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.

Agreed. So what do you think to our acknowledgement of what you raised and responses to this perceived inconsistency? Quite a few disparate and interesting points were raised. One other that I don't think's been mentioned, but has been mooted on this issue (perhaps it's research-based, but I'm not sure) is also that women choose methods with the person who's likely to discover the body in mind - those which are less viscerally distressing (and, therefore, also proportionately less successful). Lots to think about...

Hm, tried to google some research on all this, but it's honestly rather difficult to read.

One thing that did come up that I found interesting (my bold):

Summary

An often-cited finding in US-driven suicidology is that women have higher rates of suicidal behavior, and lower suicide rates than men. This pattern, however, is not representative of the global suicidality picture. In Asian countries, female and male suicide rates are similar. To stimulate new thinking about female suicidality, we put China at the center of our analysis, and the United States at the periphery, and then discussed the insights generated by this reversal. Insights include that the US-centered canon is caught in the mental illness paradigm; and that it generalizes to women assumptions and evidence that mainly apply to men. For example, China’s data challenge dominant assumptions that marriage offers suicide protection. For many Chinese rural women, suicide is an act of despair and protest against suffocating marriages and communities – not a plea for closer ties (nor an expression of mental illness). China’s evidence, including that women’s suicide-mortality has significantly dropped since urbanization, supports a paradigm-shift in suicidology.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/cambridge-handbook-of-the-international-psychology-of-women/women-and-suicidal-behavior/3EEE4CFC60F6E2B909982B129FEBB57F

Under capitalism, women who lack inherited wealth get to choose one of two options for getting enough money to live on:

1. Marry a man to depend on and hope that he's not one of the abusive ones.

2. Work, regardless of marital status, and have her own money and the independence that comes from that.

I agree. However, most men only have the second option.

I think there is a tendency in these discussions to assume that if a woman chooses not to be a SAHM/'live off a man' that she'll instead have a career. However, I think this is perhaps more a reflection of the fact that most feminists are educated white women who prioritise ambition and sometimes (not always) look down on non-ambitious women/SAHM. But we have to consider the wider picture and include all women, even those whose life philosophies we don't share.

If a woman is already a low earner in a non-career job she has much less to lose in marrying a financially successful man. I always think of the boss I had after first graduating. A multimillionaire who married his father's carer. They ended up divorcing years later and I still see her driving around in her Bentley Continental sometimes when I visit my hometown.

I doubt she would've ended up as comfortable as she is had she stayed a nurse. I also think a low earning male would likely have less chance of ending up in the same situation. Whether or not you would want to be 'a kept woman', some certainly do and benefit from it.

But even those that give up their career aren't always oppressed. Another poster put it quite succinctly in a previous thread titled You're Lucky if You Don't Have to Work. She said "why would I feel oppressed? He earns the money and gives it to me.'

Many good outcomes require an element of risk. Setting up a business. Leaving a steady job for a better paid one. Moving abroad. Admittedly these can maybe be reversed with less personal impact than a woman might experience in suffering a financially abusive relationship, but then the benefits if it works out are huge - having a high QOL without working, a bit like getting a significant inheritance/winning the lottery in some cases.

I sometimes think it's a bit like two siblings sharing a considerable inheritance. One chooses to keep it as financial security and lives frugally for their remaining days. The other lives the high life and chases their dreams. The latter may fall on hard times and regret their decision, telling everybody to ensure that they always keep enough money to be independent. Or he might be more fortunate and have a great life, telling his sibling that they've wasted their chance by worrying about 'what might happen'.

I've only just got in from an 11 hour day onsite (yesterday was 14.5hrs!) so I've not had the chance to read the replies. I wrote the reply I've just posted at about 11am and only just managed to finish it.

My job isn't always like this but when things go wrong it can be brutal - getting in an hour before bed still needing to eat/shower etc. That's likely part of the reason why I sometimes get annoyed when people wang on about male privilege in the workplace etc. Because men also do a lot of the hard, dangerous jobs as well. Like, the only other female I spoke to today was the planner who barely set foot outside of the portakabin and kept moaning about the cold - to us who'd been outside trying to fix a concrete pump for two hours!

But I also appreciate that you have sectors like the care industry which are hard and don't get the decent pay I do in construction. But when some women moan about unequal representation in construction I often really want to see how they'd get on working a day like I did yesterday.

But without having properly read all that stuff about Chinese peasants my gut feeling is still that the sex that dies the most is the primary victim. With both spousal murder and suicide.

Most of the people I know who married into money were men. I don't know him but Tim Kaine is a good example. Funny how men never get that reputation.

I tried to work construction but no one would hire me bc I was a woman. They hired some of my male friends and my brother. I think I would have been good at it. I liked to lift weights, run, and do other physical things. But I ended up at a top uni. I hadn't planned to go to uni but I couldn't find a good job. I had a whole range of classmates, from extremely wealthy to very poor. Very few people married up or down but the few who married up were mostly men.

I don't know any women who were SAHM except when their children were very young. The ones who didn't go to uni had to work to help support their families and the ones who went to uni were too ambitious, partly bc they would be seen as failures if they didn't work in a respectable job. Few of them loved their jobs but no one wanted to be seen as an utter failure or as being one of those women who wasted a space in uni, especially because some would use that as an example of why there should be fewer women at unis. Quite a few also needed to help support their families.

most feminists are educated white women who prioritise ambition and sometimes (not always) look down on non-ambitious women/SAHM. But we have to consider the wider picture and include all women, even those whose life philosophies we don't share.

Woah. Provocative (and reductive) generalisation much?! Would that "most" include the women who built and maintain the structures that are arguably most significant to more deprived women? Like, I don't know... equal pay for factory workers; shelters; rape crisis centres; sex-segregated prisons; single-sex public toilets (for those unable to nip into a nice hotel) etc. I could go on...

If a woman is already a low earner in a non-career job she has much less to lose in marrying a financially successful man. I always think of the boss I had after first graduating. A multimillionaire who married his father's carer. They ended up divorcing years later and I still see her driving around in her Bentley Continental sometimes when I visit my hometown. I doubt she would've ended up as comfortable as she is had she stayed a nurse. I also think a low earning male would likely have less chance of ending up in the same situation. Whether or not you would want to be 'a kept woman', some certainly do and benefit from it. But even those that give up their career aren't always oppressed. Another poster put it quite succinctly in a previous thread titled You're Lucky if You Don't Have to Work. She said "why would I feel oppressed? He earns the money and gives it to me.'

To misquote The Princess Bride, I don't think this anecdote means what you think it does!

• "Low-earner" = a reminder of the disadvantages women face as a class
• "Non-career job" = ditto
• "I also think a low earning male would likely have less chance of ending up in the same situation" = a rather hilariously inverted reminder of how proportionately fewer women are able to earn this kind of money themselves
• "those that give up their career aren't always oppressed" = an ironically helpful reminder of the sacrifice inherent in (your words!) "giving up" a "career"
• "...why would I feel oppressed? He earns the money and gives it to me" = a frightening reminder of the vulnerability of the financially dependent SAHM that seems to forget the wider picture / include all women, most of whom will be working themselves into the ground both providing for and bringing up the kids (without a Bentley in sight)

So...

• Pretty-Woman-fairytale-Bentley-driving divorcée = individual exception, who you seem to be using to represent a trend of some kind without really acknowledging how far removed she is from the average non-ambitious women...

Many good outcomes require an element of risk. Setting up a business. Leaving a steady job for a better paid one. Moving abroad. Admittedly these can maybe be reversed with less personal impact than a woman might experience in suffering a financially abusive relationship, but then the benefits if it works out are huge - having a high QOL without working, a bit like getting a significant inheritance/winning the lottery in some cases.

Another Woah! for the casually dismissive, "admittedly these can maybe be reversed with less personal impact than a woman might experience in suffering a financially abusive relationship..." And just like that, the value of full autonomy and independence for women is discounted.

I sometimes think it's a bit like two siblings sharing a considerable inheritance. One chooses to keep it as financial security and lives frugally for their remaining days. The other lives the high life and chases their dreams. The latter may fall on hard times and regret their decision, telling everybody to ensure that they always keep enough money to be independent. Or he might be more fortunate and have a great life, telling his sibling that they've wasted their chance by worrying about 'what might happen'.

I'll be honest, I didn't entirely follow this last analogy, (I think because I felt the argument had broken down so much earlier in the post?)

all that stuff about Chinese peasants

Nice. That's kind of what I mean about engaging with other POVs. You're very clear on your own opinions, and I'm enjoying (like you, always up for a debate!) posts that are longer and far more thoughtful than the usual... but they're feeling more and more like exactly what you accused me of earlier: that you've got your opinions and supporting facts and stats all worked out, and find it far easier to wax lyrical on this safer ground than fully engage with the counter-arguments.

Regardless, your job sounds tough by any standard. Hope you got to relax this evening.

Did you do an apprenticeship? That's the usual way into construction, unless you do something like an engineering degree. Often they'll fall over themselves to take on women as so few apply.

I initially worked as a HGV driver for a subcontractor that had contracts with companies like CEMEX/Aggregate Industries/Heidelberg/Tarmac/etc. It wasn't meant to be a long term thing. I just fancied it as I love driving pickups and it was an easy way to get on £40k with just a few weeks training and £2k outlay - to give myself some stability while I decided what trade I wanted to pursue (had just sacked off my graduate job as it was excruciatingly boring).

Then ended up getting a job directly with another division of Tarmac and just kept asking for training in my development plan meetings. Have done loads of heavy plant tickets now including loading shovels, tracked dumpers, 97 ton articulated dumpers, and sometimes tippers too. Also stuff like being a site first aider and countless other training courses which the big contractors make us do (Safe Urban Driving, eco stuff, etc). Can also do some plant maintenance stuff and am learning to batch concrete which can be quite technical with all the different properties/applications.

You can't usually walk into a decent job in civil construction without some manner of inroad IME.

Going back to the 'marrying into money' thing, I don't think we're talking about the same thing. I don't mean inheriting wealth. I mean marrying somebody who goes on to be successful to the point you don't need to keep working. My sister had a senior defence job in a specialist area (only female in her entire building and managing 40 men) but her husband is now the MD of a big food company so she just contracts 2-3 days a week and has loads of free time.

I'll post some quotes from the thread I was talking about to give an idea what I mean.

@GaIadriel

I tried to get an apprenticeship. The reason I mentioned my male friends and brother was to show that it was possible for people like me as long as they were male. I agree that one usually needs to know someone or have some other connection.

So, these are the types of women I'm talking about - pinched these quotes from another thread BTW, can't take the credit for compiling them myself.

I feel they present a side we don't often see discussed. I think many feminists would probs look down on these women for 'living off a man', yet reading these quotes I struggle tbh in seeing them as victims who sacrificed their careers so their men could enjoy a privileged life of working. Their lives sound extremely privileged.

My sil is 44, rich and has NEVER had a job, lucky her! She has no trouble filling her day and has a great life.

Dp earns the money then gives it to me. Why would I feel oppressed?

I haven't worked in 8 years and bloody love it! I got to go shopping without ds today and have a long lunch with a friend. Going to the gym now.

My friend is married to the son of a billionaire and sometimes I have to block her on social media because her life is one long holiday.

I dont work, I was able to be a sahm with my sons, both in 30s now. I lunch, dressmake, walk my dogs for miles, spend time with friends and family etc....
I also volunteer for a small homeless charity, something I am so passionate about, being literally close to home.
I feel totally fulfilled!

My DSis married a very high earner and has never worked a day in her life.

My DH works 80 hours a week for a signficant amount of money, which allows me to be a SAHM and indulge myself, allow me to do all of my volunteering and my hobbies.

I work just a few hours a week in a job I love doing, I don’t have to work for financial reasons. I’ve accidentally ended up with a really high earning DH. I enjoy having lots of time to myself, I have hobbies, an amazing spa membership and an extremely fortunate to have some really good friends whom I’m able to see nearly every week.

My SIL is lucky enough to not have to work due to DB’s income. She has nice things, goes out for lots of lunches.

I'm a SAHM who has teenage children and is fortunate to be married to a high earner so I haven't needed to work since having kids. We do have a lifestyle that most people would find impressive.

I choose not to work. DH works really long shifts and odd hours so can be out of the house either days or nights, with each week being different. When the kids are grown I'll go and get some post-sahm work. Maybe in a shop, factory, cafe or something similar.

The funniest post was Monday morning when she started by posting “it’s going to be a long week, hoping the nanny isn’t late” followed by “anyone know a place I can get nails done, not happy with the place I’ve been going as I think they overcharge and wanting a day to pamper myself a bit.”

I feel lucky that I don't need to work. I am not getting any benefits because dh earns enough.

I'm lucky in that I didn't have to carry on working.

I am lucky enough not to work and stay at home with my son, as DH is a high earner. I feel extremely grateful for this every day, and try very hard not to take it for granted.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/amibeing_unreasonable/3764425-To-think-you-are-very-lucky-if-you-dont-have-to-work

@Galadriel,

I'm sure women like that exist, though among my friends only a few men have been lucky enough to not work. (No women unless you count people like me, men and women, who are totally disabled and get disability benefits. None of us have a luxurious lifestyle.) One of my male friends nominally cared for the young children, though he spent most of his time on the computer. Never did the housework, though he did fix the car occasionally. The others just played video games. But their wives (my friends) weren't wealthy.

I'm not sure what that proves. Did anyone say these particular women were victims? I don't think anyone disputes that staying at home works well for some women.

''I think many feminists would probs look down on these women for 'living off a man'''

I think you are imagining what feminists think instead of actually engaging with feminists and finding out what they think.

Just searching the first of those quotes and it's five years old.

Who the fuck trawls through years upon years of threads in order to find quotes that denigrate women?

It's all the tedious Stacey and Chad tropes.

And the latest one is women have got it so good, because they live off men.

And each of those women is doing great until "D"H hits her, and then she's trying to exit a marriage in which she has no unmonitored source of money to fund her escape.

Which, statistically, is one woman in seven of those on that thread.

I don't fancy those odds, especially with the whole autism=vulnerable thing going on.

I also feel a definite aversion, to the point of horror, at the idea of being someone's pet. If you are a kept married woman without kids, that's kind of what you are, and I struggle to understand why other women would be OK with that. It's not dignified to be a human pet. It's not a full time salary's worth of work to clean and tidy a house, cook, launder, etc. A man without kids who didn't work would be called "cocklodger". For clarity, I'm not talking about SAHM who are raising children, nor disabled women who can't work, nor the wives of tradies who on paper "don't work" but in practice are answering the phone to book the jobs in and sending the invoices out.

I think many feminists would probs look down on these women for 'living off a man'

"Look down on" is the wrong term. "Be utterly puzzled by" and "be thinking 'you're taking a big risk"" is more accurate. Even my horror at the "human pet" aspect is not contempt but the "why would you do that?" type of utter bafflement. Some people abuse their animal pets. You take a risk if you choose to be a human pet.

"Contempt" describes how I feel about rapists and most politicians.

What kind of words? And do you think that is OK?

A brief search shows that that list has been doing the rounds on Mumsnet for years. Amazing how that poster happened to chance upon it.

So where are all the posts by men opining about how great it is that they get to spend all day playing the xbox and going to the gym/pub while their wife works 80 hours a week?

A brief search shows that that list has been doing the rounds on Mumsnet for years.

Same with the Rules of Misogyny. People quote them like the old testament.

And each of those women is doing great until "D"H hits her, and then she's trying to exit a marriage in which she has no unmonitored source of money to fund her escape.

Yup. Living a life of leisure funded by somebody else's hard work relies on that benefactor being happy to continue doing so. A man that works 80 hours as in some of these examples is essentially working the hours of two people so his wife can 'pursue her hobbies' and enjoy her spa membership/go for lunches.

It's usually ladies that lunch. Not lads that lunch!

Not my point. My point is that your jealousy of women is pathetic.

So despite this list being around for years, you have no actual examples of feminists "look[ing] down on these women for 'living off a man'". It's a completely contrived complaint.

What's the point of making stuff up so you can complain about it?

Unlikely to be on MN! But certainly in AIBU you can find a depressing number of such threads from the wife's perspective.

Do you know, I just looked on Trending a second after posting that in the knowledge that there was a fairly good chance there'd be one there... and there was. I won't quote or name it out of respect for the poster (and should acknowledge it looks to be a more complex situation than some - DH seems to be struggling a bit) but I do think the high likelihood of one or more coming up daily is potentially telling.

BTW, important disclaimer as the debate continues...:

I emphatically don't agree with misandry and am playing devil's advocate in these discussions to some degree; I could equally post at length about the difficulties men face. But, to extend the advocate metaphor, I'm posting as I am because I really don't think that women get remotely fair "representation" in these debates, nor have we for millennia. And right now, sexism, misogyny and MRA-thinking is becoming frighteningly prevalent. For women, countering such attitudes can be, quite literally, a matter of life and death.

I actually agree and sympathise with many of the issues for men that Gad's highlighting, and have made a point of repeatedly saying so (despite Gad's claims to the contrary) - but, as I said in an earlier post, I don't agree with what seems to be the attitude behind them.

And, ultimately, I do think women have it infinitely tougher overall, and I honestly find it hard to see how anyone could think otherwise in the light of stats re. eg. relative physical strength, rape & violent crime, and, well, the dark cloud of the entirety of global human history under which we still live, really! I certainly think that the kind of stoical resistance we often see here to showing the slightest bit of empathy for that is a certain sign of ignorance, privilege, extreme good fortune or something rather darker.

Ad hominem attacks and resistance to fact checking/debate doesn't speak well to a poster's integrity tbh.

It's not an ad hominem attack, it's a description of your posts.

And not just on this thread. Your anti women bias is profound