A bit late

My wife shares the same opinion. It’s not something she can discuss in her social circles, but she feels like she’s been backstabbed in more awful ways by her fellow women.

When she gets in that pattern, I try to remind her that people tend to suck and you have to be choosy regardless of gender.

I hear you, but as a dude, I feel like there's significantly more risk of bodily harm from men than than women. This doesn't mean women are Nice, just less likely to try to rape or murder someone in an alley :(
- You're right.. a woman would take you home first before she fucking drugged your tea or whatever the Hell she's going to do to you. Just because women have less muscles don't mean they're not just as psychopathic as any dude murderer. The long-term damage that women can cause on the mind and body is fucking creepy and terrifying. Even creepier and more terrifying when you realize how many women utilize manipulative psychopathic actions in regular day-to-day life. Women are total horror shows for me. Unknowable, unsafe, unreliable, unstable. Terrifying.

I feel like with men it’s usually more physical and with women it’s more social/mental. And physical is way easier to document and make stats out of

What are we comparing here? Cyberbullying to r*pe? Social exclusion to being thrown down the stairs? Not sure if you're attempting to draw equivalences or minimize physical harm but that is how I read this
- Straight up.. it seems like when I tell people that I'm scared of women they want to quantify it or somehow tell me I'm wrong for having the opinion I do it's fucking hilarious.. the same women who would shit on a man for being a man are the same women who couldn't possibly believe that women are the problem for some folk.
  
  I haven't said anything to you. I'm not telling anyone they're wrong. It seems to me the bear discussion revolves around the fact that many if not most women are distrustful of men because of violence, misogyny, etc. Your subjective experience doesn't change that, but neither is it invalid.

Have you had some negative experiences that led to this?

I've never been downvoted anywhere for expressing that opinion. Lemmy especially there's a huge disparity where saying you'd rather be with a bear than a man is unacceptable, but saying you'd rather be with a bear than a woman? A-okay. Source? I've said both. Only one was I not attacked for. Guess which?
Seriously, I've expressed my trauma regarding men countless times and every time been attacked for it. I've expressed my trauma at the hands of women and not a single downvote or attack or disparaging remark any time. Lemmy has a very clear bias.
I wouldn't have a single problem with men getting upset about this bear thing if they got equally upset when somebody says something similar or worse about women, but they don't.

It's because nobody wants to talk about trauma at the hands of women.. everybody goes extremely, extremely quiet when the topic of the capable violence of women enters the room. I have a personal feeling, as a woman, that if we talk about all of the tools and tricks and things that women do to manipulate and abuse, less women will get away with it, and women don't want that, so they stay silent in order to enable basically a fucking gang, operating with impunity, in a way as a woman, I kind of feel held hostage at the sleepover if you know what I mean..
- IRL, sure, but on Lemmy that's not what's happening. If you talk about trauma at the hands of women on Lemmy, you get outpourings of support and people sharing their experiences as well. Which is good. That should be happening everywhere.
  The problem is you can't do the same thing on Lemmy if you were traumatized by men. Instead, you get down voted to hell, get statistics quoted at you as if that'll magically fix it, and when surprise, still traumatized after the stats, now you must be a misandrist so your trauma is invalid anyway.
  
  I was just hoping one place would exist on the internet where men's and women's issues could get equal screen time and be respected just as much, but no, the genders have to be treated like sports teams and if you support one apparently you have to hate the other. I just don't get why people are like this.
  
  Why does it have to be like this? Because men are constantly vilanized as being the violent, manipulative, and exploitative gender. This man and bear thing sums it up pretty well. Women get a free pass to do a lot of stuff, including women rappers admitting publicly to drugging and stealing from men and not facing any real consequences.
  
  Feminism is used as an excuse to push both transphobia and misandry. Like sure there might be feminists out there who actually want equality, and there are plenty of people who do want equality who aren't calling themselves feminists. That's not the majority of people calling themselves feminists though. It's a shame as feminism started out as seeking equality, or at least pushing back against inequality.
  
  Men being hurt by women is not an excuse for men to hurt women in return. It is possible for both groups to acknowledge they've been hurt by each other and work toward a solution. Pushing "they hurt me so they deserve to be hurt" helps nobody, especially when both groups are doing it.
  That's what I'm complaining about. This mindset that being hurt by men/women completely absolves you of the responsibility to allow them to feel safe. Any space dominated by women will be filled with "Well men are responsible for the majority of violence and sexual assault so actually you deserve to feel like shit." every time a man speaks up. Any space dominated by men will be filled with "Well it makes me feel bad when you discuss the repercussions of your trauma so shut the fuck up." every time a woman speaks up.
  We can have a place where both genders can talk freely about the way these things effect them and the changes we need to make to fix them. The issue is people are only pretending to want such a space. What they really want is the other gender to sit down, shut up, and agree with them uncritically. Because in their head they're definitely in the right and they'd rather not be confronted with alternate viewpoints from people who have lived experiences they'll never have.
  
  Worse, as a trans woman, you'd think people would be more willing to accept our viewpoints because trans people are some of few people who can have both lived experiences. But no, our experiences are only valid if they 100% allign with the men or women we share them with. Otherwise we're brushed off like somehow our experience doesn't count because we had the wrong experience to reaffirm their biases.
  On Lemmy, dominated by men, when I say I fear women due to my lived childhood experience as a boy, being taken advantage of while I was still too young to fight back, I'm met with outpourings of support. People talk about why "this is why trans people's life experience matters." When I mention later in the same conversation that I also fear men due to my lived experience as a woman and not being able to fight back due the the hormonal muscle loss, suddenly, my experiences don't count anymore. People think they get to pick and choose which of my experiences were valid and valuable and which aren't based on whatever reaffirms what they already believe. And of course you can bet the exact same thing happens the other way around when I tell the same story to women.
  
  I kind of get what you are saying. People want to defend their in-group when it comes under attack even when it doesn't deserve that defence.
  
  I think such a space as you describe would need to be built upon the understanding that all genders are capable of shitty things and that no person or group of people is perfect. I don't think we have that in this world. What we have is a world that's unfair to everyone, and instead of acknowledging that things need to change for everyone, people are instead bickering over who has it worse and who gets the blame. Blaming this group or that group for all the problems that exist.
  
  What we have at the moment is almost a cold war between different groups of people. Some people who only care about women, others who care only about men, and a select few who care equally about both. I am sure there are other situations where this is the case too. This I think is what people are talking about when they mention the culture wars.

With a bear, really ?

dsfgasfsaf

Nope I definitely trust men more than I trust women. I don't know what part of what I said sounds like that when I said I don't trust women, not people.
- dsfgasfsaf
  
  I don't know why you're being downvoted nobody has ever actually just acquiesced and listened to me so thank you for listening to me and not arguing with me.
  
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  Thanks back to you
  
  Hey there, I've just downvoted you. The reason why is that you would have never told this to a woman who said "I definitely trust [women] more than I trust [men]. I don't know what part of what I said sounds like that when I said I don’t trust [men], not people.", therefore you're patronizing this person, dismissing their claims and experiences and unusual and ultimately unworthy of being taken seriously. Yes, of course it sounds like there's very likely some trauma behind her position, just as there's trauma behind the women who say they'd choose the bear, but that is no proper reason to dismiss them when they want to use their experiences as a parting point to discuss social issues.
  
  It's funny that you downvoted this person because you didn't take the time to wonder if his question was genuinely asked or not ... I took the time, as the person who was supposed to be offended in the first place, to tell this person that they were wrong... and then they corrected themselves... it's almost like you want to be offended on my behalf, but this guy did not upset me as much as your comment currently is upsetting me so that's fucking hilarious.
  
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  Lol I got you my homie. To be fair, I did feel patronized.. but we solved it so that's wonderful and fantastic and we are still having a good end of our weekend, goddammnit are we not.
  
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  Dismissing someone's concerns as a mental health issue. That's actually horrifyingly toxic and completely illogical in this case. This is what people mean when they talk about concern trolling.
  
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  People need to talk to a therapist about their fear of airplanes, whether it’s rational or not. People have to talk to a therapist about car crashes, whether it’s rational or not. If you are worried about something and it causes you anxiety, you should talk to a therapist. The source is not my concern, the help you need is.
  
  That's not what therapy is for. If there is a real life problem causing you anxiety or anger the solution is to fix that problem of to remove yourself from the situation. Talking to a therapist is not a solution to real life problems. Anxiety, fear, and anger all exist for a reason and they can all be productive emotions in the right context. The only time you should see a therapist for a rational concern is if said concern can't practically be escaped or fixed.
  
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  sdfsaf
  
  PTSD happens after a traumatic event. In order to start treatment you first need to be removed from the situation that caused the trauma. You don't get treated for it if it's an ongoing problem. You understand this, right?
  
  What have I ignored exactly?
  
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  sdfsaf
  
  The external issue here isn't a personal one though. It's that women can be dangerous just like men are dangerous though typically in different ways. Not enough people acknowledge this.