Do you think perhaps some men grow up to act misogynistic because they were never allowed to express themselves negatively toward mommy? Think about it, mommy crosses the line one day but little boy can't say anything about it because boys aren't supposed to do anything bad to girls and mommy's a girl. Are men really allowed to express appropriate anger toward women? Women do things wrong too, but are we really taught to accept that?
This is inspired partly by personal experience. Other women would always confront my mother about how well behaved I was and how I was going to grow up "right" and be a "good" man. I thought that would be great at the time! I wanted to be better in the eyes of women than any other man that ever lived.
The only problem is, my mother has mental problems from child abuse. Some days she'll really treat my dad and I like trash. I bottled up all of it because I wanted to be the perfect little boy and never get mad at her.
A few weeks ago, now that I'm an adult learning self-respect, I exploded on her. About a week after that, I came home from work and there were two cards on the kitchen table, one for a therapist and one for a psychiatrist. My finally confronting my mother about her problem caused her to go get help!
Wow, hurting mommy paid off big time...
That gives you a little background on what prompted my question. See, after I had my mom in tears, my father and I got into it later. I eventually asked him why he tolerates her flying off the handle like she does and why he doesn't react like that but she's allowed to. He said, "Because I'm a man." After that comment, I started to wonder if part of the reason I'm on anti-depressants is because I keep my yap shut when women piss me off "because I'm a man."
One thing I know today for sure is failing to put women in their places is not worth the pain. I don't mean beating them around. I mean letting them know that I'm allowed to draw the line too. There are things I won't tolerate from women whether they consider it "fair" or not.
I just wish I knew that growing up...
(p.s. Puberty was hell! "What's going on? Why do I like girls for 'that' now? Only bad males like girls for 'that.' I'm terrible!")
