What drives this contempt for women?

[GenderIsAPrison]

I’m thinking of the Warwick rape threat case, recent case in Edinburgh where a male student was convicted of sexual assault. And the general incel, TRAs culture.

How did we get to this place where so many young men have such little regard, respect and empathy for women? Treat them with such utter contempt and hatred. Regard themselves with such narcissistic sexual entitlement.

Is it a highly sexualised media? Feminism backlash?
Porn? Internet? What drives this hate? I don’t believe it’s always been this bad.

Btw. Not saying AMALT.

I think for a long time we've been told how equal we are and I know I grew up thinking that until very recently- girl power and all that. We've been brainwashed into thinking we're equal and that every other group is far worse off than us and we should be grateful. But it's not like that is it?

Likewise, males are seemingly programmed to consume porn to a harmful, addictive extent where the internet enables that.

There have been experiments done on rats where they can either press a lever and get a pleasurable stimulus, or press another one and get food. Certain stimuli will have the rats starving themselves to death unless you intervene.

It is indeed like giving a monkey a machine gun. The visual stimulus/orgasm feedback loop is an incredibly powerful one. You unlink it from any social effort to get sex (being nice to women) or any social control and you’re in deep trouble.

My kids are only little and I’m not naive enough to think they won’t be exposed to this but we try to have them outside as much as we can, and even at this age we are careful what they watch. I’m fine with them using screens but only stuff I see and am Ok with.

My impression is that a lot of it is driven by what I've seen described as the belief women have life on "easy mode". The alt right or whatever you call it these days is telling boys that women will try to exploit them and their resources, if it all goes wrong their is always a safety net for women and men have to pay for it (there is a much shared graph showing that men pay far more tax as a class than women), women have quotas get off with crimes that men wouldn't and so on. They share examples that further this narrative endlessly.

It is generally all intended to leave the impression that women don't do anything worthwhile and their only power is their sexuality which they use social media to exploit.

The whole incel thing is so stupid to me, surely every man must know there are many many single women who would long to find a nice man to have sex with, but those women are beneath contempt almost, being as they are fat or old or possessing soom other heinous attributes.

As PP have said these opinions and seemingly endless amounts of men who share them are easily found "thanks" to the internet.

I think I've heard about that rat experiment before.

No wonder there are so few controls on the supply of internet porn. Men are involved in the decision-making and they don't their porn-drug supply cut off. They want to be able to keep pressing that lever as much as they want. A bunch of addicts who comprise half the population won't police themselves will they? We are in trouble, aren't we?

We are not the first civilisation to hve womens rights, and if we are not careful we wont be the first to then lose them. I dont know why it is, I dont know if its biology or the product of our system of organisation, I dont have a reason. What I do know is I have the data to show it is consistent and we need laws and then even when we get those laws they are ignored, so we need power to uphold them.

I sometimes think its biology, I sometimes think its our society, the answer is I dont know ut it appears to be a constant I can rely on so I do.

I don’t think there is anything new about male contempt for women or violence against them.
It’s just more out in the open now. When I was young, there were no women’s refuges, so battered wives concealed their bruises with make up and stayed in the house with their abuser. There was no equal pay act, women could be sacked for being pregnant, abortion was illegal.
Women were openly harassed in the street, groped, assaulted, insulted. Comedians made sexist jokes, professions had quotas to restrict women entrants (medical schools limited women to 10% of the places), schools forced girls to study cookery instead of technical subjects, parents would make daughters leave school at 16 and get low paid jobs, as higher education would be a waste when they would just get married and be housewives.
Each generation of women faces slightly different types of discrimination and violence, but it’s always been there.

Hasn’t this always existed? The internet has just given more of a voice to the ill mannered masses.

Ah, yeah, all those single mums with the dads doing fuck all and taking no responsibility. ..easy mode indeed!

I do remember when I was younger some men would make comments that it was easy for girls like me-we could get sex whenever we wanted, never had to buy a drink etc. In some ways that was true, but the shadow side of that was constantly harassment and never being taken seriously. I worry that with social media young girls are buying into the deal that they can get money from essentially selling pictures of themselves, and that feeds into the idea that pretty girls get anything they want. Then boys feel resentful, because they only see the surface symptom of a society that values women for one thing.

Hasn’t this always existed? The internet has just given more of a voice to the ill mannered masses.

It’s always existed to a degree. What’s changed is the sheer scale of it. It’s not just more of a voice, it’s amplification of their opinions/fetishes and a total removal of inhibitions. A man who would previously have had extreme shame or restrained himself because of the reaction of his community now has a whole set of cheerleaders online which enable that ‘fuck You haters’ rubbish we see so much.

Hatred of women isn’t new - but the Internet has amplified some aspects and removed controls on others - to a degree that we’ve never seen before.

Almost every study on This I’ve seen (various aspects like depression, self harm, ROGD) shows a sudden and dramatic uptick about 2013. I’d be very interested to explore why.

Porn. Social media, the detachment.

The Warwick shit heads would have been the first kids with smart phones. Smart phones are 2008 onwards I think, and kids didn't start getting them til a couple of years later. So if they are 20, they probably got them for high school.
I am RABID about monitoring phones and Internet. It just scares me how most parents I know are totally naive and/or lazy about it. Ds (13) has still seen bits of porn on other kids phones , but we talk about it. What can you do, it's really hard.

Maybe its better its visile. Maybe we cant pretend its not there when its visile and thats good?

We definitely can’t pretend it’s not there - it is SO visible.

I suppose we have to hope that people see it and think it’s not Ok, before the balance tips to it being not just visible but universal and the norm. Sometimes I think we are there already :/

I don’t know. It’s like we are barbarians/ cave men underneath the veneer of civilisation. I’d rather have the veneer and pretend we really are civilised than not, so rather have it not so visible. Maybe the veneer, shame, social consequences etc. does at least put a constraint on it.

But What do you do as parents?
I am actually scared for my 14yo dd as a parent trying to understand Wtf is going on and what to do about it. But I don’t want to give dd negative messages already.

I think as a parent you shield when they’re little, then the process of growing up is less shielding and more tools to cope.

Open communication, age appropriate truth, no secrets and trying as hard as you can to always be there and available to talk to without judgement. Easier said than done.

My plan is to start with advertising - that’s a good, non porny, non violent way of exploring how media can be used against us and can be started young.

before the balance tips to it being not just visible but universal and the norm. Sometimes I think we are there already :/

^^i actually remember thinking we’re there already....remember thinking that watching MTV videos in the naughtiest, game of thrones etc etc. It’s all over. Visibly toned down since #metoo.

I’ve told dd to try and be a critical thinker, and always be aware of not just what people say but their agenda/motive.

Talking is so important. We talk about consent, about the fact that porn is a business. About empathy and humanity. But I'm a woman.
Ds loves me, and says the things i want to hear, but we're different. Shame men don't seem to think talking to their sons is important. Maybe they do? Not in my world. Although DP is pretty decent wrt the way men treat women ( I have seen him wade in to give hell to some boys who were hassling a girl) he doesn't have a close enough relationship with ds to really get into intimate subjects.
And ds's dad, sadly, is a fuckwit.

Porn. I dont know if its recent but if you are going out with someone it is almost immediately obvious when a bloke you are seeing watches porn and a surefire sign you should run.

Does that not write off the majority?

Agree though

Had the same thought.

Dh seems clueless how different porn is today compared to the relatively or seemingly more innocent times when you had to reach for the top shelves in a news agents, and the shame of having to go and actually pay for it.

''Does that not write off the majority?''

Yup but am at an age where I realise that is absolutely necessary and no longer apologise for it..

Also told dd that she must become financially independent.

Yes the majority of men watch porn. Interestingly a couple of 40 something men I am close to no longer do, mainly because they have realised the damage involved. I beleive them because they have no reason to lie.