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.

When a father walks out on his children, he neglects them 24 hours per day, seven days per week.

Yet the mother is blamed if nappies don't get changed or meals are missed.

Today's post is brought to you by the numbers 24 and seven, the letter F for failing father, and the word Misogyny.

This feels like a false equivalence / over-simplification.

• Self is simply focussing on probability - women have more contact with kids, so women are more vulnerable to accusations of neglect.
• Neglect is a passive act - not doing something (denying a presumed instinct towards nurturing behaviour) - whereas physical abuse is an active one - doing something (indulging a supposed instinct to violent behaviour). While this may be a tenuously subtle distinction, I think it becomes relevant in the light of the below...
• If we get all "evolutionary biology" and very abstract, I wonder if you could argue that the disproportionate opprobrium reserved for a woman guilty of not living up to society's ideals of caring in fact reflects a greater tendency to use woman's failure to enact her "natural" role to condemn her (Letby), even as men's "natural instincts" are more likely to be seen being used to implicitly excuse them (Saville, Brand, Epstein). We turn towards the first in righteous fury ("She should have been protecting those babies!"), while looking away from the other in despairing acceptance ("So many public men are turning out to be abusers!" "Why did nobody say anything?!") One is anathema, the other inevitable.

You arguably demonstrate this trend in your post above. By reading Self's observation that "mum steps up" and sometimes struggles as her failure to fulfil an evolutionary imperative, you implicitly condemn her on this basis... even as you appear to argue that, in stark contrast, male violence could/should be defended on the basis of males' "equivalent-but-different" drives.

Not all men ill treat women but in all honesty even the reasonable ones seem not to notice or care about the bad behaviour of a majority of men, they certainly aren't tackling misogyny and sexism. As an older women who lives and travels alone i have learned a very healthy distrust of men i don't know, if the "good" men were actually much good wouldn't they be aware of the harassment and abuse women routinely suffer and actually DO something about it? I'm not seeing it.

Or what she said. 😅

Why 'fight for' anything at all? I don't. I'm friends with people I like, and I cut off people I don't. Regardless of sex.

Why 'fight for' anything at all?

Well, there's a counsel of despair...

To me, equality and dignity are worth fighting for. Sorry if there is nothing in your life that you think is worth fighting for.

Not really, no. More a counsel of staying in my lane and not thinking I have something in common with all women just because I am a woman. I just don't see the world in such melodramatic terms.

I have equality and dignity in my own life, which is all I can ask.

That's a very privileged and entitled position.

I just don't see the world in such melodramatic terms.

...thereby favouring more illogical terms instead?, like:

not thinking I have something in common with all women just because I am a woman.

Are Israelis and Palestinians similarly melodramatic for recognising a kinship with, and defending, their respective "kinds"? Or is it just women (who are dying in even greater numbers for something far more fundamental than the construct of ethnic/religious/national identity)?

'Melodramatic'?
History/sociology/physiology/genetics and all the other things that reveal some commonalities between all women can be called a lot of things, but 'melodramatic'?

I am so sick of the term 'privileged'. It's just a way of shutting down all debate, and ironically is used a great deal by TRAs!

Don't get me started on Israel vs 'Palestine'. That is something I have strong views about, but this isn't the CITME board, so I won't state them here.

No, don't - I think we'd all agree here isn't the place. I was careful to refer to both equally in my analogy to deter any possible derailment! But the point stands...

So I should stop using it bc you don't like it?

I'm not using it to shut down debate. I'm pointing out that your position seems to have come about bc you've been lucky enough to not have to worry about dignity or equality in your own life and don't seem to care at all about those who are not so lucky. Feel free to respond to that if you're so bothered by the term.

You're right, I don't. I have reached a certain point in life by a combination of luck and hard work, like so many people have. I do a certain amount of 'giving back' and support certain causes, so I'm not entirely self involved. However, I don't identify with contemporary feminism and prefer to devote my energies elsewhere. Hope that's clearer.

So why are you in this thread criticizing women who are fighting for dignity and equality?

I'm not. I'm saying that I don't see men as my enemy.

“Freedom is the sure possession only of those who have the courage to defend it “ Pericles

Oh, trust me. If someone comes for my freedom, I'm not taking it lying down. I don't want to derail by talking about other issues, but there was an issue recently where government was coming for our freedoms. Best believe I fought back.

That's pretty melodramatic language to use! 😉

Yet here you are. I might wander over to the CITME and bleat on about how much ‘Free Palestine’ doesn’t affect me personally so what’s the problem.

Which would just about be okay if that third one stayed there. But he's wrong about that third heart. The internet has made it easy to access the desires of that third heart and they are out in the open, everywhere.

Not really, I'm just talking in the same vein as the people on here!