I’m not at the point in my understanding of you that I believe your paraphrases are accurate; I hope instead of paraphrasing people, you’ll directly quote them and respond to precisely what they say. Absent a direct quote, I’m going to assume this didn’t happen.
Wasn’t that a pretty much verbatim quote from the OP?
But yes, anyone with privilege needs to do better. Just like I as a white person need to do better by people of color, just like I as an able-bodied person need to do better by people with physical disabilities, I think it’s a basic fundamental part of being human to work collectively toward the ending of injustice. Nobody is ever going to be finished with that work. Nobody is ever going to be perfect with that work. But we have to make that part of our life’s work, or else we are by definition that part of the famous quote where good men do nothing.
Having dated for my early 50s, I will note that every single woman I dated had some sort of traumatic issue re: their male ex(es), so I will not be offended at the criticism that “men” need to do better.
We do.
You might not be able to do much about Jeffrey Dahmer, but one thing you could do that would help is not respond to women talking about their genuine and entirely reasonable fear of assault with, “Well, that’s not very fair to men.”
And there are little things that bystanders can do that inhibit the assholes. I’ve had random strangers intervene when a guy was hassling me on the subway. That’s REALLY appreciated. The other guys, who just sat there and ignored it, weren’t evil or anything, but they could have done more.
You know, I think this is probably essentially what the bear meme is trying to communicate.
It actually happens to women, minorities, etc. WAY more than it happens to men. I’m suddenly dealing with a lot more antisemitism because of the war in Gaza. There’s really nothing i can do to change that situation, but I’m taking flack for it. Black people get the message they need to be perfect at work because otherwise it looks bad for other Black employees. One feature of privilege is that you get to be judged for what you do, and not for what people who look or sound like you did.
?? I don’t think so? I reread the OP and am not seeing those words there. And Jay_Z has repeatedly done an…insufficient…job paraphrasing other folks in this thread. So no, I don’t think it is a paraphrase, much less a verbatim quote. What are you seeing?
Where I typically hear the notion that “men need to do better” it is in the action of opposing patriarchy and rape culture in particular.
And this is not a situation where you can simply partition men into “good and evil” and then point out that notallmen are in the latter category, so why are we being so mean to them? A culture of patriarchy and sexualized violence towards women is something that just about everyone participates in to one extent or another, and pushihg back against it that culture is difficult.
And you’ve got a lot of that all over the place - the standup’s set with the rape bit, Sixteen Candles and Revenge of the Nerds (to name two salient examples from my youth), wolf whistles on the street, and it goes on and on.
I’ll add that “men need to do better” is true in a way similar to “Black Lives Matter” is true - nonexclusively. Black Lives Matter doesn’t mean that other lives don’t matter - it’s a reminder that in our culture which avows that all lives do matter, we are too quick to explain away that notion when it comes to Black lives. Similarly, in a culture that either trivializes female fears about the kind of harm men too often do to them - or even makes jokes about it - men who generally benefit from said culture who either actively support that culture or passively acquiesce to it - perhaps by explaining that “boys will be boys” - can do the most heavy lifting on changing things. It should be noted that there are plenty of women who need to do better as well, many of whom derive some level of benefit or privilege from patriarchy.
I’ll echo that JohnT, Miller and puzzlegal all put things rather more concisely than I did, and their posts are a lot more concrete and definite than this one.
It really depends on how social I’m being and who I happen to meet. I haven’t been making much effort to meet single women lately because of various reasons.
I mean, some of that is the “disengagement” mode that this thread is about. Why bother when you don’t have a chance? That is the basic thought behind the Great Disengagement. Get punched in the face 100 times in the hope that the 101st will be interested? Or not get punched in the face at all and stay home and play video games? That’s the choice for a great many men. All that rejection, all that prejudice - which is what it is - that’s not nothing. It takes a toll.
I stand by what I wrote earlier, I literally haven’t had an interested reaction from a single woman for decades. I’m not that bad at reading reactions. And “frosty” (to be polite) is the default reaction to me. Partnered women can just see me as someone interesting to chat with, because they know they can shut me down if I read that as romantic interest. Single women just go straight to auto-shutdown.
Well, I really try my best not to be one of those guys. And I hope I do not come across like that.
As a matter of fact, the members of the yoga studio I go to several times a week are easily over 80% women. I almost never talk to them because I assume that the overwhelming majority of them come there to, well, practice yoga, not to be accosted by some rando, even more so since most of them would find this sort of “attention” unwanted at best, threatening at worst.
But really, this concern about possibly coming across as another toxic male is only a part of my decision. An important one but not the whole story.
As I have stated above, another huge part of it is due to the fact that I have found my emotional interactions with women make me almost physically ill in the past few years, because I’m constantly second-guessing their intentions and my worst suspicions are continuously confirmed. It could be that many of them have been hurt and prefer ‘striking first’ than risking another disappointment. Or it could be that some of them bask in the attention they receive without having any real intention of developing anything. It could be that a minority of them just enjoy being cruel. Or it could be just a self-fulfilling prophecy due to my defensiveness. Whatever it is, I feel stuck and sick, so the best option for them and me is to disengage.
I went on a day-long bicycle ride yesterday. Half the group consisted of women and I had at one point or another conversations with all of them. We talked about bikes, about life in general, about work a bit, and I found all of these conversations satisfying. So, I’m definitely not shunning women in general, and very clearly still find pleasure interacting with them. Just not romantically.
I didn’t write that, although some of the things I wrote may have seemed similar.
My ex left me for another man whom she has married now. This man was single and available when we got married. She knew him before we ever met.
She married me because I was the strong steady guy… who would still be there to provide money and support for the kids when she went off with the man she truly wanted. She basically wanted money, power, control over two men. And she got it.
For her own romantic history, while she had one multiyear relationship before we met, the guy wouldn’t marry her and it wasn’t particularly traumatic. She also came from a loving family. Honestly, what she did to me was far worse than anything that had ever been done to her.
Nevertheless, why would I make a comment that “women need to be better?” Because other women I date have nothing to do with her. They live their own lives, like I do mine. No reason for collectivizing anybody like that.
I’m happy for you as it sounds like it’s working out well.
Men should definitely disengage from emotional (and other) involvement with bears.
This. I think this is the majority of people though.
I can’t tell you how many women friends have moaned to me about their terrible luck with men but the last thing they want to hear are possible solutions. Which are often things like, stop pursuing unavailable or outrageously unsuitable men (like for example, Catholic priests, and men half your age living here illegally hoping for a green card). But nope nope nope.
As you say, to each their own.
Your posts are full of hyperbole, and as I said before, the fixed mindset that turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy. And that’s probably the last I’ll have to say on it.
I can see where the OP is coming from just a bit but I think a lot of this is overblown. Yeah, there is a difference in attitudes between men and women because, in the real world, there are differences between men and women.
I’ll give an example. When I am hiking and am behind a woman, especially a solo woman, in the woods. I make a lot of noise and try my best to respect her space as I pass because I know from her perspective that I’m the most dangerous thing, potentially, in her vicinity. I still do what I want, I just take into consideration other people’s valid fears and try not to unnecessarily exacerbate them.
I’m still rather confused as to why such a distinct difference between single women and partnered women. I don’t think my reaction to meeting men in general has been super different when I was single vs married (though to be fair I’ve been married for a while now).
I’m not invested enough to go back and look for the post, but I seem to remember you said that when you meet women (single or otherwise) in other contexts that don’t involve your friends introducing you – like, say, work – that you also don’t get this “frosty” response. Is that correct, or am I wrong about that? What about group activities, like, idk, a metalworking class? (A random example because I used to take metalwork classes that were about 50 percent split in gender.)
In this case, is it possible that (as @Left_Hand_of_Dorkness said in his post a while back) the common factor is not single vs partnered but “situations in which my friends introduce me to single women” or even “situations in which the possibility of romance between single woman and me has been played up”?
What I can agree with is that if my friend introduced me (if I were single) to a single man and had previously talked up this guy as a great match for me, but then for whatever reason I wasn’t immediately attracted or interested (*), I would want to make sure he (and my friend!) knew not to expect that I would be immediately attracted or interested, yeah. But I’d expect that the other way around too, I don’t think that’s gender-specific.
(*) in my personal case, that would probably be due more to how I feel about the guy’s intellect than about his looks, but I may be a bit of an anomaly.
This is good advice for hiking around bears.
I’m Australian too, and I was wondering what on earth was going on in your interactions with women. But when you say this, I know what you mean. I’m sorry, it sucks to be on the receiving end of that.
I think maybe what is going on is that there are often chunks of Australian society where men and women don’t consider each other as friend material. So the only reason a guy is talking to you, in a social situation, is because he is interested in sleeping with you (not literally the only reason, but it’s a distinct possibility). The more you talk to him, the more you are encouraging him. Now there is a risk that not only will he not take ‘no’ for an answer, but also your friend group will shame you for being a tease. It’s pretty messed up, but some people do sub-consciously think that way.
Also, some people are bitchy, so if a woman thinks a guy should know she is out of his league, she could be rude about it, which is horrible and uncalled-for.
Just to be clear, I don’t personally think that way, but it is a dynamic I’m familiar with.