Can men really grasp women’s reality re safety?

[Ritascornershop]

I have a 19 year old son who is very compassionate and left-wing (I mention that as he’s been indoctrinated in TWAW) but who can’t grasp the discomfort many women feel at men in women’s private spaces.

And recently a friend was telling me that a family member of his (who he has quite the blind spot over) broke up with his girlfriend. The gf had, before she met his family member, been sexually assaulted. She was naturally quite traumatized by the rape but trying to heal and met this guy and got in a relationship with him. The way my friend tells it. his family member broke up with her after a few months (during an argument) & family member “got so uoset” he punched a hole in the wall and broke a chair. She called the police and called friends. My friend seemed to feel she over-reacted! I think any woman would be frightened and that a woman who’d been sexually assaulted would be particularly terrified.

It does not seem a tricky concept to me, but both these men seem to not be able to wrap their heads around how frightening it can be to be vulnerable around larger, stronger, angry males. Is this something most men don’t get or are these two not trying very hard?

But you ignored a lot of my post.

There are loads of women who seemingly don't seem particularly bothered about taking a step back in their career, which is why I referenced the recent thread - I can post loads of examples from it if you really want.

Nobody commented either on the study showing that women continue to be promoted more aggressively than men if they don't have children.

Fact is that most of us aren't feminists. We're told that 'you must be a feminist if you believe in xyz' but many of us believe in equality and improving women's rights without subscribing to other elements of feminist dogma, like the implied inferiority of women who don't want to focus on their career. Most feminists won't say it overtly but it's very clear.

like the implied inferiority of women who don't want to focus on their career.

I have just posted a pageful of how motherhood is incorrectly deemed not-work, emphasising the incorrectness of this, and you interpret that as implying that I somehow think that women who aren't careerists are inferior? That is impressive levels of wilful misreading.

I suspect that feminists might be concerned that women who have kids and do still want a career are left "holding the baby" if their husbands won't pull their weight. Even if those women are a minority, they still matter. And I know that I am concerned about how giving up work robs a woman of financial independence, which leaves her and her children vulnerable to abuse if hubby turns nasty once the kids are born. Many abusers only "turn" late in the first pregnancy or after the birth, again, Bancroft talks about how abusers will discuss with each other in group sessions how long they need to "play nice" before they start abusing women: too soon, she flees. They wait until she's vulnerable: her stopping work to raise kids makes her more vulnerable.

Being concerned about mothers' safety and financial independence has nothing to do with looking down on SAHMs.

There are loads of women who seemingly don't seem particularly bothered about taking a step back in their career

And yet men refuse to do this and expect to "have it all", career and kids, whilst his wife gives up her financial independence. Funny that. Men and women are given different messages from a very early age. Women being more willing to sacrifice financial independence for their children is in part a consequence of those lifelong messages, not a decision made in isolation, that's my point. PPs mentioned sex class analysis: wondering why women "choose" (it's not a completely free choice made in isolation) to sacrifice financial independence and men don't is a form of sex class analysis.

Nobody commented either on the study showing that women continue to be promoted more aggressively than men if they don't have children.

One study against a whole body of literature suggesting otherwise. If you give me a DOI for the study, I'll have a look at its methodology. Female executives aren't exactly representative of the entire female workforce either. Do childless female checkout assistants out-earn their male counterparts? Childless female academics? (Checks employer's sex pay gap report. Definitely nope.)

You ignored a lot of PPs posts yourself. You ignored the PP who asked what stops the boyfriend from walking away when his gf tries to goad him into starting a fight.

This is a thread about whether men understand the hazards women face. Domestic abuse is one of them. A woman working, giving her her own income and several hours away from the house per day that could perhaps be taken as leave without telling her husband so that she can see police/solicitors/letting agent/etc without him suspecting, gives her a stronger position from which to leave an abuser. With that understanding, who benefits from the normalisation of women being the SAHP? Abusive men do.

Men already don't care about women and they didn't care from birth.

You cannot honestly believe this? What a ridiculous assertion.

Men are socialised from birth to look out for themselves and expect female submission. Women are socialised to care for others and prioritise men. This is why they say WATM, they can't conceive of us not prioritising them, and it's why we, unless we stop and look twice and teach ourselves to recognise male dominance patterns, fall for it.

There are individual men who are self-aware enough and kind enough to resist their conditioning. They do not invalidate my class analysis. Male dominance behaviour is a spectrum, most men are not batterers but most men expect female submission to some extent. The phenomenon of women having to choose between perceived likeability and perceived competence whilst men don't is an example of male dominance at a structural level: women are expected to defer to men intellectually and women who won't defer are disliked.

I have just posted a pageful of how motherhood is incorrectly deemed not-work, emphasising the incorrectness of this, and you interpret that as implying that I somehow think that women who aren't careerists are inferior? That is impressive levels of wilful misreading.

Why are you making it all about you?

I'm talking about views like the below.

I Look Down On Young Women With Husbands And Kids And I’m Not Sorry

thoughtcatalog.com/amy-glass/2014/01/i-look-down-on-young-women-with-husbands-and-kids-and-im-not-sorry/

There are sooo many threads discussing other women looking down on SAHM, and I truly believe there ain't no smoke without fire.

And yet men refuse to do this and expect to "have it all", careerandkids, whilst his wife gives up her financial independence.

You keep using the word 'sacrifice', but most women I know enjoy motherhood. And the men sacrifice spending time with their children.

Here's a few quotes from the recent AIBU thread. Do these posters really sound like victims to you?

I lunch, dressmake, walk my dogs for miles, spend time with friends and family etc.... I also volunteer for a small homeless charity, something I am so passionate about, being literally close to home. I feel totally fulfilled.

I haven't worked in 8 years and bloody love it! I got to go shopping without ds today and have a long lunch with a friend. Going to the gym now.

My sil is 44, rich and has NEVER had a job, lucky her! She has no trouble filling her day and has a great life.

I'm very appreciative of the fact I dont have to go to work. I enjoy my time to myself, get to pursue my art (and crafts!) and still be able to run the house as I like.

Dp earns the money then gives it to me. Why would I feel oppressed?

I would love to be a lady who lunches.

I am lucky enough not to work and stay at home with my son, as DH is a high earner. I feel extremely grateful for this every day, and try very hard not to take it for granted.

DH works 80 hours a week for a signficant amount of money, which allows me to be a SAHM and indulge myself, allow me to do all of my volunteering and my hobbies.

I'd love not to have to work. I wouldn't get bored, or lonely, as long as I could spend unlimited amounts of money on books.

I'd love not to work! My friend is married to the son of a billionaire and sometimes I have to block her on social media because her life is one long holiday.

I think working full time with a family is such a juggle. To have one parent at home is very useful, it certainly takes the pressure off and is a luxury.

I wouldn’t feel comfortable not working if DH didn’t make such a ridiculous amount of money/loves his job/was doing it before I came along anyway! And it wouldn’t be anyway near as fun not having the money to do whatever I like.

My DSis married a very high earner and has never worked a day in her life.

I don't have to work so I don't.

My OH wouldn’t have progressed in his career as much if he worked part time so this wouldn’t have worked for us.

I feel very lucky not to have to work. I never returned to work after Ds was born, he's 12 now.Our house is paid for and we have no debts so I don't anticipate going back to work anytime soon.

I love being at home and thoroughly enjoy it, despite the lack of crafting!

I'm a SAHM who has teenage children and is fortunate to be married to a high earner so I haven't needed to work since having kids. We do have a lifestyle that most people would find impressive.

Neither of us are resentful of the other; I have a huge amount of respect and pride in him and his success, hard work and dedication. He takes equal pride and pleasure in my staying at home with our child and sorting all the house and admin out, taking care of him. But I have old fashioned and traditional values and so does he.

I've never had to work a day in my life, and realise I'm very lucky. I do sometimes have fleeting moments though where I wonder what it would be like and whether I am missing out on something.

We are a team, we complement each other and we don't take each other for granted. I have the odd day when I miss earning my own 6 figure salary, but then I remember the stress, the rushing home for the nanny, the passing each other on the way to different airports as we both travelled internationally for work, missing first steps, first words and being told them by the nanny or the nursery, and think that I'm so much happier being at home, supporting my husband and my children.

I’m a SAHM, I left a well paying job to be one. DP makes good money. I don’t have to work, so I chose not to. I Would say I am extremely lucky getting to stay home with my little baby all day and watch him grow!

I 'live off my dh's salary' and luckily where I live I get the utmost respect for staying at home and raising my dc.

Quite!!! What a load of insulting bollocks. I am very happy at home with my baby and being a housewife. It’s very sad if your self-worth is tied into how much money you make.

When I did live in the UK I was a fairly high earner. I'd reached a point in my career where I was extremely respected and would get pretty much any job in my field that I applied for. I feel a million times more fulfilled and happy now as a stay at home parent.

My dh is 9 years older and in a well paid job and as I had never pursued a proper career (staid in low paying bar jobs for years as it was a laugh and didn't stop to consider my future 🙄) and I'd always wanted a family.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3764425-To-think-you-are-very-lucky-if-you-dont-have-to-work?pg=1&order=

I think there is one factor that is overlooked. The respective biological differences between men and women mean that if a man wants to be 100% committed to building a career first he is free to do so. Then defer having children.

Unfortunately prime career building years coincide with peak fertility for women, of course some can make it work by partnering up with someone who is willing to take the career hit, but then both would be relatively disadvantaged next to the man who has made career his number one priority.

Of course some women roll the dice with their fertility and luck is with them and of course can be every bit as dominant/competent as any man (or however you desire to phrase it). We also see when women are given maximal choice there seems to be a regression to the historical mean. As seen in those Scandinavian countries. So general positive discrimination does not appear to thus far produce the positive result it was expected to.

I hope we crack it eventually, but I fear it’s all a lot more complex than first though.

Why are you making it all about you?
This is hilarious. You ignore questions you don't want to answer but seem annoyed when posters won't engage with you on the specific points you want them to.

One poster can't answer for "feminists" and isn't a spokesperson for whatever strawman argument you want to build.

You've gone totally off topic, whether women as individuals are happy in certain scenarios is irrelevant. Nobody is suggesting marriage is terrible for everyone, for example, but we do think that divorce needs to be a viable legal option. Some SAHM are perfectly happy and some are stuck in an abusive situation. Some women take what others would consider as risks with their personal safety and nothing bad happens, some women follow all the unspoken rules and get raped and murdered anyway. The individualist thinks it's their own personal good fortune and good judgement that prevent bad things happening to them but it's as much luck as anything else.

Who decides who gets abused and attacked? The men who do the abusing and attacking. None have ever been stopped by the rational individual woman who is making Good Choices and is Confident and Takes No Nonsense. If a man decides he wants to use his physical, social and financial advantages to hurt women then he will, and the key is to examine those advantages and to try to set things up for women so there are escape routes from abusive relationships and so there is greater safety in general.

Going back to the actual question, what are your actual thoughts on the question "Can men really grasp women’s reality re safety?", CustardDream?

Do you believe men can, or do you believe men can't? Why do you think this?

If you believe that women can't grasp men's reality re safety, and want to discuss that, I would suggest you set up a separate thread.

I hope we crack it eventually, but I fear it’s all a lot more complex than first though.

Agreed

men don't care about women and don't from birth

Then * what a ridiculous assertionn"

Then a discussion about how men are socialised

Can't be from birth if it's socialisation..nit picking

I think it would be easier for some readers if it was made clear that you are (I suspect) talking about the class behaviour of men, not every specific instance of men

Some men are socialised but reject that socialisation. I would guess fewer men reject the socialisation then women.

Actually men don’t care about women from birth but neither do women care about men. In fact babies care about very little aside from their own needs. Empathy which is the trait we’re circling around discussing is a learned behaviour which if not picked up by the age of the 7 is difficult if not impossible to develop past that stage of development.

Actually men don’t care about women from birth but neither do women care about men.

But men and women are terms reserved for adults aren't they? So, there is no such thing as man or woman at birth. Male and female, yes. So it's ridiculous to say that men don't care about women from birth, because as you say, babies don't care about anyone whether they are male or female babies.

Fair point.

DARVO is alive and well in 2020 I see.

Classic example of this from DP. Looking at Airbnbs we came across a listing specifying "women only" and his immediate reaction although light-heartedly said, was "if it said men only - there'd be an outcry"

For an otherwise intelligent man he could not see straight away why someone might not want strange men in their house and the probable (non) reaction from the authorities should something bad happen.

Whether he wasn't imagining that an Airbnb owner might be themselves female or, just WHAT, I don't know, but danger just was not on his radar. I had to ask him if he'd be happier if I went and stayed in the home of a male or female owner before it sunk in.

Here's a few quotes from the recent AIBU thread. Do these posters really sound like victims to you?

And your barrage of quotes by self-selecting posters, proving nothing about the proportion of SAHMs who are happy or safe, continues to miss my point, which is that parenthood in practice means very different things for men and women and these choices are not made in isolation.

And you've completely not addressed at all the reality that a wife without means is at the mercy of her husband. Lucky her if she managed to wed a decent one: the Relationships board is full of women who didn't.

You keep using the word 'sacrifice', but most women I know enjoy motherhood. And the men sacrifice spending time with their children.

Yet men continue to do this. It's almost like it benefits them in some way to be the sole earner with all the financial power in the household. Being in charge is more important to them than spending time with their kids.

Again, I remind you this isn't about individuals being happy, it's about structural forces and the impact they have on women in aggregate. It's about the normalisation of "her at home, him at work" as default parenting model takes away women's financial independence and impacts women's safety.

Does it never occur to you that men do more overtime than women because someone has to be at home for the kids and somehow, magically, that "someone" has defaulted to being her? Sex class analysis shines light on this in a way that an individual analysis never.

As for that rant on Thought Catalogue, whatevs. It's one woman's opinion. It holds no more or less weight than mine or anyone else's. If you've decided that she's some kind of spokeswoman for feminism, that's on you not me. I'll give you a tip though: anti-mother and anti-parent views are unlikely to be held by regular posters on a website called Mumsnet.

But men and women are terms reserved for adults aren't they?

I'd like to introduce you to the Equality Act definitions of man and woman: "a male of any age" and "a female of any age". How about "male humans don't care about female humans and don't from birth" because they are socialised not to? It's not just about empathy, it's also about entitlement.

You lot are worse pedants than me and that's saying something.

Given how varied and diverse women’s experiences, opinions and perspectives are it would seem impossible for a man to get the “reality” seeing as I don’t think every woman is singing from the same hymn sheet even amongst themselves?

I think this is one the the reasons men can’t really be feminists as by definition accepting one paradigm of women’s lived experiences by definition means rejecting those women outside of or opposed to that experience.

bd67th

What's the definition of woman as used on the FWR board? I thought it was "adult human female"?

How about "male humans don't care about female humans and don't from birth"

So do females care about females, or males come to that, from birth then? I don't think babies, of either sex, care about anyone so the statement is equally true of both male and female babies. It proves literally nothing. It is an utterly ridiculous argument.

It is an utterly ridiculous argument.

No one is claiming that female infants care about anyone else. Female and male infants are socialised and treated differently from birth. Female infants are socialised to be caring, male infants much less so. My wording was a rhetorical device alluding to the differences in socialisation, no different from people talking about "hell freezing over", "raining stair rods", or "steam coming out of someone's ears".

But the original poster was making the point that males don't care about women from birth. That's the ridiculous argument. No baby cares about anyone else from birth, regardless of their sex. Male children might well be socialised into caring less but this doesn't manifest at birth and if it's a result of socialisation it isn't intrinsically their fault is it?

I can only understand it as an argument if, at birth, male babies cared about men and not women and female babies cared about people. As none of this happens I just cannot see that it's an argument at all.

You might well argue that men, as a class, care less about women but to categorically state that it happens from birth just makes a mockery of your argument.

Nitpicking.

Oh of course. A ridiculous argument has been made but anyone daring to point that out is nitpicking?

Persistent.

Men just don’t know what constant fear is like