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.

But is right: the effect of testosterone on a female body can't be assumed to be the same as its effect upon a male body. So the overwhelming degree of correspondence between the two could just be a freakish coincidence!

That's true. Research is needed before anything is assumed.

I've a strong sex drive too, and certainly like certain male 'specimens' ( Damiano David....for example) and certain 'styles' of masculinity - but even then I've still never been like my male friends, or gay male friends in the more detached way they approach sex.

Sometimes the maternal urge does not arrive until you've actually given birth, or when you're pregnant. I never grew up wanting children particularly, children came as a result of being with men who wanted children in the context of male/female relationships. I've three grown children and now two grandchildren, and whilst I'm not a particularly 'Mumsy' mother, I'm certainly don't regret having had the experience of motherhood and having children.

Women are all different - the only things they all have in common is the experience of being in a female body and the consequences of that. I actually feel connected to the females of other species too......and certainly when they have young.

Really?? It doesn't strike you as relevant that people, no matter their sex, seem to cry more easily when they have higher levels of oestrogens? ... I'll admit I don't get it, but okay, I respect that.

Sadly @clingfilmed I have to agree with you. Some men are absolute cunts, and/or pigs. Misoginistic, don't think of women as equals at all, and don't think they should be doing anything unless it involves looking after them/waiting on them/servicing their sexual needs, and doing cooking and cleaning.

Some men are deeply resentful of any woman who is successful and independent and is doing considerably better than him and earning more. And they HATE women who don't want children. When a woman had a child/children by a man, the man has a certain amount of control over her, and she can never be rid of him, because they share that child. No children = no tie to him, and no control over her.

Even the 'good' ones have misogyny running deeply inside them, it coarses through their veins. My DH is one of the (reasonably) good ones most of the time. But he has 'fallen' a few times.. I remember in the 1990s, my DH and I breaking down once after we had been at the beach for the day a couple of years after we got married. (Well, the car wouldn't start,) and he was flapping and groaning. I am not a mechanic, but I have always been interested in cars, and I popped the bonnet. DH said 'don't be daft woman, you will make things worse!'

He called a man over from a landrover nearby and asked him if he could help, and as the man and his son stood there, I 'fixed' the problem quickly. The lead had come off the car battery, and I fixed it, and the car started. The man said 'oooh, you've got yourself a mechanic in the family there mate!' And he laughed and said 'at least one of you knows something about cars!' 😆

DH laughed and said 'awwww, thanks anyway mate.' The man and his son drove off. DH's demeanour instantly changed. His smile disappeared, and he scowled at me. I said 'what?' he said 'thanks for fucking embarrassing me and making me feel 2 inches high! I hope you're fucking proud of yourself!'

I was like I said 'What the hell?! I just got the car started!' He said 'yeah and made me look like an incompetent cunt into the bargain!' 😠

My teen niece (and her friend) had come with us, and my niece said 'Jesus man, she just fixed the problem, it's not her fault that you have a problem with a woman doing what you class as a MAN'S job, and that the man you called over took the piss!' DH hadn't realised that they had heard (as they had been behind a wall a few feet away from the car,) and he went red.

I said 'I hope you're fucking proud of YOURself, with your sexist rant, and screaming at me for NOTHING.' He was like

But yeah tl;dr, DH presents as a man who thinks of women as equals and is generally pleasant to women, (and tbf he is OK the majority of the time!) but deep down, he has misoginism running through him. They all do. Some just hide it better than others.

And most men - even relatively happily married men, with caring wives - who look after them, and are loyal and loving, will still look at porn, look at naked/nearly naked photos of women - (if the man is 45+ it will likely be south east Asian women who are only just 18!) and they will do their best to get attention from other women some days, to try and boost their self esteem. Some men, - if any given woman ignores him - will call her a miserable cow, or ignorant, because she didn't smile, and spend time talking to him.

Many men can't comprehend that women do not OWE them a conversation, a smile, and a reaction. Indeed women owe men NOTHING. And many men don't like this.

.

I'm not going to have children, never wanted to and never will want to (I like this site for its social commentary!) I sometimes feel at odds with how women are 'supposed' to be. That said, it's interesting what you say about the maternal urge coming after birth. My husband is not interested in having children either, so that won't happen for me, but it is interesting all the same.

I haven't cried in three years. I am a woman. A real woman. I thought that this place was against daft trans ideology.

I think a lot of our emotional responses are rooted in hormones ( emotions as opposed to feelings - feelings tend to have a more reflective mental element to them as well). The surge of hormones during pregnancy and certainly after birth is very intense and the connection that is felt towards the newborn is profound. It is almost physical in nature. Indeed quite animalistic.

I haven't cried in three years.

And that's another relevant piece of information I certainly wouldn't reject. I don't know, that's just how I form my opinions: by gathering as many bits of info as I can and looking for patterns. But I understand not everybody does things like me, so I'm sorry if I irritated you in the process.

I thought that this place was against daft trans ideology.

Yes? I don't defend trans ideology. I only shared my experience.

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend you. I'm certainly not saying your experience is invalid in and of itself.

Is that because you haven't felt sadness in three years, or have not been moved to tears by anything in three years?

I don't do big blubbering crying very often at all....more like shedding tears at the sadness or cruelty of the world ( terrible events; child abuse cases and so on); and sometimes as a way to process and release stressful or difficult feelings.

Oh, I didn't feel like you were saying that! And you did make very interesting points I hadn't thought about before, so thanks for that (as I said: always gathering bits of info 😛 )

I've not been moved to tears. I have felt sadness, although not really at world events: I am fairly hardened to those.

A few years of reading MN, and I Iook at men differently too. And worry that things seem to be actually getting worse, not slowly better.

Well I feel it every day. And of course it’s testosterone.. it’s the hormone given to men to ensure the continuation of the species, literally why we are here. It’s so weird when people discount it. It’s so powerful.

I meant that you couldnt blame predatory behaviour on testosterone, not that it wasn't linked to the male sex drive!

I hitch-hiked through France once.....on my own ( when I was about 18). I had previously hitched all over Britain, and most men who picked you up ( 99% of the time it was men) either were fatherly and protective, or else just wanted to show off their imagined driving skills; but as soon as I hit France I was pursued like prey. I had to jump out of wagons and cars at petrol stations, was driven off road, and was literally chased through woodlands on the south coast by what appeared to me to be a wild animal who was supposedly going to offer me some work in his business on the adjacent beach front. I 'escaped'. I then got a job and earned money to pay for a coach back to Britain. What a relief!

So this would suggest that a large part of it is innate rather than driven solely by misogynistic attitudes. There have definitely been studies showing that men become more violent as testosterone increases, even within the normal range. I believe it was found to be linked to fight or flight response in the brain.

I'm a woman and I've only cried a few times as an adult. I haven't cried in decades. I haven't felt like crying in years. I still feel sad about many things. I think not crying is mostly bc of being abused in childhood.

I agree that hormones play a large part. I was a bit weepy after giving birth.

I work in construction. The main reason more people die than when working in an office is because it's a much more dangerous environment. It's amazing how it's often the same types of people that moan about women being victim blamed that are quick to do exactly that to men.

Are you seriously arguing that more men than women die simply because men are stupid/careless? 🤣

Even if somebody dies by forgetting to attach their harness, you have to consider that they wouldn't be working at height in the first place if they were doing an office job. Ergo it's a factor/risk particular to their working environment as much as anything else.

And I don't experience much sexism at work tbf. The environment is far preferable to me over an office one. There was so much more toxicity in the office environments I've worked in previously. Often it was women slagging each other off behind backs and getting the hump over petty dramas.

That's just my experience though but it seems a quite common one from what I've read on here. I hate office politics and would rather just crack on with the job.

Interesting! I know that in cases of physical threat, I've gone from very flighty to a lot more fighty. I now have this rage that rises in me if someone or something tries to physically threaten me, that's quite frankly a bit scary. Luckily, it happens extremely rarely. And it's only with physical violence; verbal violence, for example, still makes me shrink. It's weird.

I agree with this. A pretty rational take.

I sometimes think about driving in a similar way. It's probs the most likely cause of unexpected death for us all (I may be wrong, just guessing) and certainly it is for me as I drive heavy plant daily (up to just shy of 100 tons).

It'd be stupid to underestimate the risks but if I worried about it like some people do about life I'd end up never going to work as no doubt that's an activity that's far likely to result in death than any interaction I'm likely to have with a man.

It's all relative though. There's jobs I'd never contemplate doing which are already performed daily by thousands of people who probs don't worry about it.

Agree with this.

I've no doubt that taking male hormones might induce some changes that are closer to what some men experience, but I also don't believe that a man can take hormones and know 'what it feels like to be a woman'.

it's no good the 'decent' ones standing by passively. If you are a bystander, you are part of the problem.

Said no woke person ever about the Muslim community.

I don't understand why there's this common view (among feminists) that it's only men that are responsible for the actions of complete strangers that share their sex. We don't see this view applied to other groups very much.

Not meaning to engage in whataboutery or try and make this about religion etc, but it baffles me that you have things like the Channel 4 survey where over half of UK Muslims state they believe homosexuality should be illegal and nobody dares to challenge this. But then a small proportion of men are wayward and suddenly it's the fault of every man.

It never occurred to me to think my partner is responsible for what men like Kim Jong/Putin/Wayne Couzens do, or even the bloke down the road who regularly fights with his wife. I don't think my Muslim workmate who comes to the gym with me sometimes is responsible for sorting out Islamic terrorism either.

I don't feel this high level theoretical stuff really works when applied to actual day to day life.

I felt this way when I realised that anything women or girls or even babies do, there’s a fetish for it. That and some things I heard about the dark web.

Men are stomach churning disgusting.