I mean there’s no aura coming out of my head saying “I AM NOT ABUSIVE”. No way to really tell. So it makes women not trust ALL men. In fact it’s usually the men who are able to put on an act to seem like a really good guy that ends up abusing the woman. I think I am pretty real…in that I’m not a white knight turned abuser. What you see is what you get with me. I don’t go over the edge to make it seem like I am something I’m not. But then I am not abusive in any way. I couldn’t imagine anyone on this board being abusive. Maybe some are and I give us too much credit but I couldn’t imagine a schizophrenic being physically abusive. I know it exists but we’re the oppressed ones, men or women, never vice versa ?? At least usually not.
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No I don’t think so. I see people more as individuals. One person’s behavior doesn’t predict another one’s behavior.
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I see threads that all men are pigs and it makes me believe we all get a bad name.
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I think that can happen. It is impossible to know in advance who is a good person and who is abusive. After a bad experience, the brain learns very quickly to avoid the circumstances that lead to that experience. This is where PTSD triggers come from. I know a woman who was abandoned into an abusive home when her mother drove away in a white car. Now, whenever she sees a white car, she has a panic attack. The mental process is the same for learning to be afraid of men. If it was a man who abused you, your brain can send danger signals whenever it sees a man. This isn’t fair to the overwhelming majority of good men out there, but it’s even more unfair to the person who now has to live with a trigger that’s basically half of all people in the world. It is possible to work through these triggers in therapy.
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I’ve seen threads like that too toward men or women in general. @Jonnybegood. It sounds like generalizing to me. I think it’s also known as black and white thinking seeing something or someone as all good or all bad. I have to be careful not to make broad brush statements sometimes. I catch myself sometimes. I’ve had both positive and negative experiences with both men and women so I see it as an individual thing.
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no. I don’t. but it is hard to avoid them
Unfortunately I do think all the media scare about rape & assault does make women very cautious of men. Me and my friends have talked about how we are all nervous if we’re alone walking and see a random guy or guys pass by, they could be totally chill, but hey they could also be a robber, or a rapist…it’s not great to jump to assumptions like that, it’s not great to jump to assumptions about anyone based on something biological like sex or race or whatever. But it happens. Our animal brains are programmed to automatically respond w caution to any sort of thing we’ve heard dangerous things about.
And it’s really been disheartening to see the amount of celebrities who have acted as sexual predators in the past. Some of the celebrities accused I really liked. So that also makes things confusing.
I really don’t agree with calling all men pigs though, that’s dumb. Of course all men aren’t sexual predators. Typically generalizations are wrong. There’s too much diversity.
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Yes, I think so. I also think that’s why some women say things like “men have to start saying abuse isn’t OK”. I’ve heard a lot of women say something like that, and I think it’s pretty stupid. Why do they assume men in general do not speak up against abuse? It’s like they’ve never had a conversation with a normal man about this, and just assume all men are potential rapists. Women and men both need to speak up against abuse, and most women and men already do.
Anyway, that was a slightly different discussion. But yes, I feel douchebags and abusers give men a bad rep. I feel if I walk 10 meters behind a woman at night, she will assume I’m a potential rapist. I feel if I smile at a kid on the subway, their mom will think I might be a pedophile. The first one I can understand. People get raped and mugged on the street, and it’s usually by men. But the second one is stupid. Women can be pedophiles too, but they do not get that reputation. Men are disproportionately blamed for a lot of criminal things. It’s not just my opinion, it’s fact. Criminal courts are more lenient on women, probably because it’s harder for us to imagine a woman being guilty of doing morally wrong things than a man.
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