The narrative of 'untrustworthy, manipulative women'

[Echobelly]

I think so much in society is built on narratives society tells about what certain kinds of people are like, generally negative if you're not a straight, white man.

A lot of the time it feels to me like so many problems for women stem from this underlying idea that women, because we're not physically strong and able to settle things with a fight like good, honest, straightforward men , use lies and deception to 'get our way' and are fundamentally untrustworthy.

Hence when a woman complains about someone, it's 'What does she have against them? Why is she making trouble?' - not, you know, actually listening to her like she is a rational being. If a man complains about something it's taken as face value that he has solid grounds to - but women, no, they must be 'up to something' or trying to manipulate people.

Do you see what I mean?

There's a long history of stories about not trusting women. From Eve and Pandora who were responsible for terrible things happening to men, through to the witch hunts in 16-1700s, and present day travesties of not believing victims of abuse like the tragic story of Shana Grice, women have long been held up as untrustworthy.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/mar/23/shana-grice-trial-judge-criticises-sussex-police-for-failing-her

The narrative of untrustworthy women is very useful for maintaining power for the patriarchy and dodging responsibility in cases of rape or abuse.

This article from 2016 contrasts perceptions of Clinton & Trump
www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/sep/22/hillary-clinton-women-trust

J Valenti has written a book with J Friedman on the topic, not one I've read & it'll have to come down a bit more in price before I do, Believe Me, which will probably be good for discussing any research on the topic.

That all said, Judas was a man and Zeus was always deceiving someone in the myths about him, so both sexes are seen as duplicitous...it just often seems as you point out very one way...

Yes of course.

We're manipulative and untrustworthy. Malicious. And essentially a bit deranged.

It's been the message for thousands of years surely.

It helps men justify what they do to us and we can't be believed (rape, CSA etc).

For modern example see threads about boy and girl children.

I hate those threads. Anyway.

Boys are straightforward, honest, affectionate. If they are upset they have an argument/ fight and then forgive.

Girls are manipulative little bitches.

This also ties into stuff that is really handy for men- the idea that girls are sexually knowing seductresses who know what they're doing and poor men get exploited by them. A very handy reversal. See also how the term lolita, a book about a paedophile. Has become a byword for a girl who men want to fuck and like to think she's leading them on.

I imagine there might even be a core of truth. Not because I think women are intrinsically untrustworthy, but because without physical, political or cultural power, they had few ways of influencing events, or even the course of their own lives.

If men behave in the same ways, they are admired for being cunning, influencers, strategic, masters of political manoeuvring.

Anything that women do, for ambition or survival, is tainted in the eyes of society, by being performed by women. Men burnish what they fo, with the high shine of patriarchal approval. But women are seen as corrupting those same actions, with their nasty bodies and weak minds.

It’s a patriarchal reversal. The ways (notall) men behave to women are sick and disgusting and many men have no compunction about manipulating, grooming, lying to or deceiving women and girls to trick sex or other resources out of them. But they’re narcissistic, as a class, so they project this vileness onto the people they’re dehumanising.

I just read The City of Ladies, where the author was defending women against just these kind of accusations. Hundreds of years and nothing changes. Plus ca change.

Interestung @DancelikeEmmaGoldman - yes, perhaps women have been forced into using manipulation as a weapon, but I guess the key point is forced to, and 'when really necessary', that's what gets twisted into the idea than women do it almost habitually, which is of course untrue.

We're lying, hysterical, manipulative.
Until it turns out we were right, in which case why didn't we say so sooner?

Women can't do anything right.

We're lying, hysterical, manipulative

Well, we're manipulating too, also but not only grooming, lying and deceiving women and girls to trick sex or other resources out of them. Also we're narcissistic - as a class.

Also, of course, narcissistic as individuals in disproportionate numbers!

Natch.

Yes, and 'all women are shallow and just care about their looks'.... after millennia of being chattel and our only passport to a potentially better life being what men considered attractive - and the media generally acts like that's still the case.

I'm learning about this from Married at first sight australia - which I've never watched before, but, yes, it's all about that.