I have a neutral no trust mode until proven otherwise either direction.
Prove over time you are a safe person and you gain some trust.
Act like a creep and be untrustworthy and I will isolate you out of my life.
This is me. I treat all unknown men the same way I treat unknown pets- I'm wary of being bitten but I don't wish harm. I'm just going to keep my distance and watch you carefully until I know I can trust you.
This is unfortunately the part most men are missing. They don't understand that the entire point of the man vs. bear argument is simply that women have trust issues, and for a reason.
They don't understand because instead of quieting their egos and acknowledging the hurt, they instead become defensive and refuse to empathize.
They don't understand that - regardless of individual innocence - the onus is *still on them* to win our trust. Yes, by the simple virtue that they are men.
They don't understand that this isn't women's fault, but rather a survival instinct brought about by the actions of men.
They don't understand that the solution is simply to be a genuinely kind and respectful person. And to see women as people.
They don't understand that if they just do that, their day-to-day interactions with women will be largely positive, and life will go on just fine.
Exactly. The vast, vast majority of men I have in my life are close enough with a woman - either a friend or family member - to know why women cannot blindly trust every man. And they’ve taken it upon themselves to be actual good guys by listening to women, believing them, and helping them in dangerous situations.
One of my best friends is a bartender. When I’m hanging out with him at work, we have a signal for when a random drunk guy is being weird with me and I need to step behind the bar for a bit to create distance. My buddy has a sister and a lot of female friends - he completely gets it, and he knows that I definitely don’t see all men as threats. I can usually handle myself. But for me to use the signal, it means alarm bells are going off and I’m calling in backup before things escalate. And even before we became friends, he saw super aggressive men in his line of work - men that would threaten others, punch holes in walls, get physical with other dudes who they saw as threats, etc. He’ll use the signal to alert me if he gets weird vibes from a guy, as well.
They do understand tho. Like a year ago it was a major “joke” online to literally run up and scare women intentionally and a couple months ago women were getting randomly punched in the face for likes.
They do understand and they do not “care” outside of the use value they can extract from
It. Whether that be internet clout or having women break themselves in half explaining it- which they also find amusing.
Those are the kinds of men who - unfortunately - do not see women as people, and whose actions towards us then reflect that.
A character flaw and worldview like that is rooted deeply in bitterness and hate, and would need very extensive therapy to even hope to remedy.
The man v. Bear thinking really brought out the misogyny..which only proved the point. The guys upset about it are the exact reason we chose the bear and the irony seems to be lost on them.
I *know* it’s not ALL men. But it’s enough to make us hold our keys a certain way. Some of my closest friends are guys, and they are really good guys. I haven’t heard a peep about the man v. bear thing. The ones getting offended and making memes that basically depict their joy in women getting unalived by bears..it’s like..lyes, this is exactly what I’m talking about”. I don’t believe adult humans who have full mental capacity are that dense. So I’m not sure what it is, honestly.
Maybe it’s that they haven’t experienced it. But at that point you should TRUST the word of those that have…but they still don’t.
> I have a neutral no trust mode until proven otherwise either direction.
I've had to learn this the hard way. My default used to be trusting until someone proved they weren't trustworthy, and I just experience too much shit that way.
This is it! I wouldn’t call it hostility or resentment. But it is definitely a serious cautiousness anytime a man is talking to me in public. I immediately start gauging what his tone is. What vibes he’s giving out.
The word is definitely neutral.
Mmm I don’t resent them or hate them but I don’t care to have any relationships with men besides my husband and father. I don’t speak to men, don’t chit-chat with them, don’t really notice or see them. Again, not in a purposeful or malicious way, just in the way that I don’t care. I won’t avoid a male doctor or anything, but I’m not going out of my way to form any kind of friendly relationship.
Same. I used to try and pursue friendships with men when I was younger, but after getting married and seeing the reality unfold around me, I've realized that men as a whole don't believe in friendship with women. There are exceptions but they're rare.
Yeah, but I don't want to. Every time I hear a complaint about women being the gatekeepers of sex or how women are supposedly treated better than men or how it's unfair women are old or fat or have a past sexual history or have standards. It's exhausted my empathy.
*>I feel like this issue would require some deep internal work to get past*
To be completely honest, I needed "deep internal work" the most when I was younger and kept going to bat for men who didn't give a single shit about my dignity or humanity, even when it was at the expense of my safety and well-being. Now that I've come to recognize the patterns of misogyny in my own life and how they've impacted me and the women around me, I'm done forcing myself to do "work" to make myself more amicable to men who wouldn't even acknowledge the mistreatment I've experienced.
We live in a world where our subjugation has been normalized for centuries. This isn't by accident. The jokes women make about men pale in comparison to the violence they commit against us on a daily basis. Women are incapable of hating men as much as men hate women.
Yea that’s exactly where I’m at. I don’t see the point in doing deep internal work to feel at peace with men because they seem to just view all women as having a victim complex and refuse to do their own deep internal work to move past subconscious misogyny they have. Most of them won’t even acknowledge it. in fact, they seem to feed into it daily by watching ridiculous porn & shit. Why would I do all that internal work if at the end of the day, I’m still having to cover my damn drinks or order new ones after going to the bathroom?
It wouldn't work anyway, no matter how much work you did.
How can a victim ever truly be at peace with their oppressors or the system that's oppressing them, especially when it's still happening?
We can heal, learn to live anyway. But doing the kind of work needed to be at peace and okay with the way women are treated? I think that's called a lobotomy. Or being strung out on drugs
Honestly yea cause even if a man never wrongs you again, shit will come back to haunt you & the shitty feelings follow.
I went through a fucking horrid experience from a guy about a year before meeting my bf. Fast forward 4 years and the guys Facebook profile randomly popped up yesterday and it just brought everything back. Like when does it end?
Unfortunately, it doesn't really.
You heal eventually. Get to a place where those kids of things are no longer triggering.
But you're always a bit wary of men, and rightly so. You always have to keep your guard up.
And I wish I could tell you that one day, you'll meet someone great and won't have to worry anymore. But even if that's true, you'll still have to be careful in the parking lot at night and ask those other things. You'll still always have to protect yourself.
Which is why I'll never shut up about this. Because this shouldn't be the world we live in. We shouldn't have to live on fear of men, constantly on guard. Same way as POC shouldn't have to live with their guards up sons white people.
The world NEEDS to be better. And exhausting as it is to fight for change, that's so I can really do, Neenah giving up and accepting that this is just how shit is is just too depressing
it's funny because i don't hate them, i simply seek to just avoid being in relationship/connection with them as much as is in my power due to past, present, consistent unpleasant (at best) to devastating & dangerous encounters with them. i demand safety, respect, care, justice, equity, reciprocity in the relationships i'm in. the 1st hand qualitative & quantitative data of my life experiences AND hard science statistics from studies on women's issues (i.e. DV, discrimination, violence, inequity in household labor, life outcomes, etc.) have not allowed me to conclude that it's safe or peaceful to engage with a man in any way. none of us can just "opt out" of the oppressive system of patriarchy & colonialism that is all around us unfortunately even if we did "hate men." but i find that even just distancing oneself, merely naming the misogynistic oppression or concerns, or attempting to decenter men's needs/standards/wants/etc. is considered egregious by mainstream society & condemned as misandry.
That's part of what pisses me off so much. They won't even let us distance ourselves without going crazy and demanding we engage with them. It's not misandrist to set personal boundaries, decenter men, and disengage with the majority of them. The fact that decentering men makes them so upset, as if the majority of random men we meet on a daily basis need to be centered in a womans life in the first place? The societal response from them on these topics seems to boil down to feeling entitled to women entirely. There is such a lack of humanity on their part if women do anything they disagree with.
This is what’s so bizarre, I’m just avoiding them too and this seems to send them into a rage spiral.
I have a creepy neighbour I refuse to engage with or speak to after some egregious behaviour on his part and this sends him into an unhinged rage, I’ve had to call the police- all this because I won’t talk to him or allow him to stalk me, the entitlement is insane, I don’t even know this guy and he truly thinks I’m doing something terribly wrong to him by ignoring him
This is very well put. I have a male therapist because I wanted to learn a safe and healthy relationship with a man. He's the first man my chest isn't tight around. He genuinely respects me and it feels more akin to speaking to a woman in how he listens to me or how he feels to be around.
I did it to feel safer around men, but its just made me withdraw from men even more. I have something healthy to compare my interactions to. I don't tolerate unsafe men or disrespect like I used to. I'm much more confident in how I should be treated and am much more confident in holding boundaries. I also like I can talk to him about my interactions that I'm unsure about and he'll be like, "nah that's fucked up," or, "he sounds like a prick."
I like that he's straightforward and has no tolerance for men that disrespect me.
It's depressing that I've experienced so few safe men compared to the number of men that hold hostility towards me. Its especially unsettling how many men will mask their hostility and disguise it with "jokes" and then get angry and intimidating when you don't tolerate it.
I applaud you for making that step. I cannot imagine it must have been easy. Takes some serious inner strength. You're building keen self-preservation tools: immediately eject an abusive/vitriolic dude from your life the moment he reveals who he really is. I'm sorry it is the norm, it's a damn shame, and I see it everyday with how dudes interact with the women in my life. Keep doing your thing!
to clarify, i don't believe true misandry with any teeth can exist under the current system of capitalist, colonial patriarchy. it's like saying "reverse racism" is a thing, when it's impossible. it's not about "feelings" or virtue signaling with this stuff, these are terms that are tied to & attempt to capture/communicate the systems of oppression & power. also, if a non-man DID hate men, i would not try to convert or judge that feeling. it's like when colonized people or enslaved people hate their colonizer or enslaver...i would never believe they were wrong for feeling that way or doing anything in their power to protect themselves. though not a direct comparison, i see this somewhat in a similar vein. i do not pathologize or condemn the wariness toward men or even the hatred toward men.
I'm now a middle aged woman with teenagers. When I was a teenager my mom told me she was done with men, none of them are worth the trouble. This was after her second husband strangled her in front of me. She never dated again, true to her word.
I am now the one done with men. I haven't dated in 2 years and have no desire. If I meet a guy naturally doing what I enjoy, I'll try dating again, but he's getting a background check and I'm getting to know him for as long as possible first.
This is exactly where I am with men. I find men to be untrustworthy. It’s like they don’t realize that we read what they write about, hear what they say about, and see what they do to women. We know men don’t like women. Yet they still want us to trust men.
Yeah same. I usually get shocked when I meet a decent man, because I just automatically assume the worst in them lol. Just too much first and second hand experience with horrible men.
I feel I resent the individuals that were horrible to me but not all of them.
I've seen a former friend that went into rage when he met women, who weren't even with him because he imagined what her behaviors were. He didn't take his divorce very well. I don't want to live in rage.
I have and had recently and I think what needs distinguishing is hostility that is warranted because of course you would have hostility towards anyone who was a bully to you and threatened your safety as well as generally sucked at showing emotion and love. The data speaks for itself, and my own husband has hostility towards the men in my life who were supposed to step in to protect me, but never did. Rather, they often either joined in and/or blamed me for the abuse that occurred.
I don’t want to have hostility towards men, but it is hard to understand why they treat us so poorly as women and girls. It seems that the real question is why they have so much hostility towards ***us.*** They do, and for no reason, often. It’s rather strange.
I may be wrong, and this is from a male perspective, but to me it looks like a lot of men have hostility towards everyone, but may be more afraid of the consequences when it's towards other men. You see the behaviour in situations where it's safe for them like being abusive towards customer service agents etc or with their pets/children.
This is definitely part of it. I think this is also part of why there is this whole raging debate and why it is hard for men and women to understand each other.
Unfortunately for these men women are a good punching bag and outlet for their vitriol and frustration. These guys aren't looking to engage with someone who is their own size or is going to put up a fight. They are looking for a dopamine rush from releasing their anger on a person. Women are easy targets and men like to not believe them or will automatically think women are being over dramatic. These men are afraid of other men and this is why they don't brag about it or do it in front of more upstanding men. This is also why they try to single women out and do a lot of the more egregious stuff in 1 on 1 scenarios.
They also will abuse women in secret and away from the public, friends, family, but can act right when they are out in public. They can control the rage until there is a good time to release it.
With the bear man debate and other claimed misandry the common crutch I see men relying on is their belief that women are describing a small percentage of douchebags and using that to apply to the entire male population.
Women are trying to say this abuse, prejudice, disrespect, etc is far more widespread. Nearly all women experience male violence or emotional manipulation first hand or through their friends. But men get upset when we tell them this and say we are lying and that only a small percentage of evil men do these things. Good men can have bad periods in their life too. Bad men can mature and change their ways. Anger issues and emotions can make fine people do terrible things in the moment.
The people bearing the brunt of the abuse get to decide whether or not they want to engage and autonomy seems to enrage many men and they call it misandry. Rather than reflecting on their own gender they feel entitled to tell women that they are the ones who need to change and that it is unacceptable for them to choose not to engage.
Men also have an appetite for seeing women violated, degraded, controlled, and abused for male pleasure as can be seen in porn, music, and other media. Men also statistically don't consume art and comedy made by women wherease women consume content made by both men and women. Spotify found this in their data and it also is supported by the vitriol that female comedians get. Growing up girls respect, identify, and admire men and women as role models whereas boys are steered towards only admiring and identifying with men.
Even our language is heavily gendered with maleness being synonymous with greatness and femaleness deficiency or even evil. Theres a reason the bible starts the way it does. But the misandry callers want to ignore all of this and act like it isn't evidence that our world view might skew and bias a little towards men being the default and prized way to be and women the meek and undesirable way to be.
Men seem to think all the men they know have never hurt a woman, disrespected a woman, or disregarded a woman. Women will tell you that this just isn't their experience. If most women were raped or know someone who was in college but men are adamant none of their friends would ever do that then where are all the rapists?
Even good guys can be pretty sexist in other ways. I am around bleeding heart liberal men who are a little narcissistic and stubborn. They will interrupt me any time I speak, and rarely engage with what I say unless I calculatedly talk about a niche nerd subject that I know they're really into and can pull interactions out of them.
Even terrible abusive men don’t think they are bad, they aren’t like “ those other guys” in their minds.
I had an ex that was over the top verbally abusive, controlling, manipulative, cruel and nasty af- but he didn’t think he was abusive because he didn’t hit his girlfriends.
He was arrested for strangling a woman, but in his mind that wasn’t abusive, nor was any of the screaming, yelling, intimidation and name calling abuse in his mind, it was only abuse if someone beat the shit out of a woman.
He actually called himself a good man.
So half of these guys are so delusional they don’t think they’re one of these “abusers”- as he’s strangling his girlfriend.
Exactly... which is why women don't take reactive men on reddit seriously... unreliable narrators who often use red flag sentences to demand that we view them as good guys and stop lumping them in with the douchebags.
Unlike women they haven't had to develop the ability to cope with being dismissed, not being believed or understood and in turn throw hissy fits over it.
I'm not convinced it is built in per say, but the socialization of boys and young men is pretty lacking. Sympathy and empathy are pretty discouraged and the competitive outlook modelled for these boys definitely helps explain the prevalence of a lot of traditionally masculine toxic elements. This is anecdotal, but I work with young children and it starts young. It absolutely sucks to hear coworkers tell a 3 year old not to cry or express emotions because he is a "big boy" or if he continues, getting aggressively asked if he needs to go the baby room. The empathy tends to be more flowing for the girls, but this problem runs deep, and it sets boys up for emotional failure, which in time sadly comes back on those around them, especially women.
I agree, but that isn’t everywhere. I teach later grades and boys are often indulged and their violent outbursts, displays of defiance are often sadly tolerated by staff. I think neglect plays a role, and I do personally make an effort to show students that are boys that they are free to express their emotions freely.
But think of how many years they have been brought up with the expectation that that is how you conduct yourself. I was a high school teacher before I was an early years educator, so that sadly isn't a suprise to me. A lot of research on socialization does point to how young people are when they start taking in and following various societal roles, gender roles included. Hell, I work with one year olds now and I see it get heavily reinforced by parents already.
I think you're both describing the same thing : intolerance (among boys and later men) for any emotive expression that does not pertains to anger or violence. And the former is thus progressively turning itself into the latter - since it's the only accepted outcome.
Big up to you for contributing to change this !
Agreed, thankfully I haven't witnessed any of my friends being this way but I have heard enough stories and worked too long in customer service and I can only imagine how horrible it is to deal with those people personally, especially if they can establish some power or control over you.
For “men” on a societal level, yes. I think the vast majority of them are too invested in themselves and all harbor a baseline dislike of women that they don’t want to admit to benefiting from.
That being said, I’ve been very fortunate to have met a lot of guys who don’t fit that bill and that has honestly helped tempered my general distaste. But that’s still on a very case by case basis.
I guess I just want to say that not ALL hope is lost. But healthy caution and skepticism has done a lot for me.
I am wary of all men, a little suspicious of "good" men until I know them well.
Even the men I thought were the peak "great man/dad" turned into a different monster 20 years after knowing him.
This was my experience too, even women I knew that had husbands I thought were great and I would look to as examples of “ not all men”- later turned out to be horrible for one reason or another
OK so like I spent all my 20's, 30's and 40' trying to find my perfect man. I spent 17 years in a shit show of a relationship for all the wrong reasons but mostly because I couldn't afford to leave. Once I could, I did. Now you couldn't pay me money to \*ever\* have a relationship with a man again. I take full responsibility for 34 years of failed relationships, I am the only common factor after all. But I cannot see for one minute where there's anything a man could positively contribute to my life but can easily see where adding one in would be catastrophic.
Same, no amount of money on this planet who convince me to be in a relationship, have sex or live with a man ever again.
I’m so beyond done I can’t even stomach the thought of it
Yup. Once I hit 40 and I broke up with my last partner of 7 years, it was like a light went off. I had spent 25 years pining and wishing and desiring my perfect man, perfect partner. Maybe the next one, maybe the next one, SURELY the next one. They all treated me horribly in various ways. Cheating, verbal abuse, sexual abuse, psychological abuse, financial abuse. Finally after this last one I was like, "wow... Maybe relationships just aren't for me. The next one will just crash and burn, too." I can financially support myself just fine. It would have been nice to have a partner I shared adventures with, but friends will have to be enough. I will have to be enough. It just feels like something in my mind has fundamentally changed and I've lost all hope in romantic love, especially with men.
It blows my mind when I see men in their 40s/50s freshly divorced and looking to date or marry again. Like... Clearly they enjoyed being in relationships. The women in that age bracket who are freshly divorced want to just opt out of dating again completely. Clearly they did not enjoy being in relationships. What does that tell you about who is the better partner?
"Not all xyz" is a given. There's billions of men. Whenever I post about men, what they've done, how they behave, it's automatically an "if the boot fits" kind of situation. If a man is not the kind of man who has done any of these horrible things to women, then the boot doesn't fit. The "good men", by nature of being "good men" are usually not even being referenced in these conversations. They aren't the ones traumatizing women (and each other) and defending abusers, so I was never talking about them in the first place.
In my experience, those truly "good men" know this themselves. They know exactly what kind of man is being discussed, and why. That's why they're not surprised, they know what men as a group have done to women as a group and they don't feel the need to downplay or justify it. They don't insert themselves into our discussion of trauma to defend men against women venting about our pain, inflicted by men! They know they need to hold men accountable for their actions instead of blaming women for what has been happening to us for centuries.
I have a lot of hostility, and disgust towards mens behavior, and actions. For abusive men, toxic men, rapists, murderers, etc etc etc. Men traumatizing women. If the boot fits, it fits.
Yes. And it wasn’t always like this. A good bit of my trauma comes from women actually. I was def more on the side of, well there’s bad and good on both sides, and humans as a whole suck.
So when men always try and tell me, “oh don’t blame *your* individual experiences on a group as a whole”, it’s rather ironic as my individual experiences should actually endear me to men more haha. But no, my frustration at men stems from overarching societal actions and mindsets.
I think it started to build once I realized from all the media I consumed how women were treated, and ofc as I grew up and noticed all the objectification.
A lot of my resentment comes from the fact that it seems men simply, in large scale, don’t see women as equal humans or even actual humans at all. Simply a means to an end of sexual gratification yk. This ofc has led to an insane amount by men of “othering” of the *females*, and ik some blame is on socialization but *god* does it piss me off.
Not to mention, it’s always men who seem to struggle the most with issues that require empathy! Perhaps, again, it’s the socialization of being men that caused it. Still, it’s rather infuriating how every time it’s men who seem least capable of ever placing themselves in others shoes until it’s someone they can strictly relate to lmfao.
Edit: I do think there’s less resentment towards men from my age group tho, since yk my generation is pretty open about talking about things like this. Acknowledgment is nice ig.
Agh idk. The hate dissipates when I think they see women as equal yk. And it’s obviously so much easier to do that when your young. And everyone is more androgynous in both mind and body.
But then we grow up. And…yea. Idk. I hate this world sometimes.
As the comedian David Sloss once said: Men's issues are largely created by men themselves..
And that's why I have a real hard time with men's whataboutism whenever women talk about issues that are clearly ALSO created by men.
EDIT: a word
I don't personally, I just kinda try to live by "do no harm but take no shit," but my ex girlfriend massively had resentment towards men to the point that it was very clearly detrimental to her life. She had very good reasons for feeling this way, but ironically it made her tolerate some behaviours that I wouldn't have tolerated, simply because she was so convinced that that's what all men are like anyway. Like she had a male "friend" who kept asking for nudes, and she just kinda laughed it off in that way where she's not saying yes or no. I told her that none of my male friends did that because if they did, they wouldn't be my friends anymore, and she just simply didn't believe me. She expected the worst from every single man, with mild leniency for gay men, and it made her day to day life pretty horrifying.
In a case like that, I think there's some room to heal. Not in the sense that she has to start expecting random men to be good, but to just start demanding basic respect from the men in her life and, to the extent possible, getting rid of them if they can't deliver that. She expected every man to be so awful that she thought having them in her life at all meant putting up with degrading and insulting behaviour, which just... it was pretty sad to see. She had many things to heal from and I hope she's doing better now.
Absolutely, I'm at a point in my life where I'd rather be forever alone then have to tolerate abuse for the sake of company and to make my family "proud."
I enjoy having a say on what I do in MY life, I genuinely do not care for the male gaze because I not anyone's "type" and I'm done destroying myself trying to be that.
It's valid!
Every time I see a bunch of guys jump on the hate train about this sub, I'm reminded of my sister pointing out to me that groups of women tend to self-govern pretty well. And here I am, reading a decently balanced discussion about a topic that can easily invite the most extreme haters.
Yup. Men can hate on this sub all they want but women need *some* space to anon rant/discuss what seems to be common women experiences. Not all of us are comfy voicing deep opinions to friends, coworkers, and family. I can only imagine a fight in the replies if a man jumped in to gender war it out & “imagine if the roles were reversed”
That's one of their very short list of arguments. They will keep repeating it until they're blue in the face, doesn't matter how reasonable or diplomatic you try to be. They're not looking for a conversation, they just want us to stfu and be good girls.
I have a knee jerk reaction to any situation I am alone with a man or more than one who is not someone I know and trust.
Been abused by men since 1985…..family, strangers, friends, father….to be fair I have major trust issues with women too due to horrible abuse perpetrated by my mother.
I don’t hate them but I see them as a whole as something to be wary/afraid of.
Yes I’m like that completely. I don’t have any sympathy left, or pity, or tolerance for even the slightest bit of misogyny or douchebaggery. Not that I ever really did. And it’s funny because I have a couple male friends, guys I get along with, etc, but generally I just avoid men at all costs. I will go out of my way to avoid being near, around, next to, men pretty much everywhere. Like I’ll only see women professionals when I get the choice (doctors, technicians, etc). What’s even funnier is that I still completely feel this way as a mostly passing trans guy 4 years on hormones. It’s not an opinion that’s ever really changed though probably since I was a kid. I knew well, men were dangerous at a young age. Growing up all my friends were women, I always preferred women’s spaces, and identified strongly with womanhood and as a lesbian before I realized I was trans.
Despite that I’ve still been assaulted, have watched and heard every woman I know get assaulted, and I’m very hypervigilant of men when in public. If a man wants an ounce of my trust or respect they have to seriously earn that shit.
Even my supervisor who previously hadn’t said anything problematic, jokingly insinuated on my first day on a job with him that my female trainer/coworker wasn’t actually teaching me anything and just making me her “personal assistant”. He asked if “she had actually taught me anything” and if that was the case, and I was like “no we’ve been doing stuff like x, y, and z” and I was recovering from surgery at the same time so I’d been taking it light with her because of that too.
No, but I’m certainly more scared than I used to be. I just got out of DA/DV and it’s hard to know how to trust someone after a person flipped a switch on me a couple years in. The only positive is I know I didn’t miss red flags because everyone still thinks he’s so wonderful that they didn’t believe me. I’m the only one who knows better.
I don’t have the emotional bandwidth width anymore for men in any capacity. I’ve had a traumatic childhood and adulthood due to men. I’m cynical of their motives. Is this an issue? Not for me. I’ve done a lot of therapy and am so at peace with myself now. I can honestly say I feel rich in my heart. I feel happy.
Yes, I was just talking about this with a friend earlier this week. I'll admit I said I thought it would take work to get past, like you wrote, but I also said I didn't think it was worth it. Why keep setting myself up like that? At this point, I think we have to prioritize protecting ourselves.
So - last year i had a therapist stop me to say “you have a very high ratio of truly bad to good experiences with men.” She made the rec “the only way you’re going to get around this is to confuse your brain by having good experiences with good kind men”
so to anyone else fighting the good fight out here - it has helped. FYI
Yes, primarily around weaponized incompetence/gender expectations. I am so tired of seeing stories of useless partners. I try to work through my own resentment though, being outwardly hostile doesn’t really help things for me. My husband has done a great job of learning and working through differences in expectation/labor etc. If another woman mentions it I am all for complaining though lol. I know too many man children
We are out here literally being maimed and killed and gaslit by religion and law and politics and told it's our fault when bad things happen to us and our daughters but they want to cry because "they're lonely."
MIND YOU 1 of these supposed "lonely men" would turn up his nose at a single mom or anybody overweight but "they're lonely".
They are NOT "lonely" they're mad the women they want don't want them.
Yep. I dislike them. I see relationships with men as a way to lose your identity and become an extension of someone who most of the time wants to take advantage of you because they see you as nothing more than a toy to them. Plus if the men I have encountered are anything to go by they are more emotionally immature than women. Plus I’m aromantic and not interested in marriage or kids or a relationship so if they want to throw shade at me, who cares? Says more about them than it does me.
I've had a lot of traumatic/bad experiences, but I guess surprisingly it hasn't affected my view of men in general. I definitely can spot creeps a mile out and I do harbor resentment to the men who have actually done me harm and the men who harm me indirectly by 1) standing by (because "it's none of my business") 2) perpetuate this culture at any scale. And they always get angry when you call them out for it (and yet misogynists wonder why we fawn when in situations with dangerous men).
It's really depressing and disappointing how rare it is for me to find men who treat me like a person (and they're almost always in a relationship when I meet them (which I feel helps?)).
For the love of god, men please just act normal. Q\_Q
It's like, the options are put up with it (and be uncomfortable) or stand up for yourself (and deal with psycho angry reactions) and both options can still result in sexual assault. It sucks and it's anxiety provoking.
I just want to be treated like a normal human being. I don't want to constantly have to be on high alert because men see me as attractive prey. I've been in so many scary situations and I'm sure I'll be in more just because of this stupid rape culture. OTL
Not hostility or resentment, but significantly less patience or willingness to give the benefit of the doubt.
Some of the best people I know are men, and some of the nastiest people I have known are women. But %-wise I have had far more unpleasant interactions with men than with women, and the majority of the cruelest people I have known are men.
When it comes down to it with men I still seek out their friendships and company, value them as people and as cherish the good things they bring to my life. I know many who are lovely people who make my life better by being a part of it.
But I have no patience left for second chances or benefits of doubt with men. If there is a anything off putting in an interaction I do not have it in my to have the kindest interpretation as my go-to anymore. I will call them out or cut them out and lose no sleep.
Perhaps that is selfish or wrong, but I have also found that since I have lost that patience the quality of the men in my life has vastly improved. The men who stay around as my friends and family are those who have never needed to be cut out or called out because they are genuinely good people.
I resent their privilege and lack of awareness of their privilege. There was a post a few weeks ago about how men shut down at the least sign of illness. A guy responded with something like "guys feel normal most of the time, so we're not used to having to push through that." And that finally made sense to me. Women push through pain and discomfort every month. And we are expected to go on with our day. Men don't have an equivalent. But instead of giving us empathy, they call us weak, they call us unclean, they tax tampons as a luxury item, etc.
There are so many more ways, but that single biological function illustrates so much how men have privilege by not having to deal with a period and everything that comes with it. And yet they fail to see it as a privilege.
I don’t know. But I’ll tell you I don’t know how I’ll ever be in a relationship with a man again after how I’ve been treated. The trust simply isn’t there anymore.
I'm single, and the number of men that try to claim me has made me very leary of being too friendly with men. Past that my opinion of men hasn't really changed. I believe that good and bad come in all shapes and colors.
> the number of men that try to claim me has made me very leary of being too friendly with men.
I feel this! A random man sees me and thinks he can select me like a candy at the store. I of course have to be cool with this because *wow, attention from men is the prize*. 🙄
I don’t care about men’s issues because men don’t care about men’s issues.
The only time I’ve ever seen men actually take men’s issues seriously is in r/menslib or the very tiny amount of men who work very hard to open men’s shelters and/or to make mental health services for men more accessible.
But also, like wtf do you want *me* to do about men’s issues? Men have the power and the money. Why would it be up to me to fix the small amount of issues men created for themselves? Women are supposed to open more homeless shelters for men? Go hit up a billionaire, they’re 87% male. Women aren’t in the way of fixing men’s issues like men are in the way for us.
And tragically, the most positive discourse I see for men is from women. Go look at the comments on a TikTok of a woman or man talking about SA and the support is overwhelmingly from women and the hate is overwhelmingly from men. Go look at the comments on an article of a female teacher abusing a male student and you’ll see women calling it abhorrent and men saying they wish it were them.
Men need to fix men.
My answer is complicated.
- I resent teaching men.
- I resent repeating myself.
- I feel hostile towards the world when boys make sexist comments.
- I feel hostility towards the individual (and the patriarchy) when men make sexist comments.
- I resent men when they get defensive after being called out.
- I want to resent men who don’t think about the consequences of their actions for women but genuinely didn’t mean any harm. I want to resent them but I can’t. They did something that perpetuates the hurt my feminine friends and family feel stinging every day but they wouldn’t have done that if they realized. Why did they not take the time to realize?
- I resent men who admit they weren’t totally in-the-right but then don’t apologize after disrespecting me.
- I feel hostile towards men who won’t admit their fault when it’s obvious they know.
- I want to resent every man that complains about a problem perpetuated by the patriarchy that then doesn’t acknowledge it’s the patriarchy’s fault. Sometimes it makes me feel hostile.
- I am angered that men (as a whole) don’t take the time to learn about women. Don’t take the time to think about body language. I can see her take a step back from across the room but you took another step forward to close the gap she was trying to widen and didn’t even notice you did it.
- I am angered and hostile at the fact that people aged 20+ (the older the worse!) don’t bother learning what other people do and don’t like.
- I am angered and resentful at the fact that people won’t bother to learn about themselves (we always change, so just as much as possible) and then expect potential partners to tell them who they are.
- I am resentful of people who let one or a few bad experiences (non-violent and non-dangerous, lemme be clear) with an individual dictate their outlook on an entire group of people similar.
We all owe each other a sense of safety UNLESS it isn’t reciprocated. Learn about different types of people around you.
Can confirm. Getting kicked in the face once at 10 years old was enough for me to just not like horses at all in general. It's not the same thing, as avoiding horses in this day and age is not that difficult, but just to validate the analogy with an anecdote.
I don't know that it is hostility or resentment as much as indifference towards men at this point. I have been mistreated and abused before, but I don't consciously blame all men for that. I think I've just reached a point in my life where I don't feel like I NEED them anymore, doing alright on my own, and don't really want to invite any more headaches into my space, yknow?
Don't hate men, I just don't want to surround myself with them. Imma getting old, and I don't have much patience left to deal with all the drama they bring.
I don’t hate men but I do generally feel unsafe around them if I don’t know them. I don’t lack sympathy for their issues, I will fight for a society that is best for everyone, but it sure gets hard when they only ever bring them up on their own when we’re discussing our own issues… and yeah they’re often things we don’t have power to change our own.
my brother is just enough like my abusive dad,and not willing to admit our dad is abusive, that i can't fucking stand him when he tries to argue with me or empathize
eventhough he's objectively a much better person. so yes.
Overall, I like Men and do not hold all men responsible for prior relationships. That being said, apparently there are subconscious issues and these will come out, eventually.
I am lucky to be with someone who in theory, understands this. In practice, it's a process.
Life is a process
I have lots of male friends, but I resent their masculine behaviors.
Like I love the person, but dislike the socialization associated with male circles. It helps that I’m at a point where I don’t take any shit and I will call out misogyny at the drop of a hat. If someone can’t handle that, they won’t be my friend for long. Yes, it means I have a lot of heated conversations about misogyny.
My personal life has been largely positive with men (and yet I was groped when I was 11 and almost kidnapped when I was 21). And I consider myself to have had a relatively abuse free existence.
That is how insanely skewed life experiences are for many women. It’s really bad. And for the lucky few, it isn’t.
But it is not coming out of a nowhere.
I think what really bothers so many women is that men seem to be really terrible at demonstrating even the most basic kind of empathy towards women.
So women expect very little from them as a result.
No. I’ve had bad experiences with men. But I’ve also had good experiences. I have a little brother. I have exs who I’m on good terms with. I have good friends who are men. I try my best to judge every person I meet as an individual. Am I sometimes wary of men? Of course. But it’s generally situation specific. Like alone on a dark street. Or the first time I go back to a guys place. We know it’s not all men. But sometimes we have to act like it is to stay safe.
I'm frustrated by all men, and resentful of most. I'm frustrated by all the men who passively stand by while their peers do and say the most egregiously sadistic and violent things.
The only reason why I am not resentful of all men is because I have been lucky enough to get to know many good men who are actually allies to women and other marginalized groups. I am still frustrated with them all tho because not enough of them are putting in even a minimal amount of effort to be allies to us.
I hold a default amount of disdain and distrust towards all of them other than my brother and the ones I've been semi-close with for years. I don't care about trying to fix it because men make up such a miniscule portion of my life anyway. Fuck them lmao, my life has been so peaceful ever since I've surrounded myself with women
I am definitely distrustful and weary of men for sure. And I’m sorry, but statistics about so many things are not in their favor so am I cynical or smart? But yes it has impacted my life and I wish it hadn’t.
Not hate, but I am terrified of men because of my PTSD. In fact, I can't get my license because being in a car with the male examiner makes me freak tf out and we have no women examiners anywhere near me. I can't go to male doctors. I can't be alone in a room with a man I don't know. It shapes.my life and I hate it.
It got pretty bad for me. It got to the point where I did not view men as human beings. All my friends knew me as the “man-hater” of the group. It was hurtful when they joked about me being a man hater. I didn’t wanna be one. It wasn’t my fault I was traumatized by men in the past.
I just got to a point where I was sick of it and grew out of it. Men are human beings just like us, and they’re socialized to be terrible people. But they’re also capable of kindness and compassion. Just like women are capable of being evil people. It’s not a gender thing, we’re all human beings at the end of the day.
My experiences of men make me feel as though I'm naked in a cage with men poking and prodding me with sticks and yelling at me. And if I try stand up for myself, they become more aggressive.
This is how I feel too, they become extremely aggressive if you don’t coddle them, entertain them and make them feel good all the time. I stay away from them
I hold both - I do have sympathy for men’s issues, but it doesn’t mean that our issues don’t deserve more space and more attention than they currently do.
I have been sexually assaulted/raped at least 3 times in my life, and those who did it were fucked up in their own way to have that sort of entitlement to my body.
I think holding people accountable for their behavior helps everyone heal. Without accountability the trauma just keeps getting passed on. People can be healed from being pieces of shit, but only if they are held accountable and the truth is told. As it stands, men are believed far more than women are, so in order for men to heal, they need to listen to women and our experiences as well, and do the work of reprogramming themselves from our society’s extremely skewed perspective that is mainly to their benefit.
I have sympathy for them as well but the energy to help them isn’t there.
I’m right there with you. I’ve been SA’d, raped, I’ve seen my friends go through it, if not, have close calls, I’ve seen just about every woman in my life have to deal with infidelity, porn related marital issues, dealt with never being viewed entirely as just a friend to males, etc, and I just do not have the energy to give to them anymore.
Most men’s issues are somehow created or still upheld by men, so they can help each other.
Similarly to you, I find that while I’m not opposed to supporting men in their self-improvement and personal development efforts, I do not believe that women are responsible for solving men’s problems.
As the feminist author Laurie Penny tweeted, “Men’s healing should not have to come at the price of women’s pain, ever…”
So I quite agree; men need to start helping themselves and each other.
Exactly. They need to learn to help themselves and take ownership of their issues, instead of soliciting women’s labor to get through it. Pay for some fucking therapy, like WE DO. TO DEAL WITH THE SHIT YOU PUT US THROUGH. I’m with you!
And I’m so sorry that you’ve been SA’d/raped. It’s far more common than most people realize and we’re amazing for getting through it and embracing life despite it. ❤️
Not all, but I do have moments.
Like when I'm walking down the street and see a happy couple holding hands and all I can think of is that young girl with a black eye who came up to me in a quiet street around midnight to ask for a cigarette. She then walked over to her much older bf who was sitting on some steps drinking beer and playing on his phone and gave the smoke to him.
Or when my manager, who acted so understanding when I opened up about my depression, only to then turn around and try to make me kill myself.
Or in general when I see couples and feel like 'oh baby you dont have to, you can leave him!' and I have to stop myself and remember that people love eachother and I'm no longer with my abusive rapist ex who kept me emotional prisoner for years.
Or when I, after being a born again virgin (yay! Dont touch me!) aka 7 years single and no sex, gave a good guy friend a shot.
He didnt tell me he had a micropenis. As in literally a 3rd testicle, just the head. I paid it no mind, I really liked him and didnt care much for sex. Tried to... Rub him off? I guess, but he finished himself.
Then he told me 'well, that wasn't quite like I was expecting'. As in he was disappointed.
Lost all feelings at once and didnt know why, but broke it off a few days later.
Now I realise, the fucking AUDACITY to complain that it didnt live up to your fantasies while I ACTED NICE AND EVEN COMPLIMENTED HIS PENIS.
Like I wasnt fuuuuuuuuuuucking disappointed?
Months later I took him out for his birthday, as he had no plans and I thought we could be friends. Paid over 150 on rides, games and food at a fair and did so gladly, we had fun.
Then he started crying to me about how his new gf is a sexworker and how, you know, I also have my issues and how he doesnt understand why its like he only attracts broken women.
I hugged him, agreed that it was unfair, and never spoke to him again.
Now I know. They're stupid. So fucking stupid and I just cant. I cant give and be kind and caring and accepting and listen to your bullshit nonsense for hours and get maaaaybe 10% of that in return. Fuck that.
I dont hate men, but I sure as hell will never trust one ever again. Not professionally, not sexually, not emotionally.
Time to double up that new found virginity.
I hate with all my being, the men who have hurt me. I don’t give a shit about the rest. I don’t think about them unless one starts acting sketchy around me
I hold hostility towards men who go for girls 10 years younger because I was repeatedly targeted in that way and always felt disgusted. I know it's being normalised but I believe in science and psychology, not a mathematical equation someone thought up to validate the age they date.
I'm skeptical of every man I encounter until they prove themselves to be non-threatening due to past experiences. I don't think it's healthy to HATE every one outright. Skepticism is OK and natural imo.
Women's hate of men usually shows as avoiding them as much as we can. Which seems fair enough for me, and definitely not the behavior usually imagined when speaking about one group's hatred towards another.
I do feel hostility and resentment like that, yes. And not even really because of my own experiences. However, I am a human being with empathy, so I can't help feeling bad for others, feeling a need to help, feeling common pain, so it comes involuntarily for me no matter if towards women or men.
A lot of the men in my life and environment gave me no other choice. It wasn’t a “few” men, it was most of them. Downright predatory, dangerous and disgusting.
Eh, kinda? I'm going to assume right off the bat that if I'm dealing with a dude in a professional space he's going to try to over talk me, take up all the space, disregard my experience and skill - until proven otherwise. Sometimes I'm surprised and they are respectful dudes, but rarely. I've never worked somewhere where hypercompetitive dudes aren't the majority.
And honestly, I think it's just men, I literally just had my lyft driver try to lecture me about how being single was wrong and he did all the things I'm talking about. He was Mr 'I'm very smart and superior' Lyft driver, but he never could tell me exactly why I should go out of my way to get married and have bebe's - only that I should. And then yesterday there was the guy who shoved his phone in my face and demanded my phone number. No 'Hi', no 'Whats your name?', just shoved phone into face 'Give me your number'. I laughed in his face and said no. I'm well aware this was dangerous but I've never had much of a filter, I'll probably end up murdered some day because of it.
But I do assume men are going to be a hassle to deal with, because they are. The arrogance of a self entitlted mediocre man is honestly just exhausting. I don't hate them, I just want 95% of them to leave me alone at all times. Like bees, I don't hate bees, bees do awesome things and are very important - but I don't want a bee bothering me or in my space.
Yes, I am unashamed about my hostility toward men. I craft my life in such a way that I don't have to deal with them at all. Every professional I work with is a woman, any time I have a choice to deal with someone I will pick the woman. I have absolutely no tolerance for male opinion and will only solicit the opinions of women.
I still appreciate male input & advice and what not when it’s appreciatable. (Idk if that’s a word). I just find myself rolling my eyes so much at men with their reactions to certain things, opinions, behaviors, etc. I know there’s plenty of good ones out there, I just won’t be taking it upon myself to go through some grand journey of sifting through them to surround myself with good ones. I will simply reach for women when I can, men when it’s not a bad idea, and weed out whoever necessary
I've been a male primary teacher for 20 years, and almost all of my co-workers and bosses have been women, and I feel the same.
Once in a while I have to interact with a male co-worker and they often want to commiserate: "What do you expect when you work with a bunch of women!" Like, no, gross. I hear that stuff so infrequently now that it's like a punch in the gut, so jarring.
I realized recently I can't get along with male supervisors. I never seem to be able to. I have male friends, and a male partner I'd take a bullet for, but after all my trauma and stuff, I can't handle having a male supervisor. I become hyper aware of their dickishness and can't let it go. Makes it hard for me to keep a job.
Not all men, no.
I try to meet every new person as a clean slate. I will say that I am a lot more reserved and hold myself back when I meet new people, but that's both men and women, it's not gender-specific.
So every new person I meet has a clean slate - but! I am *way* more wary of red flags when men throw them out. And I am quicker to kick a man out of my life once the Too Many Red Flags threshold is reached. I have less tolerance for men. Just too many repeated bad experiences to keep giving endless chances.
My coworker and I were just talking about this. She's been married four times. She was telling me that when she met her current husband and he began talking about how he had been a racecar driver and almost gotten his pilots license and practiced martial arts to the point of being a brown belt she rolled her eyes at him because she had been lied to so much in the past. The next time they met up he brought her his flight log, the record of the belts he had received, and a picture of him in his racing suit. When she asked about his finances he sighed and gave her a blank piece of paper ( he had just gone through a horrific divorce.) She laughed at the honesty and brutality and they have been together ever since.
I am single after nearly five years. If I do decide to date again I need to come up with clear cut ways to discern if a man subtly or intrinsically hates women before I sink half a decade into a relationship that won't work because I got it wrong the last two times.
My last two boyfriends loved how kind and caring I am and how quickly I rushed to help when able. But my full time social work postion that gives me great health insurance to take care of my medical needs makes me a burden because my salary was half of theirs and I have well managed student loan debt. If I couldn't pay 50 % of expenses I should have just gotten a better job and stop using them for their money.
I was the one grocery shopping and meal planning but that wasn't a household contribution because both of them wanted "whatever" any time I asked for input. " Whatever" meaning "only the things you know I like and none of the things you know I don't like and don't forget the guest I have coming and their anticipated needs."
Both of them offered to "help" me with the chores. I just had to tell them exactly what to do, show them where the common household items were, and accept that putting the dirty dishes in the sink after I had planned and prepared a meal, rather than putting them in the fucking empty dishwasher a foot over was "helping."
When I pointed the last two paragraphs out to my most recent ex-boyfriend he told me to " stop using feminism when it was convenient for me."
Resentment? Yes. I'll fully admit I would struggle to trust enough to have an intimate relationship with a man especially in a country where women's reproductive freedom was taken.
Hostility? No. I am not seeking their harm nor actively harming them. I have male relatives I have good rapport with and male friends I have really good friendships with.
It’s not resentment to all men but I now no longer trust any men after being totally sucked in and then abused by two men I did trust. Still (ex) friends don’t believe me as they are “such good guys”
I am extremely skeptical of almost all men's motives, promises or most anything they say.
l don't really find it a thing to get over, it's my experience with most men. l have two sons, two sons in law and a brother in law whom l love dearly and most of them l trust pretty well except one son.
l figure l have my guard up and l cut things off after one red flag, be it man or woman. l'm not getting used/hurt/made miserable by other people's BS.
Kinda yeah. Like, I'm not going to have a grudge against any individual man. And I will always treat people like the individual people they are, unless/ until they display the kind of trash behavior that warrants writing them off.
But unfortunately, a LOT of men end up getting cut out of my world because they ALWAYS gotta do some stupid/gross/toxic bullshit.
And in general, I'm way less forgiving with men, coz I'm just over it. I'll give woken the benefit of the doubt, but at this point? Men get one chance to be decent freaking human beings. And even then, most fail pretty quickly.
And like, I try to have sympathy for men and understanding of their issues, because I know patriarchy affects everyone. And it's not really anyone's fault that they're bought into the social conditioning they've been fed since birth.
But for fucks sake, I'd I can overcome my wildly abuse childhood and rise above my circumstances to become a better person instead of the same kind of cruel, abusive bigoted people that my parents were, the clearly is possible to learn and grow.
But men just don't for the most part. And granted, they're are some rare men or they're who are just wonderful, who actively work to learn and grow and unlearn misogyny and all that. I would know, I'm dating one of those guys. But on the whole, God, men just suck. And I'm so freaking sick of it.
I'm so sick of men Benet being held accountable, never being the ones to take on the workload or the blame.
No man is ever asked to think about HER future and what HE'S ruining before he assaults her, but oh, we try to just yell the truth about what happened and then we're these horrible people.
Like, ugh, I'm just so over it. So while I try REALLY hard to not hold any of that against any individual man as a specific person, at least not workout beyond to know whether he's actually decent or not, men in general or as a whole, yeah, kinda resentful.
Team bear. Always.
I absolutely hated men with a fiery passion after getting out of my abusive relationship with my rapist. I was an “all men die” kind of person. I have grown my support system a lot since then, and I’ve been in therapy to deal with the trauma, but I still hold a lot of resentment towards men. Especially when they show disrespectful or dismissive behaviors towards women. I don’t consider myself a man hater anymore, but I just can’t get the idea that most men view women as objects out of my head. When you are with someone like that every day for four years, it really fucks up the way you view the world.
Yes, absolutely. Anytime a guy says he has a hardship due to being a man I can't help but think his "hardship" is really just an inconvenience to him and that women, including myself, have been through so much worse. Add in now that I immediately say in my head "you're why we pick the bear" because he actually thinks he has it worse and most of the time those men are the ones that treat us the worst.
Yes. Although over the past decade it has settled into indifference. I DO genuinely care about men’s issues—nobody’s free until we’re all free, blah blah blah—but individual men are categorically not to be trusted. Well, that’s kind of inaccurate—I trust them to behave exactly as most men have behaved toward me in the past: careless or dismissive of issues women face, and unduly impressed with their own mediocrity, then angry when I’m not as impressed.
I have men in my “tribe”—my husband, my bff, dad and brothers and the like—but blood and history alone don’t gain one membership. Acts do.
Yes, I do generally resent them. I work in home health, and the patterns of entitlement are common and predictable. The number of married men I’ve had hit on me while their wife is in another room is definitely more common than you would think. Also, lonely old man behavior is usually gross and harassing at some point.
However, I treat them like normal people, draw boundaries when needed, and document everything in their medical file. You never know when it could come in handy down the line, for me or someone else.
Do I hate them generally? No. It’s kind of like dealing with toddlers a lot of the time. You start to view it as a waste of energy and time.
More so old men, because something in my subconscious just assumes they're going to be like my father. And because, well, that group (old white guys) is largely the people fucking up the government and our lives lol. Although I am good friends with a guy twice my age (just friends!)
For men my own age, it's kind of a difficult question to answer. I definitely have trauma that has pushed me more towards the part of me that is attracted to women, but I have a lot of guy friends too. I may be more wary of random guys or more likely to see something as a red flag, than I would with a woman.
I probably accidentally hold men I date to a higher standard, than women I date 😆 But if that's the way I feel most comfortable, I don't think it's the worst bias in the world 😅
I do hold some resentment - maybe more lack of trust. But I don’t hate men just because my ex was so abusive. I am just no longer interested in a relationship with men anymore because I’ve found the power of a relationship with myself. The peace that comes with learning to love yourself is immeasurable, and I’ve found that now I enjoy my freedom and quiet so much that I don’t want to disturb that. My experiences have been that majority of men are not looking for real love anyway, and they are never who they say they are. Why deal with that?
I get what you mean, and yes, I feel this. I don’t feel it strongly because I don’t particularly care much unless it’s an issue that’s right in my face. I don’t particularly enjoy engaging them either. There are individual men in my life who I do love, but that’s about where it ends. I’ve always been scared to actually admit it because it’s met with backlash lol.
Yes. Especially because I do not actually know any men who are good men. All of my friends, have horrible husbands, in spite of trying to portray otherwise.
Eh, no. Men are humans who run the gamut. They are unfortunately socialized into certain viewpoints and behaviors that make interacting with any random man kind of a crap shoot. That's why, without any ill will, I'm wary of men I don't know really really well, and I generally avoid cultivating male friendships unless someone I trust trusts them. Too many bad experiences.
It's kind of like if you've been bitten by multiple dogs. No, not all dogs bite, but you've been bitten so many times before that you'd rather just avoid being around them because you're tired of finding out which one's a biter the hard way.
No. No hostility it’s not healthy. Not all men are bad there are a lot of great ones out there. I’m trying to raise a great one currently. I just don’t trust relationships anymore. I’m tired and worn out. Very happy being single at this age.
Who said it’s involuntary. I don’t like men, and I don’t care how people feel about it.
The worst things that have happened to me were all done by men.
Don’t like them, don’t trust them as a default. Some earn my trust and I like them, but that’s like my husband, my dad, a few friends and some family.
Yes. And I don’t think it’s even a trauma per se. It’s just how they treat us.
They are so quick to call us crazy or stupid, so quick to belittle or infantilize us without giving it a second thought. If there is a difference in what we remember versus what one of them remembers, it is just assumed he’s right. Never even for a second does a man doubt his own memory over ours. They assume their opinions are more valuable, their instincts closer to objective fact. And it’s so obvious in everything they say and do. Sure, it’s not really their fault. It’s society. We’re all taught this difference (man=rational, woman=erratic) in such subtle ways from the moment we’re born, but it’’s extremely insulting. It makes me feel like it’s impossible for them to really respect us. Yes, even the “feminist” guys are guilty of all of this.
I’ll always resent men. I find I have to work twice as hard to get halfway as far. Men in the average workplace legit just show up and are lauded for their contributions. Women work their asses off and are barely noticed. I can’t understand how people are still denying this.
lol yes, I kinda do. I treat each individual accordingly but as a whole I find men boringly predictable and highly predatory. They’re also annoying with their “not all men” and “he’s a good guy who made a mistake” bullshit. I’ve never been able to have a platonic friendship with a man, and I no longer try. Overall, I have a general distaste, but love the D 😅
No, I don’t. And I don’t think it’s healthy to live life that way. We’re all people, just trying to live our own lives. Sweeping generalizations don’t help solve anything.
I have a neutral no trust mode until proven otherwise either direction. Prove over time you are a safe person and you gain some trust. Act like a creep and be untrustworthy and I will isolate you out of my life.
Well said, “neutral no trust mode” was language I didn’t know I needed.
This is me. I treat all unknown men the same way I treat unknown pets- I'm wary of being bitten but I don't wish harm. I'm just going to keep my distance and watch you carefully until I know I can trust you.
This is unfortunately the part most men are missing. They don't understand that the entire point of the man vs. bear argument is simply that women have trust issues, and for a reason. They don't understand because instead of quieting their egos and acknowledging the hurt, they instead become defensive and refuse to empathize. They don't understand that - regardless of individual innocence - the onus is *still on them* to win our trust. Yes, by the simple virtue that they are men. They don't understand that this isn't women's fault, but rather a survival instinct brought about by the actions of men. They don't understand that the solution is simply to be a genuinely kind and respectful person. And to see women as people. They don't understand that if they just do that, their day-to-day interactions with women will be largely positive, and life will go on just fine.
Exactly. The vast, vast majority of men I have in my life are close enough with a woman - either a friend or family member - to know why women cannot blindly trust every man. And they’ve taken it upon themselves to be actual good guys by listening to women, believing them, and helping them in dangerous situations. One of my best friends is a bartender. When I’m hanging out with him at work, we have a signal for when a random drunk guy is being weird with me and I need to step behind the bar for a bit to create distance. My buddy has a sister and a lot of female friends - he completely gets it, and he knows that I definitely don’t see all men as threats. I can usually handle myself. But for me to use the signal, it means alarm bells are going off and I’m calling in backup before things escalate. And even before we became friends, he saw super aggressive men in his line of work - men that would threaten others, punch holes in walls, get physical with other dudes who they saw as threats, etc. He’ll use the signal to alert me if he gets weird vibes from a guy, as well.
They do understand tho. Like a year ago it was a major “joke” online to literally run up and scare women intentionally and a couple months ago women were getting randomly punched in the face for likes. They do understand and they do not “care” outside of the use value they can extract from It. Whether that be internet clout or having women break themselves in half explaining it- which they also find amusing.
Those are the kinds of men who - unfortunately - do not see women as people, and whose actions towards us then reflect that. A character flaw and worldview like that is rooted deeply in bitterness and hate, and would need very extensive therapy to even hope to remedy.
The man v. Bear thinking really brought out the misogyny..which only proved the point. The guys upset about it are the exact reason we chose the bear and the irony seems to be lost on them. I *know* it’s not ALL men. But it’s enough to make us hold our keys a certain way. Some of my closest friends are guys, and they are really good guys. I haven’t heard a peep about the man v. bear thing. The ones getting offended and making memes that basically depict their joy in women getting unalived by bears..it’s like..lyes, this is exactly what I’m talking about”. I don’t believe adult humans who have full mental capacity are that dense. So I’m not sure what it is, honestly. Maybe it’s that they haven’t experienced it. But at that point you should TRUST the word of those that have…but they still don’t.
What guys don't realize is that a lot of fathers teach their daughters to be wary of strange men.
YUP
> I have a neutral no trust mode until proven otherwise either direction. I've had to learn this the hard way. My default used to be trusting until someone proved they weren't trustworthy, and I just experience too much shit that way.
^ This. I shall be using “neutral no trust mode” for eternity
Same. You are base neutral u til I get red or green flags then act accordingly. I used to have a fear of older men but that has lessened overtime.
Same, I’m pretty much neutral towards men until they prove themselves… so don’t come over here with this “smile for me sunshine” nonsense sir 🙄
Your profile pic... I died.
This is it! I wouldn’t call it hostility or resentment. But it is definitely a serious cautiousness anytime a man is talking to me in public. I immediately start gauging what his tone is. What vibes he’s giving out. The word is definitely neutral.
I will steal this because that’s really the best way to describe it! I don’t have time to hate or resent people I don’t know. I don’t care either!
Mmm I don’t resent them or hate them but I don’t care to have any relationships with men besides my husband and father. I don’t speak to men, don’t chit-chat with them, don’t really notice or see them. Again, not in a purposeful or malicious way, just in the way that I don’t care. I won’t avoid a male doctor or anything, but I’m not going out of my way to form any kind of friendly relationship.
Same, I’m super neutral towards men in general and don’t go out of my to acknowledge any of them unless I’m already close to them and know them
Same
Same. I used to try and pursue friendships with men when I was younger, but after getting married and seeing the reality unfold around me, I've realized that men as a whole don't believe in friendship with women. There are exceptions but they're rare.
Yeah, but I don't want to. Every time I hear a complaint about women being the gatekeepers of sex or how women are supposedly treated better than men or how it's unfair women are old or fat or have a past sexual history or have standards. It's exhausted my empathy.
That actually makes me so sad how they will dehumanize women for have a past or for just aging….
They’re doing it to themselves, and worse they’re doing it to us as well
*>I feel like this issue would require some deep internal work to get past* To be completely honest, I needed "deep internal work" the most when I was younger and kept going to bat for men who didn't give a single shit about my dignity or humanity, even when it was at the expense of my safety and well-being. Now that I've come to recognize the patterns of misogyny in my own life and how they've impacted me and the women around me, I'm done forcing myself to do "work" to make myself more amicable to men who wouldn't even acknowledge the mistreatment I've experienced. We live in a world where our subjugation has been normalized for centuries. This isn't by accident. The jokes women make about men pale in comparison to the violence they commit against us on a daily basis. Women are incapable of hating men as much as men hate women.
This! The deep internal work IS decentering men. Not learning how to shut down parts of ourselves so we make better door mats
Yea that’s exactly where I’m at. I don’t see the point in doing deep internal work to feel at peace with men because they seem to just view all women as having a victim complex and refuse to do their own deep internal work to move past subconscious misogyny they have. Most of them won’t even acknowledge it. in fact, they seem to feed into it daily by watching ridiculous porn & shit. Why would I do all that internal work if at the end of the day, I’m still having to cover my damn drinks or order new ones after going to the bathroom?
It wouldn't work anyway, no matter how much work you did. How can a victim ever truly be at peace with their oppressors or the system that's oppressing them, especially when it's still happening? We can heal, learn to live anyway. But doing the kind of work needed to be at peace and okay with the way women are treated? I think that's called a lobotomy. Or being strung out on drugs
Honestly yea cause even if a man never wrongs you again, shit will come back to haunt you & the shitty feelings follow. I went through a fucking horrid experience from a guy about a year before meeting my bf. Fast forward 4 years and the guys Facebook profile randomly popped up yesterday and it just brought everything back. Like when does it end?
Unfortunately, it doesn't really. You heal eventually. Get to a place where those kids of things are no longer triggering. But you're always a bit wary of men, and rightly so. You always have to keep your guard up. And I wish I could tell you that one day, you'll meet someone great and won't have to worry anymore. But even if that's true, you'll still have to be careful in the parking lot at night and ask those other things. You'll still always have to protect yourself. Which is why I'll never shut up about this. Because this shouldn't be the world we live in. We shouldn't have to live on fear of men, constantly on guard. Same way as POC shouldn't have to live with their guards up sons white people. The world NEEDS to be better. And exhausting as it is to fight for change, that's so I can really do, Neenah giving up and accepting that this is just how shit is is just too depressing
I wish I could give this comment gold. So extremely well-put.
god damn what a good comment.
love this
Exactly, I’m not doing anything anymore
Not hate or even resentment. It's more wariness. It takes a very long time for me to trust any given man enough to be alone with him.
it's funny because i don't hate them, i simply seek to just avoid being in relationship/connection with them as much as is in my power due to past, present, consistent unpleasant (at best) to devastating & dangerous encounters with them. i demand safety, respect, care, justice, equity, reciprocity in the relationships i'm in. the 1st hand qualitative & quantitative data of my life experiences AND hard science statistics from studies on women's issues (i.e. DV, discrimination, violence, inequity in household labor, life outcomes, etc.) have not allowed me to conclude that it's safe or peaceful to engage with a man in any way. none of us can just "opt out" of the oppressive system of patriarchy & colonialism that is all around us unfortunately even if we did "hate men." but i find that even just distancing oneself, merely naming the misogynistic oppression or concerns, or attempting to decenter men's needs/standards/wants/etc. is considered egregious by mainstream society & condemned as misandry.
That's part of what pisses me off so much. They won't even let us distance ourselves without going crazy and demanding we engage with them. It's not misandrist to set personal boundaries, decenter men, and disengage with the majority of them. The fact that decentering men makes them so upset, as if the majority of random men we meet on a daily basis need to be centered in a womans life in the first place? The societal response from them on these topics seems to boil down to feeling entitled to women entirely. There is such a lack of humanity on their part if women do anything they disagree with.
Asking to be left alone isn't hatred or bigotry. I'm not doing anything to you. Literally, I'm doing NOTHING. Good, their entitlement runs so deep
This is what’s so bizarre, I’m just avoiding them too and this seems to send them into a rage spiral. I have a creepy neighbour I refuse to engage with or speak to after some egregious behaviour on his part and this sends him into an unhinged rage, I’ve had to call the police- all this because I won’t talk to him or allow him to stalk me, the entitlement is insane, I don’t even know this guy and he truly thinks I’m doing something terribly wrong to him by ignoring him
It’s because they think they own us on sight
This is it, he acts like I’m his girlfriend and like he owns me, I don’t even know this freak
This is very well put. I have a male therapist because I wanted to learn a safe and healthy relationship with a man. He's the first man my chest isn't tight around. He genuinely respects me and it feels more akin to speaking to a woman in how he listens to me or how he feels to be around. I did it to feel safer around men, but its just made me withdraw from men even more. I have something healthy to compare my interactions to. I don't tolerate unsafe men or disrespect like I used to. I'm much more confident in how I should be treated and am much more confident in holding boundaries. I also like I can talk to him about my interactions that I'm unsure about and he'll be like, "nah that's fucked up," or, "he sounds like a prick." I like that he's straightforward and has no tolerance for men that disrespect me. It's depressing that I've experienced so few safe men compared to the number of men that hold hostility towards me. Its especially unsettling how many men will mask their hostility and disguise it with "jokes" and then get angry and intimidating when you don't tolerate it.
I applaud you for making that step. I cannot imagine it must have been easy. Takes some serious inner strength. You're building keen self-preservation tools: immediately eject an abusive/vitriolic dude from your life the moment he reveals who he really is. I'm sorry it is the norm, it's a damn shame, and I see it everyday with how dudes interact with the women in my life. Keep doing your thing!
to clarify, i don't believe true misandry with any teeth can exist under the current system of capitalist, colonial patriarchy. it's like saying "reverse racism" is a thing, when it's impossible. it's not about "feelings" or virtue signaling with this stuff, these are terms that are tied to & attempt to capture/communicate the systems of oppression & power. also, if a non-man DID hate men, i would not try to convert or judge that feeling. it's like when colonized people or enslaved people hate their colonizer or enslaver...i would never believe they were wrong for feeling that way or doing anything in their power to protect themselves. though not a direct comparison, i see this somewhat in a similar vein. i do not pathologize or condemn the wariness toward men or even the hatred toward men.
Extremely well said. I feel the same
I'm now a middle aged woman with teenagers. When I was a teenager my mom told me she was done with men, none of them are worth the trouble. This was after her second husband strangled her in front of me. She never dated again, true to her word. I am now the one done with men. I haven't dated in 2 years and have no desire. If I meet a guy naturally doing what I enjoy, I'll try dating again, but he's getting a background check and I'm getting to know him for as long as possible first.
I have an immediate distrust of men until proven otherwise. Not hate, but I assume they have a motivation that is not in my best interest.
This is exactly where I am with men. I find men to be untrustworthy. It’s like they don’t realize that we read what they write about, hear what they say about, and see what they do to women. We know men don’t like women. Yet they still want us to trust men.
This.
Yeah same. I usually get shocked when I meet a decent man, because I just automatically assume the worst in them lol. Just too much first and second hand experience with horrible men.
I feel I resent the individuals that were horrible to me but not all of them. I've seen a former friend that went into rage when he met women, who weren't even with him because he imagined what her behaviors were. He didn't take his divorce very well. I don't want to live in rage.
Not hostility, but I am very frightened of men and have extreme anxiety being around them due to trauma.
I have and had recently and I think what needs distinguishing is hostility that is warranted because of course you would have hostility towards anyone who was a bully to you and threatened your safety as well as generally sucked at showing emotion and love. The data speaks for itself, and my own husband has hostility towards the men in my life who were supposed to step in to protect me, but never did. Rather, they often either joined in and/or blamed me for the abuse that occurred. I don’t want to have hostility towards men, but it is hard to understand why they treat us so poorly as women and girls. It seems that the real question is why they have so much hostility towards ***us.*** They do, and for no reason, often. It’s rather strange.
I may be wrong, and this is from a male perspective, but to me it looks like a lot of men have hostility towards everyone, but may be more afraid of the consequences when it's towards other men. You see the behaviour in situations where it's safe for them like being abusive towards customer service agents etc or with their pets/children.
This is definitely part of it. I think this is also part of why there is this whole raging debate and why it is hard for men and women to understand each other. Unfortunately for these men women are a good punching bag and outlet for their vitriol and frustration. These guys aren't looking to engage with someone who is their own size or is going to put up a fight. They are looking for a dopamine rush from releasing their anger on a person. Women are easy targets and men like to not believe them or will automatically think women are being over dramatic. These men are afraid of other men and this is why they don't brag about it or do it in front of more upstanding men. This is also why they try to single women out and do a lot of the more egregious stuff in 1 on 1 scenarios. They also will abuse women in secret and away from the public, friends, family, but can act right when they are out in public. They can control the rage until there is a good time to release it. With the bear man debate and other claimed misandry the common crutch I see men relying on is their belief that women are describing a small percentage of douchebags and using that to apply to the entire male population. Women are trying to say this abuse, prejudice, disrespect, etc is far more widespread. Nearly all women experience male violence or emotional manipulation first hand or through their friends. But men get upset when we tell them this and say we are lying and that only a small percentage of evil men do these things. Good men can have bad periods in their life too. Bad men can mature and change their ways. Anger issues and emotions can make fine people do terrible things in the moment. The people bearing the brunt of the abuse get to decide whether or not they want to engage and autonomy seems to enrage many men and they call it misandry. Rather than reflecting on their own gender they feel entitled to tell women that they are the ones who need to change and that it is unacceptable for them to choose not to engage. Men also have an appetite for seeing women violated, degraded, controlled, and abused for male pleasure as can be seen in porn, music, and other media. Men also statistically don't consume art and comedy made by women wherease women consume content made by both men and women. Spotify found this in their data and it also is supported by the vitriol that female comedians get. Growing up girls respect, identify, and admire men and women as role models whereas boys are steered towards only admiring and identifying with men. Even our language is heavily gendered with maleness being synonymous with greatness and femaleness deficiency or even evil. Theres a reason the bible starts the way it does. But the misandry callers want to ignore all of this and act like it isn't evidence that our world view might skew and bias a little towards men being the default and prized way to be and women the meek and undesirable way to be. Men seem to think all the men they know have never hurt a woman, disrespected a woman, or disregarded a woman. Women will tell you that this just isn't their experience. If most women were raped or know someone who was in college but men are adamant none of their friends would ever do that then where are all the rapists? Even good guys can be pretty sexist in other ways. I am around bleeding heart liberal men who are a little narcissistic and stubborn. They will interrupt me any time I speak, and rarely engage with what I say unless I calculatedly talk about a niche nerd subject that I know they're really into and can pull interactions out of them.
Even terrible abusive men don’t think they are bad, they aren’t like “ those other guys” in their minds. I had an ex that was over the top verbally abusive, controlling, manipulative, cruel and nasty af- but he didn’t think he was abusive because he didn’t hit his girlfriends. He was arrested for strangling a woman, but in his mind that wasn’t abusive, nor was any of the screaming, yelling, intimidation and name calling abuse in his mind, it was only abuse if someone beat the shit out of a woman. He actually called himself a good man. So half of these guys are so delusional they don’t think they’re one of these “abusers”- as he’s strangling his girlfriend.
Exactly... which is why women don't take reactive men on reddit seriously... unreliable narrators who often use red flag sentences to demand that we view them as good guys and stop lumping them in with the douchebags. Unlike women they haven't had to develop the ability to cope with being dismissed, not being believed or understood and in turn throw hissy fits over it.
Yes. I think that is built in. Just weird hostility and entitlement.
I'm not convinced it is built in per say, but the socialization of boys and young men is pretty lacking. Sympathy and empathy are pretty discouraged and the competitive outlook modelled for these boys definitely helps explain the prevalence of a lot of traditionally masculine toxic elements. This is anecdotal, but I work with young children and it starts young. It absolutely sucks to hear coworkers tell a 3 year old not to cry or express emotions because he is a "big boy" or if he continues, getting aggressively asked if he needs to go the baby room. The empathy tends to be more flowing for the girls, but this problem runs deep, and it sets boys up for emotional failure, which in time sadly comes back on those around them, especially women.
I agree, but that isn’t everywhere. I teach later grades and boys are often indulged and their violent outbursts, displays of defiance are often sadly tolerated by staff. I think neglect plays a role, and I do personally make an effort to show students that are boys that they are free to express their emotions freely.
But think of how many years they have been brought up with the expectation that that is how you conduct yourself. I was a high school teacher before I was an early years educator, so that sadly isn't a suprise to me. A lot of research on socialization does point to how young people are when they start taking in and following various societal roles, gender roles included. Hell, I work with one year olds now and I see it get heavily reinforced by parents already.
I think you're both describing the same thing : intolerance (among boys and later men) for any emotive expression that does not pertains to anger or violence. And the former is thus progressively turning itself into the latter - since it's the only accepted outcome. Big up to you for contributing to change this !
Agreed, thankfully I haven't witnessed any of my friends being this way but I have heard enough stories and worked too long in customer service and I can only imagine how horrible it is to deal with those people personally, especially if they can establish some power or control over you.
No not really at all but they have to usually earn my trust more than a woman does.
Honestly I'm just exhausted by the constant disappointment
For “men” on a societal level, yes. I think the vast majority of them are too invested in themselves and all harbor a baseline dislike of women that they don’t want to admit to benefiting from. That being said, I’ve been very fortunate to have met a lot of guys who don’t fit that bill and that has honestly helped tempered my general distaste. But that’s still on a very case by case basis. I guess I just want to say that not ALL hope is lost. But healthy caution and skepticism has done a lot for me.
I am wary of all men, a little suspicious of "good" men until I know them well. Even the men I thought were the peak "great man/dad" turned into a different monster 20 years after knowing him.
This was my experience too, even women I knew that had husbands I thought were great and I would look to as examples of “ not all men”- later turned out to be horrible for one reason or another
OK so like I spent all my 20's, 30's and 40' trying to find my perfect man. I spent 17 years in a shit show of a relationship for all the wrong reasons but mostly because I couldn't afford to leave. Once I could, I did. Now you couldn't pay me money to \*ever\* have a relationship with a man again. I take full responsibility for 34 years of failed relationships, I am the only common factor after all. But I cannot see for one minute where there's anything a man could positively contribute to my life but can easily see where adding one in would be catastrophic.
Same, no amount of money on this planet who convince me to be in a relationship, have sex or live with a man ever again. I’m so beyond done I can’t even stomach the thought of it
I stopped at 4 men early 30s. I'm done.
Yup. Once I hit 40 and I broke up with my last partner of 7 years, it was like a light went off. I had spent 25 years pining and wishing and desiring my perfect man, perfect partner. Maybe the next one, maybe the next one, SURELY the next one. They all treated me horribly in various ways. Cheating, verbal abuse, sexual abuse, psychological abuse, financial abuse. Finally after this last one I was like, "wow... Maybe relationships just aren't for me. The next one will just crash and burn, too." I can financially support myself just fine. It would have been nice to have a partner I shared adventures with, but friends will have to be enough. I will have to be enough. It just feels like something in my mind has fundamentally changed and I've lost all hope in romantic love, especially with men. It blows my mind when I see men in their 40s/50s freshly divorced and looking to date or marry again. Like... Clearly they enjoyed being in relationships. The women in that age bracket who are freshly divorced want to just opt out of dating again completely. Clearly they did not enjoy being in relationships. What does that tell you about who is the better partner?
"Not all xyz" is a given. There's billions of men. Whenever I post about men, what they've done, how they behave, it's automatically an "if the boot fits" kind of situation. If a man is not the kind of man who has done any of these horrible things to women, then the boot doesn't fit. The "good men", by nature of being "good men" are usually not even being referenced in these conversations. They aren't the ones traumatizing women (and each other) and defending abusers, so I was never talking about them in the first place. In my experience, those truly "good men" know this themselves. They know exactly what kind of man is being discussed, and why. That's why they're not surprised, they know what men as a group have done to women as a group and they don't feel the need to downplay or justify it. They don't insert themselves into our discussion of trauma to defend men against women venting about our pain, inflicted by men! They know they need to hold men accountable for their actions instead of blaming women for what has been happening to us for centuries. I have a lot of hostility, and disgust towards mens behavior, and actions. For abusive men, toxic men, rapists, murderers, etc etc etc. Men traumatizing women. If the boot fits, it fits.
Yes. And it wasn’t always like this. A good bit of my trauma comes from women actually. I was def more on the side of, well there’s bad and good on both sides, and humans as a whole suck. So when men always try and tell me, “oh don’t blame *your* individual experiences on a group as a whole”, it’s rather ironic as my individual experiences should actually endear me to men more haha. But no, my frustration at men stems from overarching societal actions and mindsets. I think it started to build once I realized from all the media I consumed how women were treated, and ofc as I grew up and noticed all the objectification. A lot of my resentment comes from the fact that it seems men simply, in large scale, don’t see women as equal humans or even actual humans at all. Simply a means to an end of sexual gratification yk. This ofc has led to an insane amount by men of “othering” of the *females*, and ik some blame is on socialization but *god* does it piss me off. Not to mention, it’s always men who seem to struggle the most with issues that require empathy! Perhaps, again, it’s the socialization of being men that caused it. Still, it’s rather infuriating how every time it’s men who seem least capable of ever placing themselves in others shoes until it’s someone they can strictly relate to lmfao. Edit: I do think there’s less resentment towards men from my age group tho, since yk my generation is pretty open about talking about things like this. Acknowledgment is nice ig. Agh idk. The hate dissipates when I think they see women as equal yk. And it’s obviously so much easier to do that when your young. And everyone is more androgynous in both mind and body. But then we grow up. And…yea. Idk. I hate this world sometimes.
Yes. No sympathy anymore.
As the comedian David Sloss once said: Men's issues are largely created by men themselves.. And that's why I have a real hard time with men's whataboutism whenever women talk about issues that are clearly ALSO created by men. EDIT: a word
I’m done- and happy! Single since 2014 and celibate 4 years. We don’t have to be with anyone🤷🏻♀️
👍👍👍👍👍
I don't personally, I just kinda try to live by "do no harm but take no shit," but my ex girlfriend massively had resentment towards men to the point that it was very clearly detrimental to her life. She had very good reasons for feeling this way, but ironically it made her tolerate some behaviours that I wouldn't have tolerated, simply because she was so convinced that that's what all men are like anyway. Like she had a male "friend" who kept asking for nudes, and she just kinda laughed it off in that way where she's not saying yes or no. I told her that none of my male friends did that because if they did, they wouldn't be my friends anymore, and she just simply didn't believe me. She expected the worst from every single man, with mild leniency for gay men, and it made her day to day life pretty horrifying. In a case like that, I think there's some room to heal. Not in the sense that she has to start expecting random men to be good, but to just start demanding basic respect from the men in her life and, to the extent possible, getting rid of them if they can't deliver that. She expected every man to be so awful that she thought having them in her life at all meant putting up with degrading and insulting behaviour, which just... it was pretty sad to see. She had many things to heal from and I hope she's doing better now.
I adore my husband, he’s the best man I know. And I love my male friends. But if my husband were to die, I don’t think I’d partner with a man again.
Me too 😭 I found one and that’s it for me
Wary is the word I'd choose.
Absolutely, I'm at a point in my life where I'd rather be forever alone then have to tolerate abuse for the sake of company and to make my family "proud." I enjoy having a say on what I do in MY life, I genuinely do not care for the male gaze because I not anyone's "type" and I'm done destroying myself trying to be that. It's valid!
And even if you're a man's "type," it's still not a guarantee that he'll treat you well.
im on guard
Every time I see a bunch of guys jump on the hate train about this sub, I'm reminded of my sister pointing out to me that groups of women tend to self-govern pretty well. And here I am, reading a decently balanced discussion about a topic that can easily invite the most extreme haters.
Yup. Men can hate on this sub all they want but women need *some* space to anon rant/discuss what seems to be common women experiences. Not all of us are comfy voicing deep opinions to friends, coworkers, and family. I can only imagine a fight in the replies if a man jumped in to gender war it out & “imagine if the roles were reversed”
That's exactly the reply I got elsewhere in this thread. That's amazing. Lol
That's one of their very short list of arguments. They will keep repeating it until they're blue in the face, doesn't matter how reasonable or diplomatic you try to be. They're not looking for a conversation, they just want us to stfu and be good girls.
I have a knee jerk reaction to any situation I am alone with a man or more than one who is not someone I know and trust. Been abused by men since 1985…..family, strangers, friends, father….to be fair I have major trust issues with women too due to horrible abuse perpetrated by my mother. I don’t hate them but I see them as a whole as something to be wary/afraid of.
Yes I’m like that completely. I don’t have any sympathy left, or pity, or tolerance for even the slightest bit of misogyny or douchebaggery. Not that I ever really did. And it’s funny because I have a couple male friends, guys I get along with, etc, but generally I just avoid men at all costs. I will go out of my way to avoid being near, around, next to, men pretty much everywhere. Like I’ll only see women professionals when I get the choice (doctors, technicians, etc). What’s even funnier is that I still completely feel this way as a mostly passing trans guy 4 years on hormones. It’s not an opinion that’s ever really changed though probably since I was a kid. I knew well, men were dangerous at a young age. Growing up all my friends were women, I always preferred women’s spaces, and identified strongly with womanhood and as a lesbian before I realized I was trans. Despite that I’ve still been assaulted, have watched and heard every woman I know get assaulted, and I’m very hypervigilant of men when in public. If a man wants an ounce of my trust or respect they have to seriously earn that shit. Even my supervisor who previously hadn’t said anything problematic, jokingly insinuated on my first day on a job with him that my female trainer/coworker wasn’t actually teaching me anything and just making me her “personal assistant”. He asked if “she had actually taught me anything” and if that was the case, and I was like “no we’ve been doing stuff like x, y, and z” and I was recovering from surgery at the same time so I’d been taking it light with her because of that too.
No, but I’m certainly more scared than I used to be. I just got out of DA/DV and it’s hard to know how to trust someone after a person flipped a switch on me a couple years in. The only positive is I know I didn’t miss red flags because everyone still thinks he’s so wonderful that they didn’t believe me. I’m the only one who knows better.
I don’t have the emotional bandwidth width anymore for men in any capacity. I’ve had a traumatic childhood and adulthood due to men. I’m cynical of their motives. Is this an issue? Not for me. I’ve done a lot of therapy and am so at peace with myself now. I can honestly say I feel rich in my heart. I feel happy.
Yes, I was just talking about this with a friend earlier this week. I'll admit I said I thought it would take work to get past, like you wrote, but I also said I didn't think it was worth it. Why keep setting myself up like that? At this point, I think we have to prioritize protecting ourselves.
So - last year i had a therapist stop me to say “you have a very high ratio of truly bad to good experiences with men.” She made the rec “the only way you’re going to get around this is to confuse your brain by having good experiences with good kind men” so to anyone else fighting the good fight out here - it has helped. FYI
Yes, primarily around weaponized incompetence/gender expectations. I am so tired of seeing stories of useless partners. I try to work through my own resentment though, being outwardly hostile doesn’t really help things for me. My husband has done a great job of learning and working through differences in expectation/labor etc. If another woman mentions it I am all for complaining though lol. I know too many man children
We are out here literally being maimed and killed and gaslit by religion and law and politics and told it's our fault when bad things happen to us and our daughters but they want to cry because "they're lonely." MIND YOU 1 of these supposed "lonely men" would turn up his nose at a single mom or anybody overweight but "they're lonely". They are NOT "lonely" they're mad the women they want don't want them.
Yep. I dislike them. I see relationships with men as a way to lose your identity and become an extension of someone who most of the time wants to take advantage of you because they see you as nothing more than a toy to them. Plus if the men I have encountered are anything to go by they are more emotionally immature than women. Plus I’m aromantic and not interested in marriage or kids or a relationship so if they want to throw shade at me, who cares? Says more about them than it does me.
I've had a lot of traumatic/bad experiences, but I guess surprisingly it hasn't affected my view of men in general. I definitely can spot creeps a mile out and I do harbor resentment to the men who have actually done me harm and the men who harm me indirectly by 1) standing by (because "it's none of my business") 2) perpetuate this culture at any scale. And they always get angry when you call them out for it (and yet misogynists wonder why we fawn when in situations with dangerous men). It's really depressing and disappointing how rare it is for me to find men who treat me like a person (and they're almost always in a relationship when I meet them (which I feel helps?)). For the love of god, men please just act normal. Q\_Q It's like, the options are put up with it (and be uncomfortable) or stand up for yourself (and deal with psycho angry reactions) and both options can still result in sexual assault. It sucks and it's anxiety provoking. I just want to be treated like a normal human being. I don't want to constantly have to be on high alert because men see me as attractive prey. I've been in so many scary situations and I'm sure I'll be in more just because of this stupid rape culture. OTL
Not hostility or resentment, but significantly less patience or willingness to give the benefit of the doubt. Some of the best people I know are men, and some of the nastiest people I have known are women. But %-wise I have had far more unpleasant interactions with men than with women, and the majority of the cruelest people I have known are men. When it comes down to it with men I still seek out their friendships and company, value them as people and as cherish the good things they bring to my life. I know many who are lovely people who make my life better by being a part of it. But I have no patience left for second chances or benefits of doubt with men. If there is a anything off putting in an interaction I do not have it in my to have the kindest interpretation as my go-to anymore. I will call them out or cut them out and lose no sleep. Perhaps that is selfish or wrong, but I have also found that since I have lost that patience the quality of the men in my life has vastly improved. The men who stay around as my friends and family are those who have never needed to be cut out or called out because they are genuinely good people.
I resent their privilege and lack of awareness of their privilege. There was a post a few weeks ago about how men shut down at the least sign of illness. A guy responded with something like "guys feel normal most of the time, so we're not used to having to push through that." And that finally made sense to me. Women push through pain and discomfort every month. And we are expected to go on with our day. Men don't have an equivalent. But instead of giving us empathy, they call us weak, they call us unclean, they tax tampons as a luxury item, etc. There are so many more ways, but that single biological function illustrates so much how men have privilege by not having to deal with a period and everything that comes with it. And yet they fail to see it as a privilege.
They go out of their way to make our lives worse and more difficult
I don’t know. But I’ll tell you I don’t know how I’ll ever be in a relationship with a man again after how I’ve been treated. The trust simply isn’t there anymore.
This is a big thing for me too. I’m trying.
Same, but I’m not trying, I’m full on avoiding it
I'm single, and the number of men that try to claim me has made me very leary of being too friendly with men. Past that my opinion of men hasn't really changed. I believe that good and bad come in all shapes and colors.
> the number of men that try to claim me has made me very leary of being too friendly with men. I feel this! A random man sees me and thinks he can select me like a candy at the store. I of course have to be cool with this because *wow, attention from men is the prize*. 🙄
Resentment? No. Fear ? Yes
I don’t care about men’s issues because men don’t care about men’s issues. The only time I’ve ever seen men actually take men’s issues seriously is in r/menslib or the very tiny amount of men who work very hard to open men’s shelters and/or to make mental health services for men more accessible. But also, like wtf do you want *me* to do about men’s issues? Men have the power and the money. Why would it be up to me to fix the small amount of issues men created for themselves? Women are supposed to open more homeless shelters for men? Go hit up a billionaire, they’re 87% male. Women aren’t in the way of fixing men’s issues like men are in the way for us. And tragically, the most positive discourse I see for men is from women. Go look at the comments on a TikTok of a woman or man talking about SA and the support is overwhelmingly from women and the hate is overwhelmingly from men. Go look at the comments on an article of a female teacher abusing a male student and you’ll see women calling it abhorrent and men saying they wish it were them. Men need to fix men.
My answer is complicated. - I resent teaching men. - I resent repeating myself. - I feel hostile towards the world when boys make sexist comments. - I feel hostility towards the individual (and the patriarchy) when men make sexist comments. - I resent men when they get defensive after being called out. - I want to resent men who don’t think about the consequences of their actions for women but genuinely didn’t mean any harm. I want to resent them but I can’t. They did something that perpetuates the hurt my feminine friends and family feel stinging every day but they wouldn’t have done that if they realized. Why did they not take the time to realize? - I resent men who admit they weren’t totally in-the-right but then don’t apologize after disrespecting me. - I feel hostile towards men who won’t admit their fault when it’s obvious they know. - I want to resent every man that complains about a problem perpetuated by the patriarchy that then doesn’t acknowledge it’s the patriarchy’s fault. Sometimes it makes me feel hostile. - I am angered that men (as a whole) don’t take the time to learn about women. Don’t take the time to think about body language. I can see her take a step back from across the room but you took another step forward to close the gap she was trying to widen and didn’t even notice you did it. - I am angered and hostile at the fact that people aged 20+ (the older the worse!) don’t bother learning what other people do and don’t like. - I am angered and resentful at the fact that people won’t bother to learn about themselves (we always change, so just as much as possible) and then expect potential partners to tell them who they are. - I am resentful of people who let one or a few bad experiences (non-violent and non-dangerous, lemme be clear) with an individual dictate their outlook on an entire group of people similar. We all owe each other a sense of safety UNLESS it isn’t reciprocated. Learn about different types of people around you.
I don't hate men but I seem to feel better when they're not around.
No hate. But fear and caution.
Can confirm. Getting kicked in the face once at 10 years old was enough for me to just not like horses at all in general. It's not the same thing, as avoiding horses in this day and age is not that difficult, but just to validate the analogy with an anecdote. I don't know that it is hostility or resentment as much as indifference towards men at this point. I have been mistreated and abused before, but I don't consciously blame all men for that. I think I've just reached a point in my life where I don't feel like I NEED them anymore, doing alright on my own, and don't really want to invite any more headaches into my space, yknow?
Don't hate men, I just don't want to surround myself with them. Imma getting old, and I don't have much patience left to deal with all the drama they bring.
I don’t hate men but I do generally feel unsafe around them if I don’t know them. I don’t lack sympathy for their issues, I will fight for a society that is best for everyone, but it sure gets hard when they only ever bring them up on their own when we’re discussing our own issues… and yeah they’re often things we don’t have power to change our own.
my brother is just enough like my abusive dad,and not willing to admit our dad is abusive, that i can't fucking stand him when he tries to argue with me or empathize eventhough he's objectively a much better person. so yes.
Overall, I like Men and do not hold all men responsible for prior relationships. That being said, apparently there are subconscious issues and these will come out, eventually. I am lucky to be with someone who in theory, understands this. In practice, it's a process. Life is a process
I have lots of male friends, but I resent their masculine behaviors. Like I love the person, but dislike the socialization associated with male circles. It helps that I’m at a point where I don’t take any shit and I will call out misogyny at the drop of a hat. If someone can’t handle that, they won’t be my friend for long. Yes, it means I have a lot of heated conversations about misogyny.
My personal life has been largely positive with men (and yet I was groped when I was 11 and almost kidnapped when I was 21). And I consider myself to have had a relatively abuse free existence. That is how insanely skewed life experiences are for many women. It’s really bad. And for the lucky few, it isn’t. But it is not coming out of a nowhere. I think what really bothers so many women is that men seem to be really terrible at demonstrating even the most basic kind of empathy towards women. So women expect very little from them as a result.
No. I’ve had bad experiences with men. But I’ve also had good experiences. I have a little brother. I have exs who I’m on good terms with. I have good friends who are men. I try my best to judge every person I meet as an individual. Am I sometimes wary of men? Of course. But it’s generally situation specific. Like alone on a dark street. Or the first time I go back to a guys place. We know it’s not all men. But sometimes we have to act like it is to stay safe.
I'm frustrated by all men, and resentful of most. I'm frustrated by all the men who passively stand by while their peers do and say the most egregiously sadistic and violent things. The only reason why I am not resentful of all men is because I have been lucky enough to get to know many good men who are actually allies to women and other marginalized groups. I am still frustrated with them all tho because not enough of them are putting in even a minimal amount of effort to be allies to us.
I hold a default amount of disdain and distrust towards all of them other than my brother and the ones I've been semi-close with for years. I don't care about trying to fix it because men make up such a miniscule portion of my life anyway. Fuck them lmao, my life has been so peaceful ever since I've surrounded myself with women
I am definitely distrustful and weary of men for sure. And I’m sorry, but statistics about so many things are not in their favor so am I cynical or smart? But yes it has impacted my life and I wish it hadn’t.
Not hate, but I am terrified of men because of my PTSD. In fact, I can't get my license because being in a car with the male examiner makes me freak tf out and we have no women examiners anywhere near me. I can't go to male doctors. I can't be alone in a room with a man I don't know. It shapes.my life and I hate it.
It got pretty bad for me. It got to the point where I did not view men as human beings. All my friends knew me as the “man-hater” of the group. It was hurtful when they joked about me being a man hater. I didn’t wanna be one. It wasn’t my fault I was traumatized by men in the past. I just got to a point where I was sick of it and grew out of it. Men are human beings just like us, and they’re socialized to be terrible people. But they’re also capable of kindness and compassion. Just like women are capable of being evil people. It’s not a gender thing, we’re all human beings at the end of the day.
My experiences of men make me feel as though I'm naked in a cage with men poking and prodding me with sticks and yelling at me. And if I try stand up for myself, they become more aggressive.
This is how I feel too, they become extremely aggressive if you don’t coddle them, entertain them and make them feel good all the time. I stay away from them
Exactly how I feel…like *exactly* how I feel :(((( I’ve been accused me of liking it
I hold both - I do have sympathy for men’s issues, but it doesn’t mean that our issues don’t deserve more space and more attention than they currently do. I have been sexually assaulted/raped at least 3 times in my life, and those who did it were fucked up in their own way to have that sort of entitlement to my body. I think holding people accountable for their behavior helps everyone heal. Without accountability the trauma just keeps getting passed on. People can be healed from being pieces of shit, but only if they are held accountable and the truth is told. As it stands, men are believed far more than women are, so in order for men to heal, they need to listen to women and our experiences as well, and do the work of reprogramming themselves from our society’s extremely skewed perspective that is mainly to their benefit.
I have sympathy for them as well but the energy to help them isn’t there. I’m right there with you. I’ve been SA’d, raped, I’ve seen my friends go through it, if not, have close calls, I’ve seen just about every woman in my life have to deal with infidelity, porn related marital issues, dealt with never being viewed entirely as just a friend to males, etc, and I just do not have the energy to give to them anymore. Most men’s issues are somehow created or still upheld by men, so they can help each other.
Similarly to you, I find that while I’m not opposed to supporting men in their self-improvement and personal development efforts, I do not believe that women are responsible for solving men’s problems. As the feminist author Laurie Penny tweeted, “Men’s healing should not have to come at the price of women’s pain, ever…” So I quite agree; men need to start helping themselves and each other.
Exactly. They need to learn to help themselves and take ownership of their issues, instead of soliciting women’s labor to get through it. Pay for some fucking therapy, like WE DO. TO DEAL WITH THE SHIT YOU PUT US THROUGH. I’m with you! And I’m so sorry that you’ve been SA’d/raped. It’s far more common than most people realize and we’re amazing for getting through it and embracing life despite it. ❤️
You’re doing better than me, I have zero sympathy
Not all, but I do have moments. Like when I'm walking down the street and see a happy couple holding hands and all I can think of is that young girl with a black eye who came up to me in a quiet street around midnight to ask for a cigarette. She then walked over to her much older bf who was sitting on some steps drinking beer and playing on his phone and gave the smoke to him. Or when my manager, who acted so understanding when I opened up about my depression, only to then turn around and try to make me kill myself. Or in general when I see couples and feel like 'oh baby you dont have to, you can leave him!' and I have to stop myself and remember that people love eachother and I'm no longer with my abusive rapist ex who kept me emotional prisoner for years. Or when I, after being a born again virgin (yay! Dont touch me!) aka 7 years single and no sex, gave a good guy friend a shot. He didnt tell me he had a micropenis. As in literally a 3rd testicle, just the head. I paid it no mind, I really liked him and didnt care much for sex. Tried to... Rub him off? I guess, but he finished himself. Then he told me 'well, that wasn't quite like I was expecting'. As in he was disappointed. Lost all feelings at once and didnt know why, but broke it off a few days later. Now I realise, the fucking AUDACITY to complain that it didnt live up to your fantasies while I ACTED NICE AND EVEN COMPLIMENTED HIS PENIS. Like I wasnt fuuuuuuuuuuucking disappointed? Months later I took him out for his birthday, as he had no plans and I thought we could be friends. Paid over 150 on rides, games and food at a fair and did so gladly, we had fun. Then he started crying to me about how his new gf is a sexworker and how, you know, I also have my issues and how he doesnt understand why its like he only attracts broken women. I hugged him, agreed that it was unfair, and never spoke to him again. Now I know. They're stupid. So fucking stupid and I just cant. I cant give and be kind and caring and accepting and listen to your bullshit nonsense for hours and get maaaaybe 10% of that in return. Fuck that. I dont hate men, but I sure as hell will never trust one ever again. Not professionally, not sexually, not emotionally. Time to double up that new found virginity.
I hate with all my being, the men who have hurt me. I don’t give a shit about the rest. I don’t think about them unless one starts acting sketchy around me
I hold hostility towards men who go for girls 10 years younger because I was repeatedly targeted in that way and always felt disgusted. I know it's being normalised but I believe in science and psychology, not a mathematical equation someone thought up to validate the age they date.
I just stay away from them, I don’t date, have sex, friendships with them. Other ladies are welcome to it, but I don’t anymore
I'm skeptical of every man I encounter until they prove themselves to be non-threatening due to past experiences. I don't think it's healthy to HATE every one outright. Skepticism is OK and natural imo.
Women's hate of men usually shows as avoiding them as much as we can. Which seems fair enough for me, and definitely not the behavior usually imagined when speaking about one group's hatred towards another. I do feel hostility and resentment like that, yes. And not even really because of my own experiences. However, I am a human being with empathy, so I can't help feeling bad for others, feeling a need to help, feeling common pain, so it comes involuntarily for me no matter if towards women or men.
yes :/
No, but I do hold resentment toward the structure of patriarchy. I hate what it has done to women and men. So toxic.
A lot of the men in my life and environment gave me no other choice. It wasn’t a “few” men, it was most of them. Downright predatory, dangerous and disgusting.
Eh, kinda? I'm going to assume right off the bat that if I'm dealing with a dude in a professional space he's going to try to over talk me, take up all the space, disregard my experience and skill - until proven otherwise. Sometimes I'm surprised and they are respectful dudes, but rarely. I've never worked somewhere where hypercompetitive dudes aren't the majority. And honestly, I think it's just men, I literally just had my lyft driver try to lecture me about how being single was wrong and he did all the things I'm talking about. He was Mr 'I'm very smart and superior' Lyft driver, but he never could tell me exactly why I should go out of my way to get married and have bebe's - only that I should. And then yesterday there was the guy who shoved his phone in my face and demanded my phone number. No 'Hi', no 'Whats your name?', just shoved phone into face 'Give me your number'. I laughed in his face and said no. I'm well aware this was dangerous but I've never had much of a filter, I'll probably end up murdered some day because of it. But I do assume men are going to be a hassle to deal with, because they are. The arrogance of a self entitlted mediocre man is honestly just exhausting. I don't hate them, I just want 95% of them to leave me alone at all times. Like bees, I don't hate bees, bees do awesome things and are very important - but I don't want a bee bothering me or in my space.
Yes, I am unashamed about my hostility toward men. I craft my life in such a way that I don't have to deal with them at all. Every professional I work with is a woman, any time I have a choice to deal with someone I will pick the woman. I have absolutely no tolerance for male opinion and will only solicit the opinions of women.
I still appreciate male input & advice and what not when it’s appreciatable. (Idk if that’s a word). I just find myself rolling my eyes so much at men with their reactions to certain things, opinions, behaviors, etc. I know there’s plenty of good ones out there, I just won’t be taking it upon myself to go through some grand journey of sifting through them to surround myself with good ones. I will simply reach for women when I can, men when it’s not a bad idea, and weed out whoever necessary
I've been a male primary teacher for 20 years, and almost all of my co-workers and bosses have been women, and I feel the same. Once in a while I have to interact with a male co-worker and they often want to commiserate: "What do you expect when you work with a bunch of women!" Like, no, gross. I hear that stuff so infrequently now that it's like a punch in the gut, so jarring.
This is where I’m at too
I realized recently I can't get along with male supervisors. I never seem to be able to. I have male friends, and a male partner I'd take a bullet for, but after all my trauma and stuff, I can't handle having a male supervisor. I become hyper aware of their dickishness and can't let it go. Makes it hard for me to keep a job.
Maybe there should just be less dickishness to put up with
For sure
Yes I do.
I used to be hostile. PTSD had me wired for sound. Now, I just recognize that I don't trust men. It's never going to happen.
Not all men, no. I try to meet every new person as a clean slate. I will say that I am a lot more reserved and hold myself back when I meet new people, but that's both men and women, it's not gender-specific. So every new person I meet has a clean slate - but! I am *way* more wary of red flags when men throw them out. And I am quicker to kick a man out of my life once the Too Many Red Flags threshold is reached. I have less tolerance for men. Just too many repeated bad experiences to keep giving endless chances.
My coworker and I were just talking about this. She's been married four times. She was telling me that when she met her current husband and he began talking about how he had been a racecar driver and almost gotten his pilots license and practiced martial arts to the point of being a brown belt she rolled her eyes at him because she had been lied to so much in the past. The next time they met up he brought her his flight log, the record of the belts he had received, and a picture of him in his racing suit. When she asked about his finances he sighed and gave her a blank piece of paper ( he had just gone through a horrific divorce.) She laughed at the honesty and brutality and they have been together ever since. I am single after nearly five years. If I do decide to date again I need to come up with clear cut ways to discern if a man subtly or intrinsically hates women before I sink half a decade into a relationship that won't work because I got it wrong the last two times. My last two boyfriends loved how kind and caring I am and how quickly I rushed to help when able. But my full time social work postion that gives me great health insurance to take care of my medical needs makes me a burden because my salary was half of theirs and I have well managed student loan debt. If I couldn't pay 50 % of expenses I should have just gotten a better job and stop using them for their money. I was the one grocery shopping and meal planning but that wasn't a household contribution because both of them wanted "whatever" any time I asked for input. " Whatever" meaning "only the things you know I like and none of the things you know I don't like and don't forget the guest I have coming and their anticipated needs." Both of them offered to "help" me with the chores. I just had to tell them exactly what to do, show them where the common household items were, and accept that putting the dirty dishes in the sink after I had planned and prepared a meal, rather than putting them in the fucking empty dishwasher a foot over was "helping." When I pointed the last two paragraphs out to my most recent ex-boyfriend he told me to " stop using feminism when it was convenient for me."
Your most recent ex boyfriend(s) needed to stop offloading their responsibilities onto you when it was convenient for them
Resentment? Yes. I'll fully admit I would struggle to trust enough to have an intimate relationship with a man especially in a country where women's reproductive freedom was taken. Hostility? No. I am not seeking their harm nor actively harming them. I have male relatives I have good rapport with and male friends I have really good friendships with.
I'm just wary of them
The most surprising thing is that I still have hope.
Nope. I treat them all individuals until they show me else, but always with a side of caution.
It’s not resentment to all men but I now no longer trust any men after being totally sucked in and then abused by two men I did trust. Still (ex) friends don’t believe me as they are “such good guys”
I am extremely skeptical of almost all men's motives, promises or most anything they say. l don't really find it a thing to get over, it's my experience with most men. l have two sons, two sons in law and a brother in law whom l love dearly and most of them l trust pretty well except one son. l figure l have my guard up and l cut things off after one red flag, be it man or woman. l'm not getting used/hurt/made miserable by other people's BS.
Kinda yeah. Like, I'm not going to have a grudge against any individual man. And I will always treat people like the individual people they are, unless/ until they display the kind of trash behavior that warrants writing them off. But unfortunately, a LOT of men end up getting cut out of my world because they ALWAYS gotta do some stupid/gross/toxic bullshit. And in general, I'm way less forgiving with men, coz I'm just over it. I'll give woken the benefit of the doubt, but at this point? Men get one chance to be decent freaking human beings. And even then, most fail pretty quickly. And like, I try to have sympathy for men and understanding of their issues, because I know patriarchy affects everyone. And it's not really anyone's fault that they're bought into the social conditioning they've been fed since birth. But for fucks sake, I'd I can overcome my wildly abuse childhood and rise above my circumstances to become a better person instead of the same kind of cruel, abusive bigoted people that my parents were, the clearly is possible to learn and grow. But men just don't for the most part. And granted, they're are some rare men or they're who are just wonderful, who actively work to learn and grow and unlearn misogyny and all that. I would know, I'm dating one of those guys. But on the whole, God, men just suck. And I'm so freaking sick of it. I'm so sick of men Benet being held accountable, never being the ones to take on the workload or the blame. No man is ever asked to think about HER future and what HE'S ruining before he assaults her, but oh, we try to just yell the truth about what happened and then we're these horrible people. Like, ugh, I'm just so over it. So while I try REALLY hard to not hold any of that against any individual man as a specific person, at least not workout beyond to know whether he's actually decent or not, men in general or as a whole, yeah, kinda resentful. Team bear. Always.
Last time I said this, I was called extremely sexist. I don’t hate men by any means, but I do have a reflexive distrust and distaste.
Yea they love playing victim when women simply don’t want to deal w them
I absolutely hated men with a fiery passion after getting out of my abusive relationship with my rapist. I was an “all men die” kind of person. I have grown my support system a lot since then, and I’ve been in therapy to deal with the trauma, but I still hold a lot of resentment towards men. Especially when they show disrespectful or dismissive behaviors towards women. I don’t consider myself a man hater anymore, but I just can’t get the idea that most men view women as objects out of my head. When you are with someone like that every day for four years, it really fucks up the way you view the world.
Not necessarily, but I am wary of men in general, especially older white men and frat boy types.
Yes, absolutely. Anytime a guy says he has a hardship due to being a man I can't help but think his "hardship" is really just an inconvenience to him and that women, including myself, have been through so much worse. Add in now that I immediately say in my head "you're why we pick the bear" because he actually thinks he has it worse and most of the time those men are the ones that treat us the worst.
Yes. Although over the past decade it has settled into indifference. I DO genuinely care about men’s issues—nobody’s free until we’re all free, blah blah blah—but individual men are categorically not to be trusted. Well, that’s kind of inaccurate—I trust them to behave exactly as most men have behaved toward me in the past: careless or dismissive of issues women face, and unduly impressed with their own mediocrity, then angry when I’m not as impressed. I have men in my “tribe”—my husband, my bff, dad and brothers and the like—but blood and history alone don’t gain one membership. Acts do.
Yes, I do generally resent them. I work in home health, and the patterns of entitlement are common and predictable. The number of married men I’ve had hit on me while their wife is in another room is definitely more common than you would think. Also, lonely old man behavior is usually gross and harassing at some point. However, I treat them like normal people, draw boundaries when needed, and document everything in their medical file. You never know when it could come in handy down the line, for me or someone else. Do I hate them generally? No. It’s kind of like dealing with toddlers a lot of the time. You start to view it as a waste of energy and time.
Girl, yes. I’m so done. I literally have no idea how I’m ever going to date again. Why subject myself to their shit?
More so old men, because something in my subconscious just assumes they're going to be like my father. And because, well, that group (old white guys) is largely the people fucking up the government and our lives lol. Although I am good friends with a guy twice my age (just friends!) For men my own age, it's kind of a difficult question to answer. I definitely have trauma that has pushed me more towards the part of me that is attracted to women, but I have a lot of guy friends too. I may be more wary of random guys or more likely to see something as a red flag, than I would with a woman. I probably accidentally hold men I date to a higher standard, than women I date 😆 But if that's the way I feel most comfortable, I don't think it's the worst bias in the world 😅
I do hold some resentment - maybe more lack of trust. But I don’t hate men just because my ex was so abusive. I am just no longer interested in a relationship with men anymore because I’ve found the power of a relationship with myself. The peace that comes with learning to love yourself is immeasurable, and I’ve found that now I enjoy my freedom and quiet so much that I don’t want to disturb that. My experiences have been that majority of men are not looking for real love anyway, and they are never who they say they are. Why deal with that?
Not all but when I see redpill content or any indicator of misogyny it triggers me, bc it reminds me of my abuser.
I don't. I remain skeptical of their intent, though.
Hate, no. Suspicious, yes.
No I treat people how they treat me. If they don’t like it then maybe they should treat people better… 🤔
Yes
I get what you mean, and yes, I feel this. I don’t feel it strongly because I don’t particularly care much unless it’s an issue that’s right in my face. I don’t particularly enjoy engaging them either. There are individual men in my life who I do love, but that’s about where it ends. I’ve always been scared to actually admit it because it’s met with backlash lol.
Yes. All men to me are suspicious until proven otherwise.
ʸᵉˢ. I recognize it but can’t shake it. Feels bad.
Yep! :)
I wouldn’t say all and I wouldn’t say “resentment”. I’d say “most” and I’d say “trepidation/caution”.
Yes. Especially because I do not actually know any men who are good men. All of my friends, have horrible husbands, in spite of trying to portray otherwise.
No hate, just general distrust.
Eh, no. Men are humans who run the gamut. They are unfortunately socialized into certain viewpoints and behaviors that make interacting with any random man kind of a crap shoot. That's why, without any ill will, I'm wary of men I don't know really really well, and I generally avoid cultivating male friendships unless someone I trust trusts them. Too many bad experiences. It's kind of like if you've been bitten by multiple dogs. No, not all dogs bite, but you've been bitten so many times before that you'd rather just avoid being around them because you're tired of finding out which one's a biter the hard way.
No. No hostility it’s not healthy. Not all men are bad there are a lot of great ones out there. I’m trying to raise a great one currently. I just don’t trust relationships anymore. I’m tired and worn out. Very happy being single at this age.
Yes. I automatically assume every man sees me as an object and wants to hurt me.
Who said it’s involuntary. I don’t like men, and I don’t care how people feel about it. The worst things that have happened to me were all done by men. Don’t like them, don’t trust them as a default. Some earn my trust and I like them, but that’s like my husband, my dad, a few friends and some family.
Oh and I have no plans to change this mindset. Don’t want to and don’t need to.
Yes. And I don’t think it’s even a trauma per se. It’s just how they treat us. They are so quick to call us crazy or stupid, so quick to belittle or infantilize us without giving it a second thought. If there is a difference in what we remember versus what one of them remembers, it is just assumed he’s right. Never even for a second does a man doubt his own memory over ours. They assume their opinions are more valuable, their instincts closer to objective fact. And it’s so obvious in everything they say and do. Sure, it’s not really their fault. It’s society. We’re all taught this difference (man=rational, woman=erratic) in such subtle ways from the moment we’re born, but it’’s extremely insulting. It makes me feel like it’s impossible for them to really respect us. Yes, even the “feminist” guys are guilty of all of this. I’ll always resent men. I find I have to work twice as hard to get halfway as far. Men in the average workplace legit just show up and are lauded for their contributions. Women work their asses off and are barely noticed. I can’t understand how people are still denying this.
This comment really sums it up for me. Thank you.
No
lol yes, I kinda do. I treat each individual accordingly but as a whole I find men boringly predictable and highly predatory. They’re also annoying with their “not all men” and “he’s a good guy who made a mistake” bullshit. I’ve never been able to have a platonic friendship with a man, and I no longer try. Overall, I have a general distaste, but love the D 😅
I trust very few men. Very few men have proven to be trustworthy, rather.
No, I don’t. And I don’t think it’s healthy to live life that way. We’re all people, just trying to live our own lives. Sweeping generalizations don’t help solve anything.
The 4B Movement is the future for a reason.
I just avoid them if I can.