becos the women around here dont hate me enough already

Jeanie wrote:

Ok, well I'll take this one first. Because I can string a coherant thought together on it.

I confess that if my partner was beating the crap out of me on a regular basis, that if I'd had enough of being beaten, and I was in that psychological space, then quite likely if I wanted to retaliate, or I was scared for my life and felt there was no other option, that yes, I would attack while he slept and I would use a weapon.

I did not but I can understand why some women do.

And I'm not saying it's right or wrong just that I understand it.

hmm. if some bastard makes the mistake of hitting me then i will retaliate. i will not accept a beating. i will hit back and then i will walk away. i will make him hesitant to ever approach me again.

Ahnimus wrote:

Right, and it's covered up by these stereotypes about men and women. I consider a gender role to be a mix of sexist stereotypes. I remember when I was 14 and my mom just divorced my dad, whenever I visited her, she demoralized men, said "all men are assholes" and similar statements. I of course realized that I was going to be a man too. It made me sick. She had a shrink at the time who's husband cheated on her and was saying similar things. My sister has always had a hard time with men. She's been in one abusive relationship after another, attracting drug dealers and criminals. My mother also warned my sister that one of her brothers or father might try to sexually abuse her. My sister had this in her head growing up. She's a really shy, timid girl, she tries to fit in, and she does, but I think she's very afraid. Sick men find some way to use that against her.

Then I wonder. If a young girl is made to be afraid of men, men that make up a large part of the population, all men that is. Then they become quite, shy, afraid, just what a rapist or otherwise sick man wants. Perhaps once a woman is abused, she confronts this fear, becomes strong and defends herself or avoids bad situations. At some point she realizes not everyone is like the stereotypes, in-fact they are a very small fraction of men. Could we not avoid the whole situation by having a realistic perception of reality?

An alternative theory to a "sick man" preying on a shy woman is just a developing control issue. When two people live together, or even start dating, boundaries are set and over time that can evolve into some bad control issues. This is the more likely scenario. People, men and women, need to be in mutual control of boundaries. Again the stereotyping is a bad thing.

I also like to add, people change all the time.

Wow, maybe back in the day, our moms should have hung out. My mom used to occasionally call the police and tell them our father was sexually molesting his daughters. And the irony was that my dad was/is an awesome, sweet person and by accounts of my sisters and myself, didn't come close to doing anything inappropriate. He spent years holding his family together while his wife had numerous major mental health issues. Until she left. It's also more than coincidental that the boyfriend I held the knife on was a gentle, caring person like my own father, who not only was not abusive, but he spent years doing what he could to pick up the slack for my own mental health issues, in terms of my kids. He came from a similar background with a mentally ill mother, and did what he could to "fix" things with myself and the kids. Even after we broke up, he supported me, took both kids on weekends, even though my daughter is not naturally his child. I was a severe recluse, so he would do all the school functions for both my kids. He also often brought me things from the store for years, or occasionally paid bills I had fallen behind on. His tolerance of my few incidences of abuse could be traced to his own confused and messed up childhood. Few people realize how even as a fullgrown adult, circumstances can trigger us and we get regressed back to unresolved pain from our past without realizing it. We attract revictimization. Men are just as vulnerable to these emotional and psychological onslaughts as women.

I can only imagine the consequences you or your sister have had due to the comments your mom made. You mentioned the outcome for your sister, which I agree with. I know that I put out a vulnerability to men all the time that caused them to victimize me over and over. And in your case, for some reason, you've been in situations where you've been abused by women. When your own mother has degraded your very sex, something inherent to us and that we cannot change, it kind of makes sense that on some level you have accepted abuse in your relationships, if not consciously, then unconsciously as shown by your actions of staying in the relationship. And the fact that a mother is saying those things in front of her 14 year old child, itself, is abusive, and it's not a stretch to see you growing up to find the same male hatred acceptable on some level. Do we even have a word that equals "misogyny", in terms of when people hate males?

I don't necessarily think gender roles are sexist stereotypes. I think sexist stereotypes can arise from gender roles. Gender roles are roles that we find work well for us in our society. There are many benefits. There is also obviously the dark side to gender roles.

I agree. People can and do change all the time.

soulsinging wrote:

then why is it so unreasonable for scarce government resources to be directed at the larger of the two problems? i fail to see a dramatic difference between rape and violence statistics. i've read ahnimus's study before and one little survey isn't exactly ironclad.

I don't think it's unreasonable to put resources to where the problems are recognized. I went to a woman's shelter years back, purely for information for control issues I was dealing with in terms of my boyfriend. They paid my cab there and offered all kinds of resources because they were taking abuse very seriously. Crimes against women that led to death were on the rise and they were responding. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. The problem I see is all the underlying social conditioning that keep men holding their problems inside and to where they are not seeking help. This issue is created and sustained by society. And maybe the cases involving abuse of men don't objectively appear as dramatic as they do when the abuses are towards women, a lot of the times. That is not to say they are not very dramatic and perpetuating trauma for the males involved. So in this sense, what Ahnimus and I are pointing to is the way people largely view these situations and how the patterns are in place are are being constantly perpetuated where men, even as victims, are still to blame, because they can defend themselves, etc. We can stop perpetuating and reinforcing what is based on lack of awareness or on ignorance.

I was just talking to a fellow workmate and he said that his ex took a knife to him as well, he managed to talk her out of it though.

soulsinging wrote:

then maybe his argument should focus on how abuse of men should be more accepted and men should be abel to speak about it, rather than about how the world is slanted to favor women.

everyone regardless of whether they are male or female should be able to have their complaints dealt with seriously. the fact that men are more often than not seen as the perpetrator of violence is due to a society predominantly shaped by men. so basically they created the environment in which their claims are not taken with the same gravity as women's.

catefrances wrote:

everyone regardless of whether they are male or female should be able to have their complaints dealt with seriously. the fact that men are more often than not seen as the perpetrator of violence is due to a society predominantly shaped by men. so basically they created the environment in which their claims are not taken with the same gravity as women's.

I disagree with this. Women support the same system.