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.

So "Why 'fight for' anything at all?" was your way of showing support for those of us fighting for equality, dignity (or, e.g., safety)? Seems like a way to say we were doing it wrong and should just get on with our lives. At the very least, it's asking us to justify our choices, presumably bc you think your way is better.

Citations needed, or you risk creating the impression that you're misrepresenting/misunderstanding us by yourself hyperbolising where we're rationalising...

No, it's not the same. Having more testosterone is innate. It can't be helped. Whilst doing all the childcare is sometimes a result of facilitating/enabling a lazy bastard who thinks he doesn't have to do anything to help because he was at work today.

A neater encapsulation of my points above you could not find. I wondered if I was stretching things a bit, but then, an hour or so later, read the same in real time above. The paradoxical layering of double standards where sex and gender is concerned is really something to behold.

So those responsible for lazy bastards not 'helping' care for their own children are the women who 'facilitate/enable' them?
Does having more testosterone cause laziness as well as violence?

Truly, whatever the situation, whatever, the facts, whatever the context, a woman's place is in the wrong...

'I would idealise boys and think they were so amazing.'

That's a very odd view to have. You have either been living under a rock since birth or had no education about some men being dangerous in your childhood or teen years!

I suspect this unlikely and therefore conclude that this is just boring and usual man-bashing.

All the men I know are wonderful. You do not need to have anything to do with bad or dangerous men.

You can tell the ones who are bad and dangerous? Do they have a badge or a flashing sign? Wowzers, women everywhere would love to have such a gift. Would save a lot of hassle. Lucky you.

FlowerFairyDaisy
You do not need to have anything to do with bad or dangerous men.

That would be lovely, FlowerFairyDaisy
I, and millions of women worldwide, wish fervently it were true.

Unfortunately, women can't unilaterally decide not 'to have anything to do with bad or dangerous men.'
They have the habit of seeking us out to do harm to us, and they do so on a massive scale, worldwide.
We don't have to do anything, they find us, in our homes or in our villages or in our streets or anywhere, really.
'Go away, I don't want to have anything to do with you, you bad or dangerous man!' doesn't work.

It would be a very different and much better world if that wasn't the case, but sadly the facts aren't on your side, FlowerFairyDaisy.

I'm not sure that's the case. It seems like when women are violent people rush to find reasons in a manner they don't with men. This is echoed in the courts where women receive more lenient sentences for the same crimes.

I'm not saying the points about women being the primary caregiver aren't valid. It's just that nobody rushes to excuse men in the same way. There's a lot of confirmation bias.

Like, if somebody mentions that a lot of studies show women perpetrating more DV somebody will always point out that it's women that die the most. However, if somebody mentions the male suicide rate you'll always see a comment about how women attempt it more often. So the logic isn't applied equally. With DV it's about who dies the most, but suicide it's about who attempts the most. Basically whichever one shows women as the victim.

Most of them really don't.

The difficulty is telling which ones do and which ones don't.

Nobody would have thought that our local pillar of the community/happily married father of four was also grooming and sexually abusing every girl in the neighbourhood he could lay his hands on.

He didn't have 'bad and dangerous' written on his forehead, but he was.

How do you know every nurse isn't a Lucy Letby?

I feel there is the tiniest hope.
Situation at work recently, incessantly creepy middle aged senior member of staff repeatedly predating on female students on placement (and new young female members of staff). Well known to management and staff. Reported, suspended, investigated, then dismissed. He was reported by a female member of staff the student confided in not by the students official (male) mentor who she had also confided in. Her mentor got absolutely hauled over the coals and interrogated for why he wasn't the one who reported it. He is definitely one of the good guys, I've been friends with him for years, and love working with him, but he just couldn't 'see' it for the level of coercion it was and the risk that comes with that to someone so vulnerable.

Now we just need the message to get out there that it is not just enough not to be a pervert but they need to see it, call it or and report it. But currently the message is still hidden behind confidentiality clauses and hushed conversations.

He's had his whole life from puberty onwards to get used to all that testosterone. By contrast, she's having to react to his poor behaviour that he probably concealed until she was well-trapped, otherwise she wouldn't have stayed, so she's had far less time to get used to it.

Also, that thing where men call women "nags"? Yeah, that's what happens when she tries not to enable him. See also: "weaponised incompetence" and "learned helplessness".

Also also, that thing where women are blamed for choosing the wrong man but he's not blamed for being the wrong man? Yeah, that. See also: First Rule of Misogyny: women are responsible for what men do.

The clue is that children aren't dying left and right in hospitals.

If you meant "How do you know any given nurse isn't a Lucy Letby?", we don't. We do know that female medical staff actively abusing patients is vanishingly rare, and, given what I know about the rate of male offending versus female offending, I'd rather trust a woman with a child or with myself.

Enough do for it to be a problem for women.

If you interpret suicide attempts, regardless of distress, as a sign of someone mentally hitting rock bottom, then it's fair to say that women are hitting rock bottom at a higher rate than men.

Success rates are more about choice of method than level of motive.

I get what you are saying.

My husband is a “good man”. He is. He’s a great dad, would do anything for his kids, he’s good at his job and works hard. He adores his grandmother and phones and takes her out regularly (very elderly). He’s polite, he helps anyone who needs it.

But he watches porn. He has watched and paid for cam girls. He looks up local mums/ teachers / babysitters on Facebook and screenshots photos of them, probably to send to his friends.

None of this is excessive. It’s not constant. And it had absolutely no impact on me for a long time….because I didn’t know about it.

I found out about it by chance when I started using an old mobile of his that he gave me.

And the thing that was most shocking to me was the Jekyll and Hyde nature of it all.

He portrays himself as somebody who just wouldn’t do these types of things.

And I find that very hard to get to grips with. Just that very base side to him that he knows he has to hide and hides it so well.

It’s grubby and just so….different to my experience as a woman.

And that’s what a “decent man” is doing. Other men will be doing far worse.

(and for all those saying “he’s not decent if he’s doing all that! My husband would never do that!”….thats what I thought until I was confronted with it.)

selffellatingouroborosofhate has already answered this.

I don't think every nurse is a Lucy Letby because I am a rational person who bases my opinions and decisions on facts, and I know that it is a fact that very few nurses harm their patients.

I also know the facts about men harming women and children, and also use those for the basis of my opinions and decisions.

Different facts, different conclusions, different opinions, different decisions.

Exactly. I don't see the anomaly Gad does. It's a logically consistent focus - on the party that's suffering most.

And to big Yes! to Self's and Marie's responses to the rather strange nurses question.

Still interested in if Gahr has any examples of melodrama besides, well... their own....

In the UK, most of them watch porn.

https://www.menshealth.com/uk/mental-strength/a69687605/porn-addiction-crisis/

Do you think they care if those women (or men) are trafficked or coerced in some way? I was trafficked as a child. It still occasionally haunts me that there are probably photographs of me performing sex acts when I was young. (For those of you who seem to think women think too much about this, I don't spend much time worrying about it but it does cross my mind when I read about child sexual abuse material.)

I don't think most men are rapists but I don't think most would report their friend if he, e.g., recounted coercing someone into having sex or even if he saw his friend put something in a date's drink. I think he'd probably do something to warn the woman but I doubt he would do everything reasonably possible to make sure his rapist friend was locked up.

Most may not be rapists but they support rape culture.

But the point isn't that it's vanishingly rare. Femicide is also vanishingly rare per capita. The question is how can you tell which are the good and the bad nurses?

If you knew that a particular type of food had a small but very real chance of killing you, you'd probably avoid it. So why would you let a random nurse anywhere near your baby? Why would you allow your child to be in the presence of their schoolfriend's mother unless you knew her very well. Same for babysitters, nursery staff, etc.

It'd probably be prudent to try and wfh or only part time to minimise your child's exposure to other women given that they perpetrate the majority of neglect and physical violence against children. Surely no mother would put her work above her child's safety.

What about ethnic minorities that commit significantly more crime than other demographics? Should we avoid them too?

Success rates are more about choice of method than level of motive.

Any sources to back that up? Because I'd imagine that somebody who jumps off a 20 storey building is more 'motivated' to die than somebody who takes six aspirin. I'm just reading some info from a suicide charity and it says "Women are twice as likely as men to attempt suicide, with many acts serving as a desperate "cry for help" rather than a guaranteed fatal action."

It's likely that at least some of those 'attempts' will be close to what you might call coercive control - like my friend's abusive ex who always threatened to kill herself if he tried to leave. She's apparently now making the same threats to her new partner. You couldn't really argue that blowing your head off with a shotgun is an attempt at manipulation, though.

Sorry if that sounds harsh but IME it's true. I have another workmate whose daughter has apparently tried to commit suicide seven times. I struggle to believe she earnestly failed that many times, even if she no doubt has some serious issues.

The Priory group state that work pressures (32%) and financial pressures (31%) are the two biggest issues negatively affecting men's mental health and that they "have a tendency to view themselves as a failure if they aren't able to provide for their families". Doesn't sound like they see going to work as the great privilege feminists make it out to be!