OK. I am a man. However I have many female friends and believe in equality. In many ways I relate better to women then men. However, I get so tired of the acceptable almost socially expected sisterhood of manbashing.
I can be a room of all women and feel quite comfortable however when one opens their mouth and starts bashing their man it becomes a contagious disease.
I dont understand why thats OK. Its not OK for men to sit around and bash women in front of them or in private. We have to learn to all get along.
In this age of political correctness and tolerance, I think things like Carrie Underwoods song "before he cheats" and Blu Cantrell's wtf song should be banned as hate speech.
I find it hurtful and totally uncalled for. I think many women who do this bring sexism on themselves. If you are a woman, perhaps you can share why this is OK. The answers I get from female friends are something like all men are slime except for you. wtf is up with that.
Next maybe I can understand the place where women put their male friends in their mind that has no potential for romantic invlovement. Anyway.
I think society has taught people stereotypical destructive behaviors that must be broken.
Sure some guys are slime (for some weird reason unknown to me women seem drawn to that type) but most of us are just decent people trying to coexist in this world full of all types of people. I dont go around saying all women are shallow and slutty. There are some that are, but that is not because of their gender I dont think.
If I were to make statements about women or gay people that were negative, I would be branded a bigoted asshole. However, women have this niche on society that gives them a license to spread hate and intolerance.
I hope nobody took this wrong and I get some insightful comments from people of every gender.
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7 comments:
I disagree about those songs being labeled as hate crimes. For one thing, they are directed at a particular person (the one who cheats, etc.) much the same way "Give me my money back, BITCH!" is a song (by Ben Folds) directed at a particular girlfriend who broke up with him right after he lavished a lot of money on her. I wouldn't call that hate speech, although I agree "bitch" can easily be put in the "hate speech" category. There's gotta be some artistic license for strong emotions and such.
I'm more inclined to think there's more sexism in the music industry (especially RAP and heavy metal) directed at women. For instance, all the songs where women are "ho's," "bimbos" and "bitches." Those seem more sexist b/c they are directed at all women (except grandma, of course), not one woman in particular.
As far as women bashing men in groups--from my personal experience, it's usually set off by one particular woman who's been hurt by a particular man, and everyone kind of chimes in with similar stories or just commiserates on "what jerks men can be." I'm not saying it's right, but in some ways, it would be insensitive to the woman to *defend* "men in general" when one in particular has really broken her heart or something. Does that make sense? And yes, if men were bashing women in the same way (when one of their pals had just got dumped or cheated on, etc.,) I would try not to take it personally because it's more about letting the other guy know you feel his pain and understand where he's coming from.
However, I don't think I've been in a situation where women just started complaining/bashing men *in general* without any provocation. Women may occasionally complain that men/their husbands don't understand their feelings, or spend too much time watching football/playing games rather than helping out around the house, but those are complaints backed up by observed behavior; the same way men may complain that their wives spend too much money on shopping or caring what the neighbors think or somesuch.
Just my experience, mind you. When other women start complaining about their "men," I usually just smile and nod. I don't have much to complain about, because the Pete is the awesome. :)
Ninjanun,
OK maybe not hate crimes. I was being a bit on the sarcastic side. I dont listen to much rap and I would agree that Give me my money back Bitch is just as bad (if not worse since bitch is quite a condescending word in itself). I am reminded of an old song by Skid Row called Get the F*ck out. same difference. However, those songs didnt achieve the same mainstream acceptance as the ones I mentioned. Really neither is good.
You do have some good points. I think it goes both ways though and it seems to be much more acceptable for women to bash men than for men to bash well anyone. Well with people outside of the music industry.
I was being a generalist as well. Its not all women who do this and men do it too (about women that is).
I have been in situations where it has gotten downright hateful. I have a very close female friend who was fine unless she got in the room with manhating conversation. She then became a different person and it REALLY hurt. To my knowledge she had no personal experience to justify it and all the insults were generalized toward men. It was like she did it to fit in. Now maybe it would be wrong to defend men, but why feed the hate for no reason. If its a real experience share it. I dont go around calling women hos and bitches if I am in a group of guys who are. Actually I have yet to be in that situation.
Though I have seen the my man is a jerk stuff too and I have seen some men who are assholes. After my parents broke up, my mom seemed to draw them like a magnet. I also have another female friend who seemed to always go for the wrong guys and oftentimes I was the sympathetic ear for her troubles.
I guess people can be jerks. But why does the implication have to be that all guys are jerks.
It bugs me because I have never been like that. I have never understood why men treat women that way. I have seen it. I have been plagued by being the "nice guy" that watched the jerks get the girls while I got lots of female friends (which in a way is a blessing) Lucky for me, one of them saw me as more than a friend and this has resulted in a happy marriage of almost 12 years. My wife has not manbashed that I know of since we have been together. I have had no need to womanbash either. My wife is awesome too :)
I think where I am going is I am sick of stereotypes and intolerance. I cant stand sexism of either gender.
In the infinite wisdom of Rodney King, "cant we all just get along"
I have opened a can of worms that cannot be closed I think. Oh well.
Not long ago, I was around a couple women from church, and one of them started in on her husband, and quickly started lambasting guys, in general. Physically, I was sort of half-in, half-out of the social space, but turned my head in the direction of the woman speaking. As she made her last point, she sort of looked at me, chin out, as if to dare me to defend mankind. The other heads turned to see how I'd respond. So I said, "Bitch, go make me a sandwich."
I don't think she thought it was as funny as I thought it was.
I think the reason it's, as you claim, spiritbear, "more socially acceptable" for women to man-bash than it is for men to woman-bash is because men still rule the world. Kinda the way white people still rule the Western world, so it's okay for black people to complain about "the man" and "crackers" but NOT okay for white people to call black people "niggers."
So, even though Dorsey meant to be funny with his "bitch, make me a sandwich" comment (and it was funny), I can see how it's subtly re-asserting that Chain of Command in which women are Generally Oppressed and men are Generally Fed Lots of Yummy Sandwiches and Payed 30% More on Average than Women and all that stuff.
And, in the spirit of Dorsey's "bitch make me a sandwich" comment, I offer the "buck up and take the man-bashing like a MAN!" comment. :)
Damn right, it was funny. The other two women laughed their asses off. Ninjanun's right. You have to have a sense of humor about stuff.
OK. I will chill now.
You may be right that white men rule the world. Doesnt make it right though.
As far as I can tell, neither of you are saying its right. Just that it is and why.
This was a lot of fun. Time to move on.
Btw the man bashing by the female friend took place in 1989. It would be interesting to see how i would react in the same situation now. I havent talked to her for a while. Maybe I should get back in contact.
I am getting a raw deal. I am getting paid like a woman to do a mans job. :)
Have a great evening. Thanks for commenting. Sometimes I wonder how much attention this blog gets. I can always count on Dorsey and Ninjanun :)
Correction. It wasnt 1989 it was 1993. In 89 I was pretty darn young.
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