Personally, all the secret drug abusers besides my alcoholic dad) I’ve known were women - married women, rich (Think a Food Company Heiress) and poor, brilliant writers and blue-collar office workers - and with children, except for one gay man (Heroin, Trust fund wealth).
I did know a couple, executives in a company I worked at, CFO and Speechwriter, discovered on a corporate jet, two months after they both had new children in their respective families.
Not a good look.
My male ex cheated on me (home at an unusual time, I found out when I answered the house phone to hear “Hello Hot Pussy”) but then he also claimed I gave him HIV though I was negative (I found out decades later I’m homozygous for CCR5 Delta-32, HiV can’t invade any of my cells, immune).
Then there was one sister, alcoholic, went through three husbands and god knows how many boyfriends, and embezzled six figures from her last husbands firm. That was after a hostile divorce from a sad wonderful first husband who was accused (falsely) of sexual abuse in divorce court in front of three girls.
Then the other sister, I think three husbands, abtwo different sets of abandoned children (one with fetal alcohol syndrome).
And finally my brother, whose wife left him to move in with her law firm partner after a secret affair of 10
Years, 2 small children.
I’m sure there are terrible men, but perhaps you might consider writing about terrible “people”.
Men don’t have a lock on the sex/drug/money stealing second life. Not by a long stretch.
I’ve been with my gay husband for 32 years, married 25 (there are no gay married couples for over 25 years, I was lucky to be married in Holland), in my family which is is quite a record. While my father was a rank alcoholic, it certainly wasn’t secret. All the lying’, cheatin’, child-harmin’ drug abusin’ people I know personally were women, ruining marriage after marriage.
I always find these types of odd pieces quite humorous, unwitting self-parody.
The Female Victim / Male Demon trope - all it lacks is being tied up and thrown in a railroad - is outdated. I’d say they were cyclical - the drug abuse thing pops up with a different drug destroying familles quite frequently in the US via abusive men over and over for the last 120 years. I doubt Women in families were economically able to access drugs as easily as men, until the last 20-30 years)
- 1900s: Cocaine and Opium (Opium Dens!)
- 1910s: Heroin
- 1920s: Alcohol (Prohibition - endless Drama)
- 1930s: Marijuana (Reefer Madness)
- 1940s: Amphetamines (Bennies, WWII leftover)
- 1950s: Barbiturates (until 60’s: Valley of the Dolls)
Women Drink, Women take drugs, Women have affairs that break up families. When a man does it,
Historically women had to tolerate it because of economics. When a woman did it, men dumped them with little economic disadvantage.
Until the 70’s, when access to money, and household income contribution began becoming more equitable.
Country Music, as a reflection of Southern Zeitgeist (how pompous!) is fairly balanced between cheatin’ wives and cheatin’ men - Think Hank Williams (Your Cheatin’ Heart) via Kitty Wells (It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels, - which must be admitted is the best name ever for a Country Song). The Classic One of course is Carol Burnett doppelgänger’s (ouch, more pretentiousness!) - Vicki Lawrence - rendition of “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia” - female cheatin’ basically gets everyone in killed by a vengeful female relative (sister).
Ballads on drunkenness (male and female) destroying families goes back hundreds of years, as well as poems and Novels. Probably the 2nd most popular Victorian moral novel after “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” was “10 Nights in a Bar-Room and What I Saw There” where alcohol consumption seems to destroy an entire town. You can read it here:
Of course, the Victorian Period basically saw China as a sovereign power damaged because of the Opium wars with Britain (and later France)
Perhaps the most strange case of family destruction is in “The Bacchae” by Euripides. Agave, mother of King Pentheus of Thebes, is consumed along with other women in the madness of Dionysian Rites (definitey booze, possibly psychedelic drugs (2500 years ago!). After the king is torn limb from limb by the mad women, Agave takes his head back to Thebes on a Fennel Staff (?). Talk about child abuse!
You have a great point, here-- it's a mistake to make broad generalizations about one group or another and make it sound like ONLY men have problems. Women shouldn't get a free pass, either-- as long as we're talking about real shit like this and not the "well, she must be a horrible person to land a bad partner" shit that incel losers are reacting to this article with.
I’m glad you get my point. Men have already “had the conversation” and there is a huge taboo against men physically attacking women, which is a reason the statistics in violence show men have 2x-4x the rate of death from violence than women - if violence were random you’d expect the same rates of attack, and perhaps death; violent men are biased against attacking women. As for men hiding addictive behaviors, go to an AA meeting - alcohol, is the most common hidden addiction, then gambling and drugs. The most popular show in the last decade with alcoholic and drug using characters was “Mom”, all female, and intergenerational.
Humans can be terrible. They are less terrible towards women than men. Humans have addictions behaviors which can affect families. 1:1000 newborns have a syndrome which comes exclusively from women with drinking problems during pregnancy. Twice as many children die solely at the hands of a mother than only a father.
The fact that this posting is all about women shows how powerful the taboo is against female and family violence, because it is so upsetting, versus a man punching a man.
Male rape in prison is a punch line of jokes. Therein lies the foundation of the issue here. Violence with women is taboo, “men need to have a conversation” - they have. Violence with men is par for the course, and expected, and the victim is pitiful and mocked.
Now see, THIS shit is concerning. It's not "whataboutism" and bitching about abused women hitting back with sarcastic remarks, it's real stuff.
To be fair, the worst alcoholic woman I ever met was *partially* pushed to that by her abusive ex-boyfriend and got sober about 2 years after they broke up. Thank fucking god they never had kids when they were together! This is why I hate it when incel losers act like NOT having kids is a bad thing-- for women like that one, not having kids was one of the biggest favors she could do for anyone, including those kids who were never born into a terrible life. The second worst alcoholic woman I've ever met was my ex-boyfriend's mother, and I don't know what caused it with her. She had a rich husband, a condo in Florida and a mansion in Georgia, her husband was a great guy... Idk. Weird shit. I low key hated her because of how her drinking affected my ex.
I found out something very interesting about alcoholism when I read "Nourishing Traditions": it can very often be caused by specific nutrient deficits, and the book also suggested that a craving for alcohol can actually come from an ancestral memory of drinking lacto-fermented beverages.
I was admittedly a bit of a binge drinker from 2004 until about 2023 -- when I read that book and started following the guidelines. Haven't had a single episode since then! Used to have episodes when I was super upset about things. I also noticed that my moods overall stabilized once I started following the Weston A Price diet. It wasn't will power or anything that finally changed it-- although my former friend definitely increased my disgust level towards heavy drinking-- it was that specific diet. I figured out that I felt physically and mentally better if I drank a ton of raw milk smoothies during the luteal and menstrual phases-- everything from physical weakness to random uncontrollable anger mostly went away. In the early 1900s, this was actually a medical practice since raw milk replaces things like iron that are lost in that process. Maybe our great-grandmas were more tolerant of life's challenges because they were all following Weston A Price diets, and that diet also made the men show the best masculine traits, too. There's also a Nourishing Traditions book specifically about pregnancy, birth, and childcare that goes into his nutrition affects fetal development and child behavior all the way up to early adulthood.
I'm not saying that a bad diet excuses that stuff *at all,* but I do wonder if modern nutritional issues hit women harder because of how our cycles work and how demanding certain things are on our bodies. I know I've tended to be 100x more misanthropic during my luteal phase, but the Weston A Price diet cools that down a lot. Every time I see a story about a woman killing her kids, I picture how I've felt during my worst luteal phases ever, realize I've never experienced the even worse ride of pregnancy and post-partum, and think, "I would literally bet money that hormones played a role in this, and she didn't have the family/community support to hand the kids off while having those hormonal problems". Men still have the "no one to hand the kid off to" problem a bit, but I think there's less judgement when a dad says he needs a break vs a mom. Plus the dads don't have the hormonal shitstorm raging.
Just as a point of interest, if you are CCR-5_delta32 homozygous, you may be an extremely valuable bone marrow donor for HIV+ patients with leukaemia. Please look up the "Berlin patient" and the "London patient" if you are not already aware.
Thanks - I’ve done exactly what you mentioned when I found out, I’ve told the HIV groups at local hospitals in SF I’m happy to donate but received no answer; I know about the two you mention. The replacement protocol is quite radical still.
You're conflating selfishness with malevolence and hatred and at other times assuming vile acts against individuals are mostly or entirely due to hatred of a category of person rather than the victimized individual.
There really isn't very much genuine misogyny. Even the places on Earth most hostile to women contain very little actual hatred of women. It's just almost universally common to treat any beliefs or behaviors against the interests of women as hatred.
I can see why this mistake is made: hated of men is very common among women so it makes sense to most women that men are a mirror.
A quick check is the prevalence of #KillAllMen vs #KillAllWomen. Hence your thesis that men hide their misogyny... because a sort of distributed conspiracy is needed to account for the lack of evidence.
WTAF? So your take is that this is all largely make believe and just a delusion fed by women who hate men…. I just can’t even.
I don’t know what sheltered rock you’ve been living under where there is almost no real misogyny, but even a brief glance at sporting clubs, tradespeople, the corporate world and the military show toxic attitudes towards women to be absolutely rife and widespread across all socioeconomic levels.
If you’re just here to tell women how wrong they are, then you’re a big part of the problem yourself. If that’s not why you’re here then I can’t understand why you would post such a misguided comment in response to what the OP wrote.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion, sure, but your selection of audience is really inappropriate.
And 47,000 women yearly are murdered (almost exclusively by men) and that's before we look at the number of physical or sexual assaults, coercion, discrimination, restriction on access to healthcare, barriers to economic success/promotion.
Maybe your stat on Foetal Alcohol Syndrome is completely irrelevant in this discussion on people living double lives and being predatory or misogynistic?
It would appear that we can value your contribution to the discussion and the issues like you would the Hallmark movie of the week...
And twice as many men are killed by men, the single largest gendered violence segment? Normally we would say being female is protective of gendered violence.
Fetal alcohol is measured hidden drug addiction affecting children, not mysterious implication talking to my to “friends”.
I find these quite funny actually. Women kill more children than men, and men kill more men than women. Women’s “secret” drug use harms more children then men’s “secret” drug use.
Why don’t men talk about men killing men? It’s a crisis. We need to talk more about man on man crime. Decreasing man on man crime 1% saves twice the number of people than decreasing man on woman crime.
So? Prefer more men to die than women? Is that callous?
Congratulations, you've totally missed the point. Well done.
"Being female is protective of gendered violence." You're tripping. Get therapy.
The only area where you're on point is that the big problem is male violence.
Your BS strawman arguments and red herrings which still have nothing whatsoever to do with people living secret lives or being predatory are both tiresome and exceedingly misplaced. This is not the audience for the agenda you are pushing. Do everyone a favour.
This is very condescending. She points out that men kill more men than women and this is not refuted by anyone here. Her main argument is based on this stat. It is a logical counter argument to the OP, if that post relies on the violence done to women suggests that men hate women. The stat she refers to suggests,that if you base the argument on that statistic alone, and if you were even inclined to draw such a conclusion, that men hate men more, than they hate women because they kill more men than women. This is a counter argument that you should acknowledge, even if it is not the end of the matter. Rather than condescendingly dismiss it. Her argument is on point.
Perhaps less subtlety will help, I don’t always explain my reasoning when I find ridiculous statements made - most people I hope can reason, but I can also be obtuse
Men don’t have an iota of culpability for a hideous criminal who perpetrated a heinous crime, as women don’t have culpability for other women who killed hundreds - hundreds and hundreds - of infants, children, and elderly.
Any statement of such is either profoundly misguided, willfully sensationalistic, or an instance of classic sexist hatred. Take your pick.
To provide background and supporting rhetoric:
The most prevalent serial killer of infants and children are women, often pediatric nurses. Here’s a sample with some notable serial murder of elderly thrown in for spice.
18. **Wilma Paulissen (Netherlands)** – 7 confirmed deaths, several children.
19. **Arnfinn Nesset (Norway)** – 22 confirmed deaths, mostly elderly, no children involved.
20. **Sadanori Takahashi (Japan)** – 20 confirmed deaths, some pediatric.
Rhetoric:
“If you’re a woman reading this it’s unlikely you’re a serial killer.but still when I refer to women for the purposes of discussion, I will assume they’re all serial killers who know know no national boundaries- it’s not cultural, it’s foundational to being female - specializing in infanticide by deceiving family and work, if you’re not a killer the ln this doesn’t apply to you so who cares but you need to thinking really hard as a women how you contribute to horrendous statistics on infanticide”
Then to repeat in closure:
Men don’t have an iota of culpability for a hideous criminal who perpetrated a heinous crime, as women don’t have culpability for other women who killed hundreds - hundreds and hundreds - of infants, children, and elderly.
Any statement of such is either profoundly misguided, willfully sensationalistic, or an instance of classic sexist hatred. Take your pick.
Did I “get it”? Useless strawman or whataboutism? Did I say it didn’t happen? Or did point out that the argument is specious?
I wish you would update your stats on children’s murders. We know now it’s a 50-50 rate between genders bc doctors can now prove how some infants died : by being violently shaken. By these results, fathers & mothers are equally involved (although mothers spend way more time with their young kids).
Another point : when men are being killed twice as more as women, the vast majority of the perpetrators are still males.
Besides, when women are killed by their partners (or ex), which is the very definition of a « property crime », you won’t find the opposite.
Btw, you may consider using actual stats to make your point, not what your observed in your personal environment :-)
Lol, come on. We're talking about the claim that men are secretly misogynists, and doing a great job at hiding it, and your evidence is that men kill women.
You'd think seeing that men kill twice as many men as they do women would indicate that men are actually misandrists. Evidently, men hate other men enough to kill them twice as much/twice as often as they hate women. Most men are actually misandrists, in that we value women's lives more than men's lives.
You're clearly not including abortion in your claims of how often parents kill their children, but you're still way off. Women kill children far more often than men kill women or children.
Stop blaming all your problems on misogyny and stop trying to justify your own bigotry.
Why does the fact that the perpetrators are men make a difference to the death statistic? Should we just ignore men?
In the US 5 times as many black people are killed by black people as white people are killed. Should we ignore them? Should we only have a “white violence hotline” for white people attacked by black people?
In the US 3 times as men are assaulted and killed by men as women are killed. Should we ignore them? Should we only have a “women violence hotline” for women attacked by men?
But we do have female violence hotlines for women attacked by men, but no male violence hotline for men attacked by men - what I would call “police”.
Isn’t that odd? The most attacked have the fewest “hotlines” and recourses?
This is very condescending. She does reference stats. The stat that men kill more men than women is not refuted by anyone here. Her main argument is based on this start. It is a logical counter argument to the OP if that post relies on the violence done to women suggests that men hate women. The stats she refers to suggest, if you base the argument on that statistic, it would suggest, if you were even inclined to draw such a conclusion, that men hate men more, than they hate women because they kill more men than women. This is a counter argument that you should acknowledge, even if it is not the end of the matter. rather than condescendingly dismiss it. Her argument is on point.
“Normally we would say being female is protective of gendered violence.”
Yeah, nah that’d be a fucking stupid thing to say in the context of intimate partner/ domestic violence.
*1 in 4 women* (24.3%) and 1 in 7 men (13.8%) aged 18 and older in the US have been the victim of severe physical violence by an intimate partner in their lifetime.
The word "severe" is doing a lot of work in this claim. Even if this data were true, that wouldn't mean that women are hitting men less, it would only mean they're doing less damage.
If you look at data that isn't cherry-picked and massaged by feminists, you would see that women are physically abusing their intimate partners far more often. I say "intimate partner" instead of "men" because I'd like to point out that lesbian relationships have far more physical abuse than straight relationships and many times more than gay relationships.
Your claim also says "by an intimate partner", not "men".
Nobody is saying any of these things don’t happen, I’d be foolish to, but the claim of all men as culpable (“men need to have a conversation”) fails as any collective guilt claim always will. Men collectively are not at fault, and it will never be true.
Consider child abuse leading to death: in cases where the mother was solely involved, mothers are twice as likely to kill the child than if the father is solely involved. In all other cases the mother was culpable in the death along with the father.
So let’s ask the question in cases of child sexual abuse, how often was it solely the mother, solely the father, or if the mother was also culpable. I suspect you’d be very surprised.
The point is that laying all of this at the hands of “men” generically - in families and children - is nonsensical, and sensational. “Men go do something”. There is already a huge taboo against violent assault of women in particular, and children manifest in the different rates of violence towards men and women.
Here’s another surprising statement to consider: fathers generally don’t sexualise pré-pubescent girls. Mothers do. It so common it has its own term: stage mom.
An alcoholic mother positioned Brooke Shields as a pre-pubescent prostitute in “Pretty Baby”. The notorious case of JonBenet Ramsay wasn’t one of a father putting makeup and clothing on a child to imitate a sexually mature adult and parade in shows. The TV show “Toddlers & Tiaras” was not a group of predatory men putting padded bras on “toddlers”, it was mothers.
Fathers tend to guard the chastity of a female child zealously, to the extreme of “Purity Rings”.
If men are collectively responsible, then so are “mothers” for child sexualisation, and therefore we arrive at true state. All adults are collectively responsible for childhood abuse. What constitutes acceptable parenting needs to be scrutinized.
“Consider child abuse leading to death: in cases where the mother was solely involved, mothers are twice as likely to kill the child than if the father is solely involved. In all other cases the mother was culpable in the death along with the father.”
Where are you getting this data from? You’re saying that in *all* cases of child abuse leading to death, either the mother was solely responsible for the death, or she was jointly responsible, along with the father.
That implies there are *no* cases of child abuse leading to death where the father was solely responsible and the mother had nothing to do with it. I mean, for a start, there are numerous cases of an abusive man killing his wife and all his children at the same time - so your claim doesn’t stack up.
If you want to suggest/ argue that in a significant proportion of CSA cases involving an identified male perpetrator, the *mother* is also culpable, you better provide some *robust* supporting data. Otherwise it’s just a misogynistic theory you made up in your head.
Referring to perpetrators being split between mothers and fathers suggests you have no expertise (though if you’re a victim of CSA I am sorry that it happened to you). In many cases, it’s not the mother OR the father, but another person in the child’s family circle (uncle, family friend etc.)
Statistics on child abuse and mortality are from the US government; they partition the cases into four segments, the permutations of mother & father e.g. mother only, mother & father, father only, and neither. Neither mother or father was infrequent (stranger l, relative or mother’s BF etc) Mother only was 2x father only; mother & father half the balance or so. I focused on child mortality. For abuse alone, mothers alone or with fathers are involved in more than twice as many abuse cases than fathers alone. Conversely, fathers alone or with mothers are involved in an equal number of cases to mothers alone.
The statistics are similar in other source data from the government, and are stable over many sample periods. I would say simply search for “father slaughters children” and “mother slaughters children” but you will get skews because a mother doing so is more sensationalistic.
Search for child abuse by perpetrator and it will lead you to many sources.
Sexual abuse is a type of abuse of course, and generally speaking it is rarer for a mother to sexually abuse a child than a father. But it’s more common for a mother to physically abuse a child than a father.
Agree with almost everything you’ve written on this post. Yes, actual behaviour will always be the yardstick, but the term ‘hatred’ is bandied about so much within online platforms that it’s losing both meaning and potency. One might say the same thing about misogyny. It’s not just semantics. What we are all talking about here is toxic attitudes. Most of these attitudes are ‘hateful’, but they are not driven by a hatred of women (or men). Human beings are very complicated as are relationships and sex. The sexual behaviour of the individual is forged by an impossibly complex blend of fantasy and personal experience, much of it from early childhood. This is something society (not least parents) can influence - and to some degree - even police, but never fully determine. Hence the double lives, S&M, autogynephilia etc etc. But do men in particular have a lot to learn about sexual entitlement. Of course they do. ‘Just put it away!’
I think here it's useful to make a distinction between "hate" and "contempt".
I think there IS hate out there in men for women, for children, for other men, for the whole world. I can't think of another reason why the majority of premeditated crime (and of active harassment, gaslighting, financial and emotional abuse) is committed by men.
But "not all men".
What I think is FAR more prevalent in our culture, if not close to the norm, is a *contempt*, born of the near solipsism of most men most of the time. By "contempt", I mean just a lack of consideration, ignorance (wilful or otherwise) of needs, and a view of women (or just other people generally) as less important, their concerns and aspirations less valid. You don't actively WANT to hurt anyone's feelings, but their feelings simply are not important enough to you to stop you from hurting them anyway to get what you want.
Most men in relationships that are having affairs, visiting prostitutes, accessing pornography in secret, and other such behaviours mentioned ATL, don't actively "hate" their partners, they just don't consider their needs, wants or feelings AT ALL, at least not in that moment. Only the man's needs & wants matter, in that particular moment. (They might later, when the guilt comes along.)
In a strange, twisted way, there's some kind of residual respect for the woman to want to keep it a secret, though that itself is usually rooted more in a selfish fear of being caught out and having to face consequences than true respect.
I think if we distinguish between hate and contempt, we can start to square the circle between what men say and what they do. It's possible to genuinely love someone (wives, partners, children etc.) but also have contempt for them at the same time.
And yes, I do recognise this in myself from time to time. I love my family deeply, but sometimes I do things that display contempt for them (especially my wife) because, in that moment, I'm not thinking about her at all. I am aware of this, so I don't do such things nearly as much as I used to when I was younger. That awareness is the first step, I believe, and we need to be making the distinction between hate and contempt to be able to get that awareness.
Now, I realise that hate and contempt are experienced in much the same way by the people that are the objects of that hate or contempt. In this context, women. Women don't need to understand whether being treated like shit is motivated by hatred or contempt in a given moment, but I think men have to understand that distinction in order to be able to see themselves in the discussions about it. Without it, it's too easy to think "I don't hate women/gays/minorities" and dismiss all concerns about male behaviour with "not all men".
I also realise that, by describing myself as more aware of the contempt I sometimes hold for those dear to me than the average man, I'm making myself out to be better than them, and so open to accusations of the same sense of uniqueness and superiority (and higher status) and, therefore, solipsism that I'm identifying as the root problem.
Solipsism itself is the core problem, but its cause is that status thing. Our culture sees men's value in their status, which is always relative and always potentially changeable. That drives a sense that we have to consider only ourselves to "get ahead". I think both the contempt and the hate come out of that; the contempt is a security blanket to insulate ourselves from the lack of consideration we think we need to give to others to preserve and advance our own status. And the hate? I think that comes as a by product when we think our status is lower or more at risk than we think we 'deserve'.
I am making this up as I type it, so it's not fully formed, but I have a feeling there's a nub of truth in it.
Pretty clearly from what a few men have posted here, there is indeed quite a proportion of hatred out in the community. Sad, but apparently true. Clearly some gay men also have deep hatred of women (in the same way as some lesbians are lesbians because they hate men). That has certainly been expressed here.
I don't think that being a predator, or being complicit with predators is necessarily about hatred, as much as it's about the exertion of power. To be sure, there seems to be a deep seated attitude amongst an alarming number of men that women are inferior, weaker, should be subservient... This feeds the precursors to being predatory without doubt.
I really hope you are trolling this community. Your arrogance to set yourself above just about everyone here is embarrassing. Where are people suggesting women should be subservient? The tone of your moral superiority... because most here are predators:
"an alarming number of men that women are inferior, weaker, should be subservient... This feeds the precursors to being predatory without doubt."
The OP plays into the arrogance of men like you, simply by agreeing with her, you think you show that you are not a predator or a problem, you are special:
"I think it’s statistically likely that ‘not all men are like this’, and I hope that the men who are reading this, who are not like that, will be secure in the knowledge that they’re not the men I’m talking about, and therefore won’t mind if sometimes I refer to ‘men’ and not ‘some men’."
I think you have an attitude problem. There is a meaningful difference here. For some women toxic behaviour includes old men talking to women working in book shops and expecting them to laugh at their jokes and look entertained. For others sitting with legs splayed in the underground. For others, making comments that make assumptions on gender stereotypes, and let's admit many of us still do. These men do not hate women, and they are not necessarily dangerous to women. Don't be to sure that you are above and beyond any toxic behaviour, when you do not even care how it is defined.
And you don’t think that low level unpleasant behaviour and attitude towards women gradually escalates before someone assaults? Gee, it’s almost like that would be the definition of a “precursor” to an event.
The OP question was “why aren’t men talking about this?” From my experience it seems that if they do try to engage and talk about it there’s a lot of time wasted arguing semantics, red herrings and straw man arguments with apologists, denialists and idiots.
It’s not ‘just semantics’. Talking in terms of lower and higher on a gradient towards rape, suggests you are borrowing the idea of a gradient of toxicity. Given some women are prone project toxicity into quite innocuous situations, this *effectively* places all men somewhere on the spectrum as potential rapists, performing precursors to rape. I gave examples of this above, sitting with legs to far apart in public places, or old men talking to women working in book shops and cafes.
Of course in this framework you want to set yourself up on high. This is what you are invited to do. You are invited to attack other men and look at them as if they are potential rapists. The author suggests if any man takes issue with any of this, then they are also a potential rapist. These should not be the terms of debate for men to talk about this issue.
I don't consider it hatred when a woman believes that men only care about sex. She's just ignorant and that causes her to hold toxic beliefs that manifest as toxic behaviors. But if she posts #KillAllMen then she's a misandrist.
When it comes down to it, this post is about providing cover for hateful people to spread their hatred, by painting all men as secretly evil so anyone calling for empathy can be shouted down as a collaborator.
I wish I'd have focused on that rather than the object-level inaccuracies.
Ah, quite indeed the shield tactic, any criticism or refutal will be misconstrued as also leading (or wanting to lead) secret lives and hence be a hater guilty of all the horrendous crimes the author opens with. Dishonest.
Myself I was still many thinking steps behind: how having a gambling problem or a drinking problem or a dissatisfaction with your current partner equates to “hate of half of the population”.
Also, the hint that it’s a massive army going for it rubs wrong: the vast majority of people are complaining about inflation, can barely make ends meet, can’t make their credit cards payments and definitely not their student loans… I don’t think they could afford secret lives, secret girlfriends, wives and/or full families at all.
But maybe the author is from quite affluent circles and so many of the secret lives examples.
yes, and as an academic, I think she knows what she is doing. She makes it explicit.
"I think it’s statistically likely that ‘not all men are like this’, and I hope that the men who are reading this, who are not like that, will be secure in the knowledge that they’re not the men I’m talking about, and therefore won’t mind if sometimes I refer to ‘men’ and not ‘some men’."
The OP plays into what some feminists call 'the arrogance of men' who presume they are feminists, that they are special 'and not like all the other men', simply by going along with whatever they say as feminists. They see through that, and they are happy to manipulate men with it.
If they are just coming here to tell traumatised women how wrong they are to be angry, then sure, I'll sneer at MRA. The only men I've had a shot at here are the ones being assholes. In the comments section for what was posted by the OP it's the complete wrong audience. Would you go and play Slayer CD's in the middle of a church service? If not then STFU.
Men need to step up, stop thinking that being an alpha gorilla entitles them to sex and to take responsibility for not only how they conduct themselves, but the behaviour they are willing to give a free pass to in other men.
Now off you tootle to watch your Andrew Tate and Brian Atlas podcasts and slap the backs of the "bro's" around you who agree with you.
I actually dislike Andrew Tate.And the unacknowledged reality about him is that he's actually sneering and being contemptuous of white males who "can't get no pussy ",while as a 40%black he can get any white woman he wants. Whatever counts as misogyny follows later
Not OP, but I'm here to tell << wrong people >> how wrong they are. If you think I look at - or care about - someone's sex when replying to them, well... you'll just keep thinking that way I suppose. Otherwise I'm sexist, racist, xenophobe, transphobe, islamophobe, etc.
Yes, I just seen this now: you are assuming vile acts "are mostly or entirely due to hatred of a category of person rather than the victimized individual."
It might not be a hatred about the victimized person either. The case Rachel Hewitt is asking us to discuss is a case in point. The men who raped this woman did not know her. This is why it is so difficult to deal with, I think. Still, I want to say that his behaviour is not representative of men, and not all violence towards women is misogyny. There is a problem, and while I think our society also has a problem with misandry, the consequences of violence for women is often horrific.
You write "lefty men" but yet dont mention the role of Christofascist right wing conservatives, and now the " Stepford Wives" movement that appears to be growing in the USA, even from women who have been educated.
I do wonder if the result of men being so resentful in society is why we are seeing so many older women like myself choosing to live alone in their later years?
I have lived alone for 20 years - from the age of 50 - and have never regretted it for a minute. My divorce was amicable and cost me very little and my ex still visits me regularly - but I never miss him when he isn't here - the sense of elation I felt when he moved out has never left me. And he wasn't a bad person.
I think the freedom a woman has when living alone is greatly underestimated by couples who can't imagine doing anything alone and who are terrified of loneliness.
These are the women who move in with their adult kids the moment their husband dies.
They don't even want a few years of freedom and independence.
And - yes - there is all the underlying hostility and basic selfishness that seems to be part of the personalities of so many men.
I watched my mother endure an emotionally abusive marriage for decades and swore I would never let that happen to me - and I didn't - but being the queen of my own humble castle is a joy that nothing else can match.
I've been writing about double lives as abuse for 12 years. This story resonated with me as well and the gazillion of serial cheater stories I catalog on my blog. I've got so many thoughts on this. I've called this entitlement The Almighty Right to Jizz. How dare we deny them?
So important as men we speak on this. The point about lefty men is especially true - I think the mask comes off quickly when they’re rebuffed sexually.
As a gay man, I’ve seen this women-hating manifest in both liberal hetero men and in gay men where there is (within a group of gay men not all) a hugely worrying undercurrent of misogyny. Straight men want to see women serve and obey, (some) gay men don’t want to see women at all. In a world to them where men are the only sexual vehicle, and therefore the pull of their attention, they also become the body where all value is projected. To some, women then become obsolete (seen not too dissimilarly to the way hetero men want women to be submissive, in the background).
I’ll probably write on more on this down the line but thank you for sharing.
Tom- I would like to read that if you write more. It reminds me of 400 BC Greek attitudes towards women where men got the majority of their sex outside the marriage with slaves, young boys, and paid workers and women were considered to be poor replicas of men (ie everything wrong with a woman was that she wasn’t a man).
This is a predictable result of rejecting God, which is a rejection of morality itself. Why not see prostitutes in secret if there is no higher power looking down in judgment? On what authority can anyone claim that you are bad for following your basic sexual desires? It's only bad if you get caught, and even then it's not *bad* in a fundamental sense, it's only a problem because you got caught. Whenever you *can* behave selfishly, screw someone else over, and get away with it--why wouldn't you?
I hope that you are in favor of banning prostitution and pornography, but again, one has to ask on what basis these things can truly be labeled as beyond the pale. Because some women find them troublesome? But if most men and even some women aren't troubled by them, then what is to be done?
>But, in all their worlds - both professional and private - they see women doing the same work as they’re doing, but much better. These men become resentful of the women who somehow juggle extraordinary careers with ultimate domestic competency, and who also manage to look good and do voluntary work in their community (but are often too tired and ill-inclined to sexually service their husbands, who aren’t very interested in reciprocal pleasure). These men and boys start to hate women for overtaking them everywhere, but they can’t admit to it to their lefty friends<
This is shallow misandrist fantasizing, a more eloquent version of "men bad women good." What is the purpose of such a passage? How would you react if you were to read a gender-flipped variant from a "manosphere" post characterizing men as fundamentally responsible and worthy while painting women as shallow and vapid? You'd probably conclude that the author isn't really all that interested in saying anything *to* women, he's just indulging his own emotional hang-ups *about* women.
If you believe that objectionable behaviour towards women is limited to a single case in France, you're living under a rock with your eyes shut and your fingers stuffed in your ears.
How men treat women and the low bar they are willing to overlook in the behaviour of other men is massively a mens issue.
You seem keen on being the white knight of this comment section.
The guy is pointing out why men don’t talk about topics like the rape is because it is obscure as hell in France. Men living in the real world actually find it fairly rare to come across other men unironically looking to rape women.
Wow that’s so interesting because in the US, nearly 1 in 5 women (18.3%) have been raped in their lifetime.
So either a handful of rapists are raping basically non-stop, or… it’s actually not that rare to come across a rapist in your community.
I think you’ll find that the reason men don’t talk about the horrific case in France, or really discuss much about anything related to violence against women and girls, is because they just don’t…. *care* enough to be interested, let alone outraged.
Gee, when you frame it like that, maybe I should be doing what you are doing and be suspicious of every neighbor, family member, friend, and coworker. Apparently you are telling me that I probably know 50 secret rapists.
Men are told about this from childhood through their entire lives not to rape women. It is on par with why don’t men talk to each other about murder rates. It is a bad thing to do but it isn’t like it is something that has some sort of need to reinforce for normal people.
Demanding that people don’t publicly share outrage to levels that satisfy you as some sort of evidence of moral failing is just stupid.
I'm willing to give a response to ignorant responses.
If you think this issues is limited to just a single rape case in France, then that's where you're making the major mistake. It's about men's attitudes towards women and how they can be treated. If they are property, if. they are expendable, if it's fine to abuse them as long as no-one else knows. If it can be a secret between co-conspirators.
"Rape is obscure in France" ??!! Really? Do please enlighten us with the research that you're read produced by women's services in France and the SA levels they are reporting. In the absence of a credible source I'll treat that as a monumentally ignorant comment made purely to deflect.
If you are going to quote me, actually quote me. Making up a quote to go on a paragraph long rant just tells me who the ignoramus is here.
Nobody is taking about this because it is in a country thousands of miles away all conducted in a foreign country with people that don’t speak out language. That is all you need to confront the “why aren’t people talking about this”
If you have people you know raping people, I’d recommend you stand up to evil. But men don’t really know any friends of coworkers of theirs that are selling their unconscious wives for sex to a hundred strangers. Which is why, when it might pop up in a news story, they talk about it as an absurd cruelty than some sort of social problem they have to collectively confront.
This image of a man you are conjuring sounds like the fantasy of a misandrist who spend too much time online than a serious cultural criticism.
Ah yes, I missed the "as hell" section. Of course, that obviously makes everything invalid... Please elaborate on precisely where my "rape is obscure in France" missed the essence of what you were attempting to say.
Congratulations, you're officially the poster child for missing the point. Go you.
You only spent half of your response blustering about a statement I didn’t make. Doubling down on reading incomprehension, you pantomime about the “as hell” part as a complete response.
“…men don’t talk about topics like the rape is because it is obscure as hell in France. “
There is a reason why men don’t talk about the case that this article cited as evidence of men’s failure to address these horrible crimes, it is an obscure case in a foreign country.
Now that I have had to say this to you three times and all you seem to be capable of doing is writhing in outrage over fantasies about my statement, I’ll leave you to your quest to fight windmills.
You're as worthy as the behaviour around you that you're willing to overlook/tolerate.
Saying "I don't do it." isn't sufficient. Men actually need to call out other men and get them to lift their game.
Men are bleating about how unfair it is that women are critical of them. You want that to change then step up. Otherwise, by your silence you're a big part of the problem.
You’ve commented all over this, exhibiting your seemingly impeccable “good man” credentials. Are you being a pillar of the community? Very suspicious. Apparently.
Well said John. I read this and think of my twelve year old son growing up into a world where he is maligned impugned and castigated simply for existing. As though women aren’t capable of the worse horrors towards the vulnerable and the trusting. Absolute nonsense to castigate men o this way and pure misandry.
I'm sorry for what your son has experienced. It is a social problem. True feminists reject misandry. However, on the internet, there are a lot of people who call themselves feminists who are actually just misandrists.
We're all people, we all have our own struggles, and even those of us who try to be fair all the time probably aren't. So, I try not to take things personally.
Still, I believe that promoting injustice is always wrong, and the effects of both misogyny and misandry make us all more miserable, less fulfilled, and less wise. In my experience, the most useful writings about gender are able to help us all achieve a better understanding of our shared humanity, and the best parts of humanity that we are all capable of. I don't deny any social problems that exist, but I feel it is unproductive to slog down into categorical grievances and categorical blaming. We're all human. Let's try to make the most of that humanity. For those who reject that path, I am sad, but being angry at them for it won't do much good.
A brilliant posting and deeply disturbing in the midst of what seems like an unending stream of disturbing incidents and revelations.
Why aren't more men talking about this? I suspect that there are a significant cohort of men who "aren't those men" who are frankly stunned and appalled that behaviour like this occurs and are completely unaware of it. Predatory men have their eyes open as to who they can share their dirty secrets with. The "good men" are not being told. The secret is kept from them, as well as you.
As was discussed in the article, men who are privy to the dirty double lives can hardly commence a dialogue without outing themselves as being complicit as accessories or perpetrators themselves. If they do discuss it, they discuss it behind closed doors within what they deem to be a "safe" cohort. The truth needs to come out through either cases such as that presently being played out in the French courts, or by the actions of whistleblowers. But as has been seen all too readily, men "on the inside" very rarely go public of their own volition.
I was just discussing this with my wife. I suspect that the more predatory men in our world quite carefully screen those around them. The odd offhand derogatory comment about girls or women to see how others respond, gradually upping the ante or escalating until they know that someone is safe to have on the inside.
Obviously it only takes one infraction for one to be hooked. "No mate, you can't speak out, we all know what you did on that rugby trip..." Once that has happened, any potential whistleblower knows that their own dirty secrets will be out in public too should they dare to break faith with the other men. Once men are on the inside, even if they don't continue perpetrating themselves, they're stuck on the dark side of the curtain forever.
This isn’t a male issue it is a human being issue. Women are guilty of very similar and in some cases identical behaviors as the ones discussed here. Especially once drugs are involved, including alcohol (which is a drug not a separate ‘drugs and alcohol’ category, but I digress).
Cheating, stealing, lying, being intoxicated and breaking the law as a result, etc etc etc are very human failings and there are plenty of them to address before we even get to gender differences.
I'm sorry but while your examples are valid it doesn't seem at all likely that a woman would advertise for her husband to be raped will drugged and for 90 other women in the same area to take her up on that offer. How many drug rapes are committed by women? I think it's safe to say that while a lot of bad behaviors are done by both sexes, including domestic violence, men are probably uniquely over-represented in actual rape.
"I'm sorry but while your examples are valid it doesn't seem at all likely that a woman would advertise for her husband to be raped will drugged and for 90 other women in the same area to take her up on that offer."
Because if someone's wife came to them and said "I want scores of women to have sex with you" they wouldn't have to drug them to convince them to do it. There's a fundamental difference in the sexual marketplace between men and women that explains most of why this doesn't happen.
I was going to say thanks for writing this, and that it made me feel ashamed to be a man. Then I read the comments here from men, and I realised there’s far more work to do than I imagined.
I think of her initial disclaimer on “not all men”, then I read comments like this and realize “yeah, you kind of did want to just go on a misandrist screed”
Some of the countries that most believe in God or gods are the most unstable--Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, India, Pakistan. What they all have in common is hatred of women . . .
I think women are better at keeping secrets. And, the algorithm and addictive qualities of said progressively-violent images are meant to attract more views. Pornography can be desensitizing and like any addiction, the next hit isn’t enough. So it can evolve to become more extreme. I’m not a psychologist but I encourage you to do some research.
Interesting. Well I hope you’re right… I heard that a large portion of Gen-Z women are being choked without consent. It’s no coincidence that “choking” is one of the most popular porn categories. I’m not sure that you’re seeing the whole picture but I could be wrong.
As a victim of psychological and legal harassements, I would be more nuanced. These men and their secret lives are themselves living a nightmare life. They suffer the need to make women suffer. We need to better understand their behaviours, their diseases, and especially bring more support to the suffering women. In over 10 years of legal battle, I have witnessed very little support or even empathy. Even women around me have given more weight to his positions - made of obvious lies- than me until they see he is loosing his legal cases thanks to my strength and resistance, despite little support from my lawyers. He still persists attacking until he'll struggle me financially. He has been supported by all female contacts while I was told by so many to give up. Something is wrong in our society. Here are my cries https://clarinettesblog.wordpress.com/2024/09/08/an-open-letter-to-my-daughters/
I am so saddened to hear of your abuse, the abusive systems around you, and the victim blaming you experience(d.) I know it all too well as do way too many other women. We are fortunate we can speak out; not many of them are able.
I read your word press article and would like to share one thing I have done to try to help in this regard…I wrote a booklet on abuse (specifically covering covert abuse based on research for 10 years.) It was published earlier this year and is in the process of being copyrighted.
My dream is to get this to as many women and girls as possible. It contains vital information for covering the aspects of abuse that aren’t talked about much and gives many vetted resources for support and healing. ❤️🩹
I will send you a complimentary copy if you are interested. Many advocates are finding it to be very helpful for their clients and many former victims are finding joy in distributing them everywhere (public restrooms, day care centers, OB offices, nail salons, etc.)
Is this in reaction to “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives?”
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/06/style/secret-lives-mormon-wives-momtok.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
Or the NY Post article on wives with cheating lives https://nypost.com/2023/03/08/why-more-women-than-ever-are-cheating-on-their-husbands/
It is it the Kinsey study
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21667234/
Or is it the secret life gene women have but men don’t
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1090513814001317
Or the Guardian “secret gambling problem” with women
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/jan/22/i-was-living-a-secret-life-the-agonising-rise-of-women-gamblers
Or the Today show secret drug user
https://www.today.com/today/amp/tdna117825
Personally, all the secret drug abusers besides my alcoholic dad) I’ve known were women - married women, rich (Think a Food Company Heiress) and poor, brilliant writers and blue-collar office workers - and with children, except for one gay man (Heroin, Trust fund wealth).
I did know a couple, executives in a company I worked at, CFO and Speechwriter, discovered on a corporate jet, two months after they both had new children in their respective families.
Not a good look.
My male ex cheated on me (home at an unusual time, I found out when I answered the house phone to hear “Hello Hot Pussy”) but then he also claimed I gave him HIV though I was negative (I found out decades later I’m homozygous for CCR5 Delta-32, HiV can’t invade any of my cells, immune).
Then there was one sister, alcoholic, went through three husbands and god knows how many boyfriends, and embezzled six figures from her last husbands firm. That was after a hostile divorce from a sad wonderful first husband who was accused (falsely) of sexual abuse in divorce court in front of three girls.
Then the other sister, I think three husbands, abtwo different sets of abandoned children (one with fetal alcohol syndrome).
And finally my brother, whose wife left him to move in with her law firm partner after a secret affair of 10
Years, 2 small children.
I’m sure there are terrible men, but perhaps you might consider writing about terrible “people”.
Men don’t have a lock on the sex/drug/money stealing second life. Not by a long stretch.
I'm glad you took the time to write this.
NP.
I’ve been with my gay husband for 32 years, married 25 (there are no gay married couples for over 25 years, I was lucky to be married in Holland), in my family which is is quite a record. While my father was a rank alcoholic, it certainly wasn’t secret. All the lying’, cheatin’, child-harmin’ drug abusin’ people I know personally were women, ruining marriage after marriage.
I always find these types of odd pieces quite humorous, unwitting self-parody.
The Female Victim / Male Demon trope - all it lacks is being tied up and thrown in a railroad - is outdated. I’d say they were cyclical - the drug abuse thing pops up with a different drug destroying familles quite frequently in the US via abusive men over and over for the last 120 years. I doubt Women in families were economically able to access drugs as easily as men, until the last 20-30 years)
- 1900s: Cocaine and Opium (Opium Dens!)
- 1910s: Heroin
- 1920s: Alcohol (Prohibition - endless Drama)
- 1930s: Marijuana (Reefer Madness)
- 1940s: Amphetamines (Bennies, WWII leftover)
- 1950s: Barbiturates (until 60’s: Valley of the Dolls)
- 1960s: LSD and Marijuana (Watch Dragnet!)
- 1970s: Heroin (Many Movies: Mr Goodbar)
- 1980s: Cocaine (Remember the Crack Epidemic)
- 1990s: Opioids
- 2000s: Methamphetamine (until 2010’s Breaking Bad)
- 2010s on : Synthetic Opioids
Women Drink, Women take drugs, Women have affairs that break up families. When a man does it,
Historically women had to tolerate it because of economics. When a woman did it, men dumped them with little economic disadvantage.
Until the 70’s, when access to money, and household income contribution began becoming more equitable.
Country Music, as a reflection of Southern Zeitgeist (how pompous!) is fairly balanced between cheatin’ wives and cheatin’ men - Think Hank Williams (Your Cheatin’ Heart) via Kitty Wells (It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels, - which must be admitted is the best name ever for a Country Song). The Classic One of course is Carol Burnett doppelgänger’s (ouch, more pretentiousness!) - Vicki Lawrence - rendition of “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia” - female cheatin’ basically gets everyone in killed by a vengeful female relative (sister).
Ballads on drunkenness (male and female) destroying families goes back hundreds of years, as well as poems and Novels. Probably the 2nd most popular Victorian moral novel after “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” was “10 Nights in a Bar-Room and What I Saw There” where alcohol consumption seems to destroy an entire town. You can read it here:
https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/4744/pg4744-images.html
Of course, the Victorian Period basically saw China as a sovereign power damaged because of the Opium wars with Britain (and later France)
Perhaps the most strange case of family destruction is in “The Bacchae” by Euripides. Agave, mother of King Pentheus of Thebes, is consumed along with other women in the madness of Dionysian Rites (definitey booze, possibly psychedelic drugs (2500 years ago!). After the king is torn limb from limb by the mad women, Agave takes his head back to Thebes on a Fennel Staff (?). Talk about child abuse!
Fun Topic.
We are all only human, of flesh and blood we’re made.
Agave is consumed similarly to this day!
You have a great point, here-- it's a mistake to make broad generalizations about one group or another and make it sound like ONLY men have problems. Women shouldn't get a free pass, either-- as long as we're talking about real shit like this and not the "well, she must be a horrible person to land a bad partner" shit that incel losers are reacting to this article with.
I’m glad you get my point. Men have already “had the conversation” and there is a huge taboo against men physically attacking women, which is a reason the statistics in violence show men have 2x-4x the rate of death from violence than women - if violence were random you’d expect the same rates of attack, and perhaps death; violent men are biased against attacking women. As for men hiding addictive behaviors, go to an AA meeting - alcohol, is the most common hidden addiction, then gambling and drugs. The most popular show in the last decade with alcoholic and drug using characters was “Mom”, all female, and intergenerational.
Humans can be terrible. They are less terrible towards women than men. Humans have addictions behaviors which can affect families. 1:1000 newborns have a syndrome which comes exclusively from women with drinking problems during pregnancy. Twice as many children die solely at the hands of a mother than only a father.
The fact that this posting is all about women shows how powerful the taboo is against female and family violence, because it is so upsetting, versus a man punching a man.
Male rape in prison is a punch line of jokes. Therein lies the foundation of the issue here. Violence with women is taboo, “men need to have a conversation” - they have. Violence with men is par for the course, and expected, and the victim is pitiful and mocked.
Hypocrisy.
Now see, THIS shit is concerning. It's not "whataboutism" and bitching about abused women hitting back with sarcastic remarks, it's real stuff.
To be fair, the worst alcoholic woman I ever met was *partially* pushed to that by her abusive ex-boyfriend and got sober about 2 years after they broke up. Thank fucking god they never had kids when they were together! This is why I hate it when incel losers act like NOT having kids is a bad thing-- for women like that one, not having kids was one of the biggest favors she could do for anyone, including those kids who were never born into a terrible life. The second worst alcoholic woman I've ever met was my ex-boyfriend's mother, and I don't know what caused it with her. She had a rich husband, a condo in Florida and a mansion in Georgia, her husband was a great guy... Idk. Weird shit. I low key hated her because of how her drinking affected my ex.
I found out something very interesting about alcoholism when I read "Nourishing Traditions": it can very often be caused by specific nutrient deficits, and the book also suggested that a craving for alcohol can actually come from an ancestral memory of drinking lacto-fermented beverages.
I was admittedly a bit of a binge drinker from 2004 until about 2023 -- when I read that book and started following the guidelines. Haven't had a single episode since then! Used to have episodes when I was super upset about things. I also noticed that my moods overall stabilized once I started following the Weston A Price diet. It wasn't will power or anything that finally changed it-- although my former friend definitely increased my disgust level towards heavy drinking-- it was that specific diet. I figured out that I felt physically and mentally better if I drank a ton of raw milk smoothies during the luteal and menstrual phases-- everything from physical weakness to random uncontrollable anger mostly went away. In the early 1900s, this was actually a medical practice since raw milk replaces things like iron that are lost in that process. Maybe our great-grandmas were more tolerant of life's challenges because they were all following Weston A Price diets, and that diet also made the men show the best masculine traits, too. There's also a Nourishing Traditions book specifically about pregnancy, birth, and childcare that goes into his nutrition affects fetal development and child behavior all the way up to early adulthood.
I'm not saying that a bad diet excuses that stuff *at all,* but I do wonder if modern nutritional issues hit women harder because of how our cycles work and how demanding certain things are on our bodies. I know I've tended to be 100x more misanthropic during my luteal phase, but the Weston A Price diet cools that down a lot. Every time I see a story about a woman killing her kids, I picture how I've felt during my worst luteal phases ever, realize I've never experienced the even worse ride of pregnancy and post-partum, and think, "I would literally bet money that hormones played a role in this, and she didn't have the family/community support to hand the kids off while having those hormonal problems". Men still have the "no one to hand the kid off to" problem a bit, but I think there's less judgement when a dad says he needs a break vs a mom. Plus the dads don't have the hormonal shitstorm raging.
Just as a point of interest, if you are CCR-5_delta32 homozygous, you may be an extremely valuable bone marrow donor for HIV+ patients with leukaemia. Please look up the "Berlin patient" and the "London patient" if you are not already aware.
Thanks - I’ve done exactly what you mentioned when I found out, I’ve told the HIV groups at local hospitals in SF I’m happy to donate but received no answer; I know about the two you mention. The replacement protocol is quite radical still.
It is certainly still an experimental approach, but the results have so far been better than could have been expected in both extant cases!
You're conflating selfishness with malevolence and hatred and at other times assuming vile acts against individuals are mostly or entirely due to hatred of a category of person rather than the victimized individual.
There really isn't very much genuine misogyny. Even the places on Earth most hostile to women contain very little actual hatred of women. It's just almost universally common to treat any beliefs or behaviors against the interests of women as hatred.
I can see why this mistake is made: hated of men is very common among women so it makes sense to most women that men are a mirror.
A quick check is the prevalence of #KillAllMen vs #KillAllWomen. Hence your thesis that men hide their misogyny... because a sort of distributed conspiracy is needed to account for the lack of evidence.
WTAF? So your take is that this is all largely make believe and just a delusion fed by women who hate men…. I just can’t even.
I don’t know what sheltered rock you’ve been living under where there is almost no real misogyny, but even a brief glance at sporting clubs, tradespeople, the corporate world and the military show toxic attitudes towards women to be absolutely rife and widespread across all socioeconomic levels.
If you’re just here to tell women how wrong they are, then you’re a big part of the problem yourself. If that’s not why you’re here then I can’t understand why you would post such a misguided comment in response to what the OP wrote.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion, sure, but your selection of audience is really inappropriate.
You know there’s hearsay and there’s data.
1/1000 births in the US are born with Fetal Alcohol syndrome.
How do you react to an objective, measurable damage to a child which is 100% the fault of a woman?
How would you react to the fact that twice as many children die due to abuse solely by the mother in contrast to the father?
I find these kids of articles have the same deep probing value as a Hallmark movie of the week with a predator, which is to say none.
And 47,000 women yearly are murdered (almost exclusively by men) and that's before we look at the number of physical or sexual assaults, coercion, discrimination, restriction on access to healthcare, barriers to economic success/promotion.
Maybe your stat on Foetal Alcohol Syndrome is completely irrelevant in this discussion on people living double lives and being predatory or misogynistic?
It would appear that we can value your contribution to the discussion and the issues like you would the Hallmark movie of the week...
And twice as many men are killed by men, the single largest gendered violence segment? Normally we would say being female is protective of gendered violence.
Fetal alcohol is measured hidden drug addiction affecting children, not mysterious implication talking to my to “friends”.
I find these quite funny actually. Women kill more children than men, and men kill more men than women. Women’s “secret” drug use harms more children then men’s “secret” drug use.
Why don’t men talk about men killing men? It’s a crisis. We need to talk more about man on man crime. Decreasing man on man crime 1% saves twice the number of people than decreasing man on woman crime.
So? Prefer more men to die than women? Is that callous?
Congratulations, you've totally missed the point. Well done.
"Being female is protective of gendered violence." You're tripping. Get therapy.
The only area where you're on point is that the big problem is male violence.
Your BS strawman arguments and red herrings which still have nothing whatsoever to do with people living secret lives or being predatory are both tiresome and exceedingly misplaced. This is not the audience for the agenda you are pushing. Do everyone a favour.
Does your wife have a boyfriend, perchance?
This is very condescending. She points out that men kill more men than women and this is not refuted by anyone here. Her main argument is based on this stat. It is a logical counter argument to the OP, if that post relies on the violence done to women suggests that men hate women. The stat she refers to suggests,that if you base the argument on that statistic alone, and if you were even inclined to draw such a conclusion, that men hate men more, than they hate women because they kill more men than women. This is a counter argument that you should acknowledge, even if it is not the end of the matter. Rather than condescendingly dismiss it. Her argument is on point.
“Congratulations, you've totally missed the point.” Not true. I observe your condescension. “Congratulations” in return.
Perhaps less subtlety will help, I don’t always explain my reasoning when I find ridiculous statements made - most people I hope can reason, but I can also be obtuse
Men don’t have an iota of culpability for a hideous criminal who perpetrated a heinous crime, as women don’t have culpability for other women who killed hundreds - hundreds and hundreds - of infants, children, and elderly.
Any statement of such is either profoundly misguided, willfully sensationalistic, or an instance of classic sexist hatred. Take your pick.
To provide background and supporting rhetoric:
The most prevalent serial killer of infants and children are women, often pediatric nurses. Here’s a sample with some notable serial murder of elderly thrown in for spice.
1. **Beverley Allitt (UK)** – 4 confirmed deaths, 9 attempted murders.
2. **Genene Jones (USA)** – 2 confirmed deaths, suspected of killing up to 60 children.
3. **Lucy Letby (UK)** – 7 confirmed deaths, 7 attempted murders.
4. **Charles Edmund Cullen (USA)** – Estimated over 40 victims, including children.
5. **Kristen Gilbert (USA)** – 4 confirmed deaths, suspected of more.
6. **Miyuki Ishikawa (Japan)** – 103 confirmed infant deaths.
7. **Anni Nyrén (Sweden)** – 4 confirmed deaths.
8. **Donald Harvey (USA)** – 37 confirmed deaths, some pediatric victims.
9. **Jane Toppan (USA)** – 31 confirmed deaths, possibly more, including children.
10. **Jolly Jane Toppan (USA)** – Estimated 31 victims, some children.
11. **Marie-Noëlle Godard (France)** – 8 infant deaths (her own children).
12. **Elizabeth Wettlaufer (Canada)** – 8 confirmed elderly patients, no children confirmed.
13. **Christine Malèvre (France)** – 6 confirmed, mostly elderly, no children.
14. **Gwendolyn Graham (USA)** – 5 confirmed elderly patients, no children confirmed.
15. **Cathy Wood (USA)** – 5 confirmed, targeted elderly patients.
16. **Barbara Stager (USA)** – 2 confirmed deaths, no children involved.
17. **Amelia Dyer (UK)** – Estimated 200-400 infant deaths (illegal adoption).
18. **Wilma Paulissen (Netherlands)** – 7 confirmed deaths, several children.
19. **Arnfinn Nesset (Norway)** – 22 confirmed deaths, mostly elderly, no children involved.
20. **Sadanori Takahashi (Japan)** – 20 confirmed deaths, some pediatric.
Rhetoric:
“If you’re a woman reading this it’s unlikely you’re a serial killer.but still when I refer to women for the purposes of discussion, I will assume they’re all serial killers who know know no national boundaries- it’s not cultural, it’s foundational to being female - specializing in infanticide by deceiving family and work, if you’re not a killer the ln this doesn’t apply to you so who cares but you need to thinking really hard as a women how you contribute to horrendous statistics on infanticide”
Then to repeat in closure:
Men don’t have an iota of culpability for a hideous criminal who perpetrated a heinous crime, as women don’t have culpability for other women who killed hundreds - hundreds and hundreds - of infants, children, and elderly.
Any statement of such is either profoundly misguided, willfully sensationalistic, or an instance of classic sexist hatred. Take your pick.
Did I “get it”? Useless strawman or whataboutism? Did I say it didn’t happen? Or did point out that the argument is specious?
Here is a video about the secret lives of many men.
https://youtu.be/rfBb8fABESU?si=HI-FumHK-VxTM9Wy
I wish you would update your stats on children’s murders. We know now it’s a 50-50 rate between genders bc doctors can now prove how some infants died : by being violently shaken. By these results, fathers & mothers are equally involved (although mothers spend way more time with their young kids).
Another point : when men are being killed twice as more as women, the vast majority of the perpetrators are still males.
Besides, when women are killed by their partners (or ex), which is the very definition of a « property crime », you won’t find the opposite.
Btw, you may consider using actual stats to make your point, not what your observed in your personal environment :-)
Lol, come on. We're talking about the claim that men are secretly misogynists, and doing a great job at hiding it, and your evidence is that men kill women.
You'd think seeing that men kill twice as many men as they do women would indicate that men are actually misandrists. Evidently, men hate other men enough to kill them twice as much/twice as often as they hate women. Most men are actually misandrists, in that we value women's lives more than men's lives.
You're clearly not including abortion in your claims of how often parents kill their children, but you're still way off. Women kill children far more often than men kill women or children.
Stop blaming all your problems on misogyny and stop trying to justify your own bigotry.
Why does the fact that the perpetrators are men make a difference to the death statistic? Should we just ignore men?
In the US 5 times as many black people are killed by black people as white people are killed. Should we ignore them? Should we only have a “white violence hotline” for white people attacked by black people?
In the US 3 times as men are assaulted and killed by men as women are killed. Should we ignore them? Should we only have a “women violence hotline” for women attacked by men?
But we do have female violence hotlines for women attacked by men, but no male violence hotline for men attacked by men - what I would call “police”.
Isn’t that odd? The most attacked have the fewest “hotlines” and recourses?
This is very condescending. She does reference stats. The stat that men kill more men than women is not refuted by anyone here. Her main argument is based on this start. It is a logical counter argument to the OP if that post relies on the violence done to women suggests that men hate women. The stats she refers to suggest, if you base the argument on that statistic, it would suggest, if you were even inclined to draw such a conclusion, that men hate men more, than they hate women because they kill more men than women. This is a counter argument that you should acknowledge, even if it is not the end of the matter. rather than condescendingly dismiss it. Her argument is on point.
“Normally we would say being female is protective of gendered violence.”
Yeah, nah that’d be a fucking stupid thing to say in the context of intimate partner/ domestic violence.
*1 in 4 women* (24.3%) and 1 in 7 men (13.8%) aged 18 and older in the US have been the victim of severe physical violence by an intimate partner in their lifetime.
The word "severe" is doing a lot of work in this claim. Even if this data were true, that wouldn't mean that women are hitting men less, it would only mean they're doing less damage.
If you look at data that isn't cherry-picked and massaged by feminists, you would see that women are physically abusing their intimate partners far more often. I say "intimate partner" instead of "men" because I'd like to point out that lesbian relationships have far more physical abuse than straight relationships and many times more than gay relationships.
Your claim also says "by an intimate partner", not "men".
Well when 1 in 5 women are lesbian, there ya go.
Here’s some more data:
- One in 9 girls and 1 in 20 boys under the age of 18 experience sexual abuse or assault.
- 82% of all victims under 18 are female.
- Females ages 16-19 are 4 times more likely than the general population to be victims of rape, attempted rape, or sexual assault.
- In *88%* of the sexual abuse claims that CPS substantiates or finds supporting evidence of, **the perpetrator is male**.
Victims of child sexual abuse are:
- About 4 times more likely to develop symptoms of drug abuse.
- About 4 times more likely to experience PTSD as adults.
- About 3 times more likely to experience a major depressive episode as adults.
How do *you* react to objective, measurable damage to children that is caused by men at *far* higher rates than Fetal Alcohol Syndrome occurs?
Nobody is saying any of these things don’t happen, I’d be foolish to, but the claim of all men as culpable (“men need to have a conversation”) fails as any collective guilt claim always will. Men collectively are not at fault, and it will never be true.
Consider child abuse leading to death: in cases where the mother was solely involved, mothers are twice as likely to kill the child than if the father is solely involved. In all other cases the mother was culpable in the death along with the father.
So let’s ask the question in cases of child sexual abuse, how often was it solely the mother, solely the father, or if the mother was also culpable. I suspect you’d be very surprised.
The point is that laying all of this at the hands of “men” generically - in families and children - is nonsensical, and sensational. “Men go do something”. There is already a huge taboo against violent assault of women in particular, and children manifest in the different rates of violence towards men and women.
Here’s another surprising statement to consider: fathers generally don’t sexualise pré-pubescent girls. Mothers do. It so common it has its own term: stage mom.
An alcoholic mother positioned Brooke Shields as a pre-pubescent prostitute in “Pretty Baby”. The notorious case of JonBenet Ramsay wasn’t one of a father putting makeup and clothing on a child to imitate a sexually mature adult and parade in shows. The TV show “Toddlers & Tiaras” was not a group of predatory men putting padded bras on “toddlers”, it was mothers.
Fathers tend to guard the chastity of a female child zealously, to the extreme of “Purity Rings”.
If men are collectively responsible, then so are “mothers” for child sexualisation, and therefore we arrive at true state. All adults are collectively responsible for childhood abuse. What constitutes acceptable parenting needs to be scrutinized.
“Consider child abuse leading to death: in cases where the mother was solely involved, mothers are twice as likely to kill the child than if the father is solely involved. In all other cases the mother was culpable in the death along with the father.”
Where are you getting this data from? You’re saying that in *all* cases of child abuse leading to death, either the mother was solely responsible for the death, or she was jointly responsible, along with the father.
That implies there are *no* cases of child abuse leading to death where the father was solely responsible and the mother had nothing to do with it. I mean, for a start, there are numerous cases of an abusive man killing his wife and all his children at the same time - so your claim doesn’t stack up.
If you want to suggest/ argue that in a significant proportion of CSA cases involving an identified male perpetrator, the *mother* is also culpable, you better provide some *robust* supporting data. Otherwise it’s just a misogynistic theory you made up in your head.
Referring to perpetrators being split between mothers and fathers suggests you have no expertise (though if you’re a victim of CSA I am sorry that it happened to you). In many cases, it’s not the mother OR the father, but another person in the child’s family circle (uncle, family friend etc.)
Not quite what I said but I often type too fast.
Statistics on child abuse and mortality are from the US government; they partition the cases into four segments, the permutations of mother & father e.g. mother only, mother & father, father only, and neither. Neither mother or father was infrequent (stranger l, relative or mother’s BF etc) Mother only was 2x father only; mother & father half the balance or so. I focused on child mortality. For abuse alone, mothers alone or with fathers are involved in more than twice as many abuse cases than fathers alone. Conversely, fathers alone or with mothers are involved in an equal number of cases to mothers alone.
The statistics are similar in other source data from the government, and are stable over many sample periods. I would say simply search for “father slaughters children” and “mother slaughters children” but you will get skews because a mother doing so is more sensationalistic.
Search for child abuse by perpetrator and it will lead you to many sources.
Sexual abuse is a type of abuse of course, and generally speaking it is rarer for a mother to sexually abuse a child than a father. But it’s more common for a mother to physically abuse a child than a father.
By far.
And what about the racial aspect too?You want to stop digging when it suits you
A toxic attitude isn’t necessarily hatred. Toxic attitudes towards women are extremely common. Actually hating them is extremely rare.
The difference is extremely important.
Yay, semantics.
The most important thing isn't the difference in semantics. The most important thing is people's behaviour.
Agree with almost everything you’ve written on this post. Yes, actual behaviour will always be the yardstick, but the term ‘hatred’ is bandied about so much within online platforms that it’s losing both meaning and potency. One might say the same thing about misogyny. It’s not just semantics. What we are all talking about here is toxic attitudes. Most of these attitudes are ‘hateful’, but they are not driven by a hatred of women (or men). Human beings are very complicated as are relationships and sex. The sexual behaviour of the individual is forged by an impossibly complex blend of fantasy and personal experience, much of it from early childhood. This is something society (not least parents) can influence - and to some degree - even police, but never fully determine. Hence the double lives, S&M, autogynephilia etc etc. But do men in particular have a lot to learn about sexual entitlement. Of course they do. ‘Just put it away!’
I think here it's useful to make a distinction between "hate" and "contempt".
I think there IS hate out there in men for women, for children, for other men, for the whole world. I can't think of another reason why the majority of premeditated crime (and of active harassment, gaslighting, financial and emotional abuse) is committed by men.
But "not all men".
What I think is FAR more prevalent in our culture, if not close to the norm, is a *contempt*, born of the near solipsism of most men most of the time. By "contempt", I mean just a lack of consideration, ignorance (wilful or otherwise) of needs, and a view of women (or just other people generally) as less important, their concerns and aspirations less valid. You don't actively WANT to hurt anyone's feelings, but their feelings simply are not important enough to you to stop you from hurting them anyway to get what you want.
Most men in relationships that are having affairs, visiting prostitutes, accessing pornography in secret, and other such behaviours mentioned ATL, don't actively "hate" their partners, they just don't consider their needs, wants or feelings AT ALL, at least not in that moment. Only the man's needs & wants matter, in that particular moment. (They might later, when the guilt comes along.)
In a strange, twisted way, there's some kind of residual respect for the woman to want to keep it a secret, though that itself is usually rooted more in a selfish fear of being caught out and having to face consequences than true respect.
I think if we distinguish between hate and contempt, we can start to square the circle between what men say and what they do. It's possible to genuinely love someone (wives, partners, children etc.) but also have contempt for them at the same time.
And yes, I do recognise this in myself from time to time. I love my family deeply, but sometimes I do things that display contempt for them (especially my wife) because, in that moment, I'm not thinking about her at all. I am aware of this, so I don't do such things nearly as much as I used to when I was younger. That awareness is the first step, I believe, and we need to be making the distinction between hate and contempt to be able to get that awareness.
Now, I realise that hate and contempt are experienced in much the same way by the people that are the objects of that hate or contempt. In this context, women. Women don't need to understand whether being treated like shit is motivated by hatred or contempt in a given moment, but I think men have to understand that distinction in order to be able to see themselves in the discussions about it. Without it, it's too easy to think "I don't hate women/gays/minorities" and dismiss all concerns about male behaviour with "not all men".
I also realise that, by describing myself as more aware of the contempt I sometimes hold for those dear to me than the average man, I'm making myself out to be better than them, and so open to accusations of the same sense of uniqueness and superiority (and higher status) and, therefore, solipsism that I'm identifying as the root problem.
Solipsism itself is the core problem, but its cause is that status thing. Our culture sees men's value in their status, which is always relative and always potentially changeable. That drives a sense that we have to consider only ourselves to "get ahead". I think both the contempt and the hate come out of that; the contempt is a security blanket to insulate ourselves from the lack of consideration we think we need to give to others to preserve and advance our own status. And the hate? I think that comes as a by product when we think our status is lower or more at risk than we think we 'deserve'.
I am making this up as I type it, so it's not fully formed, but I have a feeling there's a nub of truth in it.
Pretty clearly from what a few men have posted here, there is indeed quite a proportion of hatred out in the community. Sad, but apparently true. Clearly some gay men also have deep hatred of women (in the same way as some lesbians are lesbians because they hate men). That has certainly been expressed here.
I don't think that being a predator, or being complicit with predators is necessarily about hatred, as much as it's about the exertion of power. To be sure, there seems to be a deep seated attitude amongst an alarming number of men that women are inferior, weaker, should be subservient... This feeds the precursors to being predatory without doubt.
I really hope you are trolling this community. Your arrogance to set yourself above just about everyone here is embarrassing. Where are people suggesting women should be subservient? The tone of your moral superiority... because most here are predators:
"an alarming number of men that women are inferior, weaker, should be subservient... This feeds the precursors to being predatory without doubt."
The OP plays into the arrogance of men like you, simply by agreeing with her, you think you show that you are not a predator or a problem, you are special:
"I think it’s statistically likely that ‘not all men are like this’, and I hope that the men who are reading this, who are not like that, will be secure in the knowledge that they’re not the men I’m talking about, and therefore won’t mind if sometimes I refer to ‘men’ and not ‘some men’."
I think you have an attitude problem. There is a meaningful difference here. For some women toxic behaviour includes old men talking to women working in book shops and expecting them to laugh at their jokes and look entertained. For others sitting with legs splayed in the underground. For others, making comments that make assumptions on gender stereotypes, and let's admit many of us still do. These men do not hate women, and they are not necessarily dangerous to women. Don't be to sure that you are above and beyond any toxic behaviour, when you do not even care how it is defined.
And you don’t think that low level unpleasant behaviour and attitude towards women gradually escalates before someone assaults? Gee, it’s almost like that would be the definition of a “precursor” to an event.
The OP question was “why aren’t men talking about this?” From my experience it seems that if they do try to engage and talk about it there’s a lot of time wasted arguing semantics, red herrings and straw man arguments with apologists, denialists and idiots.
It’s not ‘just semantics’. Talking in terms of lower and higher on a gradient towards rape, suggests you are borrowing the idea of a gradient of toxicity. Given some women are prone project toxicity into quite innocuous situations, this *effectively* places all men somewhere on the spectrum as potential rapists, performing precursors to rape. I gave examples of this above, sitting with legs to far apart in public places, or old men talking to women working in book shops and cafes.
Of course in this framework you want to set yourself up on high. This is what you are invited to do. You are invited to attack other men and look at them as if they are potential rapists. The author suggests if any man takes issue with any of this, then they are also a potential rapist. These should not be the terms of debate for men to talk about this issue.
Toxic attitudes and behavior is rooted in hate.
What planet are you from? Seriously?
I don't consider it hatred when a woman believes that men only care about sex. She's just ignorant and that causes her to hold toxic beliefs that manifest as toxic behaviors. But if she posts #KillAllMen then she's a misandrist.
When it comes down to it, this post is about providing cover for hateful people to spread their hatred, by painting all men as secretly evil so anyone calling for empathy can be shouted down as a collaborator.
I wish I'd have focused on that rather than the object-level inaccuracies.
Ah, quite indeed the shield tactic, any criticism or refutal will be misconstrued as also leading (or wanting to lead) secret lives and hence be a hater guilty of all the horrendous crimes the author opens with. Dishonest.
Myself I was still many thinking steps behind: how having a gambling problem or a drinking problem or a dissatisfaction with your current partner equates to “hate of half of the population”.
Also, the hint that it’s a massive army going for it rubs wrong: the vast majority of people are complaining about inflation, can barely make ends meet, can’t make their credit cards payments and definitely not their student loans… I don’t think they could afford secret lives, secret girlfriends, wives and/or full families at all.
But maybe the author is from quite affluent circles and so many of the secret lives examples.
yes, and as an academic, I think she knows what she is doing. She makes it explicit.
"I think it’s statistically likely that ‘not all men are like this’, and I hope that the men who are reading this, who are not like that, will be secure in the knowledge that they’re not the men I’m talking about, and therefore won’t mind if sometimes I refer to ‘men’ and not ‘some men’."
The OP plays into what some feminists call 'the arrogance of men' who presume they are feminists, that they are special 'and not like all the other men', simply by going along with whatever they say as feminists. They see through that, and they are happy to manipulate men with it.
I detect a male savior in this sub-thread.
Women don't need saving from words and they view men who provide it as pathetic.
Incorrect
News flash, I think you’ll find that women view men who remain silent while objectionable behaviour takes place, as being complicit…
Severe #WhiteKnight syndrome detected...
Virtue signal alert
Hey, let us all know when you actually have anything to add to the discussion.
Or do we just start filling out our "discussion with a MRA flog" bingo cards?
The fact that you sneer at MRA really does tell so much
If they are just coming here to tell traumatised women how wrong they are to be angry, then sure, I'll sneer at MRA. The only men I've had a shot at here are the ones being assholes. In the comments section for what was posted by the OP it's the complete wrong audience. Would you go and play Slayer CD's in the middle of a church service? If not then STFU.
Men need to step up, stop thinking that being an alpha gorilla entitles them to sex and to take responsibility for not only how they conduct themselves, but the behaviour they are willing to give a free pass to in other men.
Now off you tootle to watch your Andrew Tate and Brian Atlas podcasts and slap the backs of the "bro's" around you who agree with you.
Can you feel me sneering?
I actually dislike Andrew Tate.And the unacknowledged reality about him is that he's actually sneering and being contemptuous of white males who "can't get no pussy ",while as a 40%black he can get any white woman he wants. Whatever counts as misogyny follows later
Everything you said smacks of liberalism.
OMG Teh Liberals!!!
Not OP, but I'm here to tell << wrong people >> how wrong they are. If you think I look at - or care about - someone's sex when replying to them, well... you'll just keep thinking that way I suppose. Otherwise I'm sexist, racist, xenophobe, transphobe, islamophobe, etc.
You've obviously never met my husband 🙄
Yes, I just seen this now: you are assuming vile acts "are mostly or entirely due to hatred of a category of person rather than the victimized individual."
It might not be a hatred about the victimized person either. The case Rachel Hewitt is asking us to discuss is a case in point. The men who raped this woman did not know her. This is why it is so difficult to deal with, I think. Still, I want to say that his behaviour is not representative of men, and not all violence towards women is misogyny. There is a problem, and while I think our society also has a problem with misandry, the consequences of violence for women is often horrific.
You write "lefty men" but yet dont mention the role of Christofascist right wing conservatives, and now the " Stepford Wives" movement that appears to be growing in the USA, even from women who have been educated.
I do wonder if the result of men being so resentful in society is why we are seeing so many older women like myself choosing to live alone in their later years?
I have lived alone for 20 years - from the age of 50 - and have never regretted it for a minute. My divorce was amicable and cost me very little and my ex still visits me regularly - but I never miss him when he isn't here - the sense of elation I felt when he moved out has never left me. And he wasn't a bad person.
I think the freedom a woman has when living alone is greatly underestimated by couples who can't imagine doing anything alone and who are terrified of loneliness.
These are the women who move in with their adult kids the moment their husband dies.
They don't even want a few years of freedom and independence.
And - yes - there is all the underlying hostility and basic selfishness that seems to be part of the personalities of so many men.
I watched my mother endure an emotionally abusive marriage for decades and swore I would never let that happen to me - and I didn't - but being the queen of my own humble castle is a joy that nothing else can match.
My husband went camping recently and it was the most wonderful 3 days 🙄
The Haitians have arrived to save single cat ladies
"Christofascist right wing conservatives"
You are a joke. Anyone naming Christ should be known for their LOVE of everyone, God, men, women, jew, gentile, etc.
“christofascist”
loooool haven’t seen that one in a while
You might as well just say “bogeymen”
I've been writing about double lives as abuse for 12 years. This story resonated with me as well and the gazillion of serial cheater stories I catalog on my blog. I've got so many thoughts on this. I've called this entitlement The Almighty Right to Jizz. How dare we deny them?
Tracy, I really hope that you’ll start posting about this on Substack.
So important as men we speak on this. The point about lefty men is especially true - I think the mask comes off quickly when they’re rebuffed sexually.
As a gay man, I’ve seen this women-hating manifest in both liberal hetero men and in gay men where there is (within a group of gay men not all) a hugely worrying undercurrent of misogyny. Straight men want to see women serve and obey, (some) gay men don’t want to see women at all. In a world to them where men are the only sexual vehicle, and therefore the pull of their attention, they also become the body where all value is projected. To some, women then become obsolete (seen not too dissimilarly to the way hetero men want women to be submissive, in the background).
I’ll probably write on more on this down the line but thank you for sharing.
Tom- I would like to read that if you write more. It reminds me of 400 BC Greek attitudes towards women where men got the majority of their sex outside the marriage with slaves, young boys, and paid workers and women were considered to be poor replicas of men (ie everything wrong with a woman was that she wasn’t a man).
Stay in your lane....that containing average lifetime 1000 sexual partners
This is a predictable result of rejecting God, which is a rejection of morality itself. Why not see prostitutes in secret if there is no higher power looking down in judgment? On what authority can anyone claim that you are bad for following your basic sexual desires? It's only bad if you get caught, and even then it's not *bad* in a fundamental sense, it's only a problem because you got caught. Whenever you *can* behave selfishly, screw someone else over, and get away with it--why wouldn't you?
I hope that you are in favor of banning prostitution and pornography, but again, one has to ask on what basis these things can truly be labeled as beyond the pale. Because some women find them troublesome? But if most men and even some women aren't troubled by them, then what is to be done?
>But, in all their worlds - both professional and private - they see women doing the same work as they’re doing, but much better. These men become resentful of the women who somehow juggle extraordinary careers with ultimate domestic competency, and who also manage to look good and do voluntary work in their community (but are often too tired and ill-inclined to sexually service their husbands, who aren’t very interested in reciprocal pleasure). These men and boys start to hate women for overtaking them everywhere, but they can’t admit to it to their lefty friends<
This is shallow misandrist fantasizing, a more eloquent version of "men bad women good." What is the purpose of such a passage? How would you react if you were to read a gender-flipped variant from a "manosphere" post characterizing men as fundamentally responsible and worthy while painting women as shallow and vapid? You'd probably conclude that the author isn't really all that interested in saying anything *to* women, he's just indulging his own emotional hang-ups *about* women.
Absolutely agree re: the “shallow misandrist fantasizing.”
I am actually shocked by it.
"Why aren't more men talking about this?"
Because it's not a mens' issue.
It's about a pervert. In France. And his pervert friends.
Not about men.
If you believe that objectionable behaviour towards women is limited to a single case in France, you're living under a rock with your eyes shut and your fingers stuffed in your ears.
How men treat women and the low bar they are willing to overlook in the behaviour of other men is massively a mens issue.
You seem keen on being the white knight of this comment section.
The guy is pointing out why men don’t talk about topics like the rape is because it is obscure as hell in France. Men living in the real world actually find it fairly rare to come across other men unironically looking to rape women.
Wow that’s so interesting because in the US, nearly 1 in 5 women (18.3%) have been raped in their lifetime.
So either a handful of rapists are raping basically non-stop, or… it’s actually not that rare to come across a rapist in your community.
I think you’ll find that the reason men don’t talk about the horrific case in France, or really discuss much about anything related to violence against women and girls, is because they just don’t…. *care* enough to be interested, let alone outraged.
Gee, when you frame it like that, maybe I should be doing what you are doing and be suspicious of every neighbor, family member, friend, and coworker. Apparently you are telling me that I probably know 50 secret rapists.
Men are told about this from childhood through their entire lives not to rape women. It is on par with why don’t men talk to each other about murder rates. It is a bad thing to do but it isn’t like it is something that has some sort of need to reinforce for normal people.
Demanding that people don’t publicly share outrage to levels that satisfy you as some sort of evidence of moral failing is just stupid.
I'm willing to give a response to ignorant responses.
If you think this issues is limited to just a single rape case in France, then that's where you're making the major mistake. It's about men's attitudes towards women and how they can be treated. If they are property, if. they are expendable, if it's fine to abuse them as long as no-one else knows. If it can be a secret between co-conspirators.
"Rape is obscure in France" ??!! Really? Do please enlighten us with the research that you're read produced by women's services in France and the SA levels they are reporting. In the absence of a credible source I'll treat that as a monumentally ignorant comment made purely to deflect.
If you are going to quote me, actually quote me. Making up a quote to go on a paragraph long rant just tells me who the ignoramus is here.
Nobody is taking about this because it is in a country thousands of miles away all conducted in a foreign country with people that don’t speak out language. That is all you need to confront the “why aren’t people talking about this”
If you have people you know raping people, I’d recommend you stand up to evil. But men don’t really know any friends of coworkers of theirs that are selling their unconscious wives for sex to a hundred strangers. Which is why, when it might pop up in a news story, they talk about it as an absurd cruelty than some sort of social problem they have to collectively confront.
This image of a man you are conjuring sounds like the fantasy of a misandrist who spend too much time online than a serious cultural criticism.
Ah yes, I missed the "as hell" section. Of course, that obviously makes everything invalid... Please elaborate on precisely where my "rape is obscure in France" missed the essence of what you were attempting to say.
Congratulations, you're officially the poster child for missing the point. Go you.
You only spent half of your response blustering about a statement I didn’t make. Doubling down on reading incomprehension, you pantomime about the “as hell” part as a complete response.
“…men don’t talk about topics like the rape is because it is obscure as hell in France. “
There is a reason why men don’t talk about the case that this article cited as evidence of men’s failure to address these horrible crimes, it is an obscure case in a foreign country.
Now that I have had to say this to you three times and all you seem to be capable of doing is writhing in outrage over fantasies about my statement, I’ll leave you to your quest to fight windmills.
JTFC. I never said any such thing. It is only a “men’s issue” to White Knights.
I am not responsible for what some pervert (that I never heard of) does.
I am not a Karen, not a busybody, and do not seek to control everyone (or anyone) else around me. It’s called “minding your own business.”
AKA being an accessory.
Might I suggest you watch a film called "The Accused"? Minding your own business doesn't equal not culpable.
You're as worthy as the behaviour around you that you're willing to overlook/tolerate.
Saying "I don't do it." isn't sufficient. Men actually need to call out other men and get them to lift their game.
Men are bleating about how unfair it is that women are critical of them. You want that to change then step up. Otherwise, by your silence you're a big part of the problem.
Maybe you know men like the ones in France, but I don’t, so there’s nobody for me to call out.
So you don't know any men who say sexist things in the workplace, or at drinking venues, or catcall? Good for you.
You’ve commented all over this, exhibiting your seemingly impeccable “good man” credentials. Are you being a pillar of the community? Very suspicious. Apparently.
I don't know anyone who actually harms women. Sorry.
This is apparently written about men, but most certainly isn't written to men.
Why did you make that choice Rachel?
I'm not convinced your assessment here is balanced, but I'm also not sure you actually want men involved in your conversation here.
I suppose I'll show myself the door.
Have a nice day.
Very passive aggressive of you.
Have a nice day.
Q.E.D.
Do you have some kind of problem?
If you want to talk about it, maybe I could help.
Triggered now? I thought I was confirming the point you were making.
clown
Whinger.
please, more british-isms! You crack me up!
You amuse me, too.
Well said John. I read this and think of my twelve year old son growing up into a world where he is maligned impugned and castigated simply for existing. As though women aren’t capable of the worse horrors towards the vulnerable and the trusting. Absolute nonsense to castigate men o this way and pure misandry.
I'm sorry for what your son has experienced. It is a social problem. True feminists reject misandry. However, on the internet, there are a lot of people who call themselves feminists who are actually just misandrists.
We're all people, we all have our own struggles, and even those of us who try to be fair all the time probably aren't. So, I try not to take things personally.
Still, I believe that promoting injustice is always wrong, and the effects of both misogyny and misandry make us all more miserable, less fulfilled, and less wise. In my experience, the most useful writings about gender are able to help us all achieve a better understanding of our shared humanity, and the best parts of humanity that we are all capable of. I don't deny any social problems that exist, but I feel it is unproductive to slog down into categorical grievances and categorical blaming. We're all human. Let's try to make the most of that humanity. For those who reject that path, I am sad, but being angry at them for it won't do much good.
A brilliant posting and deeply disturbing in the midst of what seems like an unending stream of disturbing incidents and revelations.
Why aren't more men talking about this? I suspect that there are a significant cohort of men who "aren't those men" who are frankly stunned and appalled that behaviour like this occurs and are completely unaware of it. Predatory men have their eyes open as to who they can share their dirty secrets with. The "good men" are not being told. The secret is kept from them, as well as you.
As was discussed in the article, men who are privy to the dirty double lives can hardly commence a dialogue without outing themselves as being complicit as accessories or perpetrators themselves. If they do discuss it, they discuss it behind closed doors within what they deem to be a "safe" cohort. The truth needs to come out through either cases such as that presently being played out in the French courts, or by the actions of whistleblowers. But as has been seen all too readily, men "on the inside" very rarely go public of their own volition.
I was just discussing this with my wife. I suspect that the more predatory men in our world quite carefully screen those around them. The odd offhand derogatory comment about girls or women to see how others respond, gradually upping the ante or escalating until they know that someone is safe to have on the inside.
Obviously it only takes one infraction for one to be hooked. "No mate, you can't speak out, we all know what you did on that rugby trip..." Once that has happened, any potential whistleblower knows that their own dirty secrets will be out in public too should they dare to break faith with the other men. Once men are on the inside, even if they don't continue perpetrating themselves, they're stuck on the dark side of the curtain forever.
The thing is, the wives *know* what happens on the rugby/golf trips.
I believe many wives are thankful for those trips.
This isn’t a male issue it is a human being issue. Women are guilty of very similar and in some cases identical behaviors as the ones discussed here. Especially once drugs are involved, including alcohol (which is a drug not a separate ‘drugs and alcohol’ category, but I digress).
Cheating, stealing, lying, being intoxicated and breaking the law as a result, etc etc etc are very human failings and there are plenty of them to address before we even get to gender differences.
I'm sorry but while your examples are valid it doesn't seem at all likely that a woman would advertise for her husband to be raped will drugged and for 90 other women in the same area to take her up on that offer. How many drug rapes are committed by women? I think it's safe to say that while a lot of bad behaviors are done by both sexes, including domestic violence, men are probably uniquely over-represented in actual rape.
"I'm sorry but while your examples are valid it doesn't seem at all likely that a woman would advertise for her husband to be raped will drugged and for 90 other women in the same area to take her up on that offer."
Because if someone's wife came to them and said "I want scores of women to have sex with you" they wouldn't have to drug them to convince them to do it. There's a fundamental difference in the sexual marketplace between men and women that explains most of why this doesn't happen.
I was going to say thanks for writing this, and that it made me feel ashamed to be a man. Then I read the comments here from men, and I realised there’s far more work to do than I imagined.
Mindblowing isn't it? Some of the mens rights advocates are leaning in hard to the position that "toxic is fine"...
Sickening.
You are the toxic one who would prefer liberalism destroy society.
Do you actually have something coherent worth reading or did you just show up here to blather?
"ashamed to be a man"
"plant-based"
Story checks out.
I think of her initial disclaimer on “not all men”, then I read comments like this and realize “yeah, you kind of did want to just go on a misandrist screed”
You are weak. Young men hate the world men like you created.
This is such a brilliant piece. It makes me question how human society can ever be stable, if there are so many, many men who secretly hate women.
If you think society can be stable with how many people hate GOD (and, by extension, those made in his image), then you are sorely mistaken.
Some of the countries that most believe in God or gods are the most unstable--Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, India, Pakistan. What they all have in common is hatred of women . . .
Such a powerful, important & deeply true piece Rachel
"Even if boys and men start off by accessing less violent images, they are quickly encouraged to access more extreme forms"
Encouraged by whom? And how quickly?
And how is it you can be so unaware of women's secret lives?
I was asking myself the very same questions.
I think women are better at keeping secrets. And, the algorithm and addictive qualities of said progressively-violent images are meant to attract more views. Pornography can be desensitizing and like any addiction, the next hit isn’t enough. So it can evolve to become more extreme. I’m not a psychologist but I encourage you to do some research.
I'm pretty familiar with pornography, and I don't think any of that is accurate to most people's experience.
Interesting. Well I hope you’re right… I heard that a large portion of Gen-Z women are being choked without consent. It’s no coincidence that “choking” is one of the most popular porn categories. I’m not sure that you’re seeing the whole picture but I could be wrong.
Femdom is the big thing these days. Young men want to be humiliated by women, often giant maneating women.
Erotic asphyxiation is still trending, though, no doubt.
As a victim of psychological and legal harassements, I would be more nuanced. These men and their secret lives are themselves living a nightmare life. They suffer the need to make women suffer. We need to better understand their behaviours, their diseases, and especially bring more support to the suffering women. In over 10 years of legal battle, I have witnessed very little support or even empathy. Even women around me have given more weight to his positions - made of obvious lies- than me until they see he is loosing his legal cases thanks to my strength and resistance, despite little support from my lawyers. He still persists attacking until he'll struggle me financially. He has been supported by all female contacts while I was told by so many to give up. Something is wrong in our society. Here are my cries https://clarinettesblog.wordpress.com/2024/09/08/an-open-letter-to-my-daughters/
I am so saddened to hear of your abuse, the abusive systems around you, and the victim blaming you experience(d.) I know it all too well as do way too many other women. We are fortunate we can speak out; not many of them are able.
I read your word press article and would like to share one thing I have done to try to help in this regard…I wrote a booklet on abuse (specifically covering covert abuse based on research for 10 years.) It was published earlier this year and is in the process of being copyrighted.
My dream is to get this to as many women and girls as possible. It contains vital information for covering the aspects of abuse that aren’t talked about much and gives many vetted resources for support and healing. ❤️🩹
I will send you a complimentary copy if you are interested. Many advocates are finding it to be very helpful for their clients and many former victims are finding joy in distributing them everywhere (public restrooms, day care centers, OB offices, nail salons, etc.)
Thank you for your voice on this topic!! 🌸
Wow. So many moments of recognition going on here…