One that constantly comes up between me and my partner is fashion related. She is very liberal but when it comes to our relationship is the exact opposite. She buys everything from lacy thongs and g-strings to boy shorts underwear. She hates that I as a man wear thong and bikini underwear, too. I’m athletic, lift and workout 5 days a week, and get hot very easily. I like the support and minimalism of thongs for that, but she always buys me boxers which are uncomfortable and bunch up and all the extra fabric and cotton makes me hot and sweaty and chafe. When I bring up she wears thongs just do she doesn’t have panty lines and I wear them for comfort and support she doesn’t understand. She also mentioned she thinks guys wearing thongs is weird but then says it’s so “brave” when gay guys do it during pride. I once called her out and homophobic for assuming it’s a fetishized gay guys only thing and she got mad, but am I wrong?
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You're definitely not wrong. If she's willing to undermine or criticize your clothes preference after you've already told her why you like them and you don't want to change, what else is she willing to undermine?
I feel very comfortable sharing with her, especially since I grew up in an extremely conservative area of the south and she grew up in an upper class suburb in the Bay Area in California. She knows when I’m feeling “off” because it manifests in body language she picks up on and tries to get me to share (I.e. when I’m having work or family problems) but it’s been hard to break that “men don’t share their feelings” attitude I was raised with. She actually buys me clothing that is vibrant and traditionally female brands (lulu, Madewell, etc..). That’s why I was kind of taken aback when I first started wearing my thongs around her and she was like “are those women’s panties?” Because they were brightly colored pink pair of a male thong from MeUndies. I explained they are the comfortable for support when engaging in cardio and lifting and she was like, “I don’t like seeing you in them”.
In the same way I grew up in a very conservative area and this is a unique way to express myself and enjoy feeling sexy, I think she grew up in the opposite and that’s why she was attracted to stoic, lumbering me. She has jokingly called me a “brute” in a loving way and says she is fascinated how I just “power through” manual labor for 12 hours at a time on the weekend doing projects and lifting heavy stuff around our house. I think she just has a biological urge to see me as that big protector.
Also, she always talks about how she doesn’t like muscle on guys, but since we have been together I have put on a lot of muscle and the more I put on the more she is constantly squeezing my arms and shoulders and putting her head on my chest… but she has also noticed that other women will feel my arms in public and I think she gets a little jealous
As a guy who's trying dating again, there's something that keeps coming up that kinda bugs me: talking to women who just put in the bare minimum of effort, expect me to carry the conversation and make all the first moves.
I don't give two shits about traditional gender roles and I'm all about subverting them. However, I think if you're in the same boat but still wanna call yourself a "passenger princess" and expect the guy to do everything, you're kind of a hypocrite.
This kind of thing drives me mad.
If we both like each other, why don't we communicate like adults instead of playing some stupid game?
Exactly.
Well, then there's another stupid game... "Hey hon' do I look fat in these jeans?"
"Positively rotund. How'd you even fit through the door to get in here? I'm amazed your shins haven't given out under the strain."
Push those """"tests"""" right back down their throats with a second hand toilet plunger.
Just want to let you know that you aren't alone. I have talked to a number of women who advocate for things like DEI and acceptance (which is something I also believe quite strongly in) but often default to preferring more traditional gender norms in dating. When pressed on the issue (not like I'm interrogating them just through normal conversations and getting to know them) they will inevitably say that it is ultimately "just their preference".
What I find so odd about that "preference" is if a man behaves in accordance with the traditional/societal gender norms in the beginning of the courting process, why is it surprising that they do the same thing later in the relationship when it comes to sharing emotional labor or various types of household chores?
I know the below is taking it to a bit of an extreme example but that behavior and "preference" often reminds me the sentiment "the only moral abortion is my abortion". Like I get it, there are a lot of shitty people out there who have no interest in putting in the effort, and they absolutely are not worth the time and effort, but when you do meet someone who is willing to put in that effort, it isn't really fair to treat them like all those other people.
Men are in a kind of catch-22. Women say they want one thing but their actions usually say they want the opposite.
It's fairly broadly believed that strong male influences benefit a child greatly, but males are looked at with huge skepticism if they attempt to enter most forms of childcare as a profession.
Cut bits of a girl baby's genitals: jail.
Cut bits off a boy baby's genitals: An occasion for a fucking party.
I work in a company that seems to have mostly women in management roles and the area I work in has mostly women in our area as well. The things I've heard women say about men though would get any guy shit-canned within a day if he were to say anything like that about women. Women can straight-up say things like, "I hate men" or "Men are such assholes" or "What is wrong with men?" or "Guys are so stupid!" or "My husband is such a fucking idiot" or saying blatantly sexual shit about men that they have crushes on or find attractive. It's just a joke to them, like whatever. Meanwhile, if a guy were to say anything even remotely approaching to what I've heard in our office, they would be gone like nothing, there's just no tolerance for that.
And don't get me wrong, I'm not offended by women saying sexist things like that or talking sexually about guys, I don't give a shit, I've heard worse from other guys. That doesn't bother me and I'm not looking to get anybody in trouble over it, I just want tolerance from both sides. What bothers me is that men aren't afforded that same courtesy and aren't allowed to talk the same way. Women can talk shit at work all they want about men because "Fuck the patriarchy, old white men are ruining everything, etc", but whooo, if a guy says anything remotely out of line about women, they will be reported like that 🫰.
Domestic violence against men is usually ignored or blamed on the victim.
I don't know any specific cases, but one thing I've heard that police (at least in Brazil) will just laugh at and ignore, is when a man is the victim of an abusive partner.
Of course, it's nowhere as common as men being the violent/abusive partner, but it happens, yet "society" will effectively say "grow a pair"
Most studies show domestic abuse is almost always close 50/50 in perpetrators.
So one thing I noticed is that women betraying their partner has become extremely normalized
- Every "ethical non monogamous" relationship I've seen IRL is just a woman pressuring their long term monogamous partner into a situation where she has multiple partners and she's struggling
- "Monkey Branching", where a woman starts dropping hints at one guy while still seeing another in hopes of making a seamless transition, is pretty accepted. Emotional affairs are only a thing for men apparently
- While it's always been acceptable to leave a guy if he can't "provide" for you, it's really fucking stupid in the context of modern feminism
- Women who use OLD are often encouraged to have a "roster" of men, who they form a well beyond casual connection to.
- There's a large number of 30+ year old women breaking up with their long term partners to "find themselves". I put that in quotations because this usually just involves a ton of casual sex. It's basically the modern day equivalent of a guy leaving his wife for the secretary
- There are a million different love triangles on TV. They are almost all two guys and a woman who is disrespectful of both. The guys get mad at each other and the women's behavior is not portrayed as toxic.
- Like 80 percent of holiday movies involve a woman leaving her fiance for a man she just met. This is always seen as romantic, instead of psychotic.
In addition to all that, women are extremely reluctant to criticize other women. This stands even when another woman is behaving in an almost objectively toxic way. I moved post covid. The first year I witnessed a fuckton of toxic behavior, but when I tried to point it out I would get dirty glances from women. The second year there I ended up getting close to other women in those conversations who took it upon themselves to tell me in a smaller setting that they actually agreed with me, but they didn't want to appear unsupportive.
Whatever the intention there, the mentality enabled a subset of women to be shitty and probably convinced a lot of men that such behavior was something most women were okay with.
Every single experience you mentioned I cannot relate to at all. It's really weird to read.
In dating or marriage: If a female partner criticizes on her male’s choice of outfit, it’s totally normal. If a male criticizes the choice of outfit of his female partner… a fight is imminent.
Sounds like an unhealthy relationship to me instead of a double standard but whatever.
Here's another thing that I was just reminded of in this very thread, lmfao:
Men are expected to accept unsolicited advice at face value when they want to vent, because we're supposed to be the ones with all the answers, and if a man is complaining about a problem, then he's obviously just missing the answer.
This actually blew up my last relationship, right at the beginning of the pandemic, when my girlfriend at the time was stressed from being laid off and we weren't able to see each other due to the isolation orders.
She would try to vent to me about her problems, looking for support in a time of emotional vulnerability, and I, an inexperienced idiot just trying to be helpful, would suggest solutions that I thought she hadn't considered. If you can't guess exactly how that went, you've almost certainly never been in a serious relationship.
What made it worse is she would then say to stop mansplaining, which made me defensive because I thought she was tacitly accusing me of being intentionally misogynistic when I was honestly just trying to be helpful. At the time, I figured I just needed to adjust my approach a little bit, not completely change course. Unsurprisingly, that didn't work.
It was only in hindsight, some time after she had dumped my dumb ass, and I had blocked and deleted her number, that I was complaining to my friends and getting the exact same kind of thing back that I realized, "oh wow, I get it now, that is actually really fucking annoying and invalidating."
It was also around this time, while discussing my experiences with friends who have been diagnosed, that I realized that I might have ADHD. So that definitely hadn't helped.
In the extremely unlikely event you're reading this, K, I'm sorry. I figured out what I did wrong, just a little too late.
It's not entirely on you. Accusing you of mansplaining is not cool, she should've just said something like "i'm sharing this because I'm looking for emotional support, not solutions, so please stop trying to solve my problems when I'm just venting".
In a sense, how people react to having problems shared with them is a cultural difference, neither is right or wrong but they can be jarring and confusing when you're used to one culture but interact with a different one. But it's not fair to just assume the other culture is acting in bad faith
Some good examples:
-
Fat acceptance and body positivity. Obesity is glorified (even fetishized) when it's a woman, whereas obese men are shunned. Have you noticed that nobody in the fat acceptance movement is vouching for the 300lb basement dwellers?
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Older ladies who date younger guys are called cougars, whereas if you flip the gender roles, an older man dating a younger lady half his age is going to be labelled a pedophile, even if she's of-age. Just look at at the anger surrounding Tobey Maguire (48 years old) dating a 20 year old actress. There are people who legitimately think men like him should be hunted for sport.
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The amount of effort you have to put into your dating profile. Women have the opposite problem of being inundated with matches even with minimal effort.
The body positivity one really upsets me. A few years ago Target rearranged the clothing area. The men's area shrank and the women's is like three times are big. The women's area has all manner of plus sized models and mannequins. Nothing of the sort in the men's.
It's like, I've always known body positivity (when it comes to corporations doing it) is extremely one sided and they're only chasing profits but I'd never seen it so literally before. Target was one of my favorite places to shop for clothes.
Well, for one, the ability to freely talk about issues specific to their gender without judgement by ~20% of the population
Men are often expected to swallow their emotions and just "function", while women are allowed and even encouraged to display them openly
I would counter this and say any woman with a career can absolutely not show emotion. They’re expected to behave like men, which are in turn not supposed to show emotion in the workplace. It’s less of a double standard and more of a toxic standard.
Dress code at work. I work in investment banking. On a hot summer day I have to wear smart shoes, black socks, long trousers, long sleeved shirt. Women can wear whatever. It's fucking horrible
Go get the traveler suit from suit supply and some lightweight wool /cotton shirts, NOT the “performance” ones made of plastic. I live in the Deep South and I’m a consultant. This is so much better in the hot summer.
The fact that any point made in this post, no matter how reasonable a complaint, or how heinous it would be considered if done to a woman, will likely be derided and dismissed as misogyny, mansplaining, whining, etc, and all male participants in the discussion labeled as incels.
ITT about male victims of sexism-based double-standard, we see
- stories of female victims
- downvoting stories of male victims
- the top-voted post about how men can't speak up for fear of being shouted down
Wow, Lemmy. Be better than Reddit.
That is exactly why I'm downvoting many of the comments here. Not personal stories, but all the "men have it so much worse" comments, which are ultimately just toxic against women.
Because holy fuck, that was exactly Reddit, and I do not want this place to end up the same. We already have a massive imbalance between the genders and if we men start discrediting women, they're most fucking definitely not going to show up here.
I do want men to be able to speak about abuse stories. That is where our patriarchical society kills men, in that it does not allow us to show weakness. But it cannot fucking devolve into a us vs. them discussion, which this whole question is locked and loaded towards. That is not helpful to anyone.
No one calls a woman a babysitter or says she's "giving dad a break" when she's somewhere with her own children.
I'm about 30. I have friends my age with young (toddler) daughters. They've had the police called on them walking with their own child. I've had the police called on me watching their daughter for them (these are friends I've had for 12 years, I'm basically her uncle).
Men are assumed to be predators if they are near children.
I used to take my twin daughters to the park and we would have daddy day while their mom was at work swing shifts.
We had pizza at the park, and it worked out because changing their diapers on a shitty blanket was easier than fumbling around on a bench since no one thought to put a diaper tray in any of the men’s restrooms.
Had the police called on me a few times. Never did they take the call seriously after showing up. One female officer told a Karen that she is annotating this as a fraud call because anyone with half a brain would realize it’s a dad eating pizza with his kids rather than a kidnapper molesting children in public.
Mom changes a diaper? No one cares.
Clothes in general, I could borrow my husband's shirt and nobody would bat an eye but I'd he borrowed mine (he can't because I'm smaller, but assuming we were the same size-ish) would look strange.
I don't think groping is gonna be ignored in any workplace, in any direction.
I've read enough accounts from both men and women to know that sexual harassment is not taken seriously at many places.