Looking at men differently now I know too much?

[clingfilmed]

In recent years I've seen so much in the news and online about men's abuse and violence towards women. A man who looks totally normal and pleasant and is perhaps in many ways a good man might still be going home and creating fake AI nudes of women he knows or watching extreme porn or abusing his wife or kids or using prostitutes or cam girls or has a fetish that degrades and dehumanises women or is a complete misogynist.

There is a post on the relationships board now where a married man is hoping that just because a mum of his sons friend has been friendly towards him she might fancy him and be up for it.

Then looking at many of the men I know day to day how they talk to and interact with their wives and families is depressing to see, almost like they don't care at all.

I know its not every man, I know some men who I do think are good. I do look back to the rose tinted days of my teens when I would idealise boys and think they were so amazing and now knowing what I do about general trends and some men in particular its quite a disappointment.

Exactly. Ironically, these posters sound just like MRAs!

2900 potential women are murdered by women having abortion every week in UK, another 36.5 million potential women are murdered by women having abortion globally. So who is the most efficient women killer?

Abortion isn't murder

Yeah, no. I dislike anti-man rhetoric but this response isn't it. Abortion is healthcare and I will challenge anyone, male or female, who says otherwise.

They really don’t.

They really do. Having a 'list' from which they parrot. Being aggressively inflexible and seeing the world in extremely binary terms. Skewing facts to fit their agenda. I find horseshoe theory to be in action in this case.

I think denying facts such as how many women are killed a week by a man makes one look more of a numpty and peak MRA.

Cant argue and be flexible with statistics I’m afraid. Maybe start your own thread about how men as a sex class don’t harm women and see how you get on.

Well, I'd know the answers to that, however,
if I worded it I'd be banned. 😊

@Gahrsurely you must see that some (even most) women not being angels and/ or being unpleasant isn't remotely similar to the number of men who are violent or sexually abusive to women? You can easily see the amount of abuse based on gender that exists around the world is staggering and always aimed towards women. I can't think of one country where women have made laws that disadvantage or encourage violence towards men?

Completely agree

Women commit the majority of child abuse.

Life isn't nearly as simple as that. A lot of these abusive men are also enabled by women. Look at that monster who murdered a woman and immediately got into an affair with a prison guard. People on here would say he 'groomed' the guard because they can't bear to believe that women are anything other than saints or victims. Bloody nonsense.

Do you have a source for that because the usual figure has always been around two a week, so that's a 50% increase. I'm sure I read it was 86 last year but I'm struggling to find a definite figure now. One report says it was 50 women by Sept.

Not saying you're wrong, just interested to know the scale.

Child abuse from neglect by women, as women are usually the primary care giver, but the majority of child violent and sexual abuse is committed by men.

So here's a bowl of berries. Some are good to eat, some are a bit meh but won't hurt you, some will give you some nasty symptoms, and a few will kill you outright.
Unfortunately, they all look much the same.
Go ahead, help yourself.
What's stopping you?
There's also a bowl of fungi. And yes, some of them are pretty toxic too.
But that doesn't help you with the berry problem, does it?

What's the point of this analogy?

I was thinking that!

👏

Abuse is abuse.

Yes, and?

@Gahr. We all know there are a small number of women like this but it still is absolutely nowhere near the number of men. You seem to be in denial.

Sometimes I wonder why women put up with men at all! But then I think that we're all descended from long lines of women who did endure men, and maybe we just can't shake that heritage off. In fact if a species survives at all, the females and males have to get close enough to reproduce.

But yes, of course some women stay single as a lifetime plan. And some of them would say men just aren't attractive enough (or safe enough) to be worth dealing with.

But yes, of course some women stay single as a lifetime plan. And some of them would say men just aren't attractive enough (or safe enough) to be worth dealing with.

And is it fair to say that increasing numbers of women are making that judgement, cos it seems that way to me?

The Office for National Statistics begs to differ. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/bulletins/abuseduringchildhoodinenglandandwales/march2024#relationship-to-perpetrator shows that across all abuse categories, men commit more child abuse.

The latest version of the ONS time use survey that specifically includes mothers on maternity leave is at https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/articles/womenshouldertheresponsibilityofunpaidwork/2016-11-10

In 2015, a woman on mat leave actively engaged with her child for 37 hours per week. A man, less than two hours. A woman not on mat leave, over 4.5 hours.

A woman on mat leave has more than 18 times longer opportunity to abuse her child compared to her husband. A woman not on mat leave has over twice the opportunity to abuse compared to her husband. Yet women still commit less child abuse than men.

If you are going to parrot manosphere talking points, check that the statistics support them first.

I honestly hate these ridiculous arguments. It all makes me very annoyed.

It's a fact that men are more violent than women, it's a fact that men by and large, cause a great deal more harm than women. It's a fact that the vast, vast majority of sexual abuse and rape is carried out by men.

Impossible to argue with those things. They're just facts.

The reason for these facts and the reasons for the patriarchy and the reasons why men, even in 'more enlightened times' continue to behave thusly, and the reasons women seem to abet and aid and make excuses for men are entirely more complex.

I honestly don't think that majority of male children, out the womb, have a propensity one way or the other. They are very much influenced by testosterone, but, whilst hormones do inform our behaviour in so many ways, I think society is more influential in how these things play out.

Not always and not completely, but generally, and from my observed experience.

And I'm not actually going to speak about 'good' men and 'bad' men. I, as a woman wouldn't like to be put in that box.

Good woman.

Bad woman.

We know how that judgement goes.

I have no time for men that cause harm. They are not welcome in my life, however, I do have compassion for the boy they once were. I guarantee that the vast majority of them did not set out to be bad men, and were let down by the men around them, and so it goes.

It's not my job as a woman to ever fix this, BUT, if we as a society want to fix this, it has to be a collaborative effort, not an us and them.

I don't have the answers, but, the route to the answer is always asking the right question.

So, why are we in the mess we're in? Why are so many men the way they are? I'm here to talk about that.