Letting go of Misogyny

For my not much misogynistic problems in my youth, since I was grown up with the believe installed in me them women are on a pedestal, sweet and good, etc.. (in general).
A hard reality check over time of course as an adult; that women are humans and no better (or worse) then men in general. Just that in general men are bad (and good) in different ways, and women are bad and good in different ways. That reality check maybe caused a small period of dissapointment and may call it misogynistic opinions, but I see it's my issue and for me to deal with.
Where you said: [ Quote] "and recognize women for the amazing *people* they are."[/ Quote] I have to disagree. In general women are not amazing, and men aren't amazing. Most are pretty average, in their distribution of good/bad sides, behaviour, and habits.

 

What I see is a downward and/or outward spiral relationship between misogyny and misandry. Both sides are pointing out and pushing away the other.

 

Freud would have a field day with you.

 

Sounds like you grew up in a household of misandry.

 

The current culture in the West is infinitely more *misandric* than misogynistic. Feminism is a cancer that has metastasized throughout all western countries and is now affecting the world at large. Feminism and other forms of cultural marxism are turning women into repulsive monsters than are shunning their natural roles as wives and mothers. This coupled with the ever-increasing disillusionment of more and more men is creating a disaster situation that can potentially produce a demographic collapse and destroy the West for all eternity.

 

Sad to hear about how your upbringing might have shaped you. I myself am male and consider myself a feminist, but I don't agree with that kind of retoric - especially around children.

Anywho, I relate to both the whole "women on a piedestal" way of thinking and misogynic tendensies. As I started exploring relations and sex I often found myself in one night stand-situations where I would treat the girl like shit, either during and/or afterwards, while my relationships ended up problematic as I praised my partner and would never even remotely treat her "bad". (In a way where I felt unable to set aside inhibitions and avoid fights at all costs, in an unhealthy way.)

I'm still struggling to find a middle ground where I treat the girls I care about as human beings with faults and desires as any other person.
The misogynic handling of one night stands I've just stopped with, but can find myself miss. I'm sure this has to do with the way porn and movies has influenced a distorted view of women and sex for me from an early age.

Hang in there, man! It's great to hear that you're reflecting over your behaviour and want a change.

 

Yes. Women are people, just like men. Like men, some are awesome, most are not.

 

This outcome of womens behaviour sounds and is common. And also your behaviour sounds extreme, and common.
Women that go with and let a man treat them like shit; have (and are) problems since they at the least have self-esteem problems. Because it's fuck up if you want to spend time with and reward a man (or any person) that treats you badly. So as a man then you have attracted a "broken" woman.
Women that go with a man that only praises them and never treats her "bad"; have (and are) problems because they at the least have self-esteem problems as well. Because it's fuck up if you want to spend time with someone that says how great you are only and never correct you on your bad behaviour and views.

A more fluid way of behaviour. Where you correct a woman on bad behaviour (in your view). And where you praise a woman on good behaviour (in your view). Does make sense, to end up with a woman that fits.
Looking back, that's how it happened with my previous relationship. Which overall for the time it lasted worked well for me (and her I think). Where we praise what we like, and correct/etc. what we dislike.

 

I'm a woman, but honestly, I can very much relate to this. I realized not very long ago that I have a LOT of issues with women. And at the end of the day, a lot of those issues are more my own problems than they are theirs. I think it's kind of a mixture of the two. I've had a lot of negative experiences with women being very catty and judgy and... well, I'm sure you get the picture. But I also think, partially due to those experiences and partially due to negative stereotypes against women, I tend to *expect* women to be this way, and kind of create a self-fulfilling prophecy at times. I expect women to not like me or to judge me more harshly than men, so I dont open up to them as much as I do men, and I'm not myself around them as much because I'm afraid they're going to judge me, even if they haven't given me any reason to thing they are that kind of person.

Thankfully, I've realized these patterns and I'm trying to actively retrain my brain to not make those assumptions just based on past experiences. It's hard though, of course. And some of it is just my own issues of social anxiety, too, that I always think people probably dont like me anyway, regardless of their gender. But I guess since I have physical assets that men like, I dont usually assume that men wont like me. Even if they think I'm weird, they might still think I'm cute, so itll balance out or something. Or at least that's the justification in my messed up mind at times.

But anyway, I'm trying to work on that. And I have found a really good group of female friends that I enjoy and who are very similar to me in their weirdness. Lol so that's been fun. They're all very real and raw and open, and that makes me feel more comfortable to be that way too. I've also started to try to train myself to stop ignoring compliments or positive signs. Like for instance, with my best friend, I know I'm really important to her and that she really likes me a lot, but I convince myself that she doesnt care about me for a variety of reasons. Basically I only focus on the bad things, like that she rarely tries to make plans with me or whatever, and ignore all of the positive things. So in general I'm trying to be better at believing the good stuff.

Sorry, I kind of rambled there... not sure all of that was relevant or necessary to say, but oh well, there you go. Lol

 

It's a huge issue for me and I wonder if it will ever be resolved in my lifetime.

I've been physically and psychologically abused by women for years when I was a young boy, so it's a deep-seated issue.

I want to let the anger and hatred go, but my life circumstances make it difficult. I get resentful because I keep getting rejected.

Also, while many of you say that women are just humans, the women I've met have lived up to the negative stereotypes. It's hard to trust women after so many pretend to be nice and decent when they turn out to be duplicitous, cheating, bitching, psychopaths. I'm not saying all women are bad, but so many are and it's hard to discern who is who. I blame the society for allowing these bad women to wreck havoc without facing consequences.

 

The great ivy-league psychology researcher daniel batson has spent his life studying altruism, and in particular trying to find out whether people are truly motivation by compassion or have secondary motives. He found that 15% of people feel significant compassion and altruism towards others by default. The other 85% rarely feel genuine compassion, and mostly only towards close friends and family. They are no more likely to help strangers/acquaintances out of genuine kindness than psychopaths are. Good people are rare, and most people are not good. This has nothing to do with gender.

 

I'm not talking about just lack of compassion, but actual psychopathic behavior that is anti-social.

I also realize being good or bad has nothing to do with the person's sex (I refuse to use the word gender), but the topic here is misogyny. For the record, I've met just as many men who are scumbags.

 

Yeah, I understand. I've met a lot of women who are really uptight/judgmental/arrogant and it can be really annoying. I know what you mean about the superficial friendliness and mood-swings too.

 

For me personally, sadly yes. I too have dealt with my own misogynistic thoughts and tendencies. It all started when I was very young. It's a long story.

Well, at a very young age, my father didn't want me. He never said it, but I felt it. His mother, my paternal grandma, didn't want me and believed I wasn't of her blood, then later convinced my father that I wasn't his. So at a young age, my father disliked me, and my grandma held onto this belief for a very long time. My father was quite the disillusioned, angry, misguided young man who had an extremely short fuse and would lash out on anyone and anything that would disturb or discomfort him.
(He too also had a fucked up upbringing, but that's another looooong story that I won't get into at the moment.)
So naturally, whenever I cried, asked for something I knew he was going to say no to, didn't finish my food, dropped water, ("don't cry over spilt milk" quote never applied to me...) broke something, or just bothered him when he was in a bad mood, he would beat me. Depending on how angry he was that day would result how hard and how long he would beat me. I was lucky if he just used the belt, tv controller, shoes, or pots and pans. It's when he used brooms, tv cables, the garden hose, or his fists and feet when it truly hurt. It didn't help that I wasn't allowed to be angry, sad, or overall annoy him by saying I was hungry.

This is where my mother comes in. My mother was caring no doubt, and she used to protect my older brother from beatings from my father. (She did her own share of beatings that she dished out on us...) But when I was born, every beating I ever got, she would turn her back, and wait until my father would leave the room, then she would come and comfort me. Sometimes, she would allow it to happen because she felt that I somehow deserved my beating. When I ask her about it these days, she plays the denial game. (She too, has a ton of problems...once again, won't go into.)
My parents played favorites, I was the middle child and suffered from the middle child syndrome. Left behind, pushed aside, and always second best compared to my other brothers. My mom's side of the family mostly consisted of women and yes, you guessed it, they had their own fucked-upness running through their blood.
(I'll get to my aunts in a second...)

Around the time when I was three, to make this story a little shorter, I used to go through a ton of babysitters. One babysitter in particular, was this old smoker lady who took care of me for 2 days only. The first day I remember waiting at the door for this woman to open the door and saw 3 other kids inside her apt. She smiled at my mother and waved her goodbye as my mom drove off, and right when she closed the door, she gave a stern, intimidating look on her face and told me to grab a chair and sit in the corner. I was instructed not to move, squirm, get up, or make any noise at all whatsoever until my mother got back from work to pick me up. She worked from 7AM - 5:30PM. So I did as I was told since she threatened me with violence. Something I knew all too well. Well, hours passed, and I had to go to the bathroom. I turned around and asked the woman who was watching tv if I could go pee, she turned around and screamed at me. I don't remember what she said, but she came up to me and put her cigarette out on my thighs. and told me to keep my mouth shut. I peed my pants.
My mother picked me up, and I stayed quiet the entire ride. No noticeable bruises, so she didn't ask anything. I never told her what happened, fear of her telling my father and getting beat even worse for peeing my pants.
The next day, I got dropped off and I already knew the routine and sat in my corner to wait for my mom. Once again, the urge to pee came up hours later, and this time, the apt was empty beside the old woman and I. No kids. She was in her room, so I was alone in the living room. I got up and walked quietly to the bathroom, which was near her bedroom door. Just as I opened the door to the bathroom, she opened hers. Sorry, I said as I tried to run back to the chair. But she grabbed me, took me into her room, and threw me on the bed. Then she asked me to "pee inside her." She pulled down my shorts and underwear and mounted me in her gown. I began to wail and cry as I tried to push her off. I ended up actually peeing. Afterwards, she got pissed and slapped me as hard as she could, leaving a fresh red hand print on the right side of my face. She kicked me out of her room and I sat in the corner. My mother came, and she saw the red print on my face. She never took me back to that woman again.

When I was five, my mother's brother raped me whilst his girlfriend, (we'll call her Sammy) held me down on his mattress. It happened when they convinced me that I can stay home from kindergarten to play Sega all day as long as I take a bath first. My uncle lived with us at the time and then he took me to his room, got me naked and thrusted himself upon me. Took me a bath and watched the blood go down the drain. Never told my parents, and eventually, they stopped living with us. Maybe my parents knew, maybe they didn't. Point is he didn't live with us anymore.

(back to my aunts)

After many babysitters, one including my aunt from my father's side of the family, (she was my favorite...but she found herself a job), my mother got each of my aunts to take care of me. Two of them to be exact and they were some of the worst in the family. I'll say this right now, those two women are exactly what I hated in women then. To this day, those attributes and traits I still hate.
The first one that took care of me, we'll call her Paula. Now Paula was the lesser of two evils but she was still, (at least in this stage in her life...later she became a more considerable human being) was a terrible person. She never fed me, beat me, and favored her boyfriend over me and was only on her best behavior when he was around. She took care of me for about a year.

Then the second one, named Simone. (Won't hide her name...)
She is the definition of a sociopath.
I'll cut to the chase, that she too favored her boyfriend over me. She never fed me, she beat me a whole lot worse than my last aunt, would lock me in closets, would blackmail me about her boyfriend and frame and lie about the things I did so she can laugh at me as she would tell my father the things I supposedly done, and she would watch my father beat me with a smile on her face. She tried to sleep with my father, my uncle and his friends. She would manipulate people by lying. She raped a family member, she tried to rape my older brother, she tried to rape me, she put cameras around our house, and tried to burn our house down while we were still inside. She used to beat her kids so badly that they would go into concussions. She used to bite them and make them bleed and peel the scars to reopen their wounds. She would let her kids run into the open streets, in hope that they would get hit by a car so she can sue somebody for the death of her kids. So to say the least, she is the devil's steaming pile of shit! This woman really tainted how I saw women. Luckily, we kicked her out after my mom beat her ass in our kitchen. (I didn't see it but my younger brother did. It was over waffles hahahahaha!)
I forgot to mention, she lived with us. After that incident, she never lived with us after that. She is the only person that if I ever saw drowning, I'd throw her a fucking weight set. I have no illwill to try to get revenge or try to be involved in her life whatsoever, but if she was ever put down, I would sigh a sense of relief and feel happy that the universe has finally justified a wrong.
All of my mother's sisters except a select few, were gossip queens and stock characters on what you would find on "Sex and the City" girls but to the extreme. They were bad, but Simone was the absolute worst.

Because of those moments, my view on women for a long time was skewed a bit. I may have not been able to talk to my mother about any of my problems or anything that I've been through, but at least I was able to rely on her to cry around and to hug and to have someone to feed me.

I could go on about the girls and the boys at school growing up but I'll save that for another time.

After all, I was a strange kid growing up, being completely different than the kids around me. I didn't have it the worst I'll admit, some of the kids I knew of were in far more worse situations than I could ever possibly fathom, but I always had a sense of self awareness since the age of five that made it very difficult to relate to others. It made it even harder to relate to women. Then again, I wasn't the most emotionally available guy growing up, let alone, willing to be vulnerable around women, so I don't blame their hesitance.

I never truly truly understood my problems until I was 18 after I broke up with my first girlfriend. Everything dawned on me, and I realized that being that intimate with someone can teach you a lot about everything. About life, about love, about sex, about relationships with another person and yourself, and your past. I didn't treat her the way I should've. I hurt her emotionally for not being 100% invested in the relationship as much as she was. I was holding out for something better, while she was giving her all. I may have not hit her, or manipulated her or anything horrible like that, but I ignored her needs, her affection, and refused her passion and affection of my own. She opened up to me completely, yet I always stood behind a brick wall. I guess all of that resentment of what my aunts put me through bled out and I couldn't help but be distrustful of her. For some reason, I wouldn't allow myself to be myself around her, so therefore, I couldn't be vulnerable. I tried to be something I wasn't around her. When she left me, I realized that relationships are not what you want them to be. They're not these over-romanitcized, special, living in a bubble, life-is-a-dream kind of thing that I thought they would be. When you get two emotionally unstable people together with a lot of baggage, it's going to be a lot of pain, tears, long nights, and a lot of talking. At least it should be. It shouldn't just be sex, kissing, holding hands, and going on dates like the way I thought it was supposed to be. It taught me a great deal and humbled me in so many ways that I thought I never needed.
I held women to a standard that no human could ever fulfill and I guess thats why I was holding out, believing that there existed a woman like that can fulfill every single one of my needs without ever communicating. Porn fucked my expectations. I felt horrible for a long time for having to put my ex through that, because nobody deserved that. But she's happy now and has kids, something we used to talk about. She will make a great mother.

I guess, its hard for me to relate to women because of how easy they have it in the dating game. I never had it easy, never had it too hard either. I also hated the fact that they can cry and talk about their emotions openly without the ever being shamed and men are expected to be hard molten, emotional rocks.

Though I don't hold any resentment towards women now, it still is hard for me to relate sometimes, but then again, its part my fault as well. I have to stop playing compare and contrast with them. I have to stop being this emotionally unavailable guy, and just have fun and try to learn as much as I can. Not every woman wants to take advantage of me or wants to sell me out and take what she can get from me. Not every woman is that babysitter. Not every woman is Sammy. Not every woman is Simone.

I have to remind myself, not all the time, but in times where I feel alone around women, that they're people too. No matter how different they are from me, they have feelings, hopes, dreams, fears and experiences under their belt that I would have no idea of, unless I open myself up to talk, to be honest and allow myself to listen.

I am still learning and still healing.