Cleaning up after men is exhausting... the physical, mental, emotional, spiritual mess they leave in their wake bc they don't notice or care about any consequences... they're too busy as Zach said "fighting or f*cking"... and moving onto the next thrill. Remember the show The Golden Girls? That's what I want in my future... I want to live with a few smart fun badass women.
I will say that I don't think we do nearly enough to teach girls how to protect themselves. I wrote an article about it ( https://spturgon.medium.com/teaching-girls-to-fight-is-just-good-love-cf0e581b7b0d ) because it infuriates me that the female body is for sale from minute one, and we don't consider women's ability to protect themselves as important as learning math or to drive a car.
It might be worth noting that behavior can be bad without being abnormal; they're two different things.
Normalizing it is missing the point. I tend to agree that males are - that testosterone is - innately dangerous, and that these behaviors are motivated by normal biology.
But that's not a reason to give up. It's quite the opposite; the whole point of civilization is to restrain males. Left to our own devices the only two behaviors we (men) would engage in are fighting and f*cking, and we'd all be in the stone age, if even that. (Which unfortunately is not as far from current reality as we'd like it to be.)
I think the value of the argument, "that's the way men are," depends on to what purpose it's being made. It's most often an excuse, and that's very harmful. But if the goal is to understand men and how to train us against our antisocial impulses, it might have some virtue. Because I'm not sure that what seems to be the alternative, labeling the behavior aberrant, is leaving us a clear path forward.
I’ll tell ya, once menopause hits and you’re not wearing those estrogen goggles, men have very little to recommend themselves with anymore. I am through. I’m even too tired to say how unattractive they are as a whole with any kind of vehemence. I’m just ughhhhhhh.
Men absolutely deserve to be hated. The ones that I don’t hate had to earn it. I think about this a lot — why are women not more angry at men? Is it societal/social brainwashing? After all, we are all raised with the same social norms, they are like the air we breathe, we don’t even see them anymore. Or is it internalized misogyny? Or is it self preservation disguised as compassion?
You’ve had to not only survive living with men, and our violent, illogical, destructive tendencies, but depend on us for so long that cleverly disguised self preservation became the baseline. I can’t even fathom what that does to a person, but I see the effects of it. I work hard every day to not only suppress my culturally unchecked tendencies, but to be a man worthy of sharing the planet with the people who have fought way harder to keep their place in it than I have ever had to.
unfortunately there remain too many people (women included) who buy in to the "boys will be boys" argument and I hate to sound like a pessimist but some days I feel like we are returning to a very oppressive and repressive time. WTH!
We absolutely are, the conservative hive mind has been playing a long game to return to fascist power. A Christian Caliphate is right around the corner.
I hope not, but it certainly feels that way. As someone who is closer to six decades of existence, I feel that my peers and I enjoyed more personal freedoms in the 1970/80's and we expected that these would multiply for future generations.
Cleaning up after men is exhausting... the physical, mental, emotional, spiritual mess they leave in their wake bc they don't notice or care about any consequences... they're too busy as Zach said "fighting or f*cking"... and moving onto the next thrill. Remember the show The Golden Girls? That's what I want in my future... I want to live with a few smart fun badass women.
Bravo for this, Jessica!
I will say that I don't think we do nearly enough to teach girls how to protect themselves. I wrote an article about it ( https://spturgon.medium.com/teaching-girls-to-fight-is-just-good-love-cf0e581b7b0d ) because it infuriates me that the female body is for sale from minute one, and we don't consider women's ability to protect themselves as important as learning math or to drive a car.
It might be worth noting that behavior can be bad without being abnormal; they're two different things.
Normalizing it is missing the point. I tend to agree that males are - that testosterone is - innately dangerous, and that these behaviors are motivated by normal biology.
But that's not a reason to give up. It's quite the opposite; the whole point of civilization is to restrain males. Left to our own devices the only two behaviors we (men) would engage in are fighting and f*cking, and we'd all be in the stone age, if even that. (Which unfortunately is not as far from current reality as we'd like it to be.)
I think the value of the argument, "that's the way men are," depends on to what purpose it's being made. It's most often an excuse, and that's very harmful. But if the goal is to understand men and how to train us against our antisocial impulses, it might have some virtue. Because I'm not sure that what seems to be the alternative, labeling the behavior aberrant, is leaving us a clear path forward.
I’ll tell ya, once menopause hits and you’re not wearing those estrogen goggles, men have very little to recommend themselves with anymore. I am through. I’m even too tired to say how unattractive they are as a whole with any kind of vehemence. I’m just ughhhhhhh.
Also beginning to wonder if autocorrect is a man determined to undermine my every word. 😂
a gazillion percent right.
Men absolutely deserve to be hated. The ones that I don’t hate had to earn it. I think about this a lot — why are women not more angry at men? Is it societal/social brainwashing? After all, we are all raised with the same social norms, they are like the air we breathe, we don’t even see them anymore. Or is it internalized misogyny? Or is it self preservation disguised as compassion?
Stockholm Syndrome
You’ve had to not only survive living with men, and our violent, illogical, destructive tendencies, but depend on us for so long that cleverly disguised self preservation became the baseline. I can’t even fathom what that does to a person, but I see the effects of it. I work hard every day to not only suppress my culturally unchecked tendencies, but to be a man worthy of sharing the planet with the people who have fought way harder to keep their place in it than I have ever had to.
I pretty much hate all men, to be honest. My 20-year old daughter carries a taser, that's how bad it is.
unfortunately there remain too many people (women included) who buy in to the "boys will be boys" argument and I hate to sound like a pessimist but some days I feel like we are returning to a very oppressive and repressive time. WTH!
We absolutely are, the conservative hive mind has been playing a long game to return to fascist power. A Christian Caliphate is right around the corner.
I hope not, but it certainly feels that way. As someone who is closer to six decades of existence, I feel that my peers and I enjoyed more personal freedoms in the 1970/80's and we expected that these would multiply for future generations.
oh yeah -- i'm 68 and though there were always threats, it wasn't nearly as dangerous
Amen.
He makes my flesh crawl.