth) talking about how when he played Tootsie he expected to be a beautiful woman. When he saw how ordinary he looked he realised how many not-beautiful women he'd dismissed, believing they weren't beautiful because they didn't make an effort, not realising that they were possibly very interesting and wonderful people (as he no doubt thinks himself to be) and that their looks didn't define them. It took 'being' a woman briefly for him to get something that seems blatantly obvious to most women. It was big of him to admit that really as it makes him look a bit of an idiot.

And that's what stops a lot of men, I think - looking a bit of an idiot. Because when you explain a lot of stuff to them it seems so obvious but they can't admit you're right because there has to be something more going on - they can't have been that stupid surely?

I once, a long time ago, posed the surgeon riddle to my DH (a man and his son are in car accident. The man dies, the boy gets taken to hospital, where the surgeon says 'I can't operate on this boy he's my son'. Who is the surgeon?'). At the time, my DH would have said absolutely was not a sexist, but try as he might he simply could not get the answer, even when I prompted him. When I told him the answer the only word I can use for how he looked was striken - he couldn't believe that his brain simply would not compute something so obvious. But it's so in-built that they can't even see it.

I have to say though, these days I have zero tolerance for people who claim that there's no problem. DH has sorted his head out, thankfully, otherwise I'd have divorced him. As another poster has said I couldn't help but lose respect for a man who basically said women should expect sexual assault - is that someone you want as a partner, as a father to your daughter???

"Disagreeing with feminists does not automatically equal misogyny"

Well, I suppose not automatically. But I can't think of any exceptions off the top of my head!

RebelRogue - I am in a similar position with my DH. He's great in every one of the ways you previously mentioned. But he does the NAMALT thing. He refuses to believe that trans men in womens spaces could possibly be an issue - and apparently the occasional crime that might possibly happen would be excusable in the name of the trans cause, because a) trans people have rights, and b) the victim could obviously just go to the police. And, c) in any case, anyone who did take advantage of any change in the law obviously wouldn't be a "real" trans. But it's transphobic to suggest any sort of requirement for a GRC, etc etc. And what about people who are needle phobic or who have haemophilia & can't undergo reassignment, etc etc.

We have had some proper rows about it. Despite him knowing my previous history, which hasn't filled me with confidence around men. Or left me with any confidence that children should inherently know correct boundaries. He is, slowly, getting there. Of course he doesn't understand - he's not in danger from barely anyone, he's well over 6' & built like a rugby player. And he still gets really cross about it. I suspect because he's worried my arguments have a basis in logical fact, statistics & child protection, whereas his don't. I'm wearing him down but by God it's a long hill to climb. I love him too much to leave him. It's really only this that he's an arse about. (And untidy)

Sorry, having read that back, I worded it not quite correctly.
" apparently the occasional crime that might possibly happen would be excusable in the name of the trans cause"

He didn't say that. He said unavoidable. As in, there's nothing can be done to prevent it.

Personally I have a lot more time for men who say what they honestly feel, even if it's divisive, but ultimately treat women in their lives and work with respect and equality than I do with the legions of men who say they do but behind closed doors most certainly don't.

We live in a world where being seen in possession of the right opinions is more important than believing them.

Well that's how we're supposed to see male violence in general isn't it Vaguely? Unavoidable? Women have to be the ones to avoid the violence, much like they avoid getting wet in the rain - it's not going to stop raining so why complain about it? We can't possibly expect men to change their behaviour in any way - that would be ridiculous! Men are Real People, doing Real Things, getting in their way would be unacceptable. It's women who shouldn't stay out late, shouldn't wear certain clothes, should walk in certain areas - after all, they're not doing anything Important are they? They'll just have to put up with it, no matter how inconvenient. And if one of them does happen to get herself hurt, well what did she expect? She should have stayed at home, stay safe like a Good Girl.

VaguelyAware just as a quick aside have you tried asking your husband why his opinion should carry any weight when it's not likely him that is likely to be a victim in this case? Also can he see why potential victims (ie women) might take a different view?

Personally I have a lot more time for men who say what they honestly feel, even if it's divisive, but ultimately treat women in their lives and work with respect and equality than I do with the legions of men who say they do but behind closed doors most certainly don't.

It isn't an either/or situation. You can have someone who believes in respect and equality, voices it and acts on it. My dad was like that as is my husband

I would not want a man who thinks like OP's husband rearing my son and teaching him to think the same.

Few points that spring to mind (as a man):

a) Lots of guys know how to put on a charming front when trying to seduce women. In this sense, they may not act like misogynists but in many cases actually are (as opposed to just having been socially influenced in their thoughts). I'm talking about 'player types'.

b) I think many other guys just aren't up to date with all the latest feminist theory but are decent guys who try and respect women but might say things which feminists find offensive - just like there are also many women who expect men to pay for everything and jump through hoops / treat them as princesses.

c) There are likely lots of guys like me who have a fair grasp of feminist ideology but just don't agree with it all and don't care if feminists think they're assholes. Bit like how many on here understand the trans viewpoint but wilfully reuse to adhere to ridiculous pronouns / accept transwomen as women etc.

b)

And just thinking aloud here really, but many women I encounter don't seem to share the feminist viewpoint - well, not the more radical one - so they wouldn't maybe regard some things as misogynistic which feminists likely would.

For instance, my partner has a good job managing a team of mainly young men and certainly doesn't take any shit etc but I quickly learned that she prefers her partner to be the dominant one. When I first started dating her I would always try and ask her opinion on things and try to be overly inclusive, but she pretty much told me that it stresses her out making decisions and she'd rather I took the lead. I was a bit shocked by this at first but it seems to make her happier this way. I just try and make decisions which I think will make her happy which does often mean doing things which wouldn't have been my first choice but which I know she'll prefer - I'm talking things like what film to see, where to eat, go for a weekend etc.

Some feminists would likely not see this as an empowered relationship but we get on really well and it's certainly not a case of me just selfishly doing what I want - she defo wouldn't like that!

That’s a fair point King, I’m similar in that with my ex partner I preferred him to be dominant, despite me being an ardent feminist because all the mini decisions that we have to make on a daily basis can get wearing.

I think where the feminist part comes into it is how you (or she) reacts if one day that isn’t the case.

When she decides that now is the time to make a point more forcefully, do you listen, try to understand and accept that she has a valid point, or shut her down because of course she doesn’t really know what she’s talking about and you know best?

I enjoyed my XP taking the lead in lots of ways, but where it fell apart was him overriding me on things that were important to me, because he didn’t know how to loosen the reins when dominance wasn’t the order of the day.

It's funny because despite being a huge (6'2, 17 stone) gym loving guy with a rugby player's build, I'm actually a big softy! I have to wilfully remind myself to stop asking questions and make decisions - we're both terrible at making choices and could easily spend over half an hour trying to pick a film on Netflix.

I think it's key to our relationship that I always try and take my cues from her reactions rather than assuming that I 'know what she wants'. That way there's always space for her to communicate her wishes even if she doesn't like being assertive and it means that there is room for development if that makes sense.