Imagine this.

You're the brand new mother of a bouncing baby boy. Your lower boby feels like a disaster area but as you gaze at his sleeping angel face there's one thing you already know. You would die for that child.

And perhaps not consciously, there is thing you already hope. That he won't grow up to be like other men.

So you put in the time. To feed him, keep him healthy, teach him to use potty, make sure he does his homework, while showing him how to be a decent human being and clean up after himself. You put in the worry and the sleepless nights while he's sick or away or in trouble.

18 years later, you hear him talk about "divorce rape" with his friends and refer to female office workers as office hookers.

You're pretty sure he didn't learn that from you. WTF happened?

What happened is other men.

Primarily his father.

If you want to know who a man is, take a close look at his father.

A man can have a close and loving relationship with his mother and it will mean nothing if his father is a dick. Because you can teach your baby a lot of things but only one person can teach him how to love women.

In fact, I once heard an old rabby say (20 years too late) that if your man doesn't have a good relationship with his father, don't marry him. He might be wonderful right now but the wounds of childhood (and the personality of the father) have a strange way of asserting themselves through the son, if he lack self-awareness.

One time I asked my mother in law, why did she marry such a terrible person. She looked at me sadly and said, he wasn't always that way.

My own husband was a generous, hardworking man, kind to animals and kids and good to the earth. That sounded well enough to me and I was willing to ignore his familial situation. Now I'm the one looking at you sadly, saying, he wasn't always that way.

But what if he doesn't have a father or never knew him?

No worries. The other men are here to pick up the slack. Grandfathers, uncles, neighbors, stepfathers, even the co-workers at your kid's first job at a fast-food joint...Starting from kindergarten, at the latest, there's always that one boy eager to enlighten your kid about how the world works. And of course once your man gets unfettered access online (earlier and earlier these days), the outcome is completely out of your hands.

Either way: Find out who the main male figure in his life was and make sure you learn everything about that person.

Yes, there are men who hate women because of actual negative experiences. But this specific sense of entitlement, looking down at women as the weaker, more worthless sex and treating them like crap in every turn? This is taught through merciless socialization in a patriarchy from day one.

It's probably safe to assume that every man has some kind of degree of misogyny within him, so the goal when dating is basically to find the one with the least amount possible.

Seriously this isn't rocket science:

Pay 👏 attention 👏 to 👏 the 👏 big 👏 red 👏 flags.