Statistics don’t make us safe, Lisa Hickey says. Self-empowerment and facing our fears do.
My daughter is having trouble with her asthma, and I have to get her to the doctor’s. She comes out of school, gets in the car, is dismayed because she forgot her textbook and wants to study in the doctor’s office. Her breathing is already labored.
So I’m elected to run into the school and get the book. “Third floor, Mom. Upstairs, take a left, then right, all the way at the end. Hurry, please.” I dash in the door while someone is coming out; school is about to get dismissed. Run past the admin offices: a meeting is just starting. I hear someone say, “Who’s that?” They glance out, decide I’m not a threat, smile and close the door. I don’t know anyone at this school, haven’t been to the requisite PTA meeting yet. I run to the stairwell and dash up the stairs, where a custodian, mopping, shouts, “Careful! Don’t run!” I run, anyway. At the top of the stairs I forget what Shannon said, “Left then right? “Right then left?” I text her to ask, and as I’m fumbling with my phone a couple of teachers pass by and say “you look confused, can we help you?” Her text beeps in, I say to the teachers, “I’m good” and proceed to her locker.
None of this would make for a particularly compelling story, were it not for one thing. Earlier that day, I had gotten a phone call, a recorded announcement from the principal of the school. “I would like to inform all parents,” said the voice, seriously. “That today at 11:30 am we had an incident. An unknown male was seen entering the building. He could not be identified, and so, as a precaution, we put the entire school in a lockdown while we sought out his intentions.”
You put the entire school in a lockdown?
If anyone’s actions needed to be questioned, surely it was mine—I was not only unknown, but running through the halls, acting confused, receiving directions through outside texts. And yet not only were my intentions not questioned, but nobody even asked who I was.
We get ourselves in a tizzy over “racial profiling,” but surely this is “gender profiling?” An unknown male enters a school. An unknown female enters and the entire school system protocol changes. I was allowed to roam free because I was a woman.
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I cannot remember a time when my actions have been treated with suspicion. I can remember a host of times when I have been suspicious, myself. Mostly, of men. And it has so permeated our society; I’ve been socialized for so long to accept this as normal that I haven’t even noticed.
When I look back on my life on how perception equals reality, I have to say this: both men and women have harmed me in equal measure. If I think about the sum total of lies, stealing, physical abuse, sexual abuse—it’s been about equal. Sexual abuse more male, stealing, more female. But overall, “things that have caused me harm” have been about the same when looked at through the lens of gender.
Here’s where you could trot out the statistics—but please don’t. Yes, I live my life based on certain statistics—I use sunblock, eat fruits and vegetables, and wear a bike helmet. Understanding how to act based on statistical data in all those cases has consequences for the quality of my life. The numbers are used to scare me, it works, and I take action. I slather on SPF 45, grab an apple, and put the helmet on.
Few of those things designed to cause fear invoked the persistent sense of panic throughout my life the way that being afraid of men had on my psyche. And what I needed to do was to find a way to deal with that fear, not not argue over the statistical validity of whether those fears were valid.
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I remember, after a spate of serial killings—the ones where a man often killed his victims after he stopped to fix their cars—my sister called me up in a panic. She wanted me to make sure I heeded the warning she saw on the news. Women who break down on the side of the road should not even stay in their cars; they were advised to run into the woods and hide until they saw the flashing blue lights of a police car.
And this, to me, sums up exactly what is wrong with the way we are socialized. Instead of teaching women to fear men, we should be teaching women to fix their cars.
There’s a lot less worry about a car breaking down on a deserted street somewhere if it’s maintained and you can change a flat tire in less than 10 minutes. I have done so while eight months pregnant.
The best way to overcome fear is to gain competence.
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As a woman, I’ve seen “The Presumption of Male Guilt” get played out in the workplace all the time. Sure, sexism still exists. There’s individual sexism and there’s institutional sexism (which sometimes gets called “Teh Patriarchy”). I don’t deny its existence. But I often think that as women, we’re taught so much to look out for sexism that that’s all we see.
And so, as women, we’re afraid. We’re often afraid to ask for the salary we want, look for innovative ways to both be parents and to lead companies, and we’re afraid to gain the skills we really need to get ahead.
But the wrong approach, in my opinion, is to presume men are guilty because they are men. A better strategy is to gain the competence you need to succeed. Not all men make it to the top slots either. The ones who have are usually there because they figured out what needed to be done and did it.
Eric M.. a frequent commenter here at Good Men Project, had a commented on the statistic about the fact that 87% of Congress is male. His comment was, “In many races, NO women run. So, what are voters supposed to do? Elect no one, or choose from the men who bother to run? Is the feminist movement not aware that women would represent 50% of the electorate if they were 50% of candidates? Since women are the majority of the voters, shouldn’t the feminist movement be chastising them for not running (or at least encouraging them to run way more), rather than using the fact that they don’t run as justification for demonizing us regular guys who have nothing to do with political decisions?”
We can presume men are guilty for holding public office, or we can choose, as an individual, to do something about it.
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Look, I’m a CEO of a VC-backed national consumer company—the kind of position said to be held by only around eight percent of women.
Has it been easy? No. Have I made tons of mistakes? Sure. Have I stopped at one of those mistakes and said, “Oh, it’s too hard, it must be that damn patriarchy again.” No. I’ve figured it out and kept going. It’s hard because it’s hard.
I’ve read that most CEOs of large companies—male or female—are there because they kept going long after most people would have given up. That, I believe.
So here’s a suggestion, similar to Eric’s. If you are a woman who is about to trot out the statistic on women CEOs or women as board members or women who raised funding again—if you are about to presume men to be guilty of preventing you from getting there—email me and ask me how I did it. Anyone who knows me knows I will gladly tell you all I know to help you succeed. I’ll tell you every mistake I’ve made (it will take a while, I’ve made a ton.) Here is my email: lisa@goodmenproject.com I don’t care what gender you are, I’ll tell you what I know about how to negotiate, what you need for a business plan, how to raise VC money—all the things that make it hard. Learning those things is the business equivalent of learning to maintain and fix a car. You learn to navigate the corporate structure without fear, and you succeed by gaining competence. And then it’s up to you to go out and do it. As Ghandi so famously said, “be the change you want to see in the world.” That’s what he meant.
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I consider myself an “equalist.” I am just as concerned, if not more concerned, with racism, ageism, classism as I am with sexism. The “isms” are the marginalization of people we don’t feel comfortable with. And marginalization is the presumption that someone is somehow inferior for something they can’t change. Their gender, their age, the economic level in which they were born.
A while ago, I came across an interesting statement when I was doing research for our series On The Environment. “Ecofeminism is seen as the connection of the environmental movement and the feminism movement. It is one of the only movements that combines multiple social movements.“ The thing that is interesting to me has nothing to do with “ecofeminism”. What’s interesting to me is this idea of “combining multiple social movements”—and how rare that is.
Yet—that is what we are doing here at The Good Men Project. We are about “men’s issues”—first and foremost, absolutely. But men’s issues are men’s issues, in part because society has been structured around a patriarchy, and the patriarchy is changing.
And, in some very fundamental way, we are creating multiple social movements around a variety of important issues—as they relate to men:
- Race
- Gender
- Sex/Porn/Sex Trade/ Sexual Abuse
- Sexism
- Ageism / Women and Beauty
- Education
- Homosexuality
- The New Dad
- Marriage, Divorce
- Prison Reform
- Class/Poverty/Homelessness/Unemployment
The thing that these all have in common (besides men)—is that they are all about one thing: They are problems because they are based on the fact that we marginalize people we are uncomfortable with. “Social movements” eliminate that marginalization by bringing people together for a common cause. And who better than “The New Male Patriarchy” to take a leadership role in de-marginalizing?
So let’s talk about stuff—related to men, of interest to men. Change what needs to be changed, with all the stuff that is good—actually great—about men, let’s just keep that the way it is.
But “presumption of male guilt”—let’s just eliminate that, shall we?
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photo: Bao Tri Nguyen Phuoc / Flickr
About Lisa Hickey
Fear of men tends to be a very conservative force, not a radical one. Some people blame radical feminism for the fear of men, but if that’s true it’s backfired quite a bit. Seeing men as predatory has helped to reinforce traditional gender roles, not just challenge them.
For example, in the world of childcare and children’s education. A man who sincerely wants to work with kids as a career will often have to face the suspicion that he’s a pedophile, especially if he expresses too much enthusiasm for his job. Not the *wrong* enthusiasm, simply too much enthusiasm. Any suspicion spoken out loud will stick like glue for a very long time. A man in a school is treated as a threat, while a woman is not. This essentially discourages men from becoming more involved in children’s lives, even for the men who want to for good reasons.
The result: childrearing, babysitting, and daycare work is still left largely in the hands of women, and now that segregation is reinforced my fear. Notice how men are therefore blocked from really low-paying jobs that command little respect, instead continuing to fill those jobs mostly with women. That’s hardly progress in gender equality.
“reinforced BY fear.”
Honestly, yes, I would say that if it is the intention of radical feminists to free people from traditional gender roles and biases, they are being counter productive. In fact, I would say that I have observed no other group doing more to promote fear of men on the part of women. I would further submit that of the many, many female social workers I have known, all identified as radical feminists and a significant majority (I can think of only 6 exceptions) expressed a fear of men which they considered to be justified by their radical feminist ideology. These expressions of fear were inevitably believed (and with good reason, I suspect they were genuine) and seen as an adequate excuse for any ill treatment or dereliction of duty towards males under their care (this part is less good). I suppose it was good for them the the excuse worked, because this expression of fear showed a very definite correlation with their likelihood of inflicting verbal and physical abuse on myself and other mentally handicapped children. Honestly, I would almost understand it (not condone, but understand) if they were reacting this way to teenagers or fully grown men who might lash out at others due to their conditions, but their is absolutely no excuse for fully grown women to regard prepubescent boys, who are far smaller and weaker than they are, in this manner. When it came to dealing with us as we reached adulthood toward the end of high school, they started needing less and less provocation. I’ve been attacked several times simply for entering a room I was required to be in at that time every week. There were good social workers, of course (including the 3 male social workers I met, but I partially attribute this to hiring discrimination leading to them needing to have more training and higher qualifications to get the job), but they were prevented from helping by a school system that finds marginalizing and punishing the mentally handicapped and atypical far easier than dealing with the prejudice of its employees. The tragic thing is that these people really wanted to help, and in many cases believed that they were, but were so thoroughly twisted by the messages of corrupt academics who make a living engendering and exploiting fear that they had become incapable of the necessary genuineness.
I do not want to draw any universal conclusions from this experience, but I do want to express my personal perspective on what ideologies, even those with the best of intentions, can do to people. I do believe that there is real value in feminism, but I also believe that it has some very serious problems with bias (I have yet to read a single paper on literature or film by any major feminist critic that does not grind to a screeching halt at least once to spend a paragraph on something sexist, hurtful, entirely unsubstantiated and often totally irrelevant to the topic at hand) and poor academic practice (lack of innovation, cheap rhetoric, poor research and unprofessional conduct run rampant) that are enabled by the protected status its name conveys in most academic and political forums. I cannot in good conscience call myself a feminist until they do some serious housekeeping, but I do not wish to belittle or express hatred for those who do, recognizing that they are not a homogeneous entity.
Very perceptive, wellokaythen & HidingFromDinosaurs – through being suspicious of men who work with kids, writing divorce laws that are blantantly biased against men, and other things like this, our society is ingraining into the male subconscious the lie that “caring for children” is a feminine trait – and then we’re surprised at the large number of absentee fathers when they grow up so immersed in the idea that being male makes them have less of a stake in the lives of children that they don’t even realize they believe in it.
I find that men are feared based on roles, but these traditional notions of gender also seep into feminism. men are often feared as being abusive or potential rapists on campus. there are a lot of government funding put towards fear. the fear of men is systemic and is not tied to a feminist or conservative ideology.
I really like this article. It was just the sexual abuse/stealing as equally traumatic that made my eyes bulge. Sexual abuse is so much more damaging than theft of material items. Sexual abuse is torture and its victims (real victims) are often suicidal for a long time afterwards. I just don’t see how you can align that to theft in any way, shape or form. If you are just talking about encounters that you wished hadn’t happened but that didn’t mentally destroy you and change your sexual nature forever, then I’d say abuse is a dangerous word to use.
Thanks for commenting Catrianna. I did not mean it as a direct comparison that sexual abuse was as traumatic as stealing. Not by a long shot, and I’m sorry if it came across that way. My point was more that overall, there are people that can do you harm, and worrying about that harm based on gender is not something that has helped me as a person.
I’d like to know what is meant with sexual abuse. Feminist have used sexual abuse for: “He looked at my breasts before he looked in my eyes” or even rape.
So yeah, I’d say theft is worse than a guy, who looks at your boobs, but obviously “better” than being raped. I don’t like those umbrella terms, because I don’t really know what someone is talking about.
Girlwriteswhat wrote a blog here about how feminists misuse the word rape. Bad sex is no rape, and it isn’t sexual abuse, it’s an accident, one the guy actually might feel bad for.
About this blog: I really liked what you wrote and I’ve got to agree with most of it. It’s good to see that women actually see the problems that men face in this fear culture. A minority of people are pedophiles – and those are as many men as women – but all men are suspicious around children. That really really sucks. Honest statistics might help, but those would damage political campaigns against “male” rape, the “Patriachy” and for women priveledges.
It’s always good to see that not all women are that egoistic as radical feminists represent them. Blogs like this one really help against mysoginy, since they clearly show not all women are “that” way.
Ms Hickey, thank you for writing this thoughful blog.
Holy shit! This is a million stars!
Great article. Love the attitude and will carry it with me today
Um…yeah, I used to be all equalist. And then I got married, and had a child, and things went wrong. I’ve been on my own ever since.
Here’s what I’ve learned in that time:
If you are a mother and you need help, the people who have your back will be, almost exclusively, other women. A man offering to help you almost certainly wants to get into your pants.
Men do not want to be equalists. Men want you to take care of them while admiring them, and men want you to need them. If you show up wanting to be with men, but not needing them, and being absolutely disinclined to take care of them, they will take this very, very poorly, and claim you’re emasculating them. Go ahead and gain competence. You’ll simultaneously gain male enemies who fight dirty.
Most men still have trouble with the idea that we’re really people.
Men will turn incredibly vicious, brutal, and nasty if you:
- call them on their shit;
- are publicly better than they are at…er, anything they want credit for;
- threaten to upstage them at work.
Personally, I just don’t bother anymore (which by itself makes me subject to attacks from men for…not wanting them. Yep, Harry, calling me a stone-cold bitch makes me turn around and want you with all my heart.) I used to brainwash myself about how great my boyfriends and husband were, but when I look back at what went on, I can’t believe what I put up with. I wouldn’t do it now. But I think women are right to fear men. I am trying to think of what good things men have brought to my life in the last decade, and all that comes to mind is my kid. So sperm, sperm was helpful. Otherwise…um. No, they’ve been rather a disaster. Many women, on the other hand, have been champs. And so were women I don’t even know, the ones who passed the laws that protect me and my child. I understand now what sisterhood is about.
When wars and gangs and domestic violence and deadbeat dads are a rarity, when I don’t hear regularly from older women whose male bosses backstab them because they figure Mom’s a soft target, call me again, and we’ll talk about how great men are. You, Lisa, are finding this “we’ll be equal and awesome!” thing tenable because you’re still cute and still willing to play the sexual politics. If you want an example of what happens when you’ve got the chops but refuse to play the sexual politics, I suggest your read about Rosalind Franklin. Because that, essentially, was her mistake. There is a large, large blogging world of women in science today, too, who find exactly the same thing. Try FemaleScienceProfessor’s blog.
Here, incidentally, is why I don’t run for office: I’m busy raising a child, and I’m smart enough to know that the child comes first. It’s the same reason why thousands of women don’t run for office. There is no man here holding down the fort and giving that child love and attention and help with homework while I go out and save the world. There is no man here paying the bills, either. The man who used to be here wouldn’t even pay child support if he weren’t forced to.
I did, however, used to work in Congress. And I used to report on state and local government. I know about how seriously the money guys take women, and what happens if they don’t take a woman seriously, in terms of funding. So please, Lisa: Don’t hand me that shit about 50% women candidates. The women who are in are doing their damnedest to pull others up, but they’re working very much against the tide.
This will end well. I’m curious if you realize many arguments you make about men being selfish, well quite a few men could make similar claims in the reverse direction? Is it just the men you were exposed to in your life that were like this or do you believe the same for all or most men? The existence of some bad males doesn’t mean there are no good males, and the same goes for women.
Can you explain further on men not taking women seriously on funding? Recently there has been discussion showing women receive far more U.S Government money for health vs men so I’m not sure what you are referring to?
It is too bad that every single experience you have had with men has been horrible, so much so that all you can do is make sweeping generalizations about how horrible they are. Your comment would normally be deleted by our moderators — we delete comments from men who make such generalizations about women. But Archy asked you a question, and so out of respect for him I will see if you answer.
The men who are a part of this community are very much equalists, as long as you (or any women, or any man for that matter) comes to the table willing to talk as equals. But you do not sound like you would be willing to do that.
@ Lisa: “we delete comments from men who make such generalizations about women.” In point of fact, you do not, please see the long rant about how crazy women are by Valdez over at “Why Women Aren’t Crazy.” It’s really hard to miss.
While I don’t share Sarahj’s bitterness, she is right. This article smacks of a naivete and sexual politics. Women in other countries where I’ve lived do not live in the same kind of fear, not because the presumption of male guilt is less or because they are more competent, but because they have less to fear. Please, let us acknowledge that a) the U.S. has a disproportionately high levels of violence; b) most of that violence is perpetrated by men, and, please, none of this the feminists are at fault b.s., this was true long before feminism; c) some of this violence is committed by men against women, specifically because they are women. Women are exponentially more likely to be sexually assaulted than men (what is it? 1:4 compared to 1:33) and murdered by their partners; d) Straight white men enjoy, as John Scalzi has so wittily pointed out, the Real World’s lowest difficult setting (http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/15/straight-white-male-the-lowest-difficulty-setting-there-is/ ).
If you can’t do that, if you can’t acknowledge that many of the problems and issues that men currently face were created, in large, part by other men, not by women, not by some mysterious not-male social forces, then this is all nothing but self-congratulatory hot air.
@Miss: Can you provide a link please? Our moderation staff is composed of volunteers and often isn’t large enough to review every comment posted.
But to address your argument: I’m not sure if you understand the meaning of exponential, but studies which have begun to examine the incidence of male sexual assault are increasingly finding that this isn’t true at all.
The “difficulty setting” thing is a gross and insulting oversimplification. While I fully acknowlege that white privilege exists (dependant on wealth) gendered privilege is much more complex. There are many areas where you, as a woman, have significantly better outcomes to any man.
Just like women’s rights issues this situation wasn’t created by men or women it evolved along with the rest of our cultural norms. But even if it had been created by one gender it’s irrelevant, the issues still need to be addressed.
I’m unsure as to how this is self congratulatory given that the author is speaking about her own privilege.
“Women are exponentially more likely to be sexually assaulted than men (what is it? 1:4 compared to 1:33) and murdered by their partners;”
Please read the following links, you’re obviously misinformed on the rate of sexual abuse towards men. Lifetime estimate for men sexually assaulted is at worst estimate 1 in 21 for forced to penetrate alone, 1 in 71 for forcibly penetrated, 1 in 6 boys have been sexually abused, and in the last 12 months pretty much equal level of men and women were forcibly penetrated and/or forced to penetrate someone else/raped. Statistics however show a clear bias in hiding the true number of male victims, even the CDC does that by not including forced to penetrate as rape. So please, don’t be your name-sake.
ht tp://1in6.org/
http://www.cdc.gov/ViolencePrevention/NISVS/index.html
“Women in other countries where I’ve lived do not live in the same kind of fear, not because the presumption of male guilt is less or because they are more competent, but because they have less to fear.”
Oh I do so love how people can flip flop so easily to promote whatever agenda they are pushing at the moment. We are often told how women in other countries still have it so bad, being beaten and stoned for the meagerest of actions. But as soon as it comes time to justify women’s fear in western society, all those women suddenly have it good in comparison. It appears victim Olympics are played even within the same gender when it suits your purpose.
Here’s another woman’s experience with men:
I have been punched in the face and stalked by my former boyfiend and I have been intimidated and sexually harrassed by my former landlord. I also have been helped out by several male teachers and have some great male fiends. As for the women in my life: three of my close fiends have been raped and beaten by men multiple times and recently (over a few years) they all told me, all women in my life have been good fiends two of them were annoying neighbors, one used to be a close fiend but it turned out she was manipulative.
You may make up your own minds about this now.
Luckily we have statistics to know about other people’s experiences without all of them having to share them individually on blogpages.
The above is meant in reply to Mark Neil below. But the page reloaded and somehow it was lost, then reappeared again and not it sems to be not placed correctly.
Oh wait, I forgot all the men who hit on me, hissed at me and tried to get in my pants in bars and in the streets (and once when I was drunk and lied down in a man’s bed to feel better I woke up with him on top of me). No women in my life have ever tried that sort of thing. Oh, and yeah, as a kid a group of neighborhoud boys lured me to a forest where the made me undress. No women did that.
I have had a great female secondary school teacher though.
“It is too bad that every single experience you have had with men has been horrible, so much so that all you can do is make sweeping generalizations about how horrible they are”
I highly doubt that even most of her experiences with men have been horrible. But I do suspect, as you describe in your article (regarding sexism in the workplace), the negative is what she has been trained to look for, and now it’s all she can see.
You made a lot of accusations about me but you don’t even know me. You said I turn “incredibly vicious” if a woman criticizes me or outperforms me and you said that women should fear me because I’m dangerous. You said all I’m good for is sperm…
My first reaction was pain and then anger, but then I realized that I also make sweeping generalizations about women. About how they don’t really want equality and take advantage of the legal system, and about how they demonize men like me in the way this author described, and that’s not fair. Because although some women have done this, that doesn’t mean you did. And I’m sorry for lumping you in that group because now I know what it feels like.
Archy, I’m talking about campaign funding, not household funding. You can’t mount a serious campaign for office without serious funding. There are organizations such as Emily’s List which help, but the problems are described well by the development offices of colleges that have been historically women’s colleges: the women don’t have the big bucks and don’t write the big checks. The parties control the money, and the parties are run by men. You can argue theory with me all you like; I’ve been on the inside and seen it. It’s not nice, it’s not egalitarian, and no, it’s not friendly to women. Hillary has good reason to go around looking all pissed off. Debbie Wasserman, too.
Lisa, in my last decade, men who have come into my life have brought very little but chaos and need. I’m sure most of them would get a big shiny “good guy” sticker from the world, too, but things are different when you’re at home. I remember seeing a story a few years ago in the Times Sunday magazine about a group of professional women, single mothers, who lived in a community of their own, no men, and got along swimmingly, raising the children well and happily. I thought: yep. That’s how. They’d more or less given up on dating, figured it wasn’t worth it. And I wrote to the writer, said, “Man, you’re gonna get it from the guys,” and sure enough, she did. The anxiety over a sense of irrelevancy is tremendous. And the thing is, it’s enormously ego-driven. Who said men are irrelevant? They aren’t. It’s just that women aren’t dependent. But what I see is that an awful lot of men can’t see the difference, and really, the behavior that comes from this is not good, not friendly.
And there, really, is the heart of the problem with this “equal” business. Like I said, I started out all equal, all free-to-be. But I’ve been banged on the head repeatedly, by men, with the reality that they want the women to be dependent. To need them. Wanting them, apparently, is not enough. At which point I’m out, because that’s something else I don’t need.
Election campaigns? ahh. Yeah politics is a big steaming pile…I hate the money link to it all, maybe it’d be better to have a limit set or even a state sponsored campaign setup that candidates can use, and all donations go into a pool instead of to each candidate. But if politics can be cleaned up…I think I’ll buy a lotto ticket
“I remember seeing a story a few years ago in the Times Sunday magazine about a group of professional women, single mothers, who lived in a community of their own, no men, and got along swimmingly, raising the children well and happily. ”
Sounds a little like the “Men going their own way”, who from what I can tell either got sick of dealing with women (women in their life, I guess bad string of luck), or just prefer to go it alone and focus on other stuff. Not sure if they’ve ever made a community though, did they buy up houses in a housing estate to make the community?
May I ask what area you are from? I am wondering if it’s a certain culture there, maybe a very religious town? Where I live the most common family unit is 2 working parents/partners, it’s becoming far less common for 1 to stay at home without a child but there are still stay at home parents of both genders up until about 4-5 usually (when the first major schooling starts). Amongst the men I know in their teens and twenties I don’t think ANY want a woman to be dependant and it probably turns them off, I know that idea turns me off bigtime (except for illness and other unfortunate circumstances). I live in Rural Australia so it could be quite different to U.S.A.
Sometimes people need to look at the “man (or woman) in the mirror.”
For example, when a man or woman always has horrible experiences with the opposite sex, year after year, for years on end, and thus concludes that there is a problem with (essentially) all of members of the opposite sex, it is abudanty clear that the problem is with that one person, not the 3.5 billion members of the opposite sex.
The evidence that the above world-view is out of cadence with reality are the many women and men who (today, as we speak) have wonderful (albeity imperfect) relatonships, are raising their children, coping with the ups and downs of life, working together and loving each other in such that they have a good measure of peace and contentment.
Anyone who believes that men (or women) make such impossible need to come to grips with the fact that the problem is theirs, not everyone else’s. If they truly want to address the issue(s), they need to look first at the “man (or woman) in the mirror.” – Michael Jackson
@Eric: Right, we’re on to the “you’ve just run into the wrong men / it’s your own fault you’ve run into the wrong men, something’s wrong with you” part of the conversation. In other words: We don’t like what you’re saying, so let’s blame you; there’s a few bad apples but most of us rock.
You know, if I were in some tiny minority of women reporting serious problems with men — not “he makes me crazy”, but reports of violence, theft, stalking, abandonment, infidelity with a baby in the house, total misrepresentation while courting followed by revelations of OMG after marriage, family-destroying alcoholism and other addictions, lies about unemployment (yes, the “I’m going to work — at my park bench” trope is alive and well), failure to pay child support or visit kids regularly, glass-ceiling baloney, founded cases of discrimination, etc. — I’d say yeah, maybe it’s me. Just like when you’re reading restaurant reviews, and everyone says a restaurant’s great, the chef’s to die for, and there’s two bitter, scathing reviews — you figure something’s wrong with those two reviewers, not the restaurant.
However, that’s not how it is when women talk about men, and you can see that all over the internet now, not just in your own life. When women tell you about the divorces, and when you read their case filings, and when you talk to DV people. The women, on the whole, are not making this shit up. The men’s behavior was appalling and sometimes criminal. Do you really want the entire litany of terrible, damaging behavior I know women putting up with right now, just women of my own acquaintance? No wandering the internet for other horror stories?
As for people being married: After a decade of talking to married men and women, I conclude that most marriages that survive are working because the women operate deliberately in a state of partial delusion, insisting that their men are wonderful, loving, caring fathers and husbands. This is largely fantasy, and the women generate the theatre themselves, setting up scenes in which they cast the men in roles and tell them what to do, then pretend the men have done it well. This isn’t a trivial job and takes tremendous time, energy, anger-suppression, and self-propagandizing. The men who stick around for this are mostly grateful someone else is doing all the work and telling them what to do (and hoping, deep down, that they don’t screw up too bad, and wondering if life wouldn’t be easier if they left and found someone pretty and nice to screw). The fantasy ends when the children are grown, unless the women are essentially scared of being alone.
At which point we get to this part of the conversation: “Well, that doesn’t mean it’s ALL men.”
No, it doesn’t. In the face of all evidence against, I maintain faith that if I scratched some of the men I don’t know well, and who seem to be pleasant fellows, I’d find good, pleasant, blessing-on-this-earth, non-douchey guys all the way down. But when it’s enough men that these stories are this common, then Houston, we have a problem. You don’t need a women’s studies class to know when a guy’s sabotaged you, or smacked you around, or stuck it in after you said no. Or failed to pay his child support, or called you four times in a row in rapid succession because you’re not picking up, or is standing outside your building and won’t go away. Or is leaving you to do most or all of the housework because he’s got his career to think about and yours suddenly doesn’t matter anymore, because what matters is his pride and his ability to support his family.
So: if it’s not all men, but it’s lots and lots and lots of men, then women can hardly be faulted for finding meh-to-terrible men rather than good ones. When a woman finds a dud, it’s probably not because she’s had rare bad luck, or because there’s something wrong with her. It’s the classic stats problem with the red and white marbles, pulling one at a time from the bag and then putting it back. If only 6/100 marbles are red, or 10/100, or some other minority, then baby, you’re going to pull lots of white ones, and you may never even see one of the reds.
In other words: You can apologize any time for trying to smear me.
I think another problem here is that we’ve got a difference going on here when we’re talking about “good men” v. “good women”. It seems to me it’s much less of a stretch to qualify as a “good man” than it is to qualify as a “good woman”. Now why would that be? My ex shows up for visitation, he’s a hero. Doesn’t get in there and engage with the teachers, no idea who her docs are, doesn’t remember what I’ve told him about her doc visits, doesn’t know what goes on with her socially, etc. This is despite the fact that he sees her daily because *I set it up that way*. (Except that now he doesn’t see her daily anymore, because he’s dropped some of his visitation.) His place is a shambles, they haven’t eaten in the kitchen in years because the table and counters are piled high with crap; they sit on the floor in his living room instead. Beer bottles everywhere. He pays support and his share of expenses grudgingly and with much sourness, after armtwisting and/or garnishment. If all I did was what he did? His behavior as a mom would be viewed as bordering on neglectful. But he’s a star because he hasn’t totally abandoned her. Wtf is that?
Yeah, we could say, “It’s because our attitudes about men suck. Believe they’ll be better, and they will be.” Experience points to “that’s a pipe dream”. The courts can tell you all about it. You can’t wish your way to other adults’ better behavior. If there are barriers to their treating people well, you can remove the barriers — for instance, if you’ve got a boss who’s devoted to harassing one or more of the women in an office, and nobody stops him, other guys might be afraid not to join in. Get rid of that guy, and maybe things improve. But if a guy doesn’t want to step up, you really can’t make him. Nor do I buy the argument that it’s somehow women’s job to make him want to step up, or to tickle him along into stepping up. We’re people with our own lives and responsibilities; we’re busy.
@Archy, yes, I’m in the US, which is, in some ways, religious throughout, but this community is not particularly religious. About a quarter of the kids in my daughter’s classes are from well-educated single-parent families. The percentage of single parents rises much higher in schools where the parental education level’s lower.
The women who made that single-mom community were in New York, I think, and they all have good jobs, which must’ve made buying houses near each other much easier — real estate’s so expensive there. In general the women get on better than the men do after divorce; we haven’t relied on our husbands for all our friendship, and we build support networks quickly. It’s crucial if you’re a single mom. Any kind of mom, but especially single. You do get happenstance communities like that, though — my block’s almost all single moms, and if our children had been closer in age, I’ve no doubt we’d all have become much closer. As it is we’re closer than most suburban neighbors are, can rely on each other in a pinch.
And, you know, I think this points up a difference between how you read that story and how I did. Your bands of men have decided to bach it because they’re fed up, just want some peace. These women have banded together because they have a serious responsibility: raising children. They need each other in order to do that well. They’re working together, supporting each other. Most of them, as I recall, had really hoped and expected to be doing that with men. Except the men, to a man, disappointed so badly that they had to forget the idea. And the repeat dating efforts showed them that it wasn’t just their husbands; that men in general appeared to be a great deal of trouble and very little help and support.
I see it myself in dating: the men want to be taken care of. Doesn’t seem to matter what walk of life, what background. Or what age, really. The world’s beat them up, and they want some sexy Mom/nurse analogue. Solace. Hey, I got a real kid to take care of, and myself and my work; I’m not here primarily to take care of grown men. Don’t have time for it, don’t have the inclination, either. That’s not fun. If a guy can’t show up as an equal — which includes taking care of himself — then no, I’m not interested.
About the politics — it’s the electorate who’ll have to clean it up. It’s not going away till we make it a serious issue, the primary issue, and refuse to vote for people fronting the moneybags. It’s so sad, you know, I’ve seen the deep fear the legislators have of the vote, because it’s the only power the people have, but it’s a biggie, and there’s nothing the legislators can do about it. People don’t recognize how much power they’re holding. The only revolution necessary is a trip to the ballot box.
It’d be nice to see more female candidates, AND also better candidates all around.
I have a question. Do you assume it’s mostly men doing negative behaviour or could you see both genders being at fault in many cases? I see plenty of highly negative comments about men from women online, but I also see plenty of highly negative comments about WOMEN from men online too. Everything from women not stepping up to their responsibilities, expecting the men to pay for everything whilst being lazy at home, being abusive physically, emotionally and sexually, using people, stealing, stalking, lying, just downright crazy behaviour as well. So my thoughts is maybe it isn’t just men but really it’s just some people need to grow up, change their behaviour, find compassion and selflessness, etc.
No gender faces these problems alone, maybe you only see the negatives women face, maybe the guys are better at being quiet or you’re unlucky and just see negative men only. Being that you date men that can also hide some of the negative behaviour women do as you aren’t dating them and quite a bit of it happens in the privacy of our homes. If you look around this site you can find some truly scary experiences men have with women of all ages, I’m not sure if you realize there are plenty of bad women along with the bad men though. I also wonder if this negative behaviour has increased recently? Unemployment for instance where I am is on the increase I believe and seeing as a man especially is judged highly on his work he may be more likely to lie to save face. Food for thought anyway.
Archy, let me see if I can make the problem clear.
” I also see plenty of highly negative comments about WOMEN from men online too. Everything from women not stepping up to their responsibilities, expecting the men to pay for everything whilst being lazy at home, being abusive physically, emotionally and sexually, using people, stealing, stalking, lying, just downright crazy behaviour as well. ”
Okay: Woman is lazy, versus: Man punches hole in the wall and threatens the woman.
Or: Woman rolls her eyes because the guy hasn’t done shit around the house and is busy with the Xbox, versus: Man threatens to beat up Guy X if she has a drink with him again.
Or: Woman’s bitchy, versus: Man has made sure she has no access to money, leaves her with the kids, then goes out having affairs.
Let me put it more plainly: Men, in general, are bigger and stronger than women, do more damage in domestic violence, behave in more threatening and controlling ways in instances of abuse, and generally have more freedom because they aren’t primarily responsible for children.
Those problems go up and down the social ladder. I have a good friend whose husband ran away from his exwife, said she was abusive. (OK; mind, he’s an ex-Marine, and she wasn’t about to put him in the hospital; he wasn’t in fear for his life.) He ran, leaving behind two little boys. Do you know how many women would do the same? Almost none. Women will stay with men who really can put them in the hospital in order to protect the children. And when they leave, they take the kids.
“you’re unlucky and just see negative men only”
please see above, the “oh it’s your own fault/you pick bad apples” bit. If there weren’t so many negative men, I don’t think we’d have VAWA, child support units, or endless blogs devoted to domestic violence, rape, etc. It occurs to me, too, that I can’t recall the last war started by a woman.
“Being that you date men that can also hide some of the negative behaviour women do as you aren’t dating them and quite a bit of it happens in the privacy of our homes.”
It’s true, I don’t date women, but women are, at this point, my closest friends. I lived with women for years in college, I work with women, and, believe or not, my own mother’s a woman; my daughter’s a girl. As for the issues that go on with sexual attraction, I’ve lived and worked with lesbians; my best friend (married, kids) is bi. Yeah, I’m attractive to women. Has it turned them into raving horrorshows around me? No. Honestly, I have never had a woman cause a tenth of the chaos most of the men in my life have caused — often through sheer social spasticity. Even a guy I really appreciate, who’s done all kinds of good for me — incredible, he muscled in ahead of qualified people and schmoozed his way into a job for the salary, found he didn’t like it, and couldn’t just say so gracefully and leave; it had to be *the job’s fault*, so on his way out the door, in the middle of a recession, he *blew up the job*. Made a convincing case that the job shouldn’t exist. So it, and its salary line, went away, and no one else could have it. I almost stopped being friends with him over that.
“Okay: Woman is lazy, versus: Man punches hole in the wall and threatens the woman.
Or: Woman rolls her eyes because the guy hasn’t done shit around the house and is busy with the Xbox, versus: Man threatens to beat up Guy X if she has a drink with him again.
Or: Woman’s bitchy, versus: Man has made sure she has no access to money, leaves her with the kids, then goes out having affairs.”
So when my friend’s mother almost beat her to death with a metal bar and subjected her husband and other children to similar abuse she wasn’t really being violent because women don’t do that kind of thing?
Your examples are all excellent evidence of your prejudice. If you’ve had the misfortune to run into men who are like that and the fortune never to encounter women who are like that then that’s your personal experience. It gives you no right to generalise all men and women based on your memories, especially when the statistics don’t back you up.
Peter, I’ve never said women don’t ever do such things. In fact I’ve said exactly the opposite. Don’t misread me to suit your agenda. They do and worse.
Unfortunately, though, the stats do back me up. The overwhelmingly vast majority of serious abuse perpetrators are men. Look at the murder stats, at the violent crime stats. When a spouse lands in the hospital with fractures after a beating, that spouse is nearly always the wife.
Like I said, you can try to spin this however you want with “there are also violent women” — and there are — but the vast majority of the violence, particularly the serious violence, is coming from men. Go read the police annual reports if you don’t believe me.
You know it’s funny, in the above case I mentioned the wife tried to prosecute the husband for abuse… until the kids turned up and threatened to tell the truth. Men rarely come forward when they’ve been abused, the stats are skewed. And I’m really not the one spinning things.
So are you saying women are all always spinning things when they discuss abuse or sexual assault? I’m unclear here. Just because men aren’t reporting doesn’t mean the women who are aren’t telling the truth. It means we also need to listen to men more.
“Okay: Woman is lazy, versus: Man punches hole in the wall and threatens the woman.
Or: Woman rolls her eyes because the guy hasn’t done shit around the house and is busy with the Xbox, versus: Man threatens to beat up Guy X if she has a drink with him again.
Or: Woman’s bitchy, versus: Man has made sure she has no access to money, leaves her with the kids, then goes out having affairs.”
Seriously? you’re going to compare woman being lazy to men being violent? Is this a joke or are you being serious? How about Woman beats the man daily, burns him with cigarettes, cuts him, stabs him (happened recently here that a woman was charged for stabbing her partner), cuts off their genitals, lights them on fire, shoots them, beats them to death. Do you think women don’t ever control the finances? Ever heard of a joint account? stay at home fathers and others who are financially dependent on their partner?
You are trying to show women as the victim, and women as the lesser of two evils, acting as if anything bad a woman does is minor yet a man is a horrible monster. Your prejudice against men is showing, do you realize that?
“Those problems go up and down the social ladder. I have a good friend whose husband ran away from his exwife, said she was abusive. (OK; mind, he’s an ex-Marine, and she wasn’t about to put him in the hospital; he wasn’t in fear for his life.) He ran, leaving behind two little boys. Do you know how many women would do the same? Almost none. Women will stay with men who really can put them in the hospital in order to protect the children. And when they leave, they take the kids. ”
Yes and there is a comment or article on this site detailing a soldier (I think even a special forces soldier) who was physically abused by his partner. Newsflash, both men and women have the physical capability to defend themselves BUT a lot of people do not fight back, they take it. Eg, the man who is afraid to lose his kids, fears if he resists her abuse, fights back that he will have the police called on him and he will be charged. The man who was raised to never hit a woman. Or the man who is completely afraid of her. Size is NOT everything, if you had a clue about domestic violence you might realize this. I suggest researching how humans and other animals can freeze up in terror, ever read how a rape victim tries to move their body but they can’t? That’s one instinct that can lock up our actions, freezing still around predators. I had a man hit me at a club repeatedly in the stomach, I froze up, I am twice his size and could easily have put him in hospital but my mind wasn’t able to match the physical.
“please see above, the “oh it’s your own fault/you pick bad apples” bit. If there weren’t so many negative men, I don’t think we’d have VAWA, child support units, or endless blogs devoted to domestic violence, rape, etc. It occurs to me, too, that I can’t recall the last war started by a woman.”
ht tp://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081107192955AAlxioJ
By the way, these days wars are started by leadership of countries, not by single entities, there are women in leadership and areas that affect going to war. Trying the moral high ground of women being more innocent fails when women have no problem enjoying the spoils of war or do you think it’s just a bunch of men who go around settling into land stolen from others? War is a human problem, not a male problem. There are a lot of negative and violent men, there are a lot of negative and violent women, what’s your point? To try paint men as the bad guys? Go look up the stats on domestic violence, quite a few will say women initiate MORE OFTEN than men with physical violence, quite a lot is reciprocal violence, when it comes to emotional abuse there is no size difference affecting it so both genders can equally play havoc. Domestic violence as it stands has pretty much reached parity in the rate, and both genders do get severe injuries at high rates. No one is a winner, both are losers in this pissing contest of who gets it worse.
I truly am sorry that you experience life in such a negative way, but look around on this site alone and you’ll find a plethora of men and women detailing how BOTH genders have harmed them. Some of the most vicious bullying I received was from women, infact much of the most harmful bullying I recieved was from a fairly equal mix of males and females.
“As for people being married: After a decade of talking to married men and women, I conclude that most marriages that survive are working because the women operate deliberately in a state of partial delusion, insisting that their men are wonderful, loving, caring fathers and husbands. This is largely fantasy, and the women generate the theatre themselves, setting up scenes in which they cast the men in roles and tell them what to do, then pretend the men have done it well.”
So, happily married women are delusional, but the feminist seperatists who believe that living in no-men-allowed communities because the vast majority of men are horrible human beings are not at all delusional.
I don’t think I’ve ever read a comment with more bizarre anti-male thoughtsexcept for places where such are comment like feministing.com and Jezebel. It sounded very much like the anti-male indoctrination taught in women’s studies classes. And then, my suspicion was confirmed. . .
“You don’t need a women’s studies class . . .”
The problem, Eric, is that they’re not so happily married. They want to be happily married. They don’t want to be divorced. So they put tremendous effort into trying to believe that what they have is okay and wantable. And they talk about it. They talk about acceptance, and wanting what you have, and trying to see the good side, and my God it’s painful to listen to because they’re obviously unhappy and trying to preserve this idea of marriage and family they’ve got. They don’t want to break it. And they’re talking themselves around so that they can bear to stay, going to therapy to try to deal with the fact that they’re the ones making all the effort, and that the guy’s a lump, won’t play. And those are the nice guys, not violent drunks.
I’m trying to think of any married mother I know well who hasn’t talked to me this way….Nope, can’t think of any. Then there are the ones who aren’t allowed to hire babysitters (despite wealth), aren’t allowed to have friends over, get threatened, etc. My guess is that the single moms in their community are more tired and more worried, but overall happier, maybe even feel more secure in the knowledge that someone else has their back.
So, you say that none of the people you associate with or have interviewed are happily married. None? Wow. I can only take you at your word since I don’t know them personally. However, the people that I am referring to, whom I have known for many years are happily married; nothing’s perfect but they are reasonably content. And, these are personal friends, not interviewees. And, I know a lot of people, a very significant sample size.
“I’m trying to think of any married mother I know well who hasn’t talked to me this way….Nope, can’t think of any.”
It’s unfortunate that your friends and associates are all so miserable.
Thankfully mine aren’t, and thankfully not all couples are.
Top tip, Eric: Unless a wife’s looking to have an affair, she’s not likely to open up like that to you. You, a man, get Public Wife. Women talk like this to other women, particularly to single women, because they don’t have to fear that her marriage will be better than theirs, and also because they’re sending out a probe: what would it be like, if they left?
“a wife’s looking to have an affair, she’s not likely to open up like that to you.”
Friends talk to friends, male and female. The difference between my experiences and yours is that I haven’t “interviewed” random people I barely know. I have literally hundreds of friends, many of whom are married, many of whom I have known for 20 years or more.
The other difference is that I have personally been married for 20+ years. I know what I’m talking about personally, in reality, not hypothetically.
@sarahj … Wow, where are all these women who you say are miserable? It was painful to listen to them and you stated they are obviously unhappy. In an earlier response you said that they “women operate deliberately in a state of partial delusion, insisting that their men are wonderful, loving, caring fathers and husbands. This is largely fantasy, and the women generate the theatre themselves” What is it that they say that gives you this impression?
NO marriage is perfect and maybe that’s one of the problems people have these days, the expectations are unreasonable. I’ve been married for 38 years and although I am still madly in love with my wife, there were plenty of times in the last 38 years that things were rough between us.
Like Eric, I have a large circle of friends and as friends, we talk, we observe and I know of no marriage in my circle that could be viewed anywhere near “miserable.” Have they had problems through the years? Yup, but they’re nonetheless happy.
OMFG I had to reply to this. I know this is an old post and maybe nobody will see it. But let me go on the record here. I’m female, and happily married. VERY happily. My husband is a wonderful, kind, decent, funny man. I’m sorry this lady has had such bad experiences in her life but holy CRAP do not disrespect those of us who ARE with good men by telling us we don’t know our own minds and we’re deluded.
So when I leave the house and my husband says: “Be careful sweetie, Love you.” Or when he holds me or cuddles with me, or is interested in my day or my accomplishments… this is all me just hallucinating? Holy crap how offensive.
My dad is another wonderful man I know. He and my mom have been married for a long time now and he’s not once been mean to her. He’s always been a good husband, provider, and father. He modeled for me the type of man to search for when it was time for me to look for one.
The conclusion I have come to is that most human beings are just Batsh**. Our society is screwed up in so many ways. The family is breaking down, nobody seems to have a father in their life… these are the results of that… a LOT of jerks. (both male and female.) But happiness in marriage is not a myth or a lie. It’s also not unattainable.
And if you would like for people to believe your stories of woe… then do those of us fortunate enough to be in happy marriages, the courtesy of believing OUR stories of happiness, rather than just saying: “Oh they’re just lying to themselves.”
I know you’d like to think that. The reality, though, is that some of us are actually happy and with great guys.
Well said. The opinions and experiences of women who disagree often seem to get dismissed and painted over. The discussion of abortion always does so. Women make up a prominent portion of those who are pro-life, yet when pro-choicers are discussing the topic, it’s always the white man trying to control women’s vaginas
“It seems to me it’s much less of a stretch to qualify as a “good man” than it is to qualify as a “good woman”.
I’ve actually never even heard someone qualify a female as a “good woman.” It just doesn’t happen, ever, in my experience. Men on the other hand are constantly judged and qualified as either “good” or “bad” men.
“In general the women get on better than the men do after divorce”
You do realize what happens to men in divorce court, right? You realize that divorce amounts to financial ruin for many men?
“men in general appeared to be a great deal of trouble and very little help and support”
Many young men (including myself) have the same *exact* impression of women.
“If a guy can’t show up as an equal — which includes taking care of himself — then no, I’m not interested.”
Have you ever considered that men aren’t showing up as equals because they aren’t being treated as equals? Did you really expect them to take decades of abuse, neglect, and hate and still stand as your equal? You don’t have to be interested in them, just let them go.
The Madonna / Whore is where we get into the “good women” territory. The ‘madonna’s are good. ‘Whores’ are bad. Except that what really confuses me, personally, is that guys reportedly want sex. So how is it not “good” for a woman to participate as an equal in that act? It seems to me that would be good.
We are not trying to “define” good on this website by any stretch of the imagination. We want to have the conversation because these things are worth talking about.
“Except that what really confuses me, personally, is that guys reportedly want sex. So how is it not “good” for a woman to participate as an equal in that act? It seems to me that would be good.”
Now I don’t speak for all men but I don’t think our genders see eye to eye on “whores”. I’ll say that I don’t have a problem with promiscuous women at all, in fact I love them and wish there were millions more of them. What I do have a problem with is deception. I see women afraid to own up to being promiscuous and so they hide it. If I can’t trust someone to be honest with me, then we have a problem.
But from the female side, I do see a lot of shaming of promiscous women just for being promiscuous. Maybe this is coming from men too but I usually only hear men talking negatively about the lying, not the sleeping around.
” I usually only hear men talking negatively about the lying, not the sleeping around.”
Then I ought to show you my inbox, filled with men who think I’m a whore because I admit to being sexually active outside of marriage.
Slut-shaming is a big problem, from all genders, but it’s aimed towards women, not generally aimed towards men. *Individual* men might get slut-shamed, but institutionally, women as a whole are slut-shamed by both individual people and by the institution of society itself.
Why do all these strangers know that you sleep around? And, why do they have access to your email? And, no one can “shame” you unless you are ashamed? Unless you agree with them at some level. Otherwise, it wouldn’t matter what they thought,
“And, no one can “shame” you unless you are ashamed? Unless you agree with them at some level. Otherwise, it wouldn’t matter what they thought.”
Yeah, I’ll just point you to my comment about shaming here.
Many women’s studies theorists constantly attempt to shame men constantly with their anti-male propgagnda theories of male privilege, rape culture, and patriarchy. I personally couldn’t care less.
You’re simply not going to stop people from being haters. All you can do is be strong-minded enough to ignore them.
It’s a form of bullying, Eric M. and it does hurt. Maybe it’s because I’m still young and haven’t developed a thick enough skin yet, but I’ve gotten plenty of messages saying the same thing. I’m not ashamed of anything I say or do, but it still hits a nerve when I get insulted like that. I know intellectually that people are just saying things to get under my skin, but it still makes me sad and affects me, which I suppose, is what they set out to do in the first place. So maybe you’re right…just ignore it.
No, Aya, he’s not right. If someone’s bullying you, that’s wrong. If he won’t stop on his own, make him stop. Haul the behavior out in public. Go talk to your boss or teacher or (if you’re really young) parents. If it’s harassment rather than simple assholery, go to the police. It’s not a matter of “they win if it affects you”; it’s “they win if they’re allowed to get away with such awful, mean behavior.” Stand up, get help, make them stop.
@Sarahj, you might be able to reduce it but I don’t think you can kill it off completely, if that makes sense. Take action if it’s bullying, call them out on it etc as you say. We can at least try to reduce the negativity in this world, if we give up and just expect there to be assholes in the world without doing anything to stop it then there will probably be more assholes to deal with as quite a few will grow tired n bitter from receiving that kind of behaviour.
Divorce amounts to financial ruin for *men*? Look at the stats: men, on the whole, do far better after divorce than women do. Which stands to reason: more women are custodial, which throws a serious wrench into your earning ability, even if you’d had a good career before. Men will also generally remarry quickly, acquiring live-in babysitters, which frees them further to make money. Women marry much less often, and more slowly, after divorce, and their husbands do not usually become the at-home wife.
“You don’t have to be interested in them, just let them go.”
It’s remarkable how angry so many men get when I do just that.
I’m sure you’re more than capable of reciting a litany of abuse that men have performed on women. I’m equally sure many of the commentators here are capable of providing the reverse.
And yet when I walk down the street, oddly enough, it’s never women I fear will become violent, never the women I’ll turn around to watch. And in the newspaper next morning, it’s still very seldom a woman who’s punched the victim in the face, or tried to strangle a lover who was breaking up with her, or threatened someone’s life. I am not saying that women are never violent. Some certainly are. But you can rely on the police stats, not my word. It’s men who inflict the serious damage, and most of the damage overall.
I’m sorry. I don’t think any amount of pro-male spin can change that. Can these patterns be changed, frankly, I don’t know. It seems unrealistic to me, but it doesn’t cost anything to stay hopeful.
You do realize a lot of men will not report abuse from women? I myself didn’t report being groped, slapped, hit, etc. Even in some stats on sexual assault there is bias to hide the true level of male victimization, the recent cdc stats buried men being forced to penetrate someone else under “other sexual assault”, barely mentioned anything on it in the summary and didn’t even class it as rape.
Most of the random acts of violence towards strangers is committed by men yes, but mostly to other men. We have a massive focus though on violence against women which has put a perception out of men being the dominant aggressor to the point we barely hear of female aggression, the reality is there is a lot more violence done by females than you hear about in the news. Even just with domestic violence it’s plain as day that the violence perpetrated by women has reached close to parity if not surpassing it in rate of assaults in relationships. Women as a group are more violent than society lets on, but yes overall men do makeup more of the attackers and victims of violence. Why did I say this? Because if you fear men so much then you should probably also fear women. You can fear men more of course but you state you do not fear women at all, why is that? Do you assume they do not commit violence or think it’s so rare that it won’t affect you? What is it about men that scares you so much? Do you honestly think women do not also inflict serious damage?
Archy, all you need do is look at the police stats. When serious damage is inflicted — when someone has to go to the hospital, when someone’s killed — the police are involved. The perps are hardly ever women. In a hefty percentage of the cases where they are, they’re acting in self-defense, and they’ve shot an abusive husband.
Slapped, groped — nobody is defending these things. But I have a child who’s maybe 70% my height and weight. I have absolutely no fear that when she’s furious, she’s going to do me serious harm. I’m bigger and stronger than she is, and if she were really to fly out of control, hey, lotsa luck there, kid.
Women are generally considerably smaller and weaker than men, and don’t think that men don’t know it. I’m a very short, slight woman, and apparently intimidating. But no judge on the planet would’ve bought the argument that I could’ve beaten up my ex-husband against his will, and with reason. He’s a burly fellow with nine inches of height and nearly 100 pounds on me. All he’d have to do is exactly what I’d do with my kid, if it were to come to that: catch the wrists and hold me down. And then when the excitement was over, call the cops.
Women fear men because so many men are physically abusive, physically destructive. And because when they are abusive and destructive, they inflict heavy damage. Men are also generally the economic head of the household, in control of the money, and yes, men do use these things to control women. Do you genuinely not understand this?
Why do I not fear women? Uh…because women don’t seem to cause chaos in my life and haven’t raped, mugged, or tried to physically intimidate me? And because I’m stronger and faster than most women my age anyway? And also maybe because the police sheets aren’t full of women committing violent crimes? And because of the sort of thing Joreth has described? Women don’t seem to feel entitled to…um…manhandle me. This stuff isn’t theoretical, Archy, and I haven’t walked on some kind of crazy wild side. I’m a quiet intellectualish woman who’s lived mainly in quiet university towns, worked in corporate settings, that sort of thing. And this is my experience. What I hear about men’s behavior from women who lead rougher lives is, to me, jawdropping and horrifying.
I have a date this weekend; I’m not enthusiastic and have said so, but the man’s polite and persistent and a beer can’t hurt. He’s driving five hours for this. Will we meet in a public place, oh my yes. Will the date end in a public place, yes sir, and I will see him off. Why? Because I don’t know the fellow and he’s considerably bigger than me. Nuff said.
Does all this mean that all men are violent and incipient rapists? Of course not. But when the percentage risk is as high as it is…then a woman’s got to look after herself, and be cautious about any man she doesn’t know well. And, I’m sorry to say, even then. The shelters are full of women who were sure their men would never.
So because one partner in an abusive relationship has a physical advantage they will automatically be capable of defending themselves? If that were true then abused women would always leave when they had the chance, back in reality relationships invalidate physical factors and allow people to abuse their partners even when they’re not there through stockholm syndrome.
I’m guessing from the way you’re talking that the men in your life who were abused by women (and chances are there are more than a couple) haven’t talked to you about it, but this doesn’t mean that they don’t exist and that women can’t be abusive.
The shelters may be full of women who were sure their partners were never, but at least they had a shelter to go to.
Peter, I’m sorry, but the stats speak for themselves:
If a person is in hospital or dead following DV, that person is nearly always a woman.
(And Archy, you may have some burly women down under, but those ratios are still pretty tremendous.)
You can try to twist the rhetoric around however you like, but these things don’t rely on self-reporting. Police are involved whether the victim calls or not. I am not saying that non-hospital-level abuse is not abuse. But when it comes to fear for one’s person and life, which is what the original article was about, the perps are nearly always men. Full stop, backed by police reports, not dependent on the victim’s call.
It would help your cause, btw, if the “women are abusive too” call didn’t so often come from men who’ve had restraining orders filed against them.
I do not believe anyone here has said that women can’t be violent, or that there is no DV perpetrated by women. I think we can dispense with that strawman. But it is more than disingenuous to take that and attempt to paint a picture of DV perpetrated equally, and equally seriously, by men and women. It is not. The perps are more often men, and the more serious the abuse, the more likely it is that the perp is a man.
If a random, unknown man were to be walking around my child’s school, you bet I’d want the doors locked. If a random motherly-looking woman were wandering around the school, I’d be much less inclined to worry. The fact is that neither should’ve gotten past the office without a visitor’s badge. Even so: I can’t recall the last time I heard of a girl or a woman shooting up a school. I can recall several incidences of boys and men doing that, though.
Archy, in answer to your question : Unless the person is known to you, yes. I remember when I used to be all “profiling is wrong, give each person the chance to do right”. That ended when I got my nose broken and my head beat with a rock by a guy who came up from nearby projects into a parking lot where I was getting into my car. Luckily, I don’t freeze; also luckily, he didn’t have anything more lethal than fists and a rock. Why aren’t I more risk-takingly generous now? Because I have a child to raise alone, thanks to a man who misrepresented himself jawdroppingly before I married him, and then took off when our kid was two. (Thank God for the state; he wouldn’t pay child support unless he were forced to.) So I have a responsibility now not to take risks in the name of hoping individual men will be better than I’ve seen men be.
In other words: Sorry, dude, but if you’re really great, there’s a whole lot of men out there messing it up for you. Like Joreth says. My experience with women is very, very different.
Hospital stats are useless, they only back up your claims because men are opressed into thinking they can’t ever admit to being assaulted by a woman. Anonymous surveys like those compiled by the CDC suggest you’re way off. And, again, when women kill men they usually have an accomplice. Result? It isn’t recorded as DV.
“It would help your cause, btw, if the “women are abusive too” call didn’t so often come from men who’ve had restraining orders filed against them.”
So the fact that laws exist which specifically allow women to get groundless restraining orders means nothing? I personally know people from families with abusive mothers in which social services and legal restraints (intended to help victims) were in fact used by the abuser to continue their abuse.
One mother claimed she was abused and used restraining orders and identity protection in order to keep her husband from telling the truth, it was years before he was able to rescue his kids. Another woman I know was badly beaten by her mother, who also targeted her husband. Her mother later tried to take her *father* to court claiming that he had abused her, but she backed down when the kids showed up and threatened to testify to what they’d seen her done (he hadn’t even told them, they’d found out by chance on the day of the hearing).
Many of those “men who’ve had restraining orders filed against them” are the victims you’re trying so hard to bury.
Regarding the school thing, your rhetoric reminds me strongly of the people who think racial profiling by the police is ok because “black people are more violent.” Also, I notice how a man is a “random man” but a woman is a “motherly woman.”
I’m not trying to suggest DV overall is equal, I’m trying to suggest it’s getting close to it, and the level of abuse women perpetrate is far higher than many will admit. Too often I see people trying to say women are this tiny minority of abusers, like 5-10% and then throw in the absolute bullshit comparison of a woman slapping a man and a man putting her through a wall as if women could not ever do serious damage. It’s not helped by some feminists who do this in attempts to minimize female perpetration as if it’s so minor and few in number that we don’t even need to speak about it.
“If a random, unknown man were to be walking around my child’s school, you bet I’d want the doors locked. If a random motherly-looking woman were wandering around the school, I’d be much less inclined to worry.”
You’re showing a clear prejudice here, comparing motherly looking random women, to men. If you aren’t going to argue in good faith, why bother? It’s pretty clear you’re trying to paint men in a much more violent way, and women in a nurturing motherly way. Next time, leave out the motherly bit or add in a fatherly look to the random male stranger, because comparing a parent-looking person to a non-parent looking person isn’t fair.
If I saw a random male in the school, I’d be as worried as seeing a random female in the school. Not sure if you’ve checked stats on abuse but mothers actually commit more child abuse, so why worry about the men? I’ve actually walked through a highschool as a grown male who doesn’t work there, to pickup my mother who is a teacher when she has been sick and couldn’t drive home, it’s nice to know there are judgmental people who would see me as a threat when really I’m probably more nervous than the kids ever would be. But I guess it’s common these days to judge people based on initial assumptions, which is why so many are trying to show how bad female DV perpetration is because the lack of discussing the actual facts leaves men appearing far more worse than women than they really are. The reason is quite obvious why so many are trying to say female perpetration is much higher than the media usually says, and they actually back it up with stats that are quite new. When you get so many “violence against women” campaigns that only report female victimization, male perpetration and there’s no brother campaign it causes a bias in media as only one side is being portrayed as victim or perp when both are victims and perps.
Archy, thanks so much for this comment. Especially the last part. Not sure if I’ve ever heard anyone admit that online before. That I’ve personally found that abuse between adults usually doesn’t happen in a bubble. That we need to look at our part in the situation as well, and take responsibility for our part. Leave if we need to, but look back, and see both sides of it. Trying to do this without blaming either party is hard, but so worth trying to do it. Obviously we may feel shame for our part, and anger for theirs, that’s normal. The balance, I think, is trying feel our feelings when we need to, but still realize, it takes two to tango.
Yeah, I just want all dv to be taken seriously, all people to realize that anyone can be violent and violence isn’t solely the males domain.
You place far too much importance on physical size differences, whilst they do play a large part there is also a lot of very strong men who won’t hit women, who shutdown and take abuse from women they are stronger then, who are severely physically injured by them. There’s also the fact that a lot of damage comes from emotional abuse, which is both harder to detect and neither gender really has an advantage. Domestic violence is far more than physical violence.
“In investigating domestic violence, three different types of data have been used, each with limitations, each leading to somewhat different accounts. First, crime statistics focus on the extreme end of the spectrum: homicides committed by a husband, wife, or lover. There, the preponderance of male perpetrators is clear. In Australia, 3.6 times as many women as men are killed by their partners (James and Carcach 1997). The same pattern holds in North America, although the gender difference is smaller (Straus 1986).”
1/4 to 1/3 IPV murderers are women.
“The second major source of data on domestic violence is clinical studies. In Australia these feature medical settings and mostly women patients (for example Webster, Sweett & Stolz, 1994; Mazza, Dennerstein & Ryan, 1996). Among injury presentations positively identified as domestic violence in a large, recent study of five Victorian hospitals, women outnumbered men by nearly 5 to 1 (Monash University Accident Research Centre, 1994). However the disproportion in serious injuries was less extreme, with 24% of the men and 13% of the women requiring hospital admission. Issues of labelling, misreporting by patients, and selectivity in willingness to seek help make it difficult to generalise from clinical studies.”
Time for some random math if I have this right, 5-1 ratio , 100men, 500 women, 24% of 100 is 24 men, 13% of 500 is 65. So 65 women and 50 men had serious injuries, 56.5% of seriously injured patients were female, 43.5% were male. Yes I realize 5x more women seeking hospitalization is bad, it could mean women are injured more often, or it could be women are more likely to see medical attention, probably a mix of the two, but focus on the serious injury stat
ht tp://www.mensrights.com.au/Family_Violence_Statistics-Child_Abuse_Australia/Domestic_Violence_Statistics-Australian_Bureau_of_Statistics-Womens_Safety_Survey-University_of_Melbourne_study.aspx
Older data, take as you will. But does this sound like women are weak and vulnerable to the point they can do no major damage to men? Does this sound like The perps are hardly ever women? If 1/4 – 1/3 constitutes hardly ever…to me hardly ever would be 1-5%. Yes, men can and do inflict more damage on average, BUT, women can and DO inflict a lot of damage themselves. Women are not weak creatures, and with weapons involved any strength difference is quickly countered, a bodybuilder’s arm won’t stop a knife cutting flesh, a bullet, a baseball bat, frying pan, fire, etc. This is what i want you to understand, women are capable of far more than you give them credit for, the fact you may rarely hear it could be confirmation bias, could be the stats are buried and there is bias in reporting/media, could be unlucky in the area you live in having more disproportionate abuse.
The stats on DV ranges from women getting 5:1 down to 1:1 ratio with men that I’ve seen. I’m not trying to say who gets it worse, I’m trying to show how women can and often times do perpetrate DV, cause injuries including serious, and yes men also perpetrate too at times. Both genders harm each other, but there is far far far more focus on men hitting women and how severe it is, vs women hitting men and how serious that is. Quite often people will assume a man will beat the %)$ out of a woman and the woman is only capable of a light slap. Look around on this website and you’ll find men giving evidence to the contrary.
The shelters being full of women? DV is a serious issue and affects a lot of people, but please remember there really aren’t many shelters for men and even where I live there is no actual shelter locally here for men, they’re sent to motels whilst I believe there is a shelter for women. Our society reports domestic violence as highly gendered, but studies prove this is not the case in the sense that both genders commit significant levels of DV to each other, and both cause serious injury to each other. But I’m not sure if they have reported it where you live but here it’s 99.999999% about women only and the men suffer in silence, which adds to the perception that DV is still mostly (mostly as in like 95-99%) perpetrated by men against women when that isn’t the case. When you only speak about the bad that one gender does it creates a perception of that gender being far more negative than it might be, the other gender could be close to the negative behaviour level but if no one discusses it then not many will actually understand that. It causes bias, pure n simple.
Okay, I typed out a reply but it looks like the site ate it.
Archy, Peter, your points would be better made if you didn’t go beyond the point of reason and undermine them.
One, men can and do call in abuse. If they do it here, and this is not exactly the land of metrosexuals, I’m sure they do it elsewhere.
Two, you seem to be confused about why women don’t leave. While it’s true that you do get otherwise strong, well-employed women staying just out of being psychologially messed-up, that’s not generally what happens. In general the women don’t leave because they’re a) afraid the men will physically hunt them down and kill them (not, unfortunately, an unreasonable fear); and b) they and/or their children are economically dependent on the man and they have nowhere else to go.
As for bias in the media, there should be bias in the media, because men perpetrate far more of the DV. And frankly I think that message is out. Women do abuse men. Just not nearly to the extent that men abuse women. Both anecdotal and police/hospital stats bear that out. In the last few weeks I’ve read of three murder-suicides in my hometown paper, all men killing women with children in the house. While horrible, they’re not shocking: I read about a few of these every year. The shocker’s when the murderer’s a woman.
Child abuse? Yes, it happens. A lot, and it’s well-recognized. You’ll note that once again this is someone relatively big and strong v. someone relatively small and weak, and dependent. We put a lot of money and attention on it, and it’s actually having some effect. A truism is that good childcare prevents child abuse. There’s finally some recognition that childcare’s serious work, and that round-the-clock care of young children isn’t something most humans can do without snapping. We have hotlines, there’s parent education in the hospitals about infant abuse and what to do when the baby won’t stop crying, visiting nurses are trained to look for these issues. Headway’s being made.
As for abuse against adults:
No one is saying that women can’t be abusive, or mean, or chaos-causing, or criminals. But guys, we react to other people based not just on media reports but on our personal experience. In all my life, I have seen one woman become violent. No, three, if you count really over-the-top screaming mom and a fighting high-school girl. Every other instance of violence, and ever instance of criminal behavior — from drunk-driving to break-in to fists through walls to mugging to rape to attempted murder — has been from a man. I have watched men who insist they’re wonderful, civilized, restrained people turn around and abuse the hell out of their wives verbally, just cut them to pieces. I’ve helped get a woman out of a dangerous situation with a man. I’ve called the cops on many a man abusing a woman or children.
I have yet to hear of an instance in which an unknown woman comes into a school in order to abuse a child. We do, however, hear of instances in which unknown men come into schools with guns, and get to killing. So yes, I’m totally comfortable with that quick lockdown while the man and his purpose are identified.
I’ve heard of black men causing robberies, assaults, are you comfy putting shops into lockdown when a black man enters the premises?
If you can’t understand how wrong it is to put a school into lockdown for one gender, but not the other based on the extremely rare occurance of a school shooting and treating 99.999% of men as criminals then I am lost as to why you’re even on this site.
By the way, crimes against children, child abuse, is mostly done by women so why wouldn’t you lock down the school when strange women enter? Your anecdotal evidence of random men committing crimes is proof enough that we treat the entire gender with suspicion? Is this the world you want for your son? A world where discrimination against men is perfectly fine because of the actions of the few? The logic you’re using can pretty much excuse discrimination of both genders since both commit crimes against children. I’ve personally seen women smack their children, verbally abuse them even in schools, so let’s send the school into lockdown when strange women are around.
What you’re saying pretty much is prejudicial of men, based on anecdotal evidence.
“When children (younger than 15) are killed in Australia, they are most likely to be killed by a family member (66.9 per cent), primarily a parent (94.2 per cent),” AIC research analyst Jenny Mouzos says in her report ‘Homicidal Encounters.’ Although fathers are responsible for most cases of filicide these numbers are inflated by the number of non-biological fathers who kill children.
When Mouzos crunched figures on the distribution of parents who killed children by gender and biological ties, she found biological mothers posed a more lethal risk to their own. Biological mothers account for about 35 per cent of all filicides (about the same proportion as stepfathers and de factos), while biological fathers account for 29 per cent. ”
Seems children are safer with the father, not the mother. Let’s lock down schools, daycares when mothers are on site shall we.
ht tp://www.mensrights.com.au/Family_Violence_Statistics-Child_Abuse_Australia/Women_who_murder_their_Children-Australian_Statistics.aspx
We can use statistics to justify all kinds of prejudice you know….women too could easily cop such discrimination, infact these stats would show schools should be more concerned with women vs men.
Archy, this blanket statement of opinion of you, me, and all other men alive says it all:
“The farthest I’ll go is to say that any man is highly likely to be childish, deeply egotistical, dependent emotionally, prone to blaming others for his misdeeds, and in my view overall not worth the candle . . .”
And they wonder why the vast majority of women say no to feminism.
Did the original comment get deleted? I can’t find it. I know of a few women that say no to certain kinds of feminism, is it fair though to generalize about feminism in reply to a generalization though?
If people want to think that of men, I pity them…I just hope they can meet some great men to change their mind.
Archy …. if they do meet these great guys, they run the chance of making their relationship or views of that relationship appear as a fantcay?
“The farthest I’ll go is to say that any man is highly likely to be childish, deeply egotistical, dependent emotionally, prone to blaming others for his misdeeds, and in my view overall not worth the candle if you’re talking about living together.”
That is an absolutely huge generalization and absolute rubbish. It’s like saying any woman is over emotional, or something. Let’s NOT make such sweeping generalizations.
“. It’s like saying any woman is over emotional, or something.”
Except that would not have been allowed to have been posted about women or feminists, whereas such generalizations are allowed when said about men in both comments and articles.
The mods are all volunteer, Eric. We’re doing the best we can. There are plenty of comments that are on the fence about whether they constitute generalizations that violate the commenting policy…both when talking about men and women (or any other group of people, for that matter). If you’ve got any feedback I suggest e-mailing the Publisher, Lisa Hickney, at lisa@goodmenproject.com
Eric?
Do you know some of us don’t even see these comments until there is an issue? Because as Heather said, we are volunteer. And I’ve not been on the computer for 12 hours more or less, so I just saw it and will trash it.
You complain and complain here about us as moderators and yet you never actually offer significant advice about it, volunteer to consult or act as one.
We’ll do our job and we’ll do it damn well, as we have been doing it, for free mind you, because we care. But if all you are going to do is complain about how we do our job, and not participate in making the situation better? Well I don’t have much sympathy for that.
We’ll be striking the comment because it’s egregious and unfair. I think it’s unfair as hell and I’m a woman and a parent and don’t think people should be judging each other’s character based on dress or hair or gender or color of skin.
Sarah, At my school? You’d be as likely to see a woman in a suit, a man in a punk rock outfit, a lesbian couple with dreads, and single parents looking too young and too harried to figure out where the parents office is. And guess what. We all sign in and no one gets upset about people looking like they don’t fit. Cause they all fit.
After a decade of talking to married men and women, I conclude that most marriages that survive are working because the women operate deliberately in a state of partial delusion.
Its curious that you often take exception to people ‘smearing you’ and yet you have no concerns about ‘smearing’ others. It is abundantly clear from your posts that you feel you are completely and undeniably correct in all your criticisms of men. These are tired arguments that I have heard before and there is nothing particularly revelatory or insightful in them. I will admit that the exception I take to this is personal, but it appears that you find personal anecdotes sufficient proof for opinion so I feel I can argue this point on a personal level.
The point I take exception to is the one that states a woman that is happy in her marriage is delusional. I have a happy marriage and after many years of being a single mother raising twin daughters and also being disappointed by most of the men in my life I developed very high expectations and my husband has consistently meets every one of those (even when I don’t always meet his). I am not delusional, I am an intelligent, professional, educated mother of three (soon to be four) and I am married to a good man. Not a super hero, as I am not a super hero either. Just a good man, and a great dad. Your previous experiences do not qualify you to smear me or label my marriage.
I am sorry that your life and the lives of the women around you have been tainted by men who appear to have been unable to carry the weight of your expectations. I have known a great many women in this same situation, but I have also known many men that have suffered the same experiences with women.
Slee, I’m glad you’ve got a good marriage. I’ll still stand by the “most marriages” I wrote about above (not “all marriages” or “Slee’s marriage”). I think we can also do without the intimation that women who aren’t in your marriage are simply loading up these poor men with burdensome expectations, dooming their own marriages to failure. It’s not nice or accurate.
The problems are neither new nor mysterious, and it sounds as though you know them pretty well. Plenty of ink and electrons have been spilled describing them. What it comes down to, in marriage after marriage, is this: building a family is serious work, and far too often the women find they’re either doing the work alone or have willing order-takers, not partners. Which leaves them doing all the thinking about, planning for, arranging, managing, checking up — it’s a lot of work. They feel they’re the only grownup in the house, and it’s especially hard if they’re also trying to maintain careers. So after a few years, or a lot of years, of resentment and fury and bitterness about the fact that the guy isn’t pulling his weight in the family and is leaving most of the family/home work to her, she comes to a recognition:
It’s not helping her to be angry. It’s hurting her. And she has three choices. She can divorce him, break up her kids’ family, and set off on a hard road as a single mother; or she can try to be Zen about it (that doesn’t last long); or she can pretend one of several things. She can pretend she loves doing all that work on her own. She can pretend he really is a wonder who’s trying as hard as he can. She can pretend that he was actually the one who decided to [insert any of 40000 home/family chores] on his own. She will actively search out things she loves about him, inventing fantasies along the way until her vision of him is almost unrecognizable to anyone else. And so on.
Most of my friends are steady, responsible people, and they’re not going to break up families lightly. The result? A rip-roaring trade in self-delusion. It’s the only way they get by without just being plain old furious all the time. Or at least without having to be aware of it.
Congratulations on your marriage. Take good care of it. You’ve got something rare.
sarahj, every one of your posts can be turned on its head.
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If I or anyone else came on and made a “women are bad” post in the same vein as all your “men are bad” rant, would you honestly not accuse me of blaming everyone for a few bad apples?
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At least you are consistent in admitting your double-standards. I can respect that a lot more than people who pretend to not have them. First of all, you’ve got the issue that abuse is unfairly defined differently depending on gender (a man who hits a woman is scum, but if a woman hits a man than he deserved it and plus he’s a wussy if he gets hurt by a woman anway; or a 20 year old man sleeping with a 15 year old girl is child rape but a 30 year old woman sleeping with a 15 year old boy just means she did him an awesome favor) …. But the real problem is that you haven’t thought through the side-effects of your ideals. There are side effects to behaving like men are automatically untrustworthy around kids but women are automatically trustworthy. It subconsciously tells men that working with kids is a femine thing and not a masculine thing. And yet you complain about how men don’t do enough for kids and don’t care enough about families – but you are in favor of a society that ingrains “I am a man, therefore caring for kids is not for me” in the male mind so thoroughly that most men don’t even realize that it’s there.
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It is true that men physically abusing women happens more than the reverse, but it’s misleading for at least two reasons. For one thing, female abuse of a male is reported at a much lower rate, because any man who can get physically hurt by a woman is considered un-manly or pre-assumed to have done something to her to deserve it. And a man’s claim to abuse will usually be automatically disbelieve on the grounds that he should have been stronger than her and thus could have prevented it. And finally, men who suffer abuse are actually statistically more likely to suffer life-threatening injuries than are women who suffer abuse – because women are much more likely to use the aid of an instrument (baseball bat, knife, etc).
Take a look at Tiger Woods. I’m not defending the guy’s scumbag actions, but let’s look at the situation vs the hypothetical converse. He cheats on his wife, she apparently hits him in the face with a golf club. And I can understand her anger and I can see why she’d want to hit him in the face. But the interesting thing is the “He cheated on her, that b—— had it coming to him!” mindset that was overwhelmingly present. Let’s say that Ellie had cheated on Tiger and that he had hit her in the face. Yes, there would still be some idiots who said “That b—- had it coming to her!”, but the majority cry would be to throw him in jail for assault.
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If the victim is a man, and he calls the police, there’s a decent chance the police are going to come and arrest him just because he’s the male.
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But you are so deadset in being anti-male that you see anything less anti-male than yourself as pro-male.
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It is interesting how even our postmodern society can’t get past the idea that enjoyment of sexuality is supposed to be a “guy thing” … that attitude has done a TON of harm to both men and women.
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I agree. It’s too complex to put into a rating. Is making more money in the same job worth more or less than having a better chance of making it through high school and college? Is being able to sleep around without being called a slut worth more or less than getting a disproportionately large share of medical funding and research?
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Of course they do, divorce laws are blatantly biased to punish men and reward women. I had a friend who married the wrong person. All his friends knew he was making a mistake marrying her because she was manipulative nearly to the point of psychoticness and none of his friends, male or female, could stand to be around her. One day they had an argument and he decided to go on a drive for a bit to cool down. When he came back a few hours later, his kids were gone. She took them away to Indiana (from Texas) and decided to live with her family up there. A man doing this would probably get booked for kidnapping.
Now, let me pause for a second to say I’m not trying to imply that most women, or even any women for that matter, are this bad. Here’s the point: THE LAW TAKES HER SIDE. His kids are gone and he can’t even see them until the divorce/custody battle gets finalized – in the meantime, they automatically stay with her 100% of the time. And all the hearings are held with his wife in Indiana. He’s ruined himself financially and emotionally just trying to be able to see the kids his wife ran away with. And women wonder why men are afraid of committment.
My closest friends’ parents divorced when he was 7. He lived with his mom after that. When he was 9, he decided of his own accord that he wanted to live with his dad. As you can hopefully imagine, it takes a ton of guts for a 9 year old to come out and make his wishes known like this. And as you can imagine, his mom wasn’t very happy about that (and I don’t blame her for being hurt by it). But here’s what happened: things went back to court, and the judge decided with no justification whatsoever that my friend must have been emotionally manipulated by his father – apparently because kids are naturally supposed to want to be their moms more – and was ordered to take therapy sessions for several months to “fix” his problem. See, our society teaches men that there is something inherantly better about mother-child relationships than father-child relationships … and then we wonder why so many father-child relationships are disfunctional or nonexistent when the answer is staring us in the face!
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Hardly true. I don’t care if I’m with a woman who can beat me at Call of Duty or plays basketball better than I do. I’m very turned off by needy and dependent women (even though there is some part of me that subconsciously likes that because I would feel more secure with a woman who needed me b/c she’d be less likely to leave me]. I like being with someone who has strong opinions and trusts me enough to vocalize them even if they aren’t the same as mine. One of my “must-have” qualities in a partner is somone who can, as you say, call me on my shit. That’s a key to my close male friendships too – I can’t improve if my friends are pansies who won’t give me any constructive correction.
And here’s the funny thing – I’m not the odd guy out. The stuff I said is true of the vast majority of my male friends. But here’s the thing – I’m the odd guy out because I’m able to admit it. I was very lucky to be raised in an environment where I felt ok talking about feelings, being introspective or sensitive, and admitting weakness – most men are raised to think those things are bad b/c they bring emasculation or deflate one’s ego or whatnot. So, when they get “called out on their shit”, even though they may desire an equal who can do this, a lifetime of “WEAKNESS IS UNMANLY” takes over and all they can hear is “YOU AREN’T A REAL MAN”.
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Who said they were non-male? Men and women are both responsible for biased divorce and custody laws. Men and women are both responsible for the idea that feelings are unmanly.
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One could say similar things in reverse. Women seem to only want men who are obsessed with them. Women seem to want men who ditch all their other hobbies and friends to spend time with her all the time. Most of the male friends I have who treat women this way got in relationships all the time and the majority of them are married or engaged. The male friends I know who aren’t this way with women (most of whom would make way better husbands than the previous group, too) – one is engaged, none of the rest are even in a dating relationship. But the difference between you and me that when I meet a woman, I don’t instantly assume these things are true about her before I even know her. But you apparently do make these pre-judgments about men, and seem proud of it (because it means that you as a women are superior to those nasty brustish morons). And the word we have for this is “prejudice”.
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Which is good, because women have a much easier time being defined as good. When a man has shallow physical reasons for being interested in a woman (e.g. he likes her breasts), it’s evidence that men are a bunch of selfish primal idiots. When a woman has shallow physical reasons for liking a man (eg he’s tall and rugged), it’s because she’s a sweet pure creature who has a meaningful need for security. And FWIW, among men who desire meaningful relationships and not just hookups, nobody is going to refuse to consider any woman who happens to have small boobs; but among women who desire meaingful relationships, it’s very common to refuse to consider any man who happens to be shorter than she is.
Ugh, well, dumb formatting made that post lose all the quoted material so now it’s impossible to tell which of sarah’s comments I was responding to where.
I wanna write a follow up to this:
When Men Fear Women
Then do.
That would be great Jimmy. Email it to me when it’s written.
ok I’ll see what I can come up with
I think it is important to consider why are women raised to be afraid. I do not believe women lack courage, so why when a man and a women grow up in the same culture does the man walk down a dark road without problems and a woman is afraid of what might be in the shadows?
Another consideration – are men equally afraid but we are socialised to suppress it?
“Are men equally afraid but we are socialised to suppress it?”
That is an awesome point Transhuman. Society implies to all of us that men aren’t supposed to be afraid of other men because if they were a “real” man they would just beat the other guy up. And men aren’t supposed to be afraid of women because…heck, you should *never* be afraid of women. Fallacies both.
What’s been interesting to me here is that men rarely say they are afraid, when they do, to me it makes them more human. But other times, an admission of fear at the start quickly turns into anger — and then that wall goes up again.
“But other times, an admission of fear at the start quickly turns into anger — and then that wall goes up again.”
The times I have truly been afraid, I have deliberately translated fear into anger – these are times when I thought another person was about to harm me physically, usually another man but not infrequently drunk women. When I was in high school physical violence was not uncommon, and using fear to fight back was essential. What I find harder to discuss meaningfully is lesser versions of fear, I would described these occasions as heightened awareness or concern. When my (then) girlfriend wanted access to my credit card to pay her bills – I wasn’t “afraid” of her request, I was cautious, this was a situation that could get swiftly out of control with me holding the bill. When I’ve spoken about marriage it is with an eye to the problems I know it entails. I think “fear” is too generally applied, there are shades of it. I feel differently when someone comes at me with a weapon than when a girlfriend and I discuss moving in together.
In social situations, when I deliberately discuss things men supposedly fear, I note that assertion, even social aggression from men are mischaracterised as anger. I’ve been in conversations where some of the women describe a man’s refusal to agree with a women’s request as aggression, not the assertion that it actually is. I think this fear-anger-aggression issue is more complex than is realised, I think it is also misused. Sometimes I believe the general idea of fear is used to manipulate.
Thank you for that, Transhuman. I like the start of your exploration of fear-anger-agression, and wholeheartedly agree it should be talked about more. Would you ever want to write a post for us about that topic?
It’s part of why we are here — to tell the stories that help us come to a deeper, more nuanced, more thoughtful vocabulary around these issue.
“In social situations, when I deliberately discuss things men supposedly fear, I note that assertion, even social aggression from men are mischaracterised as anger. I’ve been in conversations where some of the women describe a man’s refusal to agree with a women’s request as aggression, not the assertion that it actually is. I think this fear-anger-aggression issue is more complex than is realised, I think it is also misused. Sometimes I believe the general idea of fear is used to manipulate.”
Perhaps you’d also like to bring this idea into corporate and academic situations, where women who assert themselves or fail to agree or in general act like tea-ladies are magically transmuted into hostile bitches.
Humans have a sense of fear for a reason. It’s often not a bad thing unless fear prevents us from doing things and going places that are perfectly safe and thereby losing out on opportunities. That is the problem here.
Women are taught to not be afraid of being afraid, admitting it, and taking any and all precautions they feel are needed to be safe. Men, by contrast, are taught to be protectors, guardians, to and look out for others – to be the one to take the hit/bullet for those under their care, which means to either not fear or suppress it in favor of courage. What is often missing is teaching them (us) that we are also human and should, at times, be fearful.
So, if a woman won’t ever get on an elevator with a man, she is probably making her life harder than it needs to be, and losing out on opporunities in life. If a man never fears walking down a dark road, he is making himself more likely to be a victim of violence and murder. Men and women should probably move closer to each other. Men and women can probably learn something from each other.
Actually, Eric, if she won’t get on an elevator with a man, she’s likely making herself healthier. She’ll have to take the stairs.
Context is key. Do I check out a man before I get on an elevator alone with him? You bet. And most men know a woman’s likely to do this, and if they’re decent guys will do all they can to look nonthreatening, politely avoid eye contact, and broadcast “sorry to make you uncomfortable, I’m too busy and/or nice to rape or attack you on the way to the twelfth floor.” Have I ever passed on an elevator with a creepy-looking guy and no one else in it? Yes. Just like I’ve taken my kid away from a train car area with a too-energetic, too-insistent, too-foulmouthed young man who was busy making everyone uncomfortable.
Again, context: Harried, nice-looking, middle-class mothers are a fixture in elementary schools. We expect to see them there. We don’t see them attacking or luring children, we don’t see them toting guns. The odds are excellent they’re there because a kid is sick or the kid’s forgotten something, or they’ve promised to help the teacher and are late. What we don’t expect to see in suburban elementary schools: Women who look like Bronx hookers. Dreadlock-runaway women. Any kind of woman who does not look like she’s involved in the care of one or more of the children at that school. That woman will be stopped. Lisa wasn’t stopped because she looked like exactly what she was: a nice middle-class harried mom of one of the kids at that school.
In the context of a school, random unknown man is *not* normal. We know what dads look like, even if we’ve never seen that particular dad before. The dads look uncomfortable, focused, adult, responsible, disoriented. At my kid’s school, they look employed, professional. They’re looking for a classroom or an exit, don’t know where it is. They look like they wish they had more time to exercise. They dress like dads. Cheap polos and dress shirts everywhere. But random guy who doesn’t look like a dad — why is he there? Why is he in a school in the middle of the day? What does he want, what’s he going to do? If he has no obvious business there, then yes, good security says protect those kids and teachers.
Well, she may be healthier but she may also be later. Late for that job interview that the male candidate was on time for. But, of course, if he got hired over her as a result of her being late, it would, no doubt, be a man’s fault.
But, I will tell you that, basd on your opinion of men, most men would not be the least bit troubled if you chose to take the stairs instead.
“In the context of a school, random unknown man is *not* normal. We know what dads look like, even if we’ve never seen that particular dad before. The dads look uncomfortable, focused, adult, responsible, disoriented. At my kid’s school, they look employed, professional. They’re looking for a classroom or an exit, don’t know where it is. They look like they wish they had more time to exercise. They dress like dads. Cheap polos and dress shirts everywhere. But random guy who doesn’t look like a dad — why is he there? Why is he in a school in the middle of the day? What does he want, what’s he going to do? If he has no obvious business there, then yes, good security says protect those kids and teachers.”
Really, so if a guy doesn’t wear the “dad uniform” he’s a security threat?
This begs the question…what’s a “mom uniform?” I bet it’s got flowers on it and it involves a Jennifer Aniston hair cut.
Yes, that’s about right, Peter. If a guy isn’t known to the staff, doesn’t stop by the office, and isn’t recognizably a dad, he’s a security risk. We stop him and find out what he wants, and we make sure the kids are protected in the meantime.
Heather, moms look remarkably like moms. When you’re responsible every day for someone else’s life, it shows.
What if there is a woman who isn’t known to the staff? Same deal, stop her and find out what she wants, and make sure the kids are protected in the meantime?
If she hasn’t got “mom” written all over her and hasn’t stopped at the office? Yes.
Lisa writes: “I hear someone say, “Who’s that?” They glance out, decide I’m not a threat, smile and close the door.”
Right. Because they aren’t stupid, and they know what moms look like. Someone in that office may also have recognized her. She may not have been to a PTO meeting, but I bet she had to go in there to take care of paperwork or drop off something (or someone) at some point, and staff at a good school pay attention.
In other words, Lisa set up a straw man here. Personally, I’m curious about why she’s so anxious to close the victimization gap. I mean apart from the fact that she’s got a job here.
So to not get stopped, you have to look like a mum, or be known to staff, what about look like a dad?
See if it’s not based on gender, and you stop both males and females there is no problem, if it’s just the men getting stopped it is a problem.
Archy, I know you so dislike having all men lumped together, and I certainly understand that, but you’ll have to go explain the problem to the preponderance of workplace/school-violence perpetrators, who happen to be men. If someone goes to an office to hunt down and shoot an ex-spouse, or goes to a school to open fire, you can comfortably lay your money down on the shooter’s being a man, not a woman. Go tell them that hey, they’re really screwing it up for everyone else, and they have to cut that shit out.
Am I saying that staff are seriously concerned that a strange man is actually going to shoot up the school? Yep. Should they stop either one, man or woman? Yeah. But I think they’d be silly to be genuinely equally worried. Experience wouldn’t bear it out.
We’ve got a jail nearby, and every so often an inmate escapes. I have yet to hear of a female escapee. When the schools get the news, they go on lockdown. I used to think this whole lockdown thing was insane, abhorrent; now I see that it’s unfortunately necessary, because we’re just so awash in gun violence here. There was a mass murder in an Ohio school a few months back, and the main reason more kids didn’t die was that they’d done quite a bit of training to prepare for such an event.
Do the schools get the news the instant a guy escapes, no. There’s always a lag. So do I want them to err on the side of safety, yes. Do I think we need to cut back radically on who can get a gun and what kind and how, yes absolutely. But I don’t see it happening anytime soon, and I won’t go into the gender breakdown of those arguing for more gun rights v. fewer.
ht tps://www.ncjrs.gov/html/ojjdp/nismart/03/ns4.html
Yes, it’s mostly men who kidnap children, BUT 25% of non-family abductions and 7% of family abductions perpetrated by females is nothing to ignore.
Make sure you stop both male n female strangers and don’t place too much trust in women over men.
Are you also more concerned by race? By age? Are you more worried about 20-40 year olds who dominate the crime stats? Are you more worried about lower income parents? Are you worried that children are more likely to be abused by their mother than their father? You see I can play the stats game too and show that children are infact most at risk with their mothers, not strangers. Most child abuse is at the hands of MOTHERS.
Archy, when a stranger walks into a school, the secretaries aren’t worried that the stranger is there to abuse a child. The secretaries are afraid that the stranger is there to pull out a gun or steal a child. The heavy, heavy odds there are men. Not women. And the most immediate danger is the kind with a gun, and there we’re talking about men. I’m sorry, you’re just wrong on this one. I know you’ve been abused by women, and yes, there’s a lot of child abuse perpetrated by mothers. But that’s not what the article’s about. The article’s about a strange man walking into a school. And the staff responded appropriately. Heavyhanded, maybe, but within bounds.
All I want to know is would women be watched, or are men singled out? I understand the violence, etc that plagues men but even a single incident from a female proves the need for women to also be watched. I don’t mind that strangers are treated with caution, what I mind is when we focus only on one group, where we treat men with suspicion but treat women as perfectly safe.
In a situation where a strange woman enters the school, I fully expect the staff to find out why she is there. If a strange man enters the school, I fully expect the same, what would be wrong is if only the men are stopped. Men statistically are the bigger threat for a shooting, etc, but that shouldn’t mean women are ignored.
Like anger, it’s not the emotion but what we do with it. It’s one thing to be fearful but it’s another to shut down and drastically change our lives to accommodate it. I haven’t locked my doors in years, in fact I don’t even know where the key to our house is. The one time my house was burglarized, they broke a window to get in. Had they simply tried to the door that was 3 feet away from the window, I wouldn’t have had the additional cost of replacing the window.
BTW, according to the police in my area the best deterrent for break ins is a dog with a loud bark.
The problem I have with this article is that it seems to be coming from a position of privilege and seems to be ignoring a lot of factors, such as economics and religion. It’s all well and good to tell women “just get up there and ask for that raise” when you had the opportunity to be educated to make you a raise-worthy employee. But when you grew up poor and your brothers are the ones your parents spent the education money on while you were busy being groomed to find yourself a good man by being pretty, not smart, it’s a lot harder to make it to CEO. Economics and class plays a very large part in what opportunities are available and how well people can struggle upstream to better their position. And tied to that is a lot of institutionalized sexism.
There is also the risk/rewards ratio to consider, when you broaden the topic to generalized “fear of men”. Most women will probably agree that not all men are rapists, and that, in fact, the majority of men are not rapists. The problem is that we can’t tell who is a rapist, or a thief, or a murderer, until he or she is actually committing the act. So when someone approaches you on a dark street, and you’re wearing high heels because that’s standard office-wear and you just got off work, and the person is physically larger than you because, as a female, there are an awful lot of people larger than you, the safer thing is to take precautions *in case* that person is a bad guy and be wrong about it than to not take those precautions and be wrong about *that*. A good analogy of this A Man To Man Talk For The Menz: http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2011/07/women_in_elevators_a_man_to_ma.php
You mention something about seeing sexism because we’re taught to expect sexism. I work in a predominantly male field, and I adamantly refused to admit that there was any sexism happening in the workplace – no institutionalized sexism of course, naturally there were always the occasional sexist guy, but I could always handle them. We got where we were based on our merits, and if women were underrepresented in my field, well that was because they were, on average, smaller than guys and therefore couldn’t do the heavy lifting required. So it wasn’t sexist, it was just the way of things. Right?
Until the time I requested to drive the forklift. There were 26 of us on the crew, 6 of whom were female. I was the only one who had an OSHA-certified license already. I was told 3 times in 3 months that I would have to wait for a forklift class before I could be approved to drive for that company (even though 4 guys suddenly get permission to drive the forks in that same time period). Then one of the guys, who was a terrible driver in general, actually drove his fork through a wall and tipped it over (2 separate accidents, but on the same day). So I complained to the supervisor and said that I already knew how to drive and I was a better driver than he was, so I should be put through the class & given the job. I was told, flat out, that they did not let women drive the forklifts.
Then there was the time I asked for rigging training. The story is the same, I asked multiple times, was put off by saying there was some “class” I had to complete & there were no classes scheduled, but during that same time period of “no classes”, several guys were given the job, some of whom caused accidents because they were not qualified for the job.
I’ve been in this business for 20 years and the pattern is the same. I am a freelance contractor and I have worked all over the country, so this is also not just because I happened to pick one sexist company to work for. The rigging & forklift stories are from 2 different companies, 1 year apart, and completely representative of all the companies I’ve worked for.
If you never had any sort of pushback for being female, and you managed to rise to your position without a single instance of sexism making your rise even slightly more difficult than a male of equal experience & education, then you are either supremely lucky or as blinded as I was in the beginning.
There is a reason why some people see sexism happening everywhere. It doesn’t mean that every human is sexist, it means that it exists in all areas to some degree or another, and that it is supported and encouraged by the institutions of our society so that it’s hard to root out. http://www.patheos.com/blogs/unequallyyoked/2011/07/lets-talk-about-privilege.html is a good place to start learning more about the problem with dismissing complaints just because one never experienced it oneself.
I should also make it clear that, taking precautions because it’s better to guess wrong about a stranger being a threat than to be wrong about a stranger not being a threat, does not mean we should single out men as the threat. For instance, your story about you running through the halls like a crazy person being met with no resistance while a man’s mere presence was cause for lockdown is shameful. First of all, the school should not have gone all the way to lockdown just for a guy’s presence. But second of all, you should not have been given the free pass that you were given. Precautions are valuable & important. It is right to have been a little cautious about a strange man in a school. But it should have been because he was a *stranger*, not because he was a man. The children at a school are in more danger from their sports coaches than from a non-employee adult who happens to be in the halls one day.
I also forgot to comment on this: ” Instead of teaching women to fear men, we should be teaching women to fix their cars.”
This smacks way too much of victim-blaming for my taste. This is a false dichotomy and not an either/or proposition. And I’ll give another anecdote to illustrate…
I’m 5’5″, 110 pounds, petite, with long hair & small hands. And I can fix my own car. In fact, I restored and converted a 1979 school bus into a motorhome and drove across the country. Alone. The only person I’ve ever met who is a better shot than me is someone who actually was trained by the military to be a sharpshooter. I am *capable*.
One day, my tire was low and I was late, so I stopped by the gas station for a can of fix-a-flat as a temporary measure – I’d fix the car later but right now I just wanted to stop the leak. There wasn’t a hole or anything obvious, so it could be put off. As I crouched there with the can in my hand, a man on a bicycle rode up just barely in my peripheral vision, hopped off the bike without stopping, and continued at the same speed on foot to reach me and attempted to grab the can out of my hand, knocking into me and knocking me off balance. He also had a lit cigarette in his mouth.
So I stood up and said I didn’t need his help. He backed off, out of my line of sight, muttering about ungrateful bitches, then ran back up to me and tried to grab the can again. So I stood up again and told him that this was flammable, we were at a gas station, & he had a lit cigarette, now back off, I don’t need his help. So he walked a few paces away, again grumbling, this time about how it’s not flammable (in spite of the big red label on the can saying it was).
Then he tried a third time, again approaching me from behind & grabbing for the can. So I pulled out my switchblade knife and told him to f*** off, that I did not need his help. The knife apparently got it through his thick skull and he did not try again.
He was not a threat because he was a man, he was a threat because his behaviour was threatening. But I’ve never seen a woman try to wrestle a tool out of my hand, convinced that she could do something better than me, and require a weapon to be brandished before she left me alone. *This is not the only time a man has done something like this to me*.
Again, this is not to say that all men are threats. This is to say that we can’t tell when someone is a threat until they are, and someone who is physically larger and/or acting in a suspicious or threatening manner should be treated cautiously because it is better to assume someone is a threat and be wrong, than to assume they are not a threat and be wrong. That men happen to be bigger more often and acting suspiciously/threateningly more often is an unfortunate fact. If other men, who get it, would school these sorts of men on their behaviour, maybe we could lower the incident rate down to a level where we didn’t draw generalizations like “men are more likely to be a threat to me than women” because it would no longer be true.
“If other men, who get it, would school these sorts of men on their behaviour, maybe we could lower the incident rate down to a level where we didn’t draw generalizations like “men are more likely to be a threat to me than women” because it would no longer be true.”
School them how though? Telling them not to help women because they are women? Quite a lot of that schooling already happens, hell feminist websites are chock a block with schooling. I have no problem with telling other men to stop negative behaviour, I already do it, as long as women also join us in getting women to stop their negative behaviour. So often I see requests by women to get men to help them get other men to behave better, and quite often it happens, but I don’t see the reverse happen much. (It may happen though, if you have articles, awareness campaigns etc that are gendered to get women to stop abusing, or treating men negatively, I’d love to see them)
I have to ask though, if a persons experience is that black people are more violent towards them, is it acceptable for them to be afraid of black people? The overhelming majority of child abuse is perpetrated by mothers, should children now fear their mothers? Maybe we need women to school other mothers to stop abusing kids and maybe these children would feel safer around their mothers, where they didn’t have to draw generalizations like “mummy is more likely to be a threat to me than daddy”
Archy, what part of this did you miss? “Accept ‘no thanks’ graciously and do not *grab* things away from women; do not decide, using physical force or not, that you know better what they need and that they must show appreciation for all your unwanted helpiness.” It’s very simple: ask, “Can you use a hand?” And if the answer’s no, then back the hell off. This is not your moment to prove yourself a hero. I thought that was fairly obvious courtesy.
You know, I get that either you were abused by a woman early on, or you’re one of these dads’ rights guys who hasn’t got custody, and is trying to deflect attention from the fact that there’s likely a good reason for it by accusing women generally. (Top tip: the strategy works only among frustrated misogynists and second wives who, in their heart of hearts, wish they’d never gotten into this stepmom gig.) But — for crying out loud. Any police blotter. Any playground. Any war. Staggeringly overwhelmingly, where you find violence, you find men. Does it mean all men are violent? No. It means that an unknown man wandering around is something to be wary about.
As for profiling: I’m headed to a nearby city next week, a terribly racially divided city. I’ll be staying in a mostly-white yuppie neighborhood. It’s been a summer of high crime and murders in this city, mostly in black and Latino neighborhoods, but there’s been spillover into this neighborhood. The police can’t keep up, not even close. Know what I’m gonna do when I’m walking down the street and a non-yupster black kid bigger than me’s coming toward me, or a group of them? Put other people between me and the kid(s), or cross the street. Those kids aren’t there for a latte. And when short, graying, middle-aged women suddenly hit the headlines as the next crime-spree menace, you can bet I will find ways of dressing and comporting myself that telegraph: “I’m one of the non-crimey ones, please relax”, and will still understand that people will tuck their iphones away when they see me coming.
@Sarahj. The “nearby city” sounds like it may be Chicago. You’re taking precautions should have nothing to do with who is walking toward you. It’s a big city problem and has nothing to do with race much less gender. The truth is criminals can spot fear a mile away and showing fear within itself may be setting yourself up.
Most criminals on the street are interested in one thing and that’s your money which is usually in a women’s purse. Don’t take a purse with you. Most criminals who are interested in money won’t bother you if you yourself may be high risk for their getting caught.
In so far as the high crime and murder rate in these big cities, it has to do with drug dealings and gang activity. You don’t sound like the type of person who does either. Be aware of where you’re at in these big cities. Be with someone who knows the city and I hope he/she will keep you out of these areas.
If you get a chance, watch the movie “Crash” …. I think you’ll appreciate it’s message.
As much as you want to stereotype men as being an issue, also note that men can also be a deterrent to criminal activity on the street. Just as you may see a man as being a threat, street criminals also see them as a threat. Single women walking down the street is no less or more vulnerable then a group of women walking down the street. Street thugs see women as being vulnerable in a group or alone.
Start to try to breakaway from the idea that it’s a “male” thing and more that it’s criminal thinking. There is a definite rise in female violence and to think that you’re just as safe with women on the street, you’re setting yourself out. Do you think that your thinking isn’t recognized or known by the criminal?
Gang activity? A lot of women/girls are in gangs. 35+ years ago, the neighborhood gang (Latin kings) continually tried to recruit my then girlfriend (now wife) into the Latin Queens. Don’t kid yourself that your safe with the female gender.
If you want a sampling of how women can be? There is a TV show (cable) called Pawn Stars. A reality show about a pawn broker company in the heart of Detroit. When my wife and I watch it, she’s amazed as to how the women act, their violent nature.
I am not a fathers rights person, don’t have children. I was abused by one woman but I love many women.
The reason I pointed it out wasn’t to deflect at all, it’s to point out that fear based on stats can spiral out of control. I can very easily give reason to children to fear their mother based on the stats of child abuse, I can give reason to fear girlfriends/wives for men based on the domestic and sexual violence stats, you can probably find stats to make people afraid of every group.
You want men to educate other men on their behaviour, but do you educate women on their behaviour to men? Do you tell them to stop raping, beating, stabbing, shooting men? Do you tell mothers to stop raping, beating, abusing, killing their children? Or are men a special category and women shouldn’t school other women? I don’t mind telling ANYONE to stop violence, but unless women are going to tell other women to stop it then I’m going to be annoyed that they aren’t helping out. There are more victims in the world than just women, and a huge amount of violence n evil is perpetrated by women, it’s not this rare/barely happens kind of event, it’s every day, it’s serious, causes a huge amount of damage just as violence/evil by men does.
“Any police blotter. Any playground. Any war. Staggeringly overwhelmingly, where you find violence, you find men. Does it mean all men are violent? No. It means that an unknown man wandering around is something to be wary about.”
And why not worry about women as well? They still do harm people, even if it’s less than what men do? Do you still fear unknown women? I can understand someone fearing men more due to size difference and portion of violence but what I don’t understand is when people don’t fear strange women when clearly they do cause violence even at a lesser rate than men on average. Kids should be afraid of their mothers more than their fathers by the same logic.
@Archy: Ask kids. They’re more afraid of their dads because the dads are the heavies. Louder voices, heavier hands, more physically intimidating, stronger. My dad never laid a hand on me and was a dedicated do-not-hit-kids guy, but sure I was scared of him. The threat’s in the potential.
As for the point you’re trying repeatedly to make: Nobody is saying women can’t be violent and that there aren’t violent and otherwise abusive women. Statistically they do much less physical damage. And that’s why people not only worry about them less, but are right to worry about them less.
I got a friend whose husband’s a Marine, divorced. His ex-wife hit him, hard; he pulled over, got out of the car, and just walked away, said that’s it. Did she injure him? No; she’s this little tiny thing and apparently doesn’t know how to make a punch count. He just recognized she was a nutjob and he had to leave. Had it been the other way around, though, the woman would’ve been in the hospital. You seem to want desperately to gloss this difference and make it unimportant. Unfortunately, it’s extremely important.
@Tom: no, not Chicago, though Chicago’s got similar problems. I’m a city kid, I know about criminals and fear. Fear isn’t what they look for. Lack of vigilance, not paying attention is what they look for. Vulnerability. If you’re alone, if you’re in heels, if you’ve got earphones blocking out the surroundings, if you’re just unaware. Or if you’re too open. Only time I’ve been mugged was when I just didn’t react fast enough, guy coming toward me and I’m all “can I help you?” instead of running like hell.
While there are more violent girls and women than ever, violence is still very much a male thing. Any police blotter will disabuse you of the notion that we live in a Free to Be world when it comes to violence, particularly the kind that sends people to hospitals.
As for having a man around — it depends on context. In some areas a strange guy’s just a walking provocation, esp. if he’s big and/or the wrong color. I have a friend 6’7″, 360 lbs, and there’s neighborhoods he can’t go near because too many guys want to fight him, see if they can take him.
“As for the point you’re trying repeatedly to make: Nobody is saying women can’t be violent and that there aren’t violent and otherwise abusive women. Statistically they do much less physical damage. And that’s why people not only worry about them less, but are right to worry about them less. ”
I got a friend whose husband’s a Marine, divorced. His ex-wife hit him, hard; he pulled over, got out of the car, and just walked away, said that’s it. Did she injure him? No; she’s this little tiny thing and apparently doesn’t know how to make a punch count. He just recognized she was a nutjob and he had to leave. Had it been the other way around, though, the woman would’ve been in the hospital. You seem to want desperately to gloss this difference and make it unimportant. Unfortunately, it’s extremely important.”
You’re acting as if women can never inflict serious injury or death. Statistically women are less likely to cause serious injury, it doesn’t mean they NEVER cause serious injury.
There are guys who are SAS who get severely beaten by their wives. There are men who end up with serious injuries from women. Women are not weaklings and weapons can easily overcome any strength differences.
“Ian McNicholl, 47, has painful memories to remind him of the terror he endured when he found himself a male victim of domestic violence.
His then fiancee, Michelle Williamson, punched him in the face several times, stubbed out cigarettes on his body, lashed him with a vacuum cleaner tube, hit him with a metal bar and a hammer and even poured boiling water on to his lap. That at 6ft he was almost a foot taller than her made no difference. He still has burn marks on his left shoulder from when she used steam from an iron on him. Williamson, 35, is now serving a seven-year jail sentence for causing both actual and grievous bodily harm.”
ht tp://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/sep/05/men-victims-domestic-violence
I have cousins who have fought with men, knocked them out in a single punch. A single punch by the way can kill. Some women are “tiny things who can’t hurt a fly” but others are not. I’ve been hit by women and I can assure you it hurts as much as a man hitting me. There are plenty of men who face severe domestic violence, who are burned, hit, stabbed, beaten with fists or objects like frying pans, and that’s only including the physical damage. The most severe damage I received was mental abuse for which women are easily capable of.
Being a bigger man means nothing, I am 6’6, over 300lbs, quite strong and a woman half my size could easily drop me in one hit if she has even half a clue of how to hit. A lot of men grow up with the ideal of “never hit a woman, even if she hits you”. A lot of men will take punches, abuse, etc from women and not report it. I’d easily say men are less likely to report abuse than women are.
There is also the fact that we have Fight, flight, freeze instincts, some people will fight back, some will run away, and some will freeze up unable to act whilst being hit. I’ve had someone hit me and I froze up n took the hits even though I could have easily put him in hospital with my physical force alone, but my mind didn’t allow me. I was scared, I froze up, I didn’t wanna hurt someone.
Too often women think they can’t hurt a man, that they are so weak that men can easily overpower them yet really they have a fighting chance. The only major differences are men can reach a higher strength potential, but more importantly men TRAIN more than women in violent acts, eg, they fight more when young physically. Men also on average do more weight lifting and do more jobs that require more strength but women can get to a decent level of strength and I’d say most are quite capable of doing major damage if they use their strength in the right way.
Yes, men do more damage on average but that doesn’t mean every single incident will have a man doing more damage, or even fighting back. I know of men who couldn’t throw a punch as hard as the average woman, I know women who can throw a punch harder than most men. There are women who are extremely dangerous and can easily deal with the average men.
Kids are afraid of dads because they know no better, the basic instincts of fearing physical strength, size, intimdation are at play. If kids knew any better they’d know mothers abuse kids the most but they don’t so they go by what they know. You can fear one group but be in more danger with another group. The only thing it suggests is women are seen as weaker and less of a threat from instinct alone, but that can work to an abusive woman’s advantage by acting sweet n innocent. In fact it works against male victims of domestic violence quite a lot as people assume women are weaker, men could never be severely injured by a woman or that she didn’t abuse him. Do you think the police would goto a domestic violence situation and assume the man is at fault, take him away when he was the victim?
“Had it been the other way around, though, the woman would’ve been in the hospital. ”
This depends on how hard he would hit her. There are so many factors at play like the social expectation of men to never hit women, yet women don’t have that same expectation placed on them. Infact I regularly saw women hit men in school, and as an adult whilst people treated it as nothing. Reverse the situation, even if the man hit her with 1/10th the power the average woman hits with he would be far more likely to have someone intervene, hit HIM, abuse him about it, etc. A guy at school was hit by a girl, he hit back, pretty much everyone was on her side and hated him for it.
Do you think women never send men to the hospital or morgue? I have a bridge to sell you…I’m not glossing over the difference because I know the difference. Women do less damage per fight on average but are still capable and still cause serious injury or death. You’re acting as if they are incapable of causing serious injury which just isn’t true.
@Sarahj…..Round and round we go … rehashing the same old thing about fearing men. So I guess what you want us to say is that men are evil and every women should fear men no matter what.
If you think that men don’t know men can be perps, you’re wrong. We are reminded of it every day of the week. Simply open up the news paper, turn on the TV or radio and there will be something about the evil men. So what’s your point Sarah? What do you want us to say?
But here is a word to the wise, don’t let your guards down around women, don’t think that just because it’s a women sitting next to you on the bus or walking behind you on the street, that you’re safe.
Being a “city girl,” you of all people should know what man is a potential problem and accordingly shouldn’t fear all men simply because they’re men.
“Being a “city girl,” you of all people should know what man is a potential problem and accordingly shouldn’t fear all men simply because they’re men.”
I don’t think I ever said that should be the case. Not even in the initial example, with the school. If a man’s demeanor and appearance say “I belong here and I’m not a threat,” then of course I’m not going to be afraid. I have actual, real-life conversations with men every day, and they both look and are friendly, non-thuggy, and suitable to the environment.
And you’re right that women can do harm, too, but it’s not generally women who do the walk-by punching-in-the-face, the stabbings, etc. I know how not to leave a wallet or iphone exposed, but…yeah, I’m trying to remember the last time I sensed I was in physical danger from a woman. . . . . nothing. Oh, okay, 20 years ago, when I called in my upstairs neighbors b/c the guy was beating the crap out of the woman. Woman accosted me next day in the hall and offered, Maury-style, to beat the shit out of me if I didn’t mind my own business. She was about twice my size and I don’t think she’d have hesitated much to throw a punch. So I called the landlord and said “them or me”, and that was the end of them.
Apart from that…nada, baby. Men? Another story altogether.
What do I want you to say? I didn’t have a message in mind, except to argue against this idea that the school sec’ys were unreasonable in judging a strange man to be more dangerous than a strange woman who looked every inch a mom (and who may in fact have been recognized by the secretaries in the first place).
@Archy: I don’t think this is going to resolve. People apply odds in their decsionmaking. The odds are that the man will be more violent than the woman. People know this and react accordingly, and it’s reasonable of them to do so. It doesn’t mean there are no good and helpful men, or that there are no violent and horrible women. I think people would generally agree with that, too.
What you want people to do is throw out those odds in how they react to situations, and it’s not going to happen because it’d be foolish of them.
I think this video demonstrates your point very clearly Archy. A guy stands there and takes a beating for about 5 minutes and yet, the women filming the video keeps saying “he better not hit her back”. Yet, despite insisting he not defend himself against her, this never thinks to intervene herself. So the expectation is that he doesn’t need help, but he’s also not allowed to defend himself. This is not an uncommon attitude.
And of course, in contrast, had he defended himself, this would likely have been the result. You can here all the other guys calling him a bloody bastard, and answering his “how can she slap me?” with “you slapped here” even though she slapped first.
Christ, Mark, they teach how to deal with this in elementary school.
1. Ignore. If that doesn’t work,
2. Tell her to stop. If that doesn’t work,
3. Walk away. If that doesn’t work,
4. Go to a teacher (in this case, a cop).
I check in on our police blotter now and then, and if you think the cops don’t take “my girlfriend/wife hit me” seriously, you’re profoundly mistaken. These calls end in the women’s arrest. Injury is unnecessary. The men are not arrested for calling in, and the cops do not presume that the man was actually the abuser. If you live in a place where the police will not take such calls seriously, then I suggest community action or, if that fails, moving.
In less enlightened days, I believe the way sensible men used to handle such situations was:
1. Get the hell away from the woman; or if that’s not possible
2. Restrain the woman, but do not hit her back;
3. If you live with her, get your shit and go, because she’s nuts and violent.
“The men are not arrested for calling in, and the cops do not presume that the man was actually the abuser. If you live in a place where the police will not take such calls seriously, then I suggest community action or, if that fails, moving.”
http://vimeo.com/1649038
At least you acknowledge that in some places, men’s abuse isn’t taken seriously. It’s just a shame you feel a legitimate response is to move away. It’s not that men are being discriminated against, it’s just your in the wrong place.
And if you think there are nobody attempting to address this, you’re dead wrong. But feminist groups and family law attorneys actively oppose reform, and right now, they are the dominate influence.
And of course, trying to tell me how someone should resolve the issue ignores two very important points. 1: the commenter, like much of society, still feels women should not be hit, even when they are behaving the way this woman was, and you yourself buy into that as well with point number 2 of your bottom list (restrain, don’t hit. What would have happened if he had hit her back? Equality doesn’t mean special privileges, and a man hitting another man like that would get coldcocked) 2: Not only are women capable of being violent, they are encouraged (to a point, the commenter began supporting her and calling him names), and even when it goes to far, typically remains unchallenged at best. The woman who had just spent 5+ minutes beating on her boyfriend in front of witnesses got sat down gently on the bench until she lashed out at the cop himself. The cops witnessed her beating him and didn’t slap cuffs on her until she attacked THEM. And worst, the female cop grabbed HIM by the arm as if HE had done something wrong, when they left the train.
There are serious misconceptions about violence and the sexes, and you are openly promoting and encouraging them. I’m actually quite disappointed you have gone unchallenged by other feminists here.
My experience is that the women’s groups are the ones sponsoring the “take DV against men” movements — when they’re serious movements and not attempts by violent men to shift blame.
It’s a deeply unfortunate thing, and you see it all over the dads’ rights movement: men say the courts are biased, they can’t get access to their kids. Well, in fact there are laws on the books about this in every state I’ve investigated, ranging from visitation to compulsory shared custody unless there’s a good reason not to, with the caselaw showing that moms who try to deny court-ordered visitation are begging the courts to shift custody to the dads. So you start to wonder: gee, are the courts just ignoring these laws? Answer: uh, no. And you see why not as soon as you start investigating the court records of the men shouting loudest about these things. DV charges lead, so the men insist the charges are trumped up, the cops wouldn’t believe them, etc. Okay…for the moment let’s grant that, but then how do you explain all the trespass, assault, drunk-driving, child-endangerment, petty theft, etc. charges?
If you actually talk to women’s groups and centers, you’ll find the people in charge are pretty savvy about these things and understand that there are men suffering genuine abuse whose cause is being completely undermined by these thugs who don’t want a good look in the mirror, and would prefer to blame anyone else available: judges, women, lawyers, you name it.
You’re also playing the age-old game of putting the words you wanted to fight with in other people’s mouths. I never said that having to move to find a more congenial and sane atmosphere was a good thing. But the reality for men, as for women, is that if you want to live in a decent place where you’re well-treated, you either have to find it or make it. Which is why I’m happy to argue against spurious “maltreatment of men” articles like the one Lisa wrote.
Finally: NOBODY should be hit. Yeah, I “buy into” that. If a woman is hitting you — I’m presuming she’s not a bruiser and that you have the physical advantage — then get the hell away from her and call the cops. For that matter, if a man is hitting you, then get the hell away from him and call the cops. This is Preschool 101, Mark, you should know these things.
If you actually talk to women’s groups and centers, you’ll find the people in charge are pretty savvy about these things and understand that there are men suffering genuine abuse whose cause is being completely undermined by these thugs who don’t want a good look in the mirror, and would prefer to blame anyone else available: judges, women, lawyers, you name it.
While those thugs are partly responsible for it there is still a matter of the judges, women, lawyers, etc. that actually do take part in that undermining.
Finally: NOBODY should be hit. Yeah, I “buy into” that. If a woman is hitting you — I’m presuming she’s not a bruiser and that you have the physical advantage — then get the hell away from her and call the cops. For that matter, if a man is hitting you, then get the hell away from him and call the cops. This is Preschool 101, Mark, you should know these things.
I have a question.
Why the simplification of men that are facing female abusers?
I’ll be the first to agree that no one should be hit but when it comes to women hitting men people seem to reach for “why doesn’t he get away from her?” before “why is she hitting him?”.
This even comes up in terms of fighting back. People have no problem saying that a woman should fight back but flip it around and all of a sudden it becomes he should get away from her.
And not to accuse you of doing so but it also seems that there is a double standard in effect on the whole thing about it being so “obvious” that someone should get out of there when being abused. Say that about an abused woman and its victim blaming. Say that about an abused man and its all good.
“Well, in fact there are laws on the books about this in every state I’ve investigated, ranging from visitation to compulsory shared custody unless there’s a good reason not to, with the caselaw showing that moms who try to deny court-ordered visitation are begging the courts to shift custody to the dads.”
First off, there aren’t actually any laws on the books that designate any kind of equality. There are suggestions and recomendations that a child be able to have meaningful relationships with both parents, but what that means is entirely up to the judge, and “the best interests of the child” a term with no real definition, can and is used to excuse just about anything. Add into the mix that every single law regarding family court has a DV loophole, and false alligations of abuse rarely have consequences, and what you really have is absolutely nothing the judge is held to.
Secondaly, There are laws on the books that say employers can not discriminate, there are 3 laws already in place to ensure fair pay, and Obama just tried adding a 4th. There are also laws that say rape and abuse are illigal. Yet, I can’t go a day without hearing some feminist bitching and moaning about at least one of these things. Title IX says it is illigal to discriminate based on gender in education, but that isn’t good enough, because, despite dominating most fields, and post secondary in general, woman fail to dominate ALL fields, so there has been bitching and moaning and a further change in policy. So how is it you can have a law that says something is illigal, and that’s not good enough because you don’t like the outcomes, but When men point to an issue that has, at best, a recomendation not to be too discriminatory (not nearly the same and must be equal) unless it’s in the best interests of the child to do otherwise, we’re not allowed to complain without being called unreasonable?
A 44/56 split, 40 years ago, in education was deemed entirely unacceptable. Men get primary custody less than 10% of the time, and actual 50/50 shared parenting is even more rare than that, and you don’t seem to have a problem with that, even attempting to defend it… Is that feminists idea of equality?
“So you start to wonder: gee, are the courts just ignoring these laws? ”
Seriously, what laws? Not a single law exists that states mothers and fathers should be treated equally. The men’s Roe vs wade equivilent actually set a precedent that stated different class of people can be treated differently under the law, thus allowing mothers and fathers to be treated differently under the law. And plenty of laws exists to ensure a mother and/or judge can remove a father.
“but then how do you explain all the trespass, assault, drunk-driving, child-endangerment, petty theft, etc. charges?”
Same way you explain the 12 time suicide rate. Family court, false aligations, having your children, your home and you reputation stripped from you can be an emotionaltempest that’s haard for anyone to endure… and some people don’t handle it well.
I also note you are once again playing out a stereotype here, and a one sided examination as well.
“by these thugs who don’t want a good look in the mirror, and would prefer to blame anyone else available: judges, women, lawyers, you name it.”
And here we have the standard, men who dare speak up about wanting to be with their kids are really just abusers abusing the system and blaming others. It never ceases to amaze me just how disconnected some people can get, in that they can see unequal outcomes where it women are the minority by marginal amounts and it’s all discrimination, discrimination. But when you have an unequal outcome where the men are the minority (and by a HUGE margin) and all of a sudden, not only is this acceptable, it is encouraged and defended by accusing anyone who dares speak up about it of being a thug.
“Finally: NOBODY should be hit. Yeah, I “buy into” that.”
I see this as nothing more than empty platitudes. You want to know why…
“This is Preschool 101, Mark, you should know these things.”
Because you attempt to shame me for daring to try and bring attention to the problem. If it was so preschool 101, we wouldn’t have such gendered DV policy.
And again I must ask, all those other feminists here who claim to be for men, where are you? This is why feminism has a bad reputation that’s getting worst.
Wow, this is a very inspiring article. I enjoyed reading it very much, particularly the part about teaching women to fix their cars. I used to work for a NPO for empowering women here in Jerusalem, Israel, and last summer I took a class with them about car maintenence. It was just a two-hour workshop about how to change a tire, what the lights on the dashboard mean and things like that, and then we learned a bit about what to do if someone assaults you in your car. It was short but priceless.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Awesome, Joreth. And it’s true. I’ve never had a woman come and *take a tool out of my hand and try to take over*, but I sure have had a man do that. Including my ex, who also made a lot of fuss when I put up the shelves in my office by myself. (Not a hard job, but apparently it was my job to make him Feel Manly.) When I later saw how he put up a towel rack, I was glad I hadn’t let him near my office shelves.
I don’t let my ex into the house anymore, either. I tried for years after the divorce (which he initiated) to be friendly, but for whatever reason, he wasn’t having any. Eventually he got so mean and disrespectful, and just started looking so about-to-explode, that I told him he couldn’t come in anymore. He’s never hit me, but I’ve seen him go to town on furniture, etc.
And institutionalized sexism, don’t even get me started.
Less grabbiness and violence would be a great start.
Wow! What a conversation! Quite heated at times…
Throughout history, there is an abundance of evidence that weighs in on men being, in general, much more threatening to the health and welfare of others than women. It’s called testosterone. You guys have the bulk of that, not the women, and men are socialized in most societies to be more aggressive in pursing what they want. Way it goes…
To me, it’s simply logical to be more cautious in my dealings with men I don’t know than I would be with women I don’t know. Not because women are incapable of harming others or being a real threat (I’ve experienced harm from women), but because I know I could probably hold my own against an opponent of equal strength and weight if the worst came to be! This isn’t rocket science. And this article did begin around a scenario of an “unknown man” prowling the halls of an elementary school, right? His presence didn’t cause alarm because he was considered an emotional or intellectual threat, I’m quite certain. Didn’t this whole thing start over why men are considered more threatening than women? Read history books and you’ll know why.
In the modern age and in Western cultures, perhaps we’re seeing a wee bit more equalization between the sexes as far as what assholes we feel entitled to be to each other, but our Western views are narrow and hardy encompass what goes on globally. In addition, we are encumbered by generalizations, unless we all come to the table acknowledging that everybody hurts: everyone has suffered at the hands of someone else.
Yes, we all need to evolve. But we’re not there yet. Until I see evidence otherwise, I will continue to be cautious of male strangers. And rather than apologize for that fact, I see it as being rather bright of me.
Lisa, you hit the nail on the head with the comments about presumption of male guilt. Having worked for Head Start for a time, I often had to make visits to centers where I was the only (adult) male face seen all day. I saw the suspicious stares; I felt their silent judgment. Society can give lip service to “the importance of male role models,” etc etc all it wants, but until men who work in fields involving contact with children are not viewed with suspicion simply for being male, their words are lost on me. I’ve gotten out of the field altogether. I don’t need to pay the price for other men’s sins.
Thanks Drood,
Part of what we’re trying to do here is just get people to see things from the other perspective. Glad this resonated with you. Hope you find a way to be a role model again.
drood, I’m sorry you’ve had to pay that price.
My daughter went to a daycare run by a man, and several key staffers were men. That said, I do vet male caregivers much more carefully than I vet women. It’s unusual for a man to want to work in childcare: exhausting work for almost no money, and few men want to be around kids that much. Unfortunately, some number of those who do are there to abuse children, or are working out some psychological problem (lost their own kids, can’t handle adults, etc.). So when a man’s in the running, I want to know: Why are you here? What is it that interests you in children? Do you know how to be gentle enough? I will talk to the man, find out about his life, watch him carefully.
With the guy who ran our daycare, he was just so fantastic with kids it was obviously his calling, a teacher as much as a caregiver. His main guy was a musician, every inch a family man, his whole life had kids crawling all over it, all ages, multiple marriages. He seems young till you really talked to him and then you realized no, this guy’s in his 50s, and tired, but he really knows a lot about both children and life. They really helped raise my daughter, and took a lot of stress off me at a difficult time.
You do realize this is the line of thought that causes a lot of men to NOT want to be fathers, or be role models to kids these days because of pedophilia hysteria? In Australia we have male preschool teachers who parents ask to be fired simply because he is a male, it’s one of the 3 big reasons why there is a huge lack of male teachers and male leadership for kids. Society has this accepted bigotry against men, to question their actions based on the actions of the few. We’re just causing a generation or 2 of people who lack trust in men around kids, I hope people remember that when they wonder why there are so few male role models for kids, leaders, teachers, where fathers themselves are afraid to interact with their kids and get abused when helping their kids shop for clothes like this father.
ht tp://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/can-a-dad-take-his-daughter-clothes-shopping-and-other-indignities-of-modern-dadhood/
Such attitudes result in this kind of discrimination:
http://www.smh.com.au/travel/travel-incidents/seat-swap-outcry-moves-virgin-to-think-again-20120810-23y7q.html
“There’s a lot less worry about a car breaking down on a deserted street somewhere if it’s maintained and you can change a flat tire in less than 10 minutes. I have done so while eight months pregnant.
The best way to overcome fear is to gain competence.”
I think it needs to be taken into consideration that the fear of or reality of rape is sufficiently pervasive in society that women are differently socialized.than men and as a result develop different skills as they developing. If you can’t hang out and be alone with men because your worried that something is going to happen then your not going to develop the same mindset and skills that come from that socialization. I know that this is considered more of a “radical feminist” way of thinking (not that there is anything wrong with that in itself but I tend to stay away from thinking that is ideologically inflexible) but I think that there is a considerable element of persuasiveness and logic to that way of thinking even if it needs to be tempered with opposing viewpoints.
Wait, it’s radical feminism to be aware that strange men can be a threat because they might rape you?
“”Since women are the majority of the voters, shouldn’t the feminist movement be chastising them for not running (or at least encouraging them to run way more), rather than using the fact that they don’t run as justification for demonizing us regular guys who have nothing to do with political decisions?””
This is so true. I’ve thought about this a lot. Why isn’t something as simple as this a big part of feminist rhetoric? Run for office! There is teh self-defeatist attitude that places being “right” over succeeding and I also think that there is an ideological selfishness, a lack of generosity of thought, within the predominant strands of the feminist movement. Women can run for office but in a nation where 75% of people are Christians most women will not have the same beliefs as institutionally recognized feminists. Look at how certain feminists in the media skewered Sarah Palin when she called herself a feminist. Just because she is a republican and not very smart doesn’t mean she shouldn’t be entitled to ally herself with certain ideological values that expand woman’s role in society. Feminism should think bigger and sadly many so named mainstream institutional recognized feminists are small minded in important ways.
“Why isn’t something as simple as this a big part of feminist rhetoric?”
Because it’s safer the way they’re doing it now. The political feminists tend to run their organizations in the same way as a marriage, them as the demanding wife, the husband/government expected to do the heavy lifting and take any blame. Really, how is the way NOW interacts with government any different than the way Michelle Obama interacts with Barack? She wasn’t elected president, but she might as well have been given the influence she has. But she will never have to answer for the outcomes. She will never be required to waste time with the little, trivial administrative tasks. She is free to do as she pleases, with the full influence of the presidency behind her, and none of the responsibilities. NOW does the same thing. A little “war on women” rhetoric and they get their way. Or have until recently.
Uh…or it could be because we’re busy raising children while also making a living? We still do most of the household and childrearing work, and most of us also have jobs. Explain please when we have time for political campaigns?
I got asked to run several years ago. I had to decline. I had a toddler and a disabled husband: it wasn’t going to work. I’m now a single working mom. I don’t have a wonderful live-in grandma ready to take over the mom role, nor a trust fund. Nobody else is here to drive to the swim lessons and help with homework and talk about the day, and even if you could farm most of this out (and you can’t), I’ve still got to make a living and protect my child till she reaches adulthood.
If I had a devoted, rich wife or a devoted wife and a stack of money my daddy gave me? Hells yeah.
“Uh…or it could be because we’re busy raising children while also making a living? ”
I call bullshit. 1: This is a choice many women choose to make, ether by having children with men who never wanted to be fathers (thus ensuring they will be primary caregivers), by choosing to be stay at home mothers, or choosing to get divorced and insist on sole custody rather than equal/shared custody. 2: Many women have men who are supportive of them and would be more than willing to take up the childcare responsibility. 3: What about all the childless women, and those who run the women’s lobby like NOW chairmen? I already pointed out how these feminists would rather sit on an unelected panel and make demands of others than do the heavy lifting themselves, your position ignores those people.
I really do find it odd why women think they can’t let their husbands take on the childcare while they do the political campaigning. Men do it all the time, clearly. Are women really so loath to give up that control over the family (I already know the answer to this, based on the demands and outcomes in family courts, as well as the women’s movement’s opposition to family court reform)? Given the fathers rights movement and it’s opposition, this “excuse” realy doesn’t hold much weight, it does so annoy me, and it’s used so readily to try to excuse just about everything. I need to wonder if you even work at all, and how you can possibly do that when you have to take care of your child? How is it you’re able to hold a job doing whatever it is you do, yet you couldn’t make similar arrangements for a different position (as a politician)?
As to your own scenario, while I somehow doubt every woman has a toddler and disabled husband holding them back (which is effectively the claim you’re making), thus your scenario doesn’t excuse all the other women choosing not to run for office, I’m left wondering what you mean by “disabled”. Some disabled people are still fully functional, and quite cappable of taking care of a toddler on their own… if they are given the opportunity to do so, and not treated like an danger to the childs exsistence, as such, I’m curious if it was the disability that prevented you from running, or was that just an excuse for your unwillingness to cede control of the childcare.
“Nobody else is here to drive to the swim lessons and help with homework and talk about the day”
Short of sever neurological damage, I’m not sure how any disability can prevent your husband from not being there to “talk about the day”. Homework should also not be an issue, again, with some exceptions based on what disability you’re talking about. Driving could be problematic, but not sure how much driving around a toddler is going to need.
“I’ve still got to make a living and protect my child till she reaches adulthood.”
I’m not sure how being a politician isn’t “making a living”? And the last bit about protecting your child into adulthood screams controling to me, which is where my concerns about your husbands disabiity just being an excuse comes from.
“If I had a devoted, rich wife or a devoted wife and a stack of money my daddy gave me? Hells yeah.”
It’s a wife you need now? what happened to having a husband?
If there were a female candidate in every race and if the female majority voted for her the percentage of women in elected office would be 100% Oddly, this doesn’t happen. They’re rather vote for the guy who reminds them of Kevin Kostner.
Apparently it’s much easier, efficient and effective to have the man as your sock puppet (re. Joe Biden) than run for office yourself. And you get all the benefits.
This is the power of having a uterus.
I’m glad I’m not part of the “female majority”. Voting for a man (or being with someone) based on LOOKS alone – that has to be be at least close to ultimate stupidity. I suppose some women do that and I am positive there are a few guys who care only about surface and public image; I’ve met a couple. Thankfully, not many males are that shallow.
This is a great article. From all the arguments here, i can say that fear is a real inhibitor in women’s lives and it’s the real reason bad men get away with a lot of things. Like for instance, rapists love the look of fear in their victims, the real reason why the rapists get away with it is because the women defeat themselves already once they see the attacker-not to blame the victims here but I really think that the level of rape would reduce substantially if women ACTUALLY fought back. Everywhere we go, we are told that we are no matching for men, as little girls we are taught to be suspicious of men-even the good ones. Modern feminism has done nothing but increased that fear by telling us statistics, stories blah, and blah, blah. Thereby painting every breathing male as a potential rapist/pedophile/murderer/bad guy. I for one think that there is no reason a human being should fear another human being even if they have a weapon. I don’t fear anybody despite the fact that my father physically abused my mom and emotionally abused (sometimes physically) me for years. Sarahj, I understand that you have been through a lot but really it doesn’t matter if men cause more physical harm to women, if they make up most of the pedophiles, if they are responsible for most of the ills in this world, complaining about it and teaching women to be afraid of men isn’t going to solve the problem. What’s going to solve the problem is if women stopped having a ‘please don’t hurt me’ attitude towards rape and domestic violence and started having a ‘don’t you dare hurt me’ attitude instead. One thing i told myself a long time ago was that my body just like my house and property belongs to me, I feed it, clothe it, take care of it and treat it and NO BODY has the right to just use MY body to fulfill his selfish pleasures or as his/her punching bag. I own my body, it’s mine and if you don’t protect what’s yours, people are just going to take it away or use it for themselves. I love men and lucky for me, I got the strong and aggressive gene from my mom, so I don’t allow people to push me around. I’ll for my body and for sex or die trying! Like I said great article Lisa.
I thoroughly agree with that it is bad to make women fear men and I refuse to be afraid so I travel alone, I pursue a traditionally male type of career and frequently walk outside alone in the middle of the night against everybody’s advice (I write a lot and like to work at night because it is quiet, as a break I often go for a walk and even frequently drop by a nightcafé filled with buff male taxidrivers).
I think it is a pity that not more women do this, because if they would I would not be the only woman in the street anymore at night, right? But there’s a second thing preventing them from doing so: they are expected to fear men, by both men and women. If they are attacked the majority of people will say: ‘But what was she doing walking out alone at night?’ or ‘What was she thinking, getting drunk in a bar?’ and ‘What was she doing getting in a car with four drunken guys’…..etc. Women are expected to ‘stay out of dangerous situations’.
The burden of men’s agression towards women is for some reason always put on women. People do it when they expect women to fear men, but you do it too when you expect women to not fear men and potentially face the consequences of being attacked and then being blamed for being attacked.
Instead, tell men to not create dangerous situations.
Statistics that tell that women are in danger from men, we all know those statistics, don’t come falling out of the sky. Research about gender bias is also not just one big fantasy.
I wish I could edit.
I want to add this for clarity: I think that women are made to fear men so as to limit their freedom and keep them under control. Statistics help keeping women afraid. I wish more women would see it and would stand up to it by refusing to fear men. You are right there.
I just don’t agree with you putting all the burden on women, as if they should learn to be competent (suggesting they are incompetent at the moment and that’s what holding them back, not sexism), just not so easily quit (suggesting women are weak and quit easily, that is why they don’t reach the top, not sexism).
Of course women should be active, competent, achieve goals etc instead of letting themselves hold back by fear and insecurity, but men need to quit sexism, quit harrassing etc..
I would say both is needed.
“I want to add this for clarity: I think that women are made to fear men so as to limit their freedom and keep them under control. ”
I think that’s a pretty significant claim to victimhood. But I’ll humor you for a moment… What group currently uses rape threats to promote the greatest amount of fear in women, and thus, what group is currently trying to exert that control?
“I just don’t agree with you putting all the burden on women”
I don’t. I don’t believe in absolutes, so I can’t put the responsibility all on women, and to be quite frank, aside from more of that victimhood mentality, or some attempt at emotional manipulation, I can’t see how you can interpret what I say as attempting to do that. But I do believe “SOME” responsibility rests on women’s shoulders, and saying so does not somehow negate that of the perpetrators.
“but men need to quit sexism, quit harrassing etc..”
And there isn’t any female sexism in that statement, nope nope nope. or does the quiting sexism only apply to men?
“..etc. Women are expected to ‘stay out of dangerous situations’.”
Is this expectation placed “SOLELY” on women? Or is it likewise placed on men? Remember, feminism claims to want equality, and if men are likewise expected to be responsible for their own safety, that expectation being placed on you IS equality. of course, you could demand special treatment because you’re a woman, but that’s female supremacy.
“Instead, tell men to not create dangerous situations.”
I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware that our laws didn’t carry an explicit expectation for it’s citizen NOT to perform those criminal acts. Let me go right out there right now and tell al those criminals to stop being criminals. That’ll solve the problem.
You see, the problem with this argument, aside from the shear absurdity of thinking crime can be permanently stopped with a word, is that it holds all men responsible for a tiny handfuls actions, all so those victimized by that tiny handful don’t need to take some personal responsibility for their own safety, something we even expect from children when we tell them not to talk to strangers. Are you suggesting women are less capable than my 3 year old nephew of the responsibility for their own personal safety?
“but you do it too when you expect women to not fear men and potentially face the consequences of being attacked and then being blamed for being attacked.”
What I expect is for women to treat men the way they demand men treat them.
What I expect is for women to be capable of risk assessment without the need of putting all the blame and/or responsibility for their personal safety onto the nearest man who happens to come across her.
What I expect is that, if you do happen to go out alone at night, get drunk at a bar and climb into a car with 5 strangers, that if something bad happens, you won’t blame the cab driver for letting you get into the car, or the bartender for letting you have a drink, or your boyfriend for not coming out with you. You will blame the 5 guys who did something bad, and you will acknowledge that you did a pretty stupid combination of things that left yourself more vulnerable to being victimized, and that saying as much isn’t victim blaming, it’s learning a hard lesson about proper risk assessment and personal responsibility for your safety.
“Statistics that tell that women are in danger from men, we all know those statistics, don’t come falling out of the sky. Research about gender bias is also not just one big fantasy.”
And the statistics that show men are, by FAR, more likely to be the victims of violent crime, in general, are you aware of those statistics too? Or have you been shielded from that fact?