It is unacceptable for me to feel that I don’t like men?

[OliverBabish]

I got asked by my boss if I “hate men” - he’s not my boss anymore thankfully but my honest response is that I don’t like men very much. I’m not being an arse about it either - I’ve married a man, I’m aware there are ‘good men’ or whatever - that is truly how I feel.

Ignorant of me but I didn’t even know misandry was a thing (or that there was a word for it) until really recently.

Experience (and my job) has shown me time and time again that men are far more of a problem in our day to day society than women. I know I’d probably get into loads of trouble at work if I actually voiced that opinion, but generally speaking, is it that unacceptable for me to feel this way? Am I wrong to think like this? It doesn’t affect how I treat men, it’s just how I feel.

@Deadringer

I was thinking about this recently. As women we live with people who are, generally, bigger than us, stronger than us, quicker to anger than us, and are more violent than us. It is a huge leap of faith for women to trust men, and tbh it's surprising that so many of us manage to do just that.

I'm baffled by it

I live alone and feel much safer that way

I'm short and when a big bloke starts talking to me, I get scared.

Yeah I've had that question thrown at me too I said despite there best efforts sadly no but my daughter is a lesbian so there is hope for her to become a man hater

Oh god I’d never broadcast it at work. My former boss asked me in the context of “oh god, you’re not into all that feminist crap are you?” when it was the American elections. It was just casual conversation but the actual question of “do you hate men?” really made me go I said no, because I don’t hate anybody

I just don’t really like men all that much. Easy for me to have this POV when I have no men in my family apart from DH.

I don’t treat anyone any differently, if anything I think I’ve overcompensated in certain situations.

@Deadringer

I was thinking about this recently. As women we live with people who are, generally, bigger than us, stronger than us, quicker to anger than us, and are more violent than us. It is a huge leap of faith for women to trust men, and tbh it's surprising that so many of us manage to do just that.

This is very true for me

I’m respectful and polite to random men I come into contact with - through work / life admin / at the supermarket etc and I love and respect the men in my life - DF and DP.

But do I like and respect men in general? No.

I used to love the company of men, used to love flirting and low key flirty banter. But now I just don’t care about them. I don’t want to talk to nor care about their opinions on things. I don’t actively tell men I don’t like them as a group, I’m not rude and care about them as “human beings” - as in Id help someone in trouble and not want to see anyone struggle or in need. But as men, nah I don’t want anything to do with them anymore.

I actually thought to myself earlier today that if my partner left me I don’t think I’d want another man in my life. I don’t know how I’d date anyone, I have such distain for them as a collective, it’s hard for me to see past that.
So I probably wouldn’t date.

Perhaps if those men who disliked women stopped dating them we’d have less problems

I am intrigued to know where does it go wrong. I teach primary age kids, and here, the boys and girls are equally lovely/pita's.

Yep - puberty.

It's hard to become a fully socialised human being using only the 0.01% of your brain capacity that isn't permanently occupied with sex.

I know what you mean OP - I posted similar yesterday. The older I get the more I see the misogyny and dislike of women in most men. As long as you are youngish and attractive you are the target of unwanted attention and when you get older and lose your looks are you are a nuisance. I love my dh but even he lets his sexist views come to light occasionally - I'm pretty sure he doesn't think I'm his equal. He'd never say it though.

The only men I love and like 100% are my ds's.

The way you feel about people is obviously shaped by your experiences and if most of your experiences of men have been negative or worse then I can see how you would feel like that. Just a quick look around Mumsnet shows you some shocking examples of men's behaviour and attitude. But from my own perspective, I don't feel like that. I'm lucky I suppose, the vast majority of men I know are nice, decent human beings. I've definitely come across bad ones but they're very much the minority.

I work in quite a male dominated environment and honestly I'm just tired of men. I'm tired of listening to their opinions, I'm tired of being expected to tolerate their arrogance, entitlement and misogyny.

A lot of the time I just find it all tedious. I'm really tired of dealing with their shit tbh, and I've just lost a lot of respect for men in general. I'm fed up of how hard I have to fight to be heard compared to men and I'm fed up of just general low level misogyny.

I was thinking this the other day, a lot of advise to women in the work place is be more like men. Take the thankyous out of your emails etc, but how much better would it be if everyone acted like women in the work place? If I didn't have to cope with men who can hold down a highly skilled job but not wipe their own arse? Or cant regulate their emotions enough to not throw a tantrum at work

I haven't even got started on actual dangerous/violent behaviour or harassment.

@DIshedUp that’s it for me I think, that low level misogyny. Paired with my other past experiences I just think - enough

Think about every bad thing that's ever happened in the world ever then think about whose fault they were. All men right? YANBU.

It’s not so much men I dislike but rather arrogance and lack of empathy. These traits tend to show up in men more often than in women so I form a prejudice.

When men confound those expectations I tend to idolise them. When women do I feel disappointment.

But at long as you don’t act on your dislike OP you’re not the female equivalent of Elliot Roger.

And due to the fact that feminism, despite its reputation for man-hating, has killed 0 men whilst 2 women a week are killed by men, I’d say misandry isn’t really quite the global epidemic that misogyny is.

That’s the difference I think. I dislike but I don’t feel violent or aggressive about it. I don’t think this conversation could be had with many men without it turning really unpleasant.

@joystir59

I don't like men as a class. I have some individual men who are in my family, but I would not share a home with a man. I find them boring and not of my tribe, which is women. I should say I'm a lesbian but I have some single heterosexual female friends who prefer the company of women too.

Came to say something much the same as you @joystir59.

I don't like men as a class/group or as a concept i.e. masculinity. I perceive men as just something of an irrelevance to me, which I guess is connected to me being lesbian.

This kind of apathy is also mixed with general distrust/wariness of men due to experiences of male violence. Plus my contempt for the tendency to sexualise and/or exercise dominance over women that I perceive all men, to various degrees, are afflicted with. I see it in even the wokest of my friend's male partners, who would identify themselves as feminist allies and are otherwise pretty decent. An example that comes to mind is the time when I was chatting with a friend's husband who's like that and he asked, feigning simple curiosity, whether "scissoring really was all that popular with lesbians?"

This is not to say I don't like any individual men at all. I have male family members I love and some men I like as friends or colleagues (admittedly not many and less than when I was younger, but partly that has to do with my area of work.) I guess hatred of a particular man simply because he is male is what people think of as "misandry". I know I don't go around hating on every man I meet because of his sex! That to me would be prejudiced and ethically questionable.

As an aside, I believe misogyny is a qualitatively different phenomenon that means more than just woman-hating. @LaurieFairyCake I think your spot on in your observation that men who don't seem to like women hang around them trying to dominate and distress. It ties into feminist philosopher Kate Manne's argument that the logic of misogyny is not just about "hate" and rests on wielding power over and punishing women for being female. So yes, hard agree from me that how misogyny manifests is not the same thing as women not sharing a home or life or much of their social time with men for understandable reasons!

When they tell us we're less likely to be assaulted by strangers than killed by a partner in our own homes, I think, good job I live alone then. One less thing to worry about.

Not RTFT just the OP.

Thing is lots of men are open about not liking/ having no respect for/ hating women and that's seen as pretty normal TBH.

In fact in plenty of countries men's feelings about women are encoded in law or custom.

I assume on FWR no one needs a list I'm sure we can all think of examples!

So from that perspective, generally thinking men are rubbish, while behaving to them normally, and also having a husband who's not hated etc feels like a pretty minor thing in comparison.

When men want to oppress or harm women they can do it often at a personal, local or national level (depending on who they are).

'I got asked by my boss if I “hate men” - he’s not my boss anymore thankfully but my honest response is that I don’t like men very much. '

I've been asked this quite a few times! Usually when talking about sex offences, metoo, structural inequality etc. And actually now I think of it quite a few times when all I've said is I'm a feminist!

The bar to be accused of man hating is vv low and the bar to be accused of woman hating (not even a term I've seen used!) is very very high.

@malloo

The way you feel about people is obviously shaped by your experiences and if most of your experiences of men have been negative or worse then I can see how you would feel like that. Just a quick look around Mumsnet shows you some shocking examples of men's behaviour and attitude. But from my own perspective, I don't feel like that. I'm lucky I suppose, the vast majority of men I know are nice, decent human beings. I've definitely come across bad ones but they're very much the minority.

Same. Maybe we`re just lucky. I have worked with women who have been badly abused by men and I can absolutely see why they felt as they did. I wonder too, if having a good relationship with your father makes a difference as its the first experience you have.

@malloo

The way you feel about people is obviously shaped by your experiences and if most of your experiences of men have been negative or worse then I can see how you would feel like that. Just a quick look around Mumsnet shows you some shocking examples of men's behaviour and attitude. But from my own perspective, I don't feel like that. I'm lucky I suppose, the vast majority of men I know are nice, decent human beings. I've definitely come across bad ones but they're very much the minority.

Same here.

''I dont like'' =/= hate.

I have had a lot of various negative experiences with different men, including men who told me they loved me.
As a result, I don't automatically like the majority of men. I no longer trust them without a good reason.
I don't hate men.

@OliverBabish

Oh god I’d never broadcast it at work. My former boss asked me in the context of “oh god, you’re not into all that feminist crap are you?” when it was the American elections. It was just casual conversation but the actual question of “do you hate men?” really made me go I said no, because I don’t hate anybody

I just don’t really like men all that much. Easy for me to have this POV when I have no men in my family apart from DH.

I don’t treat anyone any differently, if anything I think I’ve overcompensated in certain situations.

Yes I've had this as well.

The fact that some men react to a woman saying she is a feminist gets the response 'do you hate men' is I think potentially a more interesting point of discussion.

That IME a fair number of men respond to comment about men as a group, mention of stuff like gender pay gap, being a feminist, with 'do you hate men'.

That is a more extreme reaction than having multiple experiences which have left you wary etc.

I’ve been very happily married for 25 years and I don’t like many men. It’s no reflection on how much I love my DH.
You see my DH isn’t a murdering , raping, leering misogynist bastard.

Neither are lots of other men 🤷🏼‍♀️

I grew up in a very male dominated society. Think living on the premises of parents business and the only customers where men. 100+ a day, some regular, some I never saw again. I went through puberty in that place. All boobs and long blonde hair and so much confidence.

From age 12 around 90% of those men totally ignored me. Blanked me like I didn't exist. 9.9% of those men would flirt with me, try to seduce me and persuade me to go out with them (I did with a few) and some were very blatantly sexual and assaulted me. I can still remember the 5 regular men that treated me with respect, tried to explain to me that I was being used by these men and was worth more and would actively point out to the other men that I was underage and they needed to get a grip and stop being so gross. My parents didn't care.

I left that place at 18 and had had consensual sex (albeit underage so stat rape) with more men than I could remember. I had been raped and assaulted by more men than I could remember. If I'm honest, it was the very first rape that triggered the promiscuity. I was desperate for some form of control and felt by choosing who I was with I would have autonomy and some level of protection.

The men I met after wards were no better. My first employer in a pub physically forced me to undo my to three buttons as " I'd been hired for the EEs and his customers wanted to see them ". The next was a pizza shop where I was forced to go down on a driver in a stock room.

I don't mix with men by choice. Will make polite small talk in a pub if I'm at the bar with my Husband or several friends etc. But over all, men seem to hate my confidence. I'm very defiant by nature. To this day none of the abuse or rape has broken me. I walk tall but it's like the predators still smell the old scars and so I just don't mix with them anymore. I keep my circle small and am an fierce radical feminist.

Also, yes I am married to a man but i B only tolerate him in small doses. We live in a very cheap area so have two properties. He stays at his 3-5 times a week. I love my house and can never imagine living with a man full time again. I value my peace and sleeping well at night too much.