I just want to vent a bit - I started seeing someone a few weeks ago. Old fling that I ran into through some friends that got rekindled, and I was excited that it seemed like more than just casual hookups this time. But there were some yellow flags I ignored that turned out to be red flags, and now I’m feeling frustrated and hurt.
Dude for real dropped the line that men are more “capable” and “logical” on me. That gender studies are “indoctrination.” I told him we should probably stop seeing each other if that’s really what he thinks. It wouldn’t be logical for me to keep seeing someone that thinks lesser of me, now, would it?
I’m grateful to have some guy friends that I turned to after I left, cuz I wanted to go into “fuck all men” mode, but I know it’s not true or helpful. Just like there are women out there that have internalized misogyny, there’s feminist men, enbies, etc. We’re all just people and we’re not monoliths beholden to differences in biology. This is just sexist, manosphere bullshit in particular
Anyway. I’m still feeling angry and wanted to put it out there for some support and solidarity. Anyone have a recent win they’d like to share or something?
ETA: Thank you so much for the conversation y’all! I’ve been trying to keep up but I gotta get some sleep. I’ll check in later but hope everyone has a good day. Keep up the empowerment! 💜
I don’t know where they get this idea that treating women as lesser is somehow attractive*. I had one once tell me that I was lucky to have a pretty face because my body would put most men off, and then he expected to get laid. Like, what? My dude that is not how any of this works.
But experiences like this help us learn to spot those red flags earlier. And frankly it can also be a self-esteem boost, like you clearly respect yourself enough to have kicked this guy to the curb and that’s something to feel great about! You know you’re worthy of better and that you didn’t bring this on yourself. Meanwhile he’s just got another in probably a long line of romantic failures that are entirely of his own doing.
Have to admit, and I don’t mean to pry, but I am SO curious how he responded when you laid it out logically for him like that.
Anyway, solidarity. So much solidarity.
* well ok, I do know. but it’s very very silly.
Oh, that line I gave him about logic was one of the last things I said as I finished picking up my stuff to walk out the door. I followed up with “it’s been fun - good luck.” He had just kept digging in and I told him I’m not taking it upon myself to educate him. He can read a book or two about it
Thank you for sharing your experience, though it fucking sucks. You’re right that I do feel empowered for recognizing my worth. Just hate that it’s coming from mistreatment, you know? Here’s to finding empowerment through healthy means and healthy partners 💜
Good on you for walking.
I told him I’m not taking it upon myself to educate him. He can read a book or two about it
As a guy who has seen several women friends fall for the “I can change him” mindset, well done. It is not your job to fix the world view of a person who does not want to.
I remember an old joke:
“How many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb?”
‘One, but the light bulb has got to want to change.’
I know it sucks right now but at least he showed his cards early and you didn’t have to waste too much time on him.
So funny that he didn’t see the logic at hiding his misogynistic world view. The point, i guess, was not to school you on logic but to test how much crap you’d put up with.
I hope he actually took a moment or two of self reflection and understands that he himself was not displaying much logic in the relationship. Who knows, maybe he’ll even question one or two of his misogynistic beliefs.
I’m sorry you had to put up with that but at least you’ve learned what to look out for.
Fuck yeah lol you’re a badass. I would stammer something about needing to go and think of all that in the shower later.
I don’t know where they get this idea that treating women as lesser is somehow attractive*.
Quite simply, men like this are not looking for a partner, they are looking for a servant they can fuck.
They have not progressed past adolescent dominance games.
Good on Op for walking away.
Nor mine. I’ve had a lot of women talk to me about their relationship goals, perhaps because I’m gay so they know I’m a disinterested third party. I’ve never had anyone confide in me that they like the company of abusive assholes. Quite the contrary, in fact.
What I have noticed are a lot of guys who think they’re nice to women, but really aren’t. I’ve also seen men who project a completely fabricated persona to women, acting polite and caring, but being the most vicious untrustworthy backstabbers in the room – e.g., being extremely polite and civil to the woman, but then telling me they can’t wait to get into her pants, etc., the moment she’s out of earshot.
It is over the top but unfortunately i have seen it with my old friends and certainly coworkers. Especially the really lonely desperate women all flock to the louder, flamboyent type men. I think it is simply that they want someone who gives them attention, loudly. This way they feel loved and everyone knows that they are loved, unfortunately everyone else can see these men for what they are.
I’m not going to speak about humans because that’s too contentious. But anthropology has lots of study of primate partner selection and genetic outcomes. Were they measure based on reproductive success. If you look at the genetic data, you’ll see that there is a bimodal approach to sexual selection in primates.
The old trope is: males maximize the reproductive success by having a diverse set of partners, and investing in only a few. Females maximize the reproductive success by having relatively few partners and maximizing investment in a few offspring. But in both scenarios diversifying the genetic material gives you a higher probability of a successful outcome. Interestingly in primates teste size is directly related to the promiscuity of the species. So bonobos have very large testes, and orangutan’s relatively small testes. Because they have less sperm competition.
If this kind of research interest you, I highly recommend taking a look at an anthropology primate sexual selection course, or at least the reading for one.
So where people get into a lot of contentious trouble is humans have opinions, and the research done on primates does not necessarily correlate with the behavior of humans, and it’s easy to take some research and make broad sweeping generalizations about behavior and etc.
So this is where applying the bimodal sexual incentives, the manosphere latched on and said, it maximizes the reproductive success of a female to find a stable social partner, but to get diverse hybridized genes from short-term sexual partners. i.e. the abd boy attraction is due to this bimodal sexual preference. I have no idea if this actually applies to humans, it’s an interesting theory, but no research ethics board is ever going to allow for a study on this.
Interestingly there were species of birds that were thought to be monogamous, but with the advent of cheap genetic testing, proved that the bird species followed this bimodal sexual model even though they had a nominal social partner. Super interesting data
select mates
Where are you picking up that kind of lingo for human interactions, friend? Maybe it’s just a quirk of yours, but I only ever see this kind of language from incels and incel circles, and it’s not just the “mate” line, but the whole of your post
So I’ll opine. You’re seeing something that’s confirming to a preconceived notion. Not gonna say there are no women who don’t like their bad boys or actually toxic people–god knows I know some of those women–but it is hardly the standard, and your anecdotal accounts mean you’re subject to things like social class and circles, culture, and region. Besides that, it could still be plainly untrue what you see, but its possible you are only even registering the women who fit this idea. There could be 20 women in happy, healthy relationships, but you’re not thinking about them. You’re only considering the woman in a toxic relationship, and when you try and recall the dynamics you know, only thos come to mind
This is fairly common mindset for incels, red-pillers, that whole group. They’ll talk about how easy it is for women to have sex, but it’s because their idea of women is already “something to have sex in”, so they’re not open to the idea that there are plenty of women who do struggle with dating
And besides that, who are you to judge the men they’re with? You say they’ll avoid 10 awesome dudes for [cavalcade of generic reactionary insults], but are those 10 dudes really awesome? You’re not dating them, nor do you have a woman’s lived experience to watch out for certain yellow or red flags that those men may clearly be displaying. Alternatively, maybe what makes an awesome dude to you is not actually what makes them awesome to women. Maybe the guys you’re calling bad boys aren’t as bad as you think, is what I’m saying
Or yeah, maybe you’ve just seen and know a bunch of women who have made some poor choices. For whatever reason, it does happen, after all. Women are not immune to subscribing to ideas of toxic masculinity, and we can be vicious about it. We shouldn’t, but we can
Juts try and make sure that whatever spaces you’re occupying, especially the kind you’re picking up that incel jargon from, you think critically about what they’re saying. It is so incredibly easy to get sucked into the manosphere
If it helps, those guys treat other guys the same way.
Also if it helps there are women who treat other people this way too.
This seems akin to racism to me. My favorite quote about this is from President Lyndon B. Johnson. “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”
My dad isn’t this kind of guy, but he is an old white guy that watches Fox News. And it’s the same thing with them. He has bought any number of supplements advertised on Fox News, and believes wholeheartedly that one day the world will finally understand the deep wisdom he believes in.
I don’t believe you can categorize people as a simple either or. “You’re a red piller or not.” “You’re a conservative or a liberal.” But I do think you can apply a personality type to people. And it sounds like you sussed out a guy who really needs to feel superior to other people. I fucking hate those kind of people. So good for you, there are a lot of people who may have never figured it out, or weren’t socially aware enough to see it. It sucks this turned out to be what it was, but celebrate the fact you’re a strong enough person not to put up with it
You may already know about this but your description of sexism as akin to racism made me want to mention intersectionality. It’s an analytical framework used to describe social relations as it pertains to privilege and discrimination. There’s a good reason you felt that way. Many feminist theorists pose that most/all forms of oppression (racism, homophobia, transphobia, classism, etc.) are modeled after misogyny, which is considered to be the original form of oppression
Many feminist theorists pose that most/all forms of oppression (racism, homophobia, transphobia, classism, etc.) are modeled after misogyny
Could you possibly give a brief synopsis of why they think misogyny is the base model rather than (eg) racism? Considering many countries afford rights to different races before women (eg black men could vote in the US before women) it does make sense, but I’m curious about the basic theory.
Patriarchal society developed before the concepts of race we use today. Much of how society was shaped stemmed from the tribes and clans of the pre modern era.
Because cultures made up exclusively of one race were still misogynistic. And because there’s actual physical differences between the sexes that are used to wrongly justify discriminating against women.
I’d go a step further: all is modeled after power. If you feel* you have more power it’s because the other part is “less than you”, not because you both have different strengths.
*Feel, not that it’s real.
Everything I wrote is about ways systems exercise coercive/domineering/oppressive power. They’re not modeled after power, they’re a consequence of heirarchies and the inherent power imbalances that are necessary for hierarchical power structures to maintain their existence
I think my response would be “and yet, so many men still fall for shysters like Andrew Tate”.
Well done on getting out. He sounds like a dad sad case.
Oh, that was one of the yellow flags! I mentioned that I’d been following the case with Tate, and he’s a sex trafficker. Homeboy said “well it’s not proven in court” like…sir lol. Fucking yikes. Definitely not ignoring that in the future
The Internet lets all the village idiots find each other
If it helps anything, I can imagine men usually assume they are as an individual more logical and capable than other men as well. Projecting this on women is just even easier as other man will agree.
Yes! I had noticed he was being a dick to his roommate at one point, who’s our mutual friend. Really caught me off guard. Fucked up product of how men can be socialized in sexist societies. I just feel bad for everyone in that dynamic, even the guys putting others down, cuz they think it’ll help them get their needs met but it just shoots them in the foot. And of course victims don’t deserve that treatment to begin with. We should be lifting each other up, validating that we’re all capable and logical
Fwiw, on social media, if one doesn’t obviously show which gender they are, they will usually be assumed to be a male. There are more women around here than some people think, and they are always adressed as bro, homie, dude, my man, and so on. So, apparently, the differences are not always as obvious as some people assume. Edited a word to correct english
I’ve actually used this before to argue with someone about gender v sex, and it can be fun when I’m not romantically interested lol. Just play into it on anonymous accounts that they can’t know your gender, so why assign it at all if it’s not explicitly stated? The person I argued with eventually admitted they were just scared of making a mistake in social settings, so I encouraged them to practice. It doesn’t take that long to get used to, and it’s exactly how you prevent mistakes!
But then I added in another comment, we’re human and there’s room for error. It’s the people that intentionally misgender that are the assholes
My own username explicitly alludes to my gender and I still get called a man about half the time. I don’t really care or anything, but I think it’s funny
Or at least, we are all capable of being incapable and illogical. We are all just human after all.
In my experience, the real thought bubble is probably closer to “Look at all these people who have their shit so together. I’m such a loser. I hope they can’t figure out that I’m faking it.”
Edit to add:
The people who really are losers (as opposed to just believing they are) put others down to try to build themselves up.
I agree with this thought and it’s precisely men that aren’t smart enough (or narcissistic af) who come up with this idea
Uhhh… I mean, not to defend this asshole, but isn’t this just as sexist a thought?
I think you may be interpreting “men” as all men, but I think the post meant, “precisely men that aren’t smart enough (or narcissistic af)”
That is, the men who say things like this tend to be men that aren’t smart enough or are simply too narcissistic to realize it’s wrong.
