Her rebuffs weren’t enough. Her refusals were dismissed. It was clear that what she wanted wasn’t of much concern to him. But another man’s woman? That’s a record scratch. A stop sign. A no trespassing sign.
This story isn’t unusual. It’s not even rare. Most women at some point have played the boyfriend card to fend off an aggressive guy.
Not all men have to hear the boyfriend excuse to accept a “No.” Many men approach women humbly and respectfully. But the reality is that far too many men are the aggressive guy with the selective hearing. It’s disheartening, frustrating, and at times… scary.
And it all comes down to ownership.
Entitlement.
We watch in horror as it plays out in the most grotesque ways.
A man kills a woman on a train for refusing his advances.
A man shoots his wife and her two students because she left him.
A man shoots an innocent stranger and says his girlfriend made him do it.
It’s a man going on a murderous shooting spree after posting a video blaming all of the women who refused to see how “nice” he was.
It’s not always violent or abusive. Most often it is vague and hard to put your finger on. But our society is constantly telling men they have rights to us. That they own us. This message isn’t shouted or barked. No, like most effective messages it’s subtle. Implied. It’s in our everyday interactions. But it’s there, coloring our language and our attitudes and our traditions. It’s the pervasive, implied entitlement in casual words and actions that we accept and absorb because we are so accustomed to it we don’t even recognize it.
Ownership. Women are property. Men are entitled to us. Society is unconcerned with our agency and autonomy.
It’s tradition and it’s doctrine. It’s history and it’s gospel.
It’s the marrying off of daughters as a transaction. A young girl whittled down to the equivalent of a goat and an acre of land.
It’s women being the spoils of war.
It’s women being categorized as either the virgin or the whore.
Most men don’t walk around looking at women as property. That’s not how this works. But it’s there, implied. It’s woven into our culture. Passed down like a defective gene.
It’s not just the persistent guy in the bar. It’s the guy who tells us to smile. As if our expression is there for him to dictate. Our mood, his to determine.
It’s the man who thinks he has the right to catcall a woman because she is walking down the street. And then thinks he has the right to get angry if she doesn’t respond in the way he thinks she should.
It’s the shock and disdain for a woman who curses. It’s not lady like. It’s unbecoming. It’s trashy. No. Admonishing a grown woman as if she’s a child is unbecoming.
It’s the “Friend-zone.” The place where hard-up guys and their precocious desires go to die. Angry that they are denied access to someone they were friendly with. I was so nice to her, why wouldn’t she have sex with me? As if being cool means they should automatically have rights to us.
It’s the seething hate directed at every woman who has a large online presence. A platform, a big following, a blue checkmark next to her name—all are cause for threats. It’s the armies of men who troll, looking for powerful women to go after, who have rabid anger for women they’ve never even met.
Why? For moving into their space. For taking up their oxygen. For getting attention and followers and likes. They are threatened by it. They feel less powerful when they see a powerful woman. So they try to control her, bully her, intimidate her. They try to drive her off social media and sometimes out of a job.
It’s the looks of disgust or the comments when a woman is breastfeeding in public. Her breasts should be used to sell Carl’s Jr. burgers or to entice or to entertain. But using them for their intended purpose is disgusting. It’s utilitarian and not serving the greater male population in any way so put those things away, you exhibitionist whore.
◊♦◊
We are here to accentuate. Complement. To be arm candy or stay quietly in the background. We should be easy going, but not easy. We should laugh easily, but not too loudly.
We should be soft and sweet and curved in all the right places. But not too curvy. Unless that’s what is desired by the men we meet. The goalpost of what is desirable is constantly moving so we must read magazines and scour pop culture to see what’s what. You see, we are complicit in our own servitude. It’s part of our DNA as well.
We should speak demurely. Speaking loudly, projecting our voice is an affront. We should calibrate our voice to precisely the tone that is pleasing to male ears. And for the love of all things nasty, please don’t laugh too loud.
Our bodies are commodities. Our sexuality is for other’s to copulate to. Our pureness to be held up as saintly. Our reproduction legislated by old white men who couldn’t find an ovary or a female orgasm if they had a GPS.
It’s male journalists frothing every time Chelsea Clinton speaks or wins an award. Their condescending laments laced with the fear of another ambitious woman coming dangerously close to that glass ceiling. Their words dripping with contempt. How dare she be visible or audible when they had other ideas. Stay in your lane, Chelsea.
It’s the pat on the head, the unsolicited advice, the let me tell you how you really feel because my male perspective is more valid and more right, ok sweetheart?
It’s telling a woman to calm down because her outburst or her fire or her anger make it so much harder to rein her in.
It’s the stealthing that turns consensual sex into sexual assault, and the online chat rooms that instruct bros how to do it, and the judges who will laugh it off or brush it off or dole out a slap on the wrist with a wink, and now we have one more fucking thingto warn our daughters about.
It’s the men who help themselves to parts of our bodies as we make our way through a crowd or through the office or across campus.
It’s our lovers, the men we trust and love. They think nothing of laying down a guilt trip if we refuse sex. After all, what right do we have to consider our own mood/desires/feelings? Our bodies should be open for business when he needs it, the moment he needs it. After all, we love him, right? C’mon baby, you say you love me but you aren’t acting like it right now. And they don’t understand or see that their pressure and guilt is added to the pile of male needs and desires we’ve spent a lifetime collecting and being held responsible for.
We watch young girls, on the brink of womanhood who are ogled and leered at. Men, with their shirts straining against their dad-bods, scanning every inch of her. Oblivious to her discomfort. Unconcerned that she is still just a child. They act like they don’t see how their hot gaze makes her squirm. Making her feel equal parts dirty and self conscious and guilty. You see, she learned long ago in school that how she dresses is responsible for how men and boys act. But they’re oblivious to her tugging uncomfortably at her clothes because they don’t see her as a person and they’ve been taught that it’s harmless to do these things and it’s not big deal, it’s just guys being guys and geez, stop overreacting, wouldya?
We’ve heard the song, the one that has been in the background our whole lives. The one that tells us we’re the temptress, the siren of the sea. We’re Eve, licking the apple from our wet lips wearing nothing but a wicked grin. That we’re the built-in excuse for male aggression and anger and frustration and missteps. A convenient scapegoat for society’s ills.
We’re supposed to be “a lady in the street, but a freak in the bed.” Unless he’s not into that kind of thing, in which case we better figure that shit out and accommodate before he decides to dispose of us and tells his friends that we’re just a dirty whore.
We are not your property.
You don’t own us. You are not entitled to our bodies or our minds or our emotional labor.
It’s ownership when men get angry at the fat girl and call her names. How dare she go out in the world in a way that’s not pleasing to his eye?
It’s ownership when they scream at the transgender woman who doesn’t fit their idea of what a woman “should” be. And they’re going to make damn sure she knows it by their voice or their sneer or their laughter or their fist.
It’s ownership when dudes ask a lesbian if they can “get in on that action” or when they wink, “give me a chance to change your mind.” Because it’s really not about her identity and being who she is, it’s about them getting off.
We are not your participation trophies. We are not your conquest or your ego boost.
We are not here for you to decide how we should act/talk/smile/laugh/look/live.
Our role in the home or the board room or online is not yours to define.
Our daughters are not your son’s distractions.
Our wholeness is not a threat to your existence.
Our minds and bodies are tired of this game so if you could wake up and see that we’re not asking you to feel guilty or to drag you down, that would be great. We’re asking you to listen and to believe us and to help us make it stop.
Help us make it stop with the young girl getting dress coded because her body is a distraction to the boys.
Help us make it stop so that when she tells her teacher about a boy making a rape joke, she doesn’t get the “Boys will be boys” retort that tells her that her fears and safety are secondary to boys having fun and blowing off steam.
Help us make it stop because she will learn before she’s even out of puberty that grown men will take from her, whether it’s the lingering stares or the hand that rests on her shoulder for too long or some other innocuous gesture that she can’t put her finger on but she knows it’s not right. Help us before she goes off to college and she tells herself “boys will be boys” when a drinking game goes too far and she finds herself going from laughing and playing along to being victimized but feeling like she deserved it because she is just repeating what she’s seen and heard her whole life. Boys can’t control themselves. Their actions are just a response to you. You should have known better/done better.
Help us. Recognize when you see ownership, in all its forms. Tell your sons and your daughters and your coworkers and your bosses and your bros.
Help us because it’s this subtle sense of ownership that feeds the violence. It’s the little moments that add up and build up and give permission to a man to touch, to hit, to rape, to kill. It’s systemic and institutionalized ownership that allows lawmakers and judges and police officers to question a rape victim’s level of sobriety or her past sexual history or how much the rapist might suffer in prison so we really should give him a slap on the wrist because he is a preppy white rapist with a bright future.
Help us amplify this message.
Help us stop the cycle of entitlement.
We are not your bitch, your slut, your problem.
We are not your excuse, your reason, your burden.
We are not your anything.
◊♦◊
Photo: Unsplash
This essay originally appeared on Drifting Through My Open Mind.
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This essay originally appeared on Drifting Through My Open Mind.
Read Gretchen Kelly every week here on The Good Men Project!
My man serving in the military in the Middle East refers to me as “his woman” that he owns me and I LOVE IT! I take it as a sign of affection, that he doesn’t want to lose me to another man. He is so good to me and ALWAYS treats me with respect. Whether you agree or not makes absolutely no difference. Hypocritical of you liberal feminists to bash American men for thinking they own women and yet are SILENT on Islam and how Muslims treat their women…..female genital mutilation (FGM), child brides, pedophilia, Islam okay with a man… Read more »
I’m glad it works for you, it sounds like that is done in a purely affectionate way.
I think Gretchen is saying that the same kind of patriarchal ownership and entitlement exists in all cultures: it just plays out in different ways.
MRAs – read Laurie’s post. (The first few sentences.) It looks like, this is what you should be all about. A happy smiling woman is an uncomplicatedly good thing, everything about it is good, there is nothing about this situation that’s bad. For some reason, for MRA types, this does seems to be politically problematic in some unexplainable way. It really seems to bend you right out of shape. It’s like, kind of medieval – women’s simple natural happiness is somehow dependent on your approval and permission, your control basically. That’s the “thrust” :-/ of the MRA movement. Just like… Read more »
Yes Laurie, you must be “naturally happy” (wat) in order to attain the approval of totally on the level guys like SImon.
Just be happy and smile, and be uncomplicatedly good for him. There’s a good girl.
Muslim men that do that, do that because they think women should be owned… something you also support and “love”. Yeah, owning people is a sign of affection to you and you are also the problem.
“So they try to control her, bully her, intimidate her. They try to drive her off social media and sometimes out of a job.” You mean the exact same thing those women’s followers often do to their critics? “It’s male journalists frothing every time Chelsea Clinton speaks or wins an award” Is that because she’s a woman or because she’s only where she is because of mommy and daddy? “It’s the stealthing” I’m more than happy to make that legally punishable. We might get a few of you who “forget” to take their birth control at long last that way.… Read more »
Most men have never been and will never be allies of women, no matter what. Even when we are quiet, pleasing and submissive, you guys keep torturing us in every way, and all of the crimes commited against us is always our fault.
So, I take it that men have no right at all to disagree with a woman, online or anywhere else? Is that how this works?
What are you disagreeing about?
And suddenly we’re in tedious-land again
This is addressed to the MRA goons: You think you think, but you don’t. You live your life based on shallow bullshit. If you don’t do something about it, you’re going to waste the entire thing in a grey horror. Any woman who is unfortunate enough to get mixed up with you is going to miss out on happiness. See if you can stop being a robot, come alive, and respond with something original and meaningful, ie. something that’s not copied and pasted from the “MRA Book of 10 Stock Responses for Any Situation”. I called you (or your interchangeable… Read more »
Got to love someone spouting as much dull cliché as you do accusing others of stock responses.
“What does it take to get through to you? Why are you like this? Do you not dare to be a human being? ”
Try not talking to us the way you have this entire thread. When men talk the same way the OP does, we’re the babies. We have a “chiill of death”? Grow up.
Pretending to be superior isn’t going to cut it, not least when you fail so spectacularly at being so!
” Any woman who is unfortunate enough to get mixed up with you is going to miss out on happiness. ” Btw, what is it with pro-women types whose first instinct is to try and shame their male critics for not being able to satisfy women? So many of these issues that men are blamed for are said to derive from norms that state men have to be validated by sexual attention from women. You want to overturn that, yet you think there’s no problem invalidating men by the same means – claiming that they aren’t appealing to women. Which… Read more »
Your trying too hard to get your white knight nookie cookie……. that’s not the way to lose your virginity. You can’t reach what your after, if you put women on a pedestal.
I can just feel the life being sucked out of me. This is like the wind whistling through the graveyard. I understood that Mens Rights Activists are negative, but when you feel it up close, it’s chilling.
I presume that cry-baby remark is aimed at any me? Thanks for (again) putting words in my mouth, but the divisive language people like you use is just as bad as anything the MRAs use. You’re two sides of the same coin. You’re both welcome to embrace each other in the tragedy of being unable to see your own faults. Meanwhile, the rest of us who want to have intelligent discussions about difficult subjects can do ask difficult questions and tell home truths that other people do not want to hear in a way without childish insults flying left, right… Read more »
Hi Simon
While your life gets suched out of you, you give to others :
:
life,energy,hope,love,inspiration, good arguments and intelligent comments and much more, to be enjoyed !
Thank you 🙂
“…While your life gets suched out of you, you give to others : life,energy,hope,love,inspiration…”
I think I read that once on a bubble gum wrapper. Seriously, maybe dial all the hyperbole and drama back just a tad: The guy is a commenter on an internet forum, not Nelson Mandela or a Soviet dissent or a political prisoner locked up in Guatemala…
“I can just feel the life being sucked out of me. This is like the wind whistling through the graveyard. I understood that Mens Rights Activists are negative, but when you feel it up close, it’s chilling. With the implication being there that anyone who is insufficiently supportive of your viewpoints or arguments (however partial or narrow-minded they may be) is thus therefore demonstrably mean, bigoted, narrow-minded or deluded (and/or, by default, a men’s rights activist or chauvinist)? Employing logical fallacies is not an effective means to encourage friends or influence neutrals: It is not particularly effective nor ethical as… Read more »
Mostly_123
Simon simply told us about his feelings…..when he wrote ” I can just feel the life beeing sucked out of me”. You know: shared FEELINGS !
Maybe a few more shared facts before a few more shared feelings.
Says the guy spamming the thread with negativity ^_^
C-Bob – here’s a difference between men and women. When women want to complain about rubbish dating tactics, they make funny witty jokes about it.
http://theearthtribe.net/the-kind-of-fckboy-youre-attracted-to-based-on-your-zodiac-sign/
When men want to complain about less-than-optimal female dating behaviour, they get all sour and make a sour man-baby political movement about it. (see this page)
Which approach do you think will pan out best, in the long run?
I find it telling that you don’t think women should be held accountable for their actions. Do you actually believe in equality?
This article is about men
“This article is about men.”
http://theearthtribe.net/the-kind-of-fckboy-youre-attracted-to-based-on-your-zodiac-sign/
…and zodiac signs…
“When women want to complain about rubbish dating tactics, they make funny witty jokes about it. ”
They whine plenty about it too. And a by-the-numbers snark piece is hardly original or funny.
Interesting how they get away with calling men fckboys but heaven forfend men cuss out women when they complain about unfair dating dynamics.
Both are whining, but because of your bias, female whining is magically ok.
This behaviour might stop if women stopped advising each other to play hard to get – you know, telling a guy you like you’re not interested when you really are because you just want him to work harder, then flirting with him to give him mixed messages. There is no justification for entitlement, but neither is there a justification for the sort of shitty behaviour in giving men mixed messages that a rejection is an invitation to work harder. Please don’t bother to insult my intelligence by pretending this doesn’t happen or that it only happens in Hollywood rom-coms. If… Read more »
Here we go again – DEFLECTION. Another swerve. “What about?” I suspect this is one of those red-pill boogeymen that doesn’t actually happen very much. What you are talking about, doesn’t actually cause what Gretchen is talking about. Or does it? Can you explain to me, the causal connection between the two? Also, why are you whining about it anyway? It does seem rather pathetic, for a big strong man to lose sleep over something like this. Who frigging cares? Deal with it, do something about it. Don’t be a cry-baby. This is just more of the same old man-baby… Read more »
This is just more of the same old man-baby crapperoo that is all over this comments section. Somehow, it’s always women’s fault … lol … There is no need to be so damned insulting “lol…” Throw “Red Pill” around all you like, I’ll just accuse you of being a White Knight “lol…” but how far will that get us, really? If we’re ever going to have equality in anything, women’s shitty behaviour should be called out and held up too on ways not to act instead of playing the victim card. If you play with fire you get burnt. Label… Read more »
OK, so the subject in this case is “men” – fire away
I already responded to the discussion. What is there left to say? If you didn’t see it the first time around, here let me help you.
My guess is that you were too busy putting words in my mouth to pay full attention to that.
Those are shallow, canned arguments taken straight out of MRA propaganda. It’s just paying lip-service, in the shallowest way, to the idea of listening to anything Gretchen’s said, or respecting feminism, or whatever. It’s grudging, and measly, and no thought’s gone into it, and it shows. Actually, I don’t believe any of you took in a single word of the article.
It has to be said, this is like conversing with pre-programmed robots.
I’m not an MRA. I despise them as much as I despise radfems (please see my comment to your other thread about for further details). Thanks, once again, for sulking like a child and telling me what I think.
I respect feminism. What I don’t respect is misandry and its male enablers.
“I’ll address your point: it’s not the actions of a few, it’s systemic to the human race. ” Finally, something that’s actually correct from you. Yes, it is part of the human race. So why do men only get collective guilt? Pieces like the OP are tiring because we’ve heard this one-sided, gendered guff a thousand times before. No acknowledgement of women’s role in these problems, no trace of collective guilt for them despite their complicity in the same problems. There is no reason for men to put up with this or help until this changes. until the people whining… Read more »
Tell us what “collective guilt” women share when men commit crimes against us? When they can’t do anything other than blame us for these crimes? When they want to own us, all over the world?
When we can’t even talk about something so serious as this, this neverending male voilence against us wmen and girls, something that has been happening since forever that we are bombarded by males trying to say we are responsible for this, that it’s all our fault or even that we’ve always done the same or worse to men…what is our collective guilt?
Women who play hard to get usually do that because women being “easy” is still criticized. You know that, but of course you have to look at it in the wrong way, to try to play the victim or something.
Also, it could be just flirtation and seduction, it’s always been kind of a “dance”. In many countries, so many males are so emotionally dumb that they can’t understand this playful, fun action. That’s what is shitty.
Possibly, we can see the situation in terms of cooperation and competition: the two dimensions of social life. http://yellowgrain.co.uk/competition.html Along with cooperation goes the other-directed moral emotions like empathy, kindness etc. Along with competition goes things like self-seeking, dominance and narcissism. Finding a mate is a competitive arena. Presumably, in simplistic broad-brush terms, the females compete to be the most attractive. Males (in primates, whose social life is mainly competitive, while humans’ is also cooperative) live within a dominance hierarchy based on fighting ability – which saves them from actually having to fight all the time. Then, perhaps, a female… Read more »
“Entitlement… our society is constantly telling men they have rights to us. That they own us. This message isn’t shouted or barked. No, like most effective messages it’s subtle. Implied. It’s in our everyday interactions. But it’s there, coloring our language and our attitudes and our traditions. It’s the pervasive, implied entitlement in casual words and actions that we accept and absorb because we are so accustomed to it we don’t even recognize it… Ownership. Women are property. Men are entitled to us. Society is unconcerned with our agency and autonomy.” Ah, entitlement. Or, as it were, the sense of… Read more »
The second comment is better: please delete the first.
OK the comment I just posted, just disappeared – wtf, GMP?!?!? – so I’ll try and repeat it. :-((( ffs!!! Gretchen, ignore the douchebags. The articulacy, and length, of this article say it all. I feel ya. As a man, I’ve always thought this: all men think they own all women. It’s fundamental to most cultures. The question is, why? The masculine behaviour that you complain about looks a lot like narcissism – self-centred, controlling, blaming others; not a pretty picture. I think that men are terrified of the power that women have over them – of approval, of controlling… Read more »
I think you’re projecting your own insecurities onto the rest of mankind in an effort to excuse your own behavior, Simon. YOU, my friend, may feel you own women. I do not. The fact that you read a the sentence “men think they own women” and agreed with it says far more about you than it does the rest of men.
Perhaps seek therapy and work on your own sense of entitlement.
Jax – it’s something I observe. I’m not projecting, or entitled. You don’t know me, do you? What is this behaviour that I do, that you are referring to? What are you “projecting” onto me? What does – whatever you’re complaining about – I’m not sure – say about me – exactly? Spell it out for me. I’m all ears. Instead of dancing around, and accusing me of this and that [vague negative accusation] – how about confronting the issue at hand? i.e. it’s not about me, and it’s really evasive and lame of you to make it all about… Read more »
I’m just going by your own words which, as you mentioned, are all down in black and white. “As a man, I’ve always thought this: all men think they own all women.” All men-including you because you mention your own manhood.- think they own all women. That’s what you said, written above in black and white for all to see. Now, you’ve stated you, as a man, believe you own women. That’s your own issue that you need to work on and I wish you luck in doing so. My objection is that you feel the need to project that… Read more »
You literally said “as a man, all men believe they own all women” What other conclusion can I draw other than that you believe you own women?
Now I don’t believe I own anybody but you apparently do. As you say it’s right there in black and white.
You should probably see a therapist about it. That kind of entitlement isn’t healthy.
Agreed, Jax.
This is nonsense
Yes I agree your words are nonsense.
I mean that’s literally all I’ve done is take exactly what you said and repeat it back to you.
Glad we finally reached an agreement though.
” You don’t know me, do you? What is this behaviour that I do, that you are referring to”
“Do me a favour – stick to the issue. Don’t shoot the messenger. i.e. be an adult.”
Translation – h-h-how DARE someone speak to me the way I’ve been speaking to everyone else this entire thread!
I just read that an American male (shocked!) killed his wife because she laughed at him.
Horrible, right? I bet most American males also think it’s horrible and think he is a bad guy… oh, nevermind, they believe it’s her fault, naturally!
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/true-crime/wp/2017/07/27/she-wouldnt-stop-laughing-at-me-man-accused-of-killing-wife-on-alaska-cruise-fbi-says/?nid&utm_term=.e950128d00a2
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/07/27/utah-man-killed-wife-on-alaska-cruise-because-would-not-stop-laughing-at-him-fbi-says.html#
But that’s a problem with males, nope. Women are just if not more responsible for that. Sure.
It’s totally based on biology, that’s a fact. Males are notorious for trying to dominate and own females – and compete with other males for those females, land, resources, etc. Females are the ones who choose their sexual partners and the males usually gowith the “flow”, but male humans noticed it and came together to try (succesfully) to change it, turn it the other way around and actually make it a nightmare to women – since forever they have been oppressing women and their sexuality, owning it. 21st Century males? They still want to control women’s sexual choices, many times… Read more »
Gretchen – ignore the douchebags. The length, and articulacy, of this article say it all. I feel ya. As a man, I’ve always thought this: all men think they own all women. It’s fundamental to most cultures. The real question is, why? The masculine behaviour you complain about (the details are debateable, the overall picture is not) is a lot like narcissism – selfish, controlling, blaming others; not a pretty picture. I think that men are terrified of women’s power over them – “keys to the pussy” etc. We can also look at primates and “mate guarding” – the males… Read more »
I don’t know what to say! Is just that there are separate opinions! Think about girls that play “I have a boyfriend” and after a couple of words enjoy a drink with the new meet guy! This is happening a lot and this is the reason of man harassing girls, thinking that at a point she will accept a drink and so on.
OK Sonja, but it’s her choice, surely? The first guy forced her to deceive him, and she has a right to enjoy a drink with whom she chooses. People don’t have to accommodate jerks.
Which first guy forced her to deceive him? What on earth are you talking about?
Sonia, I think I see your point. That would be confusing.
In her zeal to promote the respect of women, something we men on this and other sites like unto it applaud, she denigrates men and their contributions. If this is the kind of rubbish that will continue to be promoted on this site then I being a gentle-good man, who is determined to stand everyday on values of ethics, morals, frugality, trustworthiness, loyalty and respect for women, I will look to another source. In the words of Being Caballero, “Life is too short to deal with bad food, cheap drinks, and fake people” and may I add erroneous, negative writing.… Read more »
Adam – say what now? Part of “respect for women”, being a “gentle-good man”, is listening to what they say. I put it to you that your “ethics, morals” are a sham. See you, cynical nihilist, enjoy “going your own way”, lol
“Part of “respect for women”, being a “gentle-good man”, is listening to what they say.”
Part of mutual respect is being listened to back, which usually doesn’t happen when ideology like the OP’s gets criticised.
Listening back to males saying we should shut up and put up with their abuses? No, thank you.
“Women, plase stop denigrating men by not being our servants and not accepting our abuse! When you say the truth – that men have always like dto own women and be cruel to them in any way, you hurt us and it’s even worse than all of the crimes commited against you! I’m out.”
I swear that if I did not know better, this opinion piece reads like hoax submission for a gender study university assignment. On a similar note – a brilliant hoax was just submitted and accepted in the respectable journal: Cogent Social Sciences. Below is the abstract – it’s hilarious, and in classic Gretchen Kelly style, hits all the right jargon, multiple times, in a cloud of incoherence. SOCIOLOGY | RESEARCH ARTICLE The conceptual penis as a social construct Abstract: Anatomical penises may exist, but as pre-operative transgendered women also have anatomical penises, the penis vis-à-vis maleness is an incoherent construct. We… Read more »
Hi Gretchen This article made me upset. One thing is that I very much doubt that you are qualified to kind of analyses. I also wonder if most women in the West in 2017 feel and experience that men own them, just like we are a pet,a cow, a horse or a car ? I myself have never had that feeling. My feelings have been hurt many time,and I am sure I have hurt many men as well but never ever have I known a man that see his girlfriend or wife as his property, a thing he owns and… Read more »
I would say that most women don’t necessarily feel owned, but most women experience the cruel way men attack them because they wanted to own them once again. They just don’t join the dots. Males who kidnap, rape and kill women, usually their partners, do that because they want to own them. Males that catcall and harass, that interrupt constantly and dismiss women’s struggles, like most males in this comment section. Males that blame us for the crimes committed against us since forever… they believe we are inferior and not exactly human like them. That we should be owned. Males… Read more »
Gretchen Kelly has always been a misandrist and yet this website still publishes her. This is a disgrace.
“This woman doesn’t want to be a sex slave to men, what a ~MISANDRIST~!”
Awwwww yeah!!! That was one of the best, most vicious and malicious pieces of misandry I’ve read in a long time. Got a kick out of it, but I’m finally over this life-long guilt trip. It’s been pulled on me so many times in my life that there were decades when I felt like an evil monster just because I’m male. I see it for the abuse that it is intended to be now. Too bad I let it wreck so much of my life. This was a good read though, because I see in myself an improvement. I’m not… Read more »
Stay strong, Anthony. Don’t let women tell you you shouldn’t believe you have a right to own them. Don’t let them tell you men were wrong all along, for bonding together to own women and girls for the most part of human history and enjoying every bit of it.
Thanks for putting words in my mouth, and assuming that I’m an evil monster because I’m a man. IOW, thanks for proving my point.
Gretchen is the one who needs the lesson. She seems completely unaware that men are raped and abused all the time. Too bad she is no compassion for male victims.
Of course she doesn’t. With American women it is all about them. They see themselves as victims and men are evil, violent rapists. And then these entitled princesses wonder why men are not marrying them any more. Go figure. If you are a man don’t ever marry one of these shrews. In fact, don’t marry any woman. There is nothing you can have by being married that you can’t have without. NOTHING.
Hi Rob
I think this should be the comment of the day
“there is nothing you can have by being married that you can’t have without.NOTHING”
I agree with all three of you. There is no reason for men to get married these days AND we’re finding that more and more men are becoming disinterested in marriage and I can’t blame them. What’s addressed in this article are “dysfunctional” relationships which are the exception and not the norm. Sweeping generalities are common and men are tired of the constant accusations of men. I can’t help but go back to the fact that the men that are referenced in articles like this were more then likely raised by women. So I need to ask … when are… Read more »
When are women ever not blamed for all of the crimes committed against them by men? I mean, it’s been a short period of time that raping, torturing, killing and owning women and girls are even considered crimes, men have always been more than happy and satisfied with all of this considered just normal “men’s rights”. But to answer your questions: never. That’s because men learn their behavior from other men, from the media, in school, by imitation. That’s how things have always been, parents can only mold their kids before puberty. If we want men to change, we need… Read more »
In truth for the majority of men, being married these days means you’ll have LESS. Just don’t do it…….
Sorry for being sarcastic … but I thought men had privilege? Men have been left out in the cold for more years then I can count and the issues you presented have surfaced many times through the years but have been totally ignored. Mainstream continued to paint dad’s as being inept buffoons when it comes to raising kids. Yet no dad that I’ve encountered in the past 62 years were inept in any way shape or form.