women who hate men

and, oops, do you think any male ILXor here hates any female ILXor simply because of her gender?

As for double standards, we are in a world where women suffer greatly from misogyny and men don't really suffer much from its reverse, so it would hardly be appropriate to treat them as interchangeable.

when women say 'men are so stupid', do you react differently than when men say 'women are so stupid'? do you think others do? should you/they?

when men say 'women are so stupid,' I say 'men can be just as stupid.'

I am sure that I am not always entirely consistent with that, but whether or not anyone else is is really beyond my purview.

Also, women or men saying the opposite gender 'is stupid' is clearly not an example of misogyny or misandry.

really, you think so? im curious to see if others agree. i feel like its pretty sexist and hateful but maybe im wrong.

it's kind of a behavioural generalisation of what early 70s feminists tagged "klutzing out" — eg men agreeing to do the washing up but then doing it REALLY BADLY so that it would have to be redone by the "experts" (guess who)

uh no. im trying to say that i think a fair number of men will talk trash about men in general in order to ingratiate themselves with women who have issues with men. for some its sincere, for others its not. i dont think thats such an extreme thing to think......do you?

"The truth is out. Men are much more trouble than they're worth. Sisters are doing it for themselves. Discarded males of all ages loiter in the streets, looking for trouble to get into and finding no lack of it. Male security guards shoot male football fans in Bratislava, male fans howl racist abuse and hurl chairs at each other, males train as suicide bombers, male heads of state stroll about discussing whether they could get away with another shooting war on the women and children of Iraq, and their male flunkies zoom around the world trying to talk other males into joining in. The Beltway Sniper turned out to be a man. And those "children" ejected from school for threatening to kill their teachers are actually boys. It doesn't do to say so. A kind of mad squeamishness prevents us from quantifying the nuisance value of maleness, possibly because if you actually tell men that they are damned nuisances, they are likely to behave even worse."

http://www.dadi.org/greer.htm

of course its bullshit, but why was it published? would a man be able to write about women as venomously and get it published? if not, why?

(written of course by a man, Ivor Cutler)

the world might well be a better place if women occupyed the majority of positions of power!

more to the point, it's a counter-argument

x-post hang on a sec

its true that some men have made my life a nightmare but if i ever feel myself starting to generalise about the opposite sex, i just think about the totally ace male friends i have.

*walks away, whistling. "...who can turn the world on with her smile..."*

do you think what im writing is hostile towards women? anyway there are some pretty hostile things being said about men these days. wed be better off if neither were the case, i suppose.

x-post with di: i have a lot of respect for your being willing to admit that. heres a question for you: do you think theres an important difference between your being tempted at times to generalise your bad experiences to all men, and a man who has bad experiences with women and is tempted to generalise to all women? i guess one of the things i wanted to talk about w/ this thread is that i think alot of people see man-hating as more rational than woman-hating, which bothers me a lot.

do you think what im writing is hostile towards women?

Nope. I do think it is needlessly obtuse, even if it's supposed to bring another poster to a point where you can then go "aha caught you." That is, it seems like a cat-and-mouse game, which I find sort of tedious (though I'm sort of obliging it).

anyway there are some pretty hostile things being said about men these days.

On ILX? In the world at large? Okay, maybe you're right, but as I've been advised to by many men and women, I won't take it personally.

hstencil: men who behave badly and who take advantage of the gender roll society gives them also are confined by that gender roll too. you can behave badly yeah but can you cry when your wife leaves you or your grandpa dies? do you get a coronary at age 45 because you keep it all in and your wife looks at you with contempt when she sees you get emotional?

I dunno, in reading that I think of the most "men who behave badly" man I know, which is my father, and I've seen him cry just as much as I've seen him coo about his new pickup.

or do you get a bullet through the head in vietnam because society thinks its ok to draft you against your will?

For this I think of my stepfather who served in Vietnam, who is the least "men who behave badly" man I know. And he likes to go fishing.

or anally raped in prison for dodging the draft and getting caught?

Ed Norton's character in 25th Hour to thread?

"we are in a world where women suffer greatly from misogyny and men don't really suffer much from its reverse"

see id put this differently, id say that men and women both suffer from the gender rolls theyre given and expected to stick to. i think all of us have a pretty good idea of what the ones for women are but the ones for men dont get analysed so much. and i dont think we can fix one without fixing the other really. (i also have a theory that gender rolls are what they are to minimise the amount of direct competition between heterosexual partners, but that may be bollocks.) "come back with your shield, or on it", you know?

you're making me hungry.

if it is the case that men objectify women, does that give women the right to manipulate men? my answer would be no.

Or, to put it another way, both males and females are saddled with anxieties, though in different forms. Trying to elevate awareness of one gender's anxieties at the other's expense is just a continuation of the same thing! Perhaps awareness of the equality of how fucked up both genders are would be more helpful.

hstencil: but thats exactly my point! why does it need to be at womens expense, or mens? my problem is that i feel like often people think to themselves 'we shouldnt worry about that, men are on top so theyre doing fine'. meanwhile a business fails in tokyo or chicago or melbourne and fifty men jump out of their windows or blow their heads off. when good work is done for both, helping men helps women and vice versa.

my flatmate has a theory that a lot of women feel like imposters when they participate in traditionally male roles. like any generalisation, its bound to be inaccurate, but i know where shes coming from. i definitely feel like an imposter (and a failure) as an academic and a rock musician, even though being smart and musical are as natural to me as breathing.

there are a lot of pressures on men, but i have seen how some men deal with those pressures: by taking it out on people who are in even crappier positions. and thats fucked.

(xpost)

zxcvbnm, was the first part of your post in response to mine (cos then you might have misread what i wrote)?

I feel like if you had this point of view going into the thread, why play the cat-and-mouse game? Rather, why not declare your intentions straight up at the beginning? Why have to wait until duped ILXor (in this case is me although I knew I was gonna be) said something you agreed with while taking a contrary position throughout the thread? What does it prove?

ms lurex thats an interesting theory. im not convinced though that women dont also take out what society hands them on their loved ones just as much. ive certainly seen it happen plenty! much like what mr trife said above as women find their way into traditionally male positions like CEO and foreperson (foreman/forewoman) they find out that their capable of the same sadistic behaviour.

hstencil im not sure i understand what youre getting at. i dont think the news is likely to propose dealing with suicides and the like by expecting less economic productivity or by devalorising supercompetence!

youn, if i misunderstood id love more clarity.

Last weekend in the NY Times there was a story on the front page of the Business section about a former super-wealthy bond trader in his 50s who blew it all on crack and now has only $150 in his bank account (way less than me, and I'm unemployed and never made a high five-figure salary at my best paid job). Now do you think that only the "rich and powerful" are given attention? Do you want more examples of how that's false?

power is like that. but no, we tend not to. we aren't family bashers and rapists to anywhere near the same extent, and if you can think of examples of widespread physical violence that women perform on men i'd love to know about it.

is this what hstencil is talking about when he said the it's-not-you-so-why-are-you-bothered? thing?

xpost with ms lurex: well see at a deep level thats what im afraid of: that all women hate or at least resent men on some level because men are capable of rape and physically bigger than they are, and that no matter how profound emotional abuse may be itll always be looked at as less important than the physical abuse men are more capable of handing out. i have times when i honestly think that women hate men way more than men hate women, its just that mens hate is far easier to spot. im not proud of those moments but i hope honesty is worth something.

good for you.

zxcvbnm, i totally disagree. physical violence IS emotional violence too, and its worse. i'd rather go through a hundred unsatisfactory relationships than get beaten up every day for several years. and who does the cleaning up afterwards? rape crisis and womens refuge rely on female volunteer labour. most of society relies on womens unpaid work.

i think there is a large amount of distrust between the sexes, but none of us could really say how deep it goes.

(for what its worth i think rape crisis centers should be better-funded and that people who work there ought to be compensated much much better than they are.)

there is a large amount of distrust between the sexes. im just afraid that women will always hate men simply because men are capable of rape and that whenever a woman looks at a man, even one she loves, part of her says 'rapist'. i dont think thats true, but again its simply a fear i have.

so you think it comes down to what men want and what men want for other men and what men actually do? if so, doesn't that imply a power imbalance between the sexes? who WANTS to work in unpaid labour? who wants to be unrewarded and unrecognised for their efforts? unpaid work is more than just volunteering, btw, it means motherhood and homemaking too. and yes women DO work in more volunteer work and more unpaid labour than men.

so do you think that to? if so, why did you start this thread?

believe it or not women suffer that too.

Oh yes, men are just as capable of emotional trickery and deciet as they are using their fists, believe me...

(mind you more women I know have treated me emotionally like shit than men, and I distrust women more than I do men, but thats a whole nother topic).

as for whether i think that the words 'men' and 'women' are ultimately meaningless, even if i do (honestly im not sure), i think its a valid issue to raise if my sense is that other people dont think that.

(i havent gone to bed yet!)

xpost: of course women suffer emotional violence! where are you getting the idea that im saying they dont? geez, i thought i was paranoid!

i THINK they are pretty meaningless too. but what people think and how people act are often inconsistent. and that goes for everyone, including you, since you seem to want to downplay the fact that women get systematically fucked over because you believe men have it just as bad. (of course its different on an individual level! and if rjg interpreted my statement as prescriptive then he has serious reading and comprehension issues.)

while i agree that that message is being sent, i also believe that mens grievances are MORE likely to be aired and heard than womens. and i don't want to see any mens movement type stuff be given more prominence than feminism. from where i'm standing, feminism is STILL not considered to be a legitimate politics and constantly has to excuse itself. the whole "well i'm not a hairy legged lesbian but..." attitude illustrates that nicely, especially since there is nothing wrong with being a hairy legged lesbian.

well i must admit i dont agree---my experience is that most people are quite dismissive about mens concerns about their gender roles, and i think youll find that many many otherwise aware people make shitloads of unconscious assumptions about what men 'are'. but since ive never walked in your shoes, nor you in mine, maybe our perceptions differ because of the different experiences weve had as members of our respective genders. does that seem like a fair statement? it wouldnt surprise me if your ears were better attuned to womens grievances than mens, and vice versa for me, after all were only human.

"there is a large amount of distrust between the sexes. im just afraid that women will always hate men simply because men are capable of rape and that whenever a woman looks at a man, even one she loves, part of her says 'rapist'. i dont think thats true, but again its simply a fear i have. "

am i way off? does any of that ring true? id love to hear that it doesnt, or at least that its not a big deal in the big picture for individual women.

I was only partly serious/joking when I just replied 'yes.'

I am good at seeming cool and collected and composed, I hope.

and what about hipsters?

Me and 3 or 4 friends stationed that the Defense Language Institute in Monterey CA would drive up to Chico CA (5 hours N.) every long weekend, and the gameplan was always 'try to find a girl that will let you crash at her pad if you don't wanna sleep in the car' and the one steady pad that all of us could usually crash at was a house rented by these 5 chicks, one of which was really really stand-offish, thus dubbed "The Manhater". Well, anyhow, by skill and finesse or luck (or most likely by her need to aleviate boredom) I slept in the Manhater's bed one of those trips. She never spoke to me again. Probably cause I'm a gassy motherfucker after a case of beer.

*fails*

*brain breaks*

"my experience is that most people are quite dismissive about mens concerns about their gender roles"

This is interesting, and here is my question in response: What sort of concern or acknowledgement are you trying to elicit as regards men's roles? I mean do you want people to say they feel sorry for you?

What I think is that honestly, and this is not an attacking or sarcastic statement, that if you think it is vital that some men's horrible experiences be acknowledged, you are perhaps looking in the wrong direction for validation. In other words, if you or some men you know have serious concerns with gender roles and issues, addressing these concerns means beginning by acknowledging that what concerns you IS important, and legitimate - regardless of whether or not others believe it so.

Whereas expecting society at large to quickly or easily change is.. a nice ideal but not much help on a daily basis. Basically, this seems to me to be more of a confidence and self-assurance problem than a gender problem, 'cause I think people of both sexes can have access to nearly all sorts of behaviors, some are going to be met with more disapproving reactions than usual (i.e. man crying) but at the end of the day you have to have the confidence to be yrself.

And for all the shitty mex food they had, you gotta admit, Burger Hut and that Mongolian BBQ place are both top notch (esp. for under $6.)

So chin up, zx-whatever-those-letters-are guy. I feel your pain on da flip side.

Leave it to TV to put Chico into the national consciousness.

Just a thought...

That'd explain a lot, I probably have mercury poisoning :/

http://www.simplot.com.au/_images/pages/brands_chiko.gif

crosspost. NEBD with motorcycles, then.

Chiko rolls are sort of like spring rolls, only bigger, doughier, and chock full of god-knows-what.

Seriously, I dont know what's in the damn things. Probably not cabbage.

Do other chicks now doubt my feminism? I hope not. Because then they would need to go die. . .

I often think men are very hemmed into their role yeah, but the root of how and who is responsible is so complicated.

Being a white middle class male is something of a competition a bit of the time, I remember a thread here about this and some of the rhetoric there was ridiculous, as if every problem had to be relative to another problem.

But therein lies the problem, namely that in the sense of causes, it is a relative problem I think. It shouldn't be treated that way in terms of its effects or its existence though.

What do people think of these new educational programmes which aim to establish a new masculinity?

The real problem is as a male liberal, personally I feel caught slightly between two camps, I can see how people could spend their adult life apologising or feeling guilty about actions which felt entirely normal and natural, ie being a man and engaging in the (percieved? awkward ground here) negative actions thereof.

I think the problem also is on a forum such as this one and in a debate such as this one any females present will be quite feminist, whereas males will not, this is not reflective of society. Not every woman is a feminist.

I guess what I'm saying is, is there any identity really for middle class white males? Was there in times past or is the suggestion that it has been lost or worse "killed by the feminists etc" total nonsense? And if there isn't, what are the effects and what are the solutions?

I feel simply accepting that the stereotypical male is a bastard leads to feelings of spinelessness and helplessness which I don't necessarily want to have, regardless of whether I agree or not. DOes this make sense?

It's such a complicated issue I could ask a million questions and I guess a million answers still wouldn't be enough.

I agree with what you've said but I'd like to use it to make the point that lumping ppl together based on gender (or sex, another thread has me confused as to wheter they're the same thing or not)
is silly.

I have far more in common with 'women' as a group than I do with 'family bashers and rapists'.

(But my guess is it's because of some
of the many differences between men and women
eg
ability to do it because of strength;
greater difficulty in controlling temper because of physiology;
bit hard for a woman to properly rape a man (I don't think there's an inoffensive way to put that really);
the family bashing that women do is often better hidden;
men more impatient;
etc
etc
etc
)

There's a link between temper control and masculine physiology?

Without being controversial (cos I'm not), what do people think of the female version of this "average man" strawman we're talking about. I guess I'm asking how informed or useful are the average females notions of feminism and the world in general?

If we're going to generalise about negative strawmen, lets give them some straw-women.

Admittedly the male strawman is more powerful and even as I write this I expect people might think I'm trying to "even things out" or something nasty like that. I'm not.

(PS:Hello Richard, your hair is like a raft of lemons, or a night on the high seas)

I SAID IS THIS PROVEN AT ALL, ANSWER ME
-- Ronan (ronan.fitzgerald...), September 1st, 2003.

Sorry, I was writing an email to someone and didn't hear you're question...

Oh, I get you. :-)

Oh yeah, I did do that thing. (I've had to guess what 'perceived existentialism' is, mind. I think I know now.)
I wasn't criticising you though, because you weren't being essentialist.

My second post was qualified (in my head) with 'perceived', 'generally' etc. etc. etc.
Sorry.

Again I'm generalising and it's not proved but it _seems_ to me that (many) women are more patient than (many) many.
I think (well, I'm totally guessing actually, but it's a semi informed guess) that it might be something to do with testosterone levels?

Any physiologist or bioligists want to confirm or deny?

Hah! MEN!

I don't mind being wrong though, I don't even think it that strongly, I'm just guessing.

Worth thinking about though eh?

So there could be some sort of scientific basis to male-female essentialisms, even though what we've got on the subject is very much couched in 'The Male Brain is not necessarily the brain of a man, it's just, uh, typical of most men. Is all. But still!'. I don't particularly trust it, but it's worth thinking on, I suppose.

* actually, that was snide. I have no doubt it was a real study; I just don't like to have scientists I don't even know tell me I am mentally a bloke.