My feelings about men

[BoxyLoxy]

Name changed, obviously.

Im a regular on here although mostly lurking.

I was wondering how other people reconcile their feelings about how fucking awful the patriarchy is, how men as a group are basically toxic and even the 'good ones' have an incredibly low bar for being decent humans.

Im married, and seriously reconsidering it because I feel this ongoing utter despair at the myriad injustices I put up with. I would NEVER EVER pursue a relationship with a man if I did leave.

Anyone else feel the same? Is this normal?!

And fairly so.

I think that is a debatable point. But I've said my piece (perhaps more in some people's eyes) and don't want to repeat myself ad nauseam so I'll leave it there. Let's just agree to disagree on that point.

lordchipmonk

You made the following statement and I'm confused or don't understand the bit of your statement I've bolded below.

More cases of what?

"Dunno. I'm in the UK and when I went to teacher training in 2016/17, we had the standard safeguarding of children spiel. One of the things they said was to avoid being alone in a classroom with another student (to avoid any sort of he said she said accusations). It was then made abundantly clear that male teachers should be especially careful of this. I assume (though I don't know) this was because they had more cases of female students and male teachers. Make of it what you will."

That is true and it is horrible that women feel vulnerable. I try to make women feel as comfortable as possible. For example, if I am walking at night and come across a woman I will stop and cross the road to avoid them feeling vulnerable.

It would just be nice if some women made an effort too to make the good men feel comfortable. It is sad seeing this thread and that a lot of women don’t trust any men at all! I don’t think it is fair on men but not sure how to solve it.

I take that back. It’s fair in the sense that it is fair for someone to not want to be vulnerable around any risk and it’s basic human need/instincts to want to feel safe. Maslow pyramid ?

But I agree it’s not fair on the good men out there who have to be treated as guilty until proven innocent. No one should feel this way.

But someone is gonna have to compromise.. the need for safety and security, vs the need to feel accepted. SAd that this choice has to be made.

Society is malfunctioning for this to be the case. That’s my view

chipmunk

In formal risk assessments they don't say all women are, all men are, all black men are ect.
In personal RA If people do it a minority of times and you don't take count, why did you say it is taking it too far when people say these things?

That is true and it is horrible that women feel vulnerable. I try to make women feel as comfortable as possible. For example, if I am walking at night and come across a woman I will stop and cross the road to avoid them feeling vulnerable.

That is honorable. Perhaps we need to here and see more stories of this to restore our faith? All we are bombarded with is stories of abuse and mistreatment

It would just be nice if some women made an effort too to make the good men feel comfortable. It is sad seeing this thread and that a lot of women don’t trust any men at all! I don’t think it is fair on men but not sure how to solve it.

I agree. I personally don’t think the mainstream solution currently is a working solution. A lot of good people are being compromised. Sad. Very sad.

As a mother of a son, sister of 3 brothers and a daughter and a wife...I know that there are good men out there..

But I also see that women are much more vulnerable. I fear for my daughter more than I ever will for my precious first born son who I would die for. But I do fear for both.

This is why I think the solution is for good men and women to work together to actually solve the issues of gender violence/abuse/injustice today.

Ok, as people have specifically referenced me, I'll respond briefly (I hope), but last one tonight I promise!

You made the following statement and I'm confused or don't understand the bit of your statement I've bolded below.
More cases of what?

-The advice was given to avoid instances of students making unverifiable allegations against staff members.
-Men (staff) were told to be particularly careful
-I assumed this to be because there have been a significant number of unverifiable allegations made against male members of staff in the past

Hope that's clearer.

It’s fair in the sense that it is fair for someone to not want to be vulnerable around any risk and it’s basic human need/instincts to want to feel safe.

It is understandable? Sure.

In formal risk assessments they don't say all women are, all men are, all black men are ect.
In personal RA If people do it a minority of times and you don't take count, why did you say it is taking it too far when people say these things?

Ok, you introduced the idea of a risk assessment and I went with it, but didn't intend it to be taken quite like this. My point is that there is a line between generalisations made for the sake of ease (it is not always practical to treat everyone individually) and prejudice/bigotry. I couldn't tell you exactly where that line is and I'm not sure anyone else could.

It would just be nice if some women made an effort too to make the good men feel comfortable.

Are you saying that women should get over their fear of being one of the very large percentage of women that have been assaulted, raped or murdered by a percentage of men, so the poor men don’t feel sad and misunderstood? Do you really think that women’s fear is equivalent to men feeling sad?

@AmbitiouslyFit thank you. I agree with you that the current solution is working and it’s nice to see a woman admit that

No I am not saying women should trust every man. As unfortunately there are bad men out there and you do have to be careful. But I think that is extreme and that men shouldn’t be all treated like that. It is actually quite hard being a man and constantly judged by women that way and it would just be nice if women understand that

Trust has to be earned. All you have to do to earn it is not be a risk.

I personally don’t know what it would take to earn my trust for sure. Being a devils advocate here.

What does it take for a man to earn a woman’s trust? What does it mean to not be a risk?

Our definition of risk has generally become infinite. Rightly so. What’s a good man today could make a UTURN tomorrow. As we see all the time.

A trusting woman basing her judgement on good will would usually as we see b the first to suffer a big blow. She becomes boring and gets cheated on and treated like crap.

No man is perfect and there should b room for
Compassion and tolerance but the risk is massive that it’s not worth it

I believe men have an advantage. Whether through society or biology or ... and it’s easily misused when there is little guidelines/enforced consequence. And... it’s sad this is falling down to women asserting their own boundAries at the risk of having their lives violated if they aren’t born with such talent.

I think society has failed good men and women. The issue isn’t that women should lower thsir gaurds at the risk of violation just so good men could feel accepted. The answer should start by catering for the most vulnerable first and three would be women

Ok, you introduced the idea of a risk assessment and I went with it, but didn't intend it to be taken quite like this*
You went with it? You said risk assessments can be taken too far if people say men are all, women are ect.I was questioning this.
I'm wondering what you learnt in your safe guarding "spiel".
Maybe it would be good for you to do some more training in this area?

Some posters on this thread are setting off every alarm I have - it's grim.

'All these good men...none of them watching porn I take it*'
*
If we're expanding the conversation, I'd add in the large number of women that use porn. I don't know why you think it's okay to excuse the 24 per cent of female visitors to Pornhub;

womenintheworld.com/2015/11/25/how-many-women-watch-porn/

Some interesting figures in there. Seventy one percent of women use porn at least occasionally. Doesn't fit your narrative though.

So how about the number of women that support sweat shop labour in poor countries by buying cheap clothes? Or buy products from companies like Apple that exploit workers horrifically? How many people here are posting from a phone or computer built by such companies? Nobody on FWR ever brings this up, because rich western women are equally complicit in exploiting women and children in third world countries. Solidarity only goes so far, it seems.

I'm not sure what this has to do with the OP. Maybe use it to start a thread "My feelings about women" ?

"So how about the number of women that support sweat shop labour in poor countries by buying cheap clothes? Or buy products from companies like Apple that exploit workers horrifically? How many people here are posting from a phone or computer built by such companies? Nobody on FWR ever brings this up, because rich western women are equally complicit in exploiting women and children in third world countries. Solidarity only goes so far, it seems."

Oh wow! If I was a woman that was distrustful of men before, reading some of the comments on here would not give me any more confidence.

Indeed T0tallyFuckedUpFamily - way to prove an OP.

Seventy one percent of women use porn at least occasionally.

"a survey by Cosmopolitan magazine found that 3.8 percent of women who watch porn use it daily, 25 percent use porn every few days, and 71.2 percent don’t use porn that often. For men those numbers were 32.5 percent, 56.5 percent, and 11 percent, respectively."

No option there for don't watch at all? Strange.
Maybe those figures are included in the 71.2%? Or maybe because it's asking about porn only the women who watch porn took part in the survey?
But hang on, it's a Cosmopolition survey! Well then you must be right! Thanks JurgenKloppsCat

Humpty, it was a response to Antibles' post at 16:08. But I agree it's off topic. No more from me on her derailing.

As for the OP, I sympathise. If you have shitty experiences, it colours your view of the world. I wish those things hadn't happened to her. And I don't take it personally. All I can do is conduct myself properly, ethically and sympathetically with everyone I meet, and teach my kids to do the same. There are other men on here saying 'not fair, I'm not like that!'. I'm afraid, chaps, that all we can do is carry on behaving like decent human beings, and hope it rubs off on the arseholes amongst us. Every little helps.

It would just be nice if some women made an effort too to make the good men feel comfortable.

Girls are conditioned in childhood to do so and boys are conditioned to expect it.
I strongly suggest you ask the "is it me or is it them" question before you proceed any further down the road of denying reality.
Your complaint is a standard "nice guy" lament, and I assure you that is not a compliment.

It definitely is not me. That is the point. I understand why women feel like that about some men but it is just a shame that has to apply to all men that’s all

Its been interesting reading these replies to my OP, although I came back at first to something about Ryan Gosling and baldness which was a bit odd. I'll try and get around to reading all the responses.

I've been single for two and a half years, because I've had such a bad time with men in the past, and see red flags now in a way I didn't when I was younger. I like men and the company of men, but every time I try to be good friends with one, they eventually either loose interest when they see I actually just want to be friends, they try it on, or I see their true colours (talking shit about their dp's, or mansplaining, etc). I'm just not interested in a relationship or anything serious at the minute. Too many men want a skivvy with benefits, instead of a proper partner.

There always seens to be a moment, with the men I've met, where they'll say or do something misogynistic and I'll think, oh for fuck sake, here we go again, although I get even more frustrated with women who run down other women, for not being stereotypically feminine enough "she'd be so pretty if she just made a bit of an effort".

Social media has been a real eye opener too, as to what men really think.

I'm tempted to not shave, wax or pluck for a year, and see how many blokes would want me then, despite the fact they'd probably have hair in all the same places. And we call that equality?

We have it good in the UK to be fair, compared to a lot of other countries of course

My main worry is how to stop the other boys and men in ds's life, toxic mascuclinity in general, (and rising
testosterone levels), from turning my lovely son, into a twat, thug or brute, without isolating him socially. At the minute, he has a few nice friends, but is already hearing phrases like "ugly bitches". As someone I know put it once, "they're like little sponges, aren't they?".

Boxylady - all I can say is that you missed a treat re. the Ryan Gosling/baldness conversation. You also missed an awful lost of abuse aimed at women, which kind of proved the point of your OP.

I saw this gem on FB the other day