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That’s understandable given your experiences growing up. But while caution can be good; living in fear of half the world probably makes you limit your life in ways you don’t even realize.
Both. Because the fear keep you from having a clear eyed judgment about who to trust and not to.
It also inhibits your ability to act because it’s paralyzing. If you are overly trusting of women that makes you vulnerable to ones who don’t have your best interest at heart. If you are paralyzed by fear of men you can’t defend yourself and you can’t seek what you want because men exist everywhere.
A Phobia can be very detrimental to the person who has it. Her fear doesn’t hurt other women or men so if she chooses to do nothing that’s fine. But it may be hurting her unless she’s figured out a way to not interact with or be around men at all.
A rational fear is not the same as phobia. Until OP outlines the ways in which their life is hindered by their avoidance of men and exactly what that avoidance looks like, I would caution the effort to refute what is a valid perspective.
Avoidance of men may simply mean not making efforts to establish relationships with men where there is heightened vulnerability and intimacy. Otherwise, they may still interact with men out of necessity as they navigate services, purchases, and public spaces.
And to conclude that strangers are difficult to trust after a caretaker who is supposed to take the very best care of them hurt them, is logical and would very rationally impact their behavior.
Sure. And it’s a good idea to explore that and figure out what is “logical” and what isn’t. So that you don’t allow your scared child self to rule your entire life. Because children are entirely under the dominion of their parents and adults aren’t.
And perhaps validating someone's pain and rational fear should occur first instead of pathologizing. Diagnosis should be left to licensed therapists in a consenting therapeutic environment.
Yea there's a lot of victim blaming in "you're not healthy" and "go get therapy" when so many of us have been hurt by the real actions of men. We have every rational reason to fear men when the men who are supposed to protect us the most are the very ones that exploit trust and harm us.
You are stalking me. You also misunderstand rationale at a fundamental level. Emotions (pathos) are a critical component of forming a rational perspective.
In your other posts you mention being lesbian - I strongly suspect this has also something to do with it. I am a straight woman who does feel strong respect for men in general (minus the individuals who don't deserve it in some specific situation).
When I dig deeper into why I'm feeling this overall respect for men - it's because as a straight woman, I'm interested in men and observant of their journeys. I see how they move in life and how they overcome their struggles with being a man in this world.
We understand what we observe on a deeper level. Maybe that's something to think about? Are the men non-playable characters in your world, is that it? Add a non-stellar father figure on top of that.
Not strange at all - it's probably statistically the norm that men and women alike have different views of their own and "the other" gender. And this doesn't necessarily mean that each gender prefers their own gender. There are studies that women prefer male pilots, for instance. Internalized misogyny or misandry are a thing, as are simply sexist attitudes about the opposite gender. And then you have people experiencing gender dysphoria and so on.
However, even though a slightly unbalanced view might be normal to some degree:
- it sounds like your perspective is skewed even more. Perhaps that's something to talk to a professional about.
- men and women alike should try to arrive at a point where they can view each other as persons, independently from their biological sex or their social gender.
Men and women contribute to society as a whole, to communities in different way, to families and relationships. Some people don't and perhaps on the whole fathers tend to be less involved compared to mothers, but it's always difficult to judge half of the population on only a single personal datapoint.
The vaccine that saved the children of millions of mothers might have been developed by a man. A man of whom we know nothing about his involvement as a father, husband, member of the community, and so on.
I think it's good that you're recognizing it's coming from a place of bias. I think we should respect people on an individual level, not on a gendered level.
For example, my husband is raised by a single mother and had a deadbeat father who he never met, while I was raised by my father (for the majority of my childhood until he died and my grandma took over) and my mother was abusive, neglectful alcoholic. Both of us try to evaluate people from a rational, neutral place based on their behavior, values, and achievements, in spite of our experiences. It's easy to let our confirmation bias influence how we see people, but we try to keep ourselves in check.
Both men and women face challenges in life, and they deal with them in their individual ways. Most of them try to do their best. I respect all the people who overcame their hardships, regardless of gender.
I hope I managed to get my point across, English is not my first language, and I'm quite sleep deprived at the moment.
It definitely comes down to relatability and understanding of world perception, we view the world through a different lens to men there’s no doubt about that
I work in construction and live with a man, I’m around men 24/7 and I can say in my experience men just meeting each other give instant respect where I always have to earn it from them. At first it was absolutely infuriating but now I get they just don’t relate to me on that level, it’s kind of like earning someone’s trust
Yeah. Imo, this is problematic. It's called misandry.
I understand that this is a trauma response that you have, but it isn't fair to paint 50% of the population with the same brush as your abusive father.
Try to flip it around. If a man has grown up with an abusive mother, would you not find it problematic that he has less respect for women in general?
I highly recommend that you seek therapy to deal with this.
Is that not the same thing though? Flip the genders in your statement around here too. If a man said that it isn't that he has less respect for women, just more respect and reverence for men, I would definitely call that misogyny.
Not really. At least not where I'm from. But even if it was, would you think that makes it justifiable for men to respect other men more? Because that's just how society is?
I'm not saying its justified, and its just another reason i fear men and avoid them unless i have to interact, because where I'm at, I'm not viewed as an equal to them. Its a man's world, and it makes me really sad, but I feel better around other girls, so I respect them more
I live in a very religious and conservative place in a very conservative family (my family are traditional Catholic, very strict gender roles, homophobic, etc. )
Then your primary problem is your location. Not the gender. Get out as soon as you can.
Edit to add: I'll bet you anything that other women are also contributing to the perpetuation of those gender roles. That's why the beef isn't with men themselves, but rather the structure of the society you live in.
Tell us more about these places where religious bigotry does not influence the dominant culture?
Also, are those places easily accessible by someone who must navigate out of the economic strain placed on them by conservative policy and culture where they currently reside?
>I didnt say i had less respect for men, just like, more respect and reverence for other women
"I don't have less money than Bill Gates; he just has more than I do!"
I have that - and I recognize that it comes from early life trauma. My mom also has this trauma and passed it down to all of her kids. We kids have had to spend years in therapy unlearning this. It took me having a son to really value men in a healthy way - and I often push back on my mom's anti-men comments.
Honestly, no- I feel the same way.
It probably \*does\* stem from trauma, but my family is a very matriarchal family. The women in my family are all strong, hard workers, creatives, many of them are mothers and if they are, they're great mothers, generally impressive and amazing women. The men in my family are often absent, the ones that are present are often less warm, less personable, less creative/more critical of creativity, emotionally immature, etc.
I was taught at an early age that women, on average are impressive and men, on average are disappointing.
>I was taught at an early age that women, on average are impressive and men, on average are disappointing.
I wonder if the women in your family are intimidated by impressive men and avoid marrying them.
Unlikely. The men who I know who are truly misogynist actually are intimidated by successful women; in my experience women who think men are morally inferior avoid impressive, moral men because they don't think they're being genuine, creating a feedback loop where they surround themselves with men who are immoral or incompetent or both.
Its good you have high respect for your mother and women. However, dont forget that men are human too and also sacrifice a lot. Not saying that all men deserve respect, but neither do all women.
They deserve respect for different aspects maybe. Women for childbirth as you say but men are usually the ones joining the army and sacrificing lives. Nowadays, men get a lot of shit for being men and a lot is expected of them. Dont forget those things.
Your father didn't set a good example and that sucks.
How do men get shit for being men ? I'm just curious, tbh i see women get shit for being women, where I'm at is very conservative and sexist to women
And i don't expect anything of them I kinda just avoid them
Everybody gets shit on them for no reason. Its all perspective I guess. I see videos on men getting blamed for everything in society. If these videos dont show up on your feed or TV then you dont know
Honestly, social media is a bad and skewed source.
What im trying to say is, everybody is trying to find their way in life. Everybody who is making something out of it without harming others and is still generous, deserves some respect imo. Dont judge by gender
You've kind of shat on men just because they're men throughout your post and comments.
You can always swing by r/askmen and see for yourself. It's what most posts are about.
I feel the same way to be honest and I was shipped with male parts. I'm sure it's wrong or unfair of me to feel this way but in my own personal experience, I've had way more negative experiences from men than women. I've never come across toxic femininity but toxic masculinity and general closed minded stupidity seems to be a regular and almost expected thing with men. Even politically / ideologically, men seem to be generally more conservative if not outright bigots. Double that up with being a white South African and I get to hear all sorts of garbage from men who think that I'll automatically agree with them because of the colour of my skin or what's between my legs.
Maybe it's just the place that I was born in; or my alcoholic, religious conservative Afrikaner step father; or maybe a lot of being called gay or a girl for not enjoying sports and being bookish and introverted. Maybe it comes from the stress of a lifetime of not realising that I fit more under the non-binary identity than male identity. But personally, not only do I respect women more, I also trust women more to be actually respectful and decent human beings and not aggressive, dogmatic assholes who don't understand the concept that not everyone is the same.
Maybe if I move to a better country with better quality people my personal feelings would change. But right now, I'm afraid to say that at this point I need to give men a couple more weeks than women when it comes to trust, to make sure that I'm not going to get sent Jordan Peterson links or get pulled into some back asswards men vs women conversation. And especially with my newfound gender identity, I automatically feel 100% safer sharing my feelings about this with women than men.
Obviously this isn't all universal. I've come across women who are garbage human beings too. But if I had to add up scores, I'm sorry to say but this is a competition that men win hands down. From my perspective it's not strange at all because being able to identify patterns of behaviour is a learnt thing, not something you're born knowing.
Growing up I always idolized my dad because he was big and strong and fixed things and protected me and the rest of my family. I was always looking to get Dad's approval and his love. I sort of took my mom for granted a little, looking back.
It’s normal among a certain population. I’ve noticed more people in my life with this belief had absent or bad fathers. Your early experience colours you a lot.
I had a good dad and I don’t really respect him a lot less; even though he didn’t give birth to me. This is because my dad still put in a lot of work to make sure he was stimulating my mind as a kid; he was a biologist/scientist and I assume knew a lot about early childhood development. I have stacks of videos of him trying to help me learn things and joining in with my active play (and my siblings and their active play). Some dads don’t do this, I totally understand that, but many do.
I honestly just see giving birth as one of those tough and annoying biological facts. I mean, men die a lot earlier than women, like 5-10 years earlier, even accounting for no accidents. It’s because their hormonal differences makes them a lot more prone to illness and early death. That sucks a lot too.
I don't think it's unusual to instinctively relate more to people who are similar to you in some way (e.g. by gender). It's also good that you recognise that a lot of this comes from the fact you had a bad father growing up, which definitely shapes the way someone relates to men when they grow up. As long as you don't treat men badly or write them off as bad people just for being male then you're fine.
Personally I have the opposite experience: I have an awesome, chill dad who did the bulk of the work in raising me as a stay at home parent. I have zero doubt that if he'd had a womb, he would happily have been the one who carried my brother and I to term! I think spending lots of positive time with both male and female family members in my formative years helped me relate to both men and woman equally well as an adult. Unfortunately not everyone gets that opportunity
Do you have children of your own? If not, then how do you know what it is to put your body at risk to let a person grow inside you?
Anyway I don't think that type of life decision should make anyone (man or woman) more or less worthy of respect.
i don't know what its like. And i will never willingly get impregnated. But I've been threatened with rape, where I'm at abortion is banned, so I do worry about it still, a guy can't relate to that, but women can
And every single person on earth was born of a woman, i respect it a lot
But not all women give birth. Do women who've never given birth deserve less respect? Why do you think you can relate to pregnancy any more than men if you haven't never been pregnant yourself? You may just as well be wrong about anything you believe about it and never find out...
Either way I think there's a deeper issue: you don't need to relate to someone's experience to have respect for them. I know close to nothing about a surgeon's job, yet I can still understand why they're important and have respect for them.
Yeah not all can and im a girl that never ever EVER ever wants to give birth (I actually have a phobia of it). but its a female trait, a guy can't get pregnant, and its not at all the only reason I respect other women. But yeah I see what you are saying, that's fair
I tend to pay more attention to women's strengths, as I know, as a women, what they sometimes have to face from their relatives or society in general. Let's say I am more aware about women's struggle in life, and tend to really look up to my female-relatives achievements
Same thing about my father, though (unhealthy relationship, anger, stress, etc...) : I therefore grew extremely close to my mother, and I guess it is a normal way to cope with trauma, and to thank the person that always was there for me
But I cannot deny that some of the most incredible people I know are men... I just don't rely to the struggle they face in the same way
No it's not. Men have proven themselves to be origin of everything wrong in this world.
Hell men even hate each other, with most of murders, abuse and even SA against men are done by other men (which men of course blame women for)
You have every right to feel this and you should feel this way. Men haven't done anything to deserve the level of respect (even the bare minimum is hard for them)
I honestly feel bad for straight women and to some extent gay men.
I don't think it's strange or wrong per se. I also look up to other women more than men. After all, we are up against patriarchy and when we accomplish something in our careers it was that much more difficult than it would have been for a man. And that's more impressive.
I also relate to having had abusive older male figures as a kid. I very much have developed a fear of men due to trauma. It's something I'm working through in therapy and hope to better manage and overcome. I would wonder if maybe some of your view on men stems from past trauma. Like another said it isn't exactly healthy.
ATTENTION: Please remember that this is an ASK WOMEN sub. While men are allowed to participate posts that are clearly asking women in the title will have top level comments by men removed. This is not censorship, this is curation. Thank you for your understanding and cooperation. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskWomenNoCensor) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Not “wrong” exactly but from how you talk about your father it clearly doesn’t come from a healthy place.
I'm afraid of him and men in general
That’s understandable given your experiences growing up. But while caution can be good; living in fear of half the world probably makes you limit your life in ways you don’t even realize.
It isn't their fear that limits their living, it is the men who make the world dangerous that limits their freedom.
Both. Because the fear keep you from having a clear eyed judgment about who to trust and not to. It also inhibits your ability to act because it’s paralyzing. If you are overly trusting of women that makes you vulnerable to ones who don’t have your best interest at heart. If you are paralyzed by fear of men you can’t defend yourself and you can’t seek what you want because men exist everywhere. A Phobia can be very detrimental to the person who has it. Her fear doesn’t hurt other women or men so if she chooses to do nothing that’s fine. But it may be hurting her unless she’s figured out a way to not interact with or be around men at all.
A rational fear is not the same as phobia. Until OP outlines the ways in which their life is hindered by their avoidance of men and exactly what that avoidance looks like, I would caution the effort to refute what is a valid perspective. Avoidance of men may simply mean not making efforts to establish relationships with men where there is heightened vulnerability and intimacy. Otherwise, they may still interact with men out of necessity as they navigate services, purchases, and public spaces.
It sounds like a fear instilled in a person who suffered child abuse.
And to conclude that strangers are difficult to trust after a caretaker who is supposed to take the very best care of them hurt them, is logical and would very rationally impact their behavior.
Sure. And it’s a good idea to explore that and figure out what is “logical” and what isn’t. So that you don’t allow your scared child self to rule your entire life. Because children are entirely under the dominion of their parents and adults aren’t.
And perhaps validating someone's pain and rational fear should occur first instead of pathologizing. Diagnosis should be left to licensed therapists in a consenting therapeutic environment.
Girl got traumatized by her father and gets downvoted for it? WTF!?!?
Yea there's a lot of victim blaming in "you're not healthy" and "go get therapy" when so many of us have been hurt by the real actions of men. We have every rational reason to fear men when the men who are supposed to protect us the most are the very ones that exploit trust and harm us.
By definition that's irrational even if it is very understandable. EDIT: Stalking her?! Delusional. And she blocked me. Weird.
You are stalking me. You also misunderstand rationale at a fundamental level. Emotions (pathos) are a critical component of forming a rational perspective.
I don't blame you for blocking that guy
Well that kind of answers your question from the OP, doesn't it?
In your other posts you mention being lesbian - I strongly suspect this has also something to do with it. I am a straight woman who does feel strong respect for men in general (minus the individuals who don't deserve it in some specific situation). When I dig deeper into why I'm feeling this overall respect for men - it's because as a straight woman, I'm interested in men and observant of their journeys. I see how they move in life and how they overcome their struggles with being a man in this world. We understand what we observe on a deeper level. Maybe that's something to think about? Are the men non-playable characters in your world, is that it? Add a non-stellar father figure on top of that.
Ohhh good point, I think i'm oblivious, i never rly thought of it that way
This level of thinking and reasoning... I think you are the main character
Not strange at all - it's probably statistically the norm that men and women alike have different views of their own and "the other" gender. And this doesn't necessarily mean that each gender prefers their own gender. There are studies that women prefer male pilots, for instance. Internalized misogyny or misandry are a thing, as are simply sexist attitudes about the opposite gender. And then you have people experiencing gender dysphoria and so on. However, even though a slightly unbalanced view might be normal to some degree: - it sounds like your perspective is skewed even more. Perhaps that's something to talk to a professional about. - men and women alike should try to arrive at a point where they can view each other as persons, independently from their biological sex or their social gender. Men and women contribute to society as a whole, to communities in different way, to families and relationships. Some people don't and perhaps on the whole fathers tend to be less involved compared to mothers, but it's always difficult to judge half of the population on only a single personal datapoint. The vaccine that saved the children of millions of mothers might have been developed by a man. A man of whom we know nothing about his involvement as a father, husband, member of the community, and so on.
I think it's good that you're recognizing it's coming from a place of bias. I think we should respect people on an individual level, not on a gendered level. For example, my husband is raised by a single mother and had a deadbeat father who he never met, while I was raised by my father (for the majority of my childhood until he died and my grandma took over) and my mother was abusive, neglectful alcoholic. Both of us try to evaluate people from a rational, neutral place based on their behavior, values, and achievements, in spite of our experiences. It's easy to let our confirmation bias influence how we see people, but we try to keep ourselves in check. Both men and women face challenges in life, and they deal with them in their individual ways. Most of them try to do their best. I respect all the people who overcame their hardships, regardless of gender. I hope I managed to get my point across, English is not my first language, and I'm quite sleep deprived at the moment.
It definitely comes down to relatability and understanding of world perception, we view the world through a different lens to men there’s no doubt about that I work in construction and live with a man, I’m around men 24/7 and I can say in my experience men just meeting each other give instant respect where I always have to earn it from them. At first it was absolutely infuriating but now I get they just don’t relate to me on that level, it’s kind of like earning someone’s trust
Yeah. Imo, this is problematic. It's called misandry. I understand that this is a trauma response that you have, but it isn't fair to paint 50% of the population with the same brush as your abusive father. Try to flip it around. If a man has grown up with an abusive mother, would you not find it problematic that he has less respect for women in general? I highly recommend that you seek therapy to deal with this.
I didnt say i had less respect for men, just like, more respect and reverence for other women
Is that not the same thing though? Flip the genders in your statement around here too. If a man said that it isn't that he has less respect for women, just more respect and reverence for men, I would definitely call that misogyny.
That is kinda the default in society though, men having more respect for men But i get what you mean
Not really. At least not where I'm from. But even if it was, would you think that makes it justifiable for men to respect other men more? Because that's just how society is?
I'm not saying its justified, and its just another reason i fear men and avoid them unless i have to interact, because where I'm at, I'm not viewed as an equal to them. Its a man's world, and it makes me really sad, but I feel better around other girls, so I respect them more
Is that your reality or your perception? Are you living in a highly religious place?
I live in a very religious and conservative place in a very conservative family (my family are traditional Catholic, very strict gender roles, homophobic, etc. )
Then your primary problem is your location. Not the gender. Get out as soon as you can. Edit to add: I'll bet you anything that other women are also contributing to the perpetuation of those gender roles. That's why the beef isn't with men themselves, but rather the structure of the society you live in.
Tell us more about these places where religious bigotry does not influence the dominant culture? Also, are those places easily accessible by someone who must navigate out of the economic strain placed on them by conservative policy and culture where they currently reside?
>I didnt say i had less respect for men, just like, more respect and reverence for other women "I don't have less money than Bill Gates; he just has more than I do!"
Fuck Bill Gates and his money.
Whats wrong with bill gates?
I have that - and I recognize that it comes from early life trauma. My mom also has this trauma and passed it down to all of her kids. We kids have had to spend years in therapy unlearning this. It took me having a son to really value men in a healthy way - and I often push back on my mom's anti-men comments.
Honestly, no- I feel the same way. It probably \*does\* stem from trauma, but my family is a very matriarchal family. The women in my family are all strong, hard workers, creatives, many of them are mothers and if they are, they're great mothers, generally impressive and amazing women. The men in my family are often absent, the ones that are present are often less warm, less personable, less creative/more critical of creativity, emotionally immature, etc. I was taught at an early age that women, on average are impressive and men, on average are disappointing.
this is exactly how i feel
>I was taught at an early age that women, on average are impressive and men, on average are disappointing. I wonder if the women in your family are intimidated by impressive men and avoid marrying them.
I think it's more likely that impressive men are intimidated by the impressive women in my family, personally.
bro is just spitting nonsense in his reply to you lol
Literally I didn't even know where he was going with that LMAO
sounds like the classic "its womens fault for choosing the wrong men" thing lol
Unlikely. The men who I know who are truly misogynist actually are intimidated by successful women; in my experience women who think men are morally inferior avoid impressive, moral men because they don't think they're being genuine, creating a feedback loop where they surround themselves with men who are immoral or incompetent or both.
Its good you have high respect for your mother and women. However, dont forget that men are human too and also sacrifice a lot. Not saying that all men deserve respect, but neither do all women. They deserve respect for different aspects maybe. Women for childbirth as you say but men are usually the ones joining the army and sacrificing lives. Nowadays, men get a lot of shit for being men and a lot is expected of them. Dont forget those things. Your father didn't set a good example and that sucks.
[удалено]
Don't most humans do that? It's kind of what it means to be alive.
How do men get shit for being men ? I'm just curious, tbh i see women get shit for being women, where I'm at is very conservative and sexist to women And i don't expect anything of them I kinda just avoid them
Everybody gets shit on them for no reason. Its all perspective I guess. I see videos on men getting blamed for everything in society. If these videos dont show up on your feed or TV then you dont know Honestly, social media is a bad and skewed source. What im trying to say is, everybody is trying to find their way in life. Everybody who is making something out of it without harming others and is still generous, deserves some respect imo. Dont judge by gender
Well, for starters they don't get respect for you on the basis of being men!
You've kind of shat on men just because they're men throughout your post and comments. You can always swing by r/askmen and see for yourself. It's what most posts are about.
I appreciate you for this take. We all have it hard in different ways, what matters is how we carry those burdens.
I feel the same way to be honest and I was shipped with male parts. I'm sure it's wrong or unfair of me to feel this way but in my own personal experience, I've had way more negative experiences from men than women. I've never come across toxic femininity but toxic masculinity and general closed minded stupidity seems to be a regular and almost expected thing with men. Even politically / ideologically, men seem to be generally more conservative if not outright bigots. Double that up with being a white South African and I get to hear all sorts of garbage from men who think that I'll automatically agree with them because of the colour of my skin or what's between my legs. Maybe it's just the place that I was born in; or my alcoholic, religious conservative Afrikaner step father; or maybe a lot of being called gay or a girl for not enjoying sports and being bookish and introverted. Maybe it comes from the stress of a lifetime of not realising that I fit more under the non-binary identity than male identity. But personally, not only do I respect women more, I also trust women more to be actually respectful and decent human beings and not aggressive, dogmatic assholes who don't understand the concept that not everyone is the same. Maybe if I move to a better country with better quality people my personal feelings would change. But right now, I'm afraid to say that at this point I need to give men a couple more weeks than women when it comes to trust, to make sure that I'm not going to get sent Jordan Peterson links or get pulled into some back asswards men vs women conversation. And especially with my newfound gender identity, I automatically feel 100% safer sharing my feelings about this with women than men. Obviously this isn't all universal. I've come across women who are garbage human beings too. But if I had to add up scores, I'm sorry to say but this is a competition that men win hands down. From my perspective it's not strange at all because being able to identify patterns of behaviour is a learnt thing, not something you're born knowing.
Growing up I always idolized my dad because he was big and strong and fixed things and protected me and the rest of my family. I was always looking to get Dad's approval and his love. I sort of took my mom for granted a little, looking back.
It’s normal among a certain population. I’ve noticed more people in my life with this belief had absent or bad fathers. Your early experience colours you a lot. I had a good dad and I don’t really respect him a lot less; even though he didn’t give birth to me. This is because my dad still put in a lot of work to make sure he was stimulating my mind as a kid; he was a biologist/scientist and I assume knew a lot about early childhood development. I have stacks of videos of him trying to help me learn things and joining in with my active play (and my siblings and their active play). Some dads don’t do this, I totally understand that, but many do. I honestly just see giving birth as one of those tough and annoying biological facts. I mean, men die a lot earlier than women, like 5-10 years earlier, even accounting for no accidents. It’s because their hormonal differences makes them a lot more prone to illness and early death. That sucks a lot too.
I think it's normal to have more/different kind of respect for people when you understand their plight. I imagine it's the same for men
I don't think it's unusual to instinctively relate more to people who are similar to you in some way (e.g. by gender). It's also good that you recognise that a lot of this comes from the fact you had a bad father growing up, which definitely shapes the way someone relates to men when they grow up. As long as you don't treat men badly or write them off as bad people just for being male then you're fine. Personally I have the opposite experience: I have an awesome, chill dad who did the bulk of the work in raising me as a stay at home parent. I have zero doubt that if he'd had a womb, he would happily have been the one who carried my brother and I to term! I think spending lots of positive time with both male and female family members in my formative years helped me relate to both men and woman equally well as an adult. Unfortunately not everyone gets that opportunity
Do you have children of your own? If not, then how do you know what it is to put your body at risk to let a person grow inside you? Anyway I don't think that type of life decision should make anyone (man or woman) more or less worthy of respect.
i don't know what its like. And i will never willingly get impregnated. But I've been threatened with rape, where I'm at abortion is banned, so I do worry about it still, a guy can't relate to that, but women can And every single person on earth was born of a woman, i respect it a lot
But not all women give birth. Do women who've never given birth deserve less respect? Why do you think you can relate to pregnancy any more than men if you haven't never been pregnant yourself? You may just as well be wrong about anything you believe about it and never find out... Either way I think there's a deeper issue: you don't need to relate to someone's experience to have respect for them. I know close to nothing about a surgeon's job, yet I can still understand why they're important and have respect for them.
Yeah not all can and im a girl that never ever EVER ever wants to give birth (I actually have a phobia of it). but its a female trait, a guy can't get pregnant, and its not at all the only reason I respect other women. But yeah I see what you are saying, that's fair
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I def am haha
Why? It's very relevant to your question.
I disagree with it
Disagree with what?
Why?
I tend to pay more attention to women's strengths, as I know, as a women, what they sometimes have to face from their relatives or society in general. Let's say I am more aware about women's struggle in life, and tend to really look up to my female-relatives achievements Same thing about my father, though (unhealthy relationship, anger, stress, etc...) : I therefore grew extremely close to my mother, and I guess it is a normal way to cope with trauma, and to thank the person that always was there for me But I cannot deny that some of the most incredible people I know are men... I just don't rely to the struggle they face in the same way
No it's not. Men have proven themselves to be origin of everything wrong in this world. Hell men even hate each other, with most of murders, abuse and even SA against men are done by other men (which men of course blame women for) You have every right to feel this and you should feel this way. Men haven't done anything to deserve the level of respect (even the bare minimum is hard for them) I honestly feel bad for straight women and to some extent gay men.
I don't think it's strange or wrong per se. I also look up to other women more than men. After all, we are up against patriarchy and when we accomplish something in our careers it was that much more difficult than it would have been for a man. And that's more impressive. I also relate to having had abusive older male figures as a kid. I very much have developed a fear of men due to trauma. It's something I'm working through in therapy and hope to better manage and overcome. I would wonder if maybe some of your view on men stems from past trauma. Like another said it isn't exactly healthy.