Men in feminism.

[Jeanhatchet]

They are invariably a distraction at best.

We are taught to accommodate their needs and they are socialised in turn to feel entitled to us feeding them with both food and knowledge.

I have seen too many "nice" ** men .... y'know the "good" kind .... the "my man is different though - he gets it" kind hang around and place themselves at the centre of feminist circles with the end result that women spend time stroking their gigantic egos and falling over ourselves to bash women who won't.

Then.... they begin to offer themselves as goddamn experts. Also - I've seen lots of abusers hoppety skippety around women in this way.

Men who want to be better men can just go away and do it. Women have written enough about how they can do this. In fact I'm sure some man saw a woman blog about it and then rephrased it better. The men could go and find his stuff probs.

Spoke to colleague today. Interesting chat. Will summarise as best I can:

Does she feel oppressed personally? Yes and no. Family are conservative but decent, so she said she always felt safe and respected , albeit limited. Well educated (all female university) as many Saudi women are. She said at uni she became more aware of societal oppression of women. Currently married (husband lived in USA for a few years to do postdoc) and husband is relaxed over her working.

Are women there repressed? Yes by the state. Guardianship laws put all power into hands of family. Her family and her husband have reacted well to her working but she knows this is not universal.,

Are women in the West oppressed? This was actually very interesting - short answer yes. She spent some time in the USA with her husband and was shocked at how personally unsafe she felt. She had a much better way of putting it but she basically said that back home she never feels unsafe, but the drawback is the restrictions on movement etc. In the USA she felt extremely unsafe but had more freedom of movement and action. She said it’s the same problem (men wanting to control and have access to women) but dealt with in different ways but women don’t win either way. It’s either a cage or bring out fighting g the dogs off yourself. So that’s depressing.
She has no desire to move back to the USA (assume dh was on short visa anyway.)
I did not ask her how rich she is.

Can I make a suggestion? If everyone stopped feeding Patriarchy (and other similar male commenters) they'd probably get bored and go away eventually. As long as they're being given delicious trollhouse cookies they'll keep coming back.

@Bowlofbabelfish

My experience matches that of your colleague. Lots of stuff about living in Saudi that will make you tear your hair out in frustration, but it does feel safer in terms of random street crime. Spending time there and talking to women there can be eye opening in terms of understanding how to same underlying patriarchal obsessions can manifest themselves in different ways.