Tag: men

Awaiting the Matriarchy: what do women get out of heterosexual relationships?

feignnormalcy:

fempirestrikesback:

androcidal:

what do women get out of heterosexual relationships? i really dont get it

more and more, men are expecting a maid, a chef, a mommy, a model who somehow loves to eat but remains skinny and doesn’t spend hours in front of the mirror but looks fantastic, a sex addict who’s an expert at and is always willing to suck dick and never expects clitoral stimulation or cunnilingus in return because vaginas are COMPLICATUD, someone who never complains or “nags”, never spends money, laughs at his jokes (even sexist kitchen jokes) but never makes jokes of her own, loves anal but never asks him to do anything that he’s uncomfortable with (pegging), always orgasms from just his dick and never fakes it, isn’t insecure but isn’t “uppity” either, points out “hot” women but doesn’t look twice at guys, is never in a bad mood and if she is he can instantly cheer her up, has a job but doesn’t make more money than he does AND is willing to single-handedly do the chores while getting him a beer despite the both of them working the same hours, humors his masculinity, asks him for help opening the pickle jar but knows how to change a tire, has his hobbies but isn’t as good as he is and doesn’t do it for attention, and never has friends of her own.

did i miss anything?

I dated men in my 20s, and off and on after (I called myself bi for a long time), before realizing I liked women way, way more. This would be about the setup of most heterosexual relationships that I was in, whereas my sole lesbian relationship – even though it was not a good relationship and we had little in common – was much, much more equal. 

Most straight women don’t realize how unequal their relationships are until the sex haze wears off. 

I have a number of straight friends. I even tried to brainwash myself into being straight at one point. First of all, porn, the whole “good, giving, game” thing and sex-pozzie culture has absolutely ruined many single women’s hope at ever finding a sexually considerate man.

It’s much worse now than it was when I was in my early 20s dating men. When I was in my early 20s, the guys did not have anywhere near the attitude of entitlement that they have now. 

My 30/40something single, straight friends have almost an impossible time trying to set limits on men and many believe borderline rapey behavior to be outright normal and that putting up with this stuff from man after man is how you find a husband. If they choose not to put up with this kind of caddishness, or heaven forbid they don’t want to “put out” on the third date, well good luck – they end up with nothing.

The women seem to be stuck with whatever crumbs get thrown at them because there is nothing better. My mother got lucky the second time around, and some of the marriages I’m familiar with are pretty stable, but if a woman is single *right now*, the choices are pretty suckful. The men have gotten more disrespectful. It’s at the point where I tell my straight friends, look, give up online dating, period. Don’t do “the singles scene” because the men just assume you’re a free empty hole just because you showed up. Get into some mixed gender environment and make friends and let things happen organically. Don’t put yourself into ANY environment where sex is considered a given and the guys feel entitled. But most women feel it’s necessary to date.

The scene is worse in many respects than it was when I was there; now they expect to get their dick sucked on the second date AND they want to go dutch. Thanks to our Third Wave sex pozzie Fifth Column, men now expect virtually everything sexually and shame women who don’t put out. And thanks to porn culture, they expect increasingly degrading acts and feel entitled because every woman who came before did those things. 

This “anti slut shaming” “sex positive” culture has made it so that women are punished for having any kind of boundaries. It’s the exact opposite from what the sex pozzie people seem to have hoped for; I don’t see women authentically enjoying sex at all – they’re just trying to please their man.

It’s made rape MORE likely, not less, because it reinforces the social image that all women are sexually open season at all times. I did not see nearly as much sexual harassment and violation and yes, even rape, in my social group when I was in my teens as I am seeing in the social groups of young girls.

I saw some women try to use books like The Rules and such to try to find more respectful men, but the thing is, none of the men were playing by the same rules. They may as well have been asking guys to show up with the horse and buggy. 

The women end up settling for this because… well, in addition to cultural conditioning, these women experience romantic feelings and sexual attraction toward men. One’s sexual orientation is a very, very powerful motivating force. 

Some women are even brainwashed into thinking that abusive behavior is romantic.

Or they want chivalry and caretaking – which wouldn’t be anywhere near as necessary in a different world. The purpose of chivalry is to have a man protect you from other men. When you deconstruct it, it’s not that romantic, is it.

I wonder something. There is such a huge population of single middle aged women right now – I wonder if there’s some chance that some of them will develop some feminist consciousness. I don’t hope for it, though. What I’m seeing is that they’re just sucking up all the more.

My mom was a young woman when feminism first gained steam in the U.S. We’ve talked about her experiences and she noticed that a lot of women a generation or more behind her just divorced their husbands and cut themselves off from men. I think this was when political lesbianism became a stand against compulsive heterosexuality. Charlotte Bunch wrote for the Furies, a radical feminist group; you can read that over here. Political lesbianism has been debatable since then, but I believe in the earlier years of the movement, it meant completely abandoning the imposed social structure and roles. From what I understand, men were sexist in a more blatant way, kind of like how you see some men today proudly proclaiming themselves to be misogynists. That kind of behavior was normalized, versus today where sexism is still blatant but also rather insidious. 

Now, though, I’ve noticed a lot of older women (those around my mom’s age) who don’t want to get married. They don’t want to share their assets, they don’t want to live with their partner, and they have little to zero tolerance for bullshit. When I asked my mom if she wanted to get married again, she said no. She likes having her freedom. She wants to fall in love and have a “companion,” as she puts it, but she likes having that separation. I think that’s the case for a lot of women because they were taught that they MUST get married in order to be full human beings. It was much more uncommon to find an unmarried single woman, and if you were one, something was seriously wrong with you. Now a lot of older women see how stupid and harmful that kind of thinking is. They’ve also made strides on their own and broken down barriers, like entering different careers. 

Culture wasn’t pornified then like it is now either; the man could have dalliances but the overall expectation was a good, “pure” housewife. Now men want both a 50s housewife and a porn star, even beyond that, a caricature of a porn star. The focus on sex as liberation had good intentions (so that women could feel good too) but that ignored the social attachments to sex and how it pertains to relationships. People encounter porn at such young ages and it brain-washes them into thinking this is normal. It’s also gotten more and more disgusting. Before it was just naked women or straight couples having run-of-the-mill sex. Now there’s all this bondage and anal and degradation and you can find it with the click of a button. Guys are getting these double messages about what a woman should be and they expect everything. It’s also a sign of how the “women can do it all” motto actually back-fired, because it’s impossible to fit this standard. Women end up unhappy and bitter when they have to wait on their husbands, take care of the kids, and work. Men usually don’t do their part with the child-rearing and/or house cleaning (among other things). Put this sex standard on top of it and you have something even more insane. 

I’m thinking that history’s repeating itself in some cases. Women are just sick and tired of men imposing this ridiculous standard upon them, they’re sick of the patriarchy creating and perpetuating this standard in the first place, and they’re happy living on their own and creating their own identities. I’ve noticed more camaraderie among women too, regardless of age. More women are beginning to realize that we should and need to rely on one another and that these friendships can be fulfilling on multiple levels. 

Slowly heterosexual women are seeing that they don’t need men and they’re not going to put up with any bullshit, especially with how hyper-sexualization and objectification has warped people’s minds even more. (But men’s minds the most, of course.) I think that with that some men (a few men) are realizing that their behavior’s fucked up. As for women my age, we just don’t want to deal. A lot of us are getting educated and we’re fed up with men trying to get in our way. I’m a lesbian, but my first serious relationship was with a boy. As the relationship went on I felt more and more like I wasn’t really a person and that my feelings and opinions didn’t matter. After I worked through my issues I saw that my female friends were always there, they always respected me, and I always felt like I was on an even playing field with them. It was eye-opening and happened concurrently as I was untangling my internalized homophobia. 

So to answer the question, some women realize they’re not getting much, if anything, out of heterosexual relationships anymore. Some get lucky and find a guy who’s willing to listen and make an effort. Some guys are wising up/educating themselves/etc, although that’s a pretty small number. My hope is that most (if not all) women recognize that they can define themselves outside of the patriarchy and that men aren’t necessary for fulfillment. 

Awaiting the Matriarchy: what do women get out of heterosexual relationships?

male opinions are not objective facts

witwitch:

Men are socialized since birth to think their feelings and thoughts are the objective truth. They are taught they are generally right about something, unless contradicted by another male with equal or more authority. men subconciously believe they are firmly right about things so much they won’t even consider alternative perspectives unless it comes from a place of higher authority.

Men are socialized to believe women are inherently wrong, and that is why women are “crazy”, because it is so difficult for men to even consider the possibility that they don’t know shit. This is why men often offer strong opinions on topics they just heard about, especially if they’re contradicting a woman.

This is because people will respect a man’s opinion and give his words weight even if he has zero background in the subject because men are considered credible by default. Women are considered wrong by default and must argue their way to display their truth, no matter how strong their credentials.

Men probably have to tell themselves they’re logical all the time just to keep up the lie that feeds their ego. Thinking is difficult work for a man who is used to instantly being told he is right, while women are constantly being argued against and therefore exploring the topics more deeply and doing more thinking.

thentheysaidburnher:

micdotcom:

With the proliferation of the bicycle, women were cautioned that the awkward faces people make while attempting to ride a bike would make them ugly. Perhaps that was because, in addition to just being
all-around good methods of transportation, bicycles were tools of
feminism that made women mobile for longer distances without the
reliance on a man.

Men actually tried to use all of these.

Men will always lie about women to maintain their position of power over us. Never believe anything a man says about you or other women if he stands to gain from it.

“The cliché that when women are liberated men will be liberated too shamelessly slides over the raw reality of male domination — as if this were an arrangement in fact arranged by nobody, which suits nobody, which works to nobody’s advantage. In fact, the very opposite is true. The domination of men over women is to the advantage of men; the liberation of women will be at the expense of male privilege. Perhaps afterwards, in some happy sense, men will be liberated too — liberated from the tiresome obligation to be ‘masculine.’ But allowing oppressors to lay down their psychological burdens is quite another, secondary sense of liberation. The first priority is to liberate the oppressed. Never before in history have the claims of oppressed and oppressors turned out to be, on inspection, quite harmonious. It will not be true this time either.”

—Susan Sontag, “The Third World of Women”

via Deep Green Resistance Women’s Caucus http://ift.tt/1x9TAeS (via dgrwomenscaucus)

problackgirl:

I hate that there’s this myth that women are hard to read, needy and more passive aggressive in relationships than men bcs in all my years of giving advice, observing relationships and being involved with boys… Men are way more dishonest, passive aggressive, hard to read and flip-floppy when it comes to relationships and it’s probably bcs they think simply speaking about their emotions in a straight manner would devalue their masculinity, which in a way is very sad but it just annoys me that women have to be hyper aware of how we’re coming across in relationships bcs of this.

There’s already this myth that women are over emotional and needy in relationships, which isn’t helped by people reblogging memes that fit right into that misogynistic trope…. so a lot of women will sit back and take a lot of terrible behaviour in silence simply bcs they don’t want to be *that* girlfriend, you know the one that’s always suspicious and worrying etc, it’s so annoying bcs it leads to women accepting shitty behaviour that they would otherwise call out if they weren’t so scared of being labelled with the needy tag. And that’s not to say that women can’t be needy and exhibit unhealthy behaviour in relationships but the idea that women are more prone to do so is dangerous and obviously misogynistic

imreallybad:

i wish men understood that when women are talking about feminism and rape culture and shit, it’s not just a political conversation. it’s not about being a “social justice warrior” or whatever. it’s about our actual lives being shaped by misogyny since childhood, and the daily reality of living in fear of violence. this isn’t a fucking game or philosophical debate. this is our fucking lives. 

radfem-momma:

radfemale:

amount of times i’ve heard men bond over rape jokes & violence against women = unable to count

amount of times i’ve heard men call out other men who joke about rape/violence against women = literally zero

yep its always women, every time I’ve seen it. Even though men can and do retaliate physically its always women talking back. Usually alone and they still shout. Like when that lone woman told Daniel Tosh that rape isn’t funny and he encited the crowd to rape her in retaliation. She still spoke up. 

margarita-repulsa:

You know what’s amazing? Everyone’s efforts in policing women’s thoughts and emotions towards men ,but hardly ever have anything to say towards men and their very obvious misogyny. Even today’s Feminism is more invested on policing “man hating” than actually challenging men. We can have witch hunts for women who do not follow the rules of patriarchy ,but won’t have shit to say about men. Just nip at women’s ankles like herding dogs trying to get them back in the bin. Just imagine if everyone stopped focusing on women’s reactions to being oppressed and started focusing on the men who do the oppressing. Boy,that would be so great.