Q: 'Unrealistic expectations', 'patriarchy' & '/r/feminisms

ignatiusloyola · 2010-05-23T12:34:01+00:00

Expectations that we will be both strong and vulnerable, wealthy but devoted to family (them), be happy but not more happy than them, be understanding of their emotional outbursts but keep our emotional outbursts under control, etc...

Omnicrola · 2010-05-23T12:29:43+00:00

I am not telepathic.

elementalist · 2010-05-23T14:14:36+00:00

Like what you see at the beginning. We are not finished products but neither are we lumps of clay. You may influence us around the edges but you are not going to fundamentally change us. The few guys that let you try, you will come to hate; and they you.

We are not your "everything". We won't "complete" you. We will hopefully share more together than with other people but you will have interests and needs that we can't or have no interest in fulfilling.

Embrace the differences. We are not female so don't expect us to be. That is why you have girl friends.

49rows · 2010-05-23T17:47:57+00:00

Expect us to take all the risks; if it pays off then they should get some of the benefits, if it doesn't then there is no need to respect us.

logic11 · 2010-05-23T13:59:09+00:00

Be a bad boy, so long as you are also sensitive. Be a tortured artist who makes millions off of his art (I blame bad bad 80's romance erotica for this... the lead male is always some guy with long hair who never wears a shirt and lives in a converted warehouse that he owns where he does all of his sculpting with a blowtorch and a ten pound sledge. He is the only multi-millionaire sculptor in the history of sculpting and lives alone because only the special woman in the movie can draw him out of his shell).

Omnicrola · 2010-05-23T14:43:11+00:00

There are a lot more of these for sure but, for me, it's mostly these things that I see in my day to day life.

1) be the one who is assertive and takes all the risks. Women, typically, see men as not confident if they don't make the first moves(this I find very frustrating as women typically do not face nearly the same level of rejection as men do, face the same level of negative scrutiny for approaching women and how easier it is for them to begin with); losers if they're shy, introverted, bad or inexperienced with sex or unsuccessful; creepy if they're socially awkward or spineless if they make an effort or are too nice(where usually the same is not said of women for exerting the same qualities). It also seems rather common that men are expected to put the majority of the effort into dating/coupling(a.k.a. "the chase") while they themselves should not.

There is also often this expectation put on men to be protectors/heavy lifters and that any good man should always be there to put himself, or his body, on the line to protect or benefit women(which is also often taken for granted) and that they should just learn to "take it like a man" if they have a problem with it(although, this also true of tolerating blatant anti-male sexism, prejudice and segregation; physical, emotional, sexual and psychological abuse; unrealistic expectations; etc). That men should make the harder decisions which exonerates them from the responsibilities and consequences that come with those actions.

2) An automatic assumption that a man should provide for women, often completely taking for granted a man's financial contributions(Typically I see women who feel completely entitled to a men's earning, whether the relationship is in good health or over; where men typically do not assume that being with a woman of higher income entitles them to her earnings).

Women can work and earn just as much as men can, they can provide the income they want for themselves(although, even then, I often still see a lot of women with high income see their higher income as a justification to be entitled to a partner of equal or higher income).

3) An expectation that men should know exactly what all women are thinking at all times while they, more often than not, are not willing to see, or understand, how we think(often just assuming the worse).

These are just the situations that I find are most common(about 80-85% of women, in my experience), which not only objectify men but also presents them as expendable and inferior.

letsgocrazy · 2010-05-23T17:04:39+00:00

I wish (some) women could understand:

Some of the things we do are hardwired into our brains, like looking at asses or responding to fast moving objects - it's not a "choice" - I'm sure many of us men in a relationship would benefit from turning off our "noticing women" gene.
Sometimes we want to not talk as much as you want to talk - that doesn't mean we are ambivalent about talking, it means we want it to not happen. Our brains are processing data or we are working things in our heads and you are distracting us from doing that. You want something, we want something - they cancel each other out.
Most men know that your feelings are something to be mastered - not controlled by - there's only so much we can hear about yours before we think "get a fucking grip" - learn to develop your personality and stop acting as if you are purely the victim of how you "feel" - you never had "feelings" about politics before you learned about it, so your feelings are reflections of your attitudes, not magical communications from the fairy gods
Believe it or not, men talk to each other, make jokes or comments to people we haven't met - if we do it to you we're treating you like normal person, not trying to hit on you - conceitedness is so ugly
That argument you're getting into? I'm the one that's going to get punched
I'm strong and can be a shoulder to cry on? I'm being a man and compartmentalising my feelings (the thing you hate), but really I'm resenting you for being self indulgent
Not wanting to rush into commitment is a good thing, it's called not being hasty to make life changing decisions just so you can unlock another achievement on the Jones' Scale

edit: many edits!

TheChosenOne570 · 2010-05-24T03:39:40+00:00

Always bail her out of stupid situations (I get a call at 2:30am and she just happened to find herself into a mess 2 hrs away.... don't fucking party then!)
Appreciate them for who they are... while they swoon over any jackass with a backwards hat and no shirt
Why can they go see Jonas brothers or other boy bands at the age of 25 but if I go see some teenage girl in concert, I'm a perv???

DaTaco · 2010-05-23T13:18:07+00:00

Domineering in the bedroom, tractable everywhere else.

Il128 · 2010-05-24T02:20:47+00:00

That a woman should have the right of choice of being a stay at home mom or to work outside the home.

Men do not get this choice.

Women expect a man to change, Hell they expect everything to change, after marriage.

Men expect things to continue on as they are, that is why we got married.

Women believe that a man should take care of them financially and that is a big reason women get married, to be taken care of.

Things have changed. Get a fucking job.

XFDRaven · 2010-05-23T18:09:23+00:00

-I should pay for everything because she deserves it.

-I should be over 6 feet tall and athletic.

-I should have no consideration for her body size. Physical attraction is meaningless, especially when she departs from healthy to barn.

-I should have a dick made of chocolate which ejaculates money.

-I should sell all of my things that are of no interest to her, and replace them with things which interest her.

-I should limit the kinds of knowledge I enjoy to what she approves so that we can continue to be "on the same plane."

-I should provide gifts to her when she's done something nice for me, but to expect reciprocation when I do something nice for her is chauvinistic.

-The foods I enjoy are irrelevant, I should happily go anywhere she wants and eat what she wants because that shows how much I love her.

-Any hobbies I enjoy, which she finds boring, are to be stopped immediately. The attention I give to those things is a "drain" on the relationship.

TL;DR: Cut off my dick, stick it in a jar, and give her a permanent umbilical line to my checking account and credit cards. Because love is proportional to money.

BaseballGuyCAA · 2010-05-23T19:06:34+00:00

If I work too hard, I don't care about her and I only love school/work. If I put life on the back burner for her, I'm a deadbeat who is going nowhere and will never be able to give her the life she deserves.

If I get upset with you gaining weight, I'm a shallow pig. And an insensitive asshole for calling her fat. If I put on weight, I don't care about you enough to take care of myself.

Omnicrola · 2010-05-23T12:44:23+00:00

[permanently deleted]

2010-05-23T12:32:11+00:00

I came across a comment complaining about men's unrealistic expectations of women.

Can you link to this comment you speak of?

iggybdawg · 2010-05-23T19:06:58+00:00

expect my sex drive to drop for the same reasons hers do.

expect me to be ok with only having as much sex as she wants when her sex drive is low, instead of compromising with the average amount.

(I never understood cheaters or polyamory until having kids made my wife's sex drive go to 0)

Edit: I didn't answer the why is this harmful, to a man this is probably obvious, but leaving your sexual partner sexually unsatisfied while you yourself are satisfied harms the (sexual) relationship. Basically, as my girlfriend/fiance/wife she kept me sexually satisfied. When she became a mother, she stopped being my devoted lover, without remorse or surprise.

BinaryShadow · 2010-05-25T02:51:27+00:00

That if the relationship is not 100% "ordinary", it's the man's idea/fault, and he's using the woman to his advantage.

For example: My ex is bisexual and enjoyed being with women. I also knew that we were both years away from marriage or anything of the sort and we were still attracted to other people. After a night of heavy flirting with a girl, she suggested we open up our relationship to other people, men and women. We discussed it thoroughly for a few weeks, came up with some ground rules, and tried it out for a year.

It was actually a very overall positive time in that relationship. Except that all of her friends, when they found out we had an open relationship, stopped talking to me and told her that I was a slimeball, I was just using her, I really just wanted to be with other people and was stringing her along, etc.

She had to, on more than one occasion, go out of her way to defend me and remind her friends that she brought it up, she had to encourage me to do it, and that she was the first one of us to take advantage of the situation. Only after several months of hammering that point home did her girlfriends start to be friendly towards me; too late, damage done, I've already seen how willing you were to jump to conclusions about me without knowing me at all.

I've been in poly relationships too, and they were always initiated by the female half of the relationship, yet I caught shit for being the "pervert".

2010-05-23T19:00:06+00:00

The worst unrealistic expectation for me is when women expect that you know what they like in bed.

I've been with dozens of chicks, and its very rare that they ever request anything or tell me that they like what i'm doing.

Women need to know that men need directions in bed - just like we give them. I'm not ashamed to ask her to cup my balls while she's blowing me...she shouldn't be ashamed, or assume i telepathically know, that she likes me to pinch her nips when i'm going down on her.

WikipediaBrown · 2010-05-23T12:22:00+00:00

They expect me to marry them.

nlakes · 2010-05-26T00:05:20+00:00

I thought I'd post this here, because it seems relevant.

This is from her interview on Top Gear in the BBC. Geri Halliwell, of the spice girls, lists her perfect man's attributes:

Love his mum, be trustworthy & kind, good-looking, funny, sexy, healthy, bigger bank balance than mine, virile, 28-38 years old, loyal, fit, lots of free time, and is respected in his own right.

So even when a woman is a multi-millionaire, the man has to have more money. (Which means her perfect man has to be a rock star, footballer/professional athlete, internet millionaire, or financier, because no other profession would come close to earning that kind of money.)

YesImSardonic · 2010-05-24T11:07:42+00:00

Well this is awesome. Next, we should copy the thread from /r/twoxchromosomes to delineate what we love about women.

Seriously.

Title	Q: 'Unrealistic expectations', 'patriarchy' & '/r/feminisms
Author	[deleted]
Upvotes	24
Comments	78
Date	May 23, 2010 12:03 PM UTC (16 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/c78g8/q_unrealistic_expectations_patriarchy_rfeminisms/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/q-unrealistic-expectations-patriarchy-rfeminisms.1049409 https://theredarchive.com/post/1049409

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