Women's rights general conversations

[Kucingsparkles]

This is an experimental thread, all input much appreciated!

There is so much excellent information and so many active discussions on FWR that I wondered if it would be useful to have a thread to sort of "cross-fertilise" between them - airing little thoughts or vignettes that wouldn't themselves merit their own thread, to highlight other posts/threads of particular interest or to point to notable developments on fast-moving threads so that casual observers know where to look.

(For example, "the X thread has meandered onto a fascinating discussion of Y" or "Poster P's amazing analysis on thread Z might have relevance to the scenario in thread W" or even "Random bloke asked me to smile while I was choosing onions, grr"- that sort of thing).

Right, bring on the flames or flowers! <cowers>

I met one who I thought was* that should say, as in, respectful about women.

I've been thinking recently that if anything were to happen to my partner, I don't think I could face looking for anyone else. It just seems so much harder now to find a man who isn't weird and misogynistic - though I know they exist. Thought it was just me.

Cyan, someone trying to kiss me when I'd said I wanted to start from a place of friendship would have put me off too.

I'm so glad I was friends with Mr T for a good while before we got together, we actually got to know each other in that time. It has to be said that he is/was so oblivious that I was climbing the walls by the time we did get together, but it was worth the wait.

I have a feeling he was also on TRSOH so it would've been bound to fail anyway.

I have never “dated”. I’d get drunk, shag someone, and if I still liked or fancied them in the morning we’d hitch up. And macman and I were friends for about 10 years before we were both partnerless and able to get together. He’s great, but if/when he dies or we split up, that’d be absolutely it for me and men, no more, nada.

I'm a bit conflicted as I'm still quite young, but not wanting children (I'm likely to be infertile anyway due to gynae issues) certainly takes the pressure off. Not wanting children, not wanting to date a man who wants or already has children, and not wanting to date a misogynist doesn't leave a lot of options.

I think I've been lucky. Both my husbands - the one who died and the current one - have been highly respectful of women generally. I doubt id have been attracted to them otherwise. If my present husband dies, I don't think I'll be up for any future relationship though. Even if they'd want to take on somebody my age, I don't think i'd want to take on somebody theirs, so unless I found a fifty year old toy boy willing to nursemaid me as I lapse into senescence that would be it.

I’d definitely stay single if my marriage ended now. The idea of dating again fills me with absolute horror: men as a collective seem to have got worse, my standards have got higher, and willingness to compromise lower.

Interesting that we're all expressing a collective 'Fuck, no' about taking up with any other men in future.

Interesting that we're all expressing a collective 'Fuck, no' about taking up with any other men in future.

Ha ha, yes! Wonder if it’s different for men? As a cancer nurse I was always quite shocked at the speed my dead patients’ husbands found themselves another wife. And also surprised at how many ex-wives stepped up to the plate when their ex-husbands got cancer, looked after them, brought them for appointments and treatments, co-ordinated their terminal/palliative care, etc. One of my best friends did this for her erstwhile horrible abusive insane stalkery ex-husband who’d made her life hell for years, and was glad to put things right between them, for their sons’ sake more than anything.

Absolutely! I get the impression that the chances of finding a man who isn't a creep/ misogynist/ TRSOH thought-police-bro/ dick-pic-sender/ slapper or strangler seems vanishingly tiny. If I found myself single again, I'd just stay that way. And I do worry about my DDs, kids of their age group being absolutely saturated in toxic femininity or toxic masculinity. (Looks like I'm the same age as StephSuper BTW!)

This is the Scottish dating system you're describing, Mavis.

Kuc, you summed it up perfectly.

When I think of men en-masse I go 'Ewww'.

Heh. I did “date” one fella who was very good-looking and very rich - we went out for dinner having met doing am-dram, but he was really dull and I didn’t fancy him, as back then I only fancied rough-looking punks with tattoos and mohicans who were brilliant at playing pool.

I’d get drunk, shag someone, and if I still liked or fancied them in the morning we’d hitch up.

That made me laugh.

I was brazen in getting together with Mr T. A group of us had been out together and me and him had been flirting for a while but, beyond a few chaste kisses, nothing had yet happened. After the night out, everyone went back to the shared house Mr T and mutual friends were living in and when it came time to go home, he'd already gone to bed. I thought 'Sod it, now or never', went up to his room, stripped off and got into his bed. That was 36 years ago and we've never looked back.

Ha ha, yes! Wonder if it’s different for men? As a cancer nurse I was always quite shocked at the speed my dead patients’ husbands found themselves another wife.

The father of one friend was dating quite soon, within a year after his wife died. It upset my friend somewhat that he seemed to have got over her mother so quickly. He was early seventies.

Another friend's father was utterly grief-stricken and treated suggestions of finding someone else with silent contempt. By the sounds of it he's in a minority.

Speaking (kind of) of the single life, I have recently finished reading Matrix, by Lauren Goff. It’s about a medieval noblewoman who is dumped into a convent because she’s too ugly and awkward for marriage, and how she turns the convent into, basically, a man-free paradise on earth. It’s brilliantly feminist, beautifully written, quite unexpected in some ways, and highly recommended.

The first para of my post should be in quotes.

Oh that's on my shelf waiting to be read! Thanks for the recommendation.

Yes, mach, I had a 31-year old patient whose husband remarried 6 months after she died, to a woman who looked exactly like his dead wife. Her mother phoned me about it, deranged with grief that he had “replaced” his dead wife so casually, when she would never be able to - or want to - replace her daughter.

<Adds 'won't replace me the moment I die' to the list>

I met my second husband only a few months after my beloved first husband of thirty years died, and we got married eighteen months later. It was quicker than it might have been because of the distance involved and some other considerations related to my younger son, who came with me (the older two were both over 21). I lost at least one set of friends to disapproval and there was general concern that this was too soon, but we've been happily married for twenty years now.

I would add that "replace" is a wrong way to look at it in my opinion. You can't replace a beloved. I talk about my first husband and things we did, and I have pictures of him that pop up on my computer all the time. I wouldn't have married Mr Brit if he'd been the kind of man who had a problem with that.

Oh, I don't think there are rules about this. I was more observing what I've seen of two different men. One thing I've learned from bereavement is there is no one way to deal with it.

I do wonder why us blokes are more prone to look more quickly.

I do wonder why us blokes are more prone to look more quickly.

Tipping my cynical hat to you all this afternoon, I think it's because it's true what we often hear, that marriage is more advantageous to men than women.