Why are men threatened by sexually empowered women?

It comes from personal experience and reading about others' experiences on reputable news sources. These men who feel threatened are all over society. You just need to look is all.

I am NOT speaking about ALL men, but those who feel threatened by feminism and women being treated equally in the workplace.

Why is this so hard for people to understand?

That is a fetish and completely different from what this thread is about.

I don't see it as being a fetish. I think Seesaw brings up an interesting point. Can you elaborate Seesaw? I didn't know this. Sounds empowering. Archaic, are you talking about sexual power / domination? Or powerful women in general?

I get it.

I think this is just a difficult topic when you get so many people together and they have different backgrounds, experiences, perceptions, etc. I think this is a good discussion.

I am not talking about a fetish, and it's not separate since you are talking about male attitudes. I know plenty of men who simply find powerful women with dominant personalities to be attractive. This is not about BDSM. They are not threatened by powerful women at all.

How many men do you know IRL?

How is a type of personality preference a fetish?

I would agree if anyone was talking about dominatation and submission in the bedroom but nothing in what was said even implied it was about sexual relations at all.

But then can you elaborate on how this is a fetish? maybe I'm wrong, so I'd love to hear the details.

I think it is because of the title of the thread and the liberal use of the generalized 'men' throughout. But I understand now; thank you for clarifying.

I have seen many women, many of whom believe as you do, get angry at female co-workers who they see perpetuating the patriarchy by asking men to do things for them that they could do for themselves by playing the role of a weak woman and stroking his ego by telling him how he is so strong, or smart or... and yet they anger tends to be directed more at men than their fellow women. Rarely do I hear a feminist attack a woman who is playing such a game with equal venom.

Which segues nicely to this point: I think more men would be sold on the idea of supporting feminism if feminists would add to their fight issues such as women needing to register for the draft, equal parenting in family court, and assorted things like this. When women fight for rights but not for those rights that would be distasteful, the fight for equality comes across disingenuous.

Here's another thought that might be germane to this discussion: I just got off the streets after being homeless for five months. I have heard many agencies, social workers, and case managers rail against the plight of homeless women on the streets who have to trade sex for a roof over their head for the night. Now I'll be the last guy to support that BUT...

When it is below zero, the wind is blowing, your health is deteriorating and you simply can't spend one more night outside in the elements, the woman is faced with a horrible choice - she can risk her health and her life by staying outside again OR she can talk some guy into putting her up where she faces the real possibility that in the middle of the night he is going to try to have sex with her.

Now compare that with me. I had two heart attacks since December twenty-third, two bouts of the flu and one case of pneumonia. I also have myasthenia gravis (Latin for grave muscle weakness) that usually kills people by making them so weak that their pulmonary system shuts down and they can't breathe. So here I am, a compromised immune system, two recent heart attacks, with pneumonia, huddled under a bridge, soaked to the skin in below zero temps and the wind cutting through me, without the means to make such a horrible choice.

I have a history of extensive sexual abuse, selling my body for a roof over my head would be a poor choice for me, but so would making the choice to stay outside and risk death. As horrible choice as it is - I don't have that choice. A woman does. As horrible choice as it is, it's still a choice. There are no end of women's organizations out there trying to put an end to this horrible situation that the poor women find themselves in...and I would have gladly switched places with them.

Yes, I lived, but I am not the same man that I was. Six months ago I didn't need a home health care worker, today I do. I'm not going to live anywhere near as long as I was before this crisis.

Yagr, you bring up excellent points. Working in the nonprofit world, I can say that resources available for both men and women are limited. I'd have to see actual reports but I know there is a lot of talk about helping women because in many cases the resources for them are actually more limited than for men because women and men can't be at the same shelters due to concerns about violence, and women often have children with them, so there isn't space for them.

However, there are more homeless men than women (I recall), so the support seems disproportionate. Really the inequity spills into many different areas.

Thanks for the support seesaw.

One more... when I ended up on the streets I began at the domestic violence office. You know what happened right? They receive federal funding through grants but I was the wrong sex. Go equality. I seriously considered telling them that I identify as a woman to see if the rainbow umbrella would afford me some protection.

What I was getting at was that she did say some men not all men further down in the first post, just not in the title, so it wasn't a change of position later on at all.

I didn't say you were threatened, just that I was not.

We may have to agree to disagree on this but here is why I took the position I did. When one starts a thread such as this, one starts with a thesis title. Then you begin with a thesis statement toward the end of the first paragraph. Here's a definition:

The title refers to men, not some men. The premise put forth in the first paragraph emphasizes men, not some men. i.e.

It's not a big deal, she's clarified it but that is my reason for stating that it is the logical argument equivalent of changes horses in the middle of the stream. This is an important topic, in my opinion. In order to communicate effectively about important topics, we must all know what the topic is. It appeared to be all men at first, and then it didn't.

It's sort of like what feminists did decades ago when talking to members of Congress about domestic violence against women. The began by attributing every single case of reported domestic violence to men as perpetrators and women as victims (the famous 1 in 4 women) and then, as almost a footnote later in the paper, acknowledged that there were the occasional male victims. But since everyone knows that women are almost exclusively victims of domestic violence, they used every case as a case where the woman was a victim.

That one in four statistic is still used today despite significant scientific studies (both before and after those congressional hearings), that showed that the number of victims of domestic violence has all but reached parity between the sexes. It's one reason that I think saying what you mean and not what furthers your argument to be important. Perhaps if those numbers were accurately represented in the first place, I would have had a place to go instead of being shown the door.

And yet you are ignoring the fact that in the very same first post she also said 'some men' later on as the final statement which was intended to summarise the argument. If she was changing horses it was in the same post, not later on. I went by the post as a whole, not just the title.

As an editor, I would say, if anything, it is ambiguous and unclear in the first post. Yes, later on in the thread she clarifies exactly what she means, but many of us respond to the first post, not the discussion.

Honestly, it feels like shock and awe to bring people in, then back off and plead the middle ground later on.

I am ignoring nothing. If you and I are on the train and you ask me if I could tell you how far to Brighton and I tell you, "No worries, I'm getting off at Newcastle; just watch me and get off one stop before I do." The initial presentation was the written equivalent of that.

You and she share the same skill then. Not all of us have that skill.

I do agree the title appears to have been meant to be more provocative, my point is just that it isn't later in the thread that she clarified anything, it was in the very same first post. So I just interpreted that as provocative title (which I can agree in retrospect maybe could have been qualified better) but then a more substantive post finishing with the fuller summary of her position.

I guess that could also explain why you thought I was saying you were threatened just because I said I wasn't. It seems to be how people read posts and what they take away from them.

Sure, we can go with that. My experience has been that when I don't mention being threatened and someone says,

They are implying in a passive manner, that I was. It is similar to someone saying, "I was so scared!" eliciting the reply, "I guess I didn't feel scared because..." It would be weird (imo) for someone to volunteer that information, in that way, without the first person declaring that they were frightened.

My thread title and the original thread weren't meant to be a "shock and awe" thing. I wasn't trying to be provocative there. I had genuine curiosities about this.

The title of the thread talks about all men, by omission of 'some'. And then your OP only adds 'some' halfway the post. At that point, you already said 'all men' this and that, several time.

Also, the question makes no sense when 'some' is added. Some people think A, some people believe B, some people follow C, some people act D. Why? Who knows. They all have their own personal reasons.

It only makes sense to talk about this when there is a general pattern, or in the case of a specific person.

So are you generalizing men, or do you want to talk about a specific person in your life?

And in your OP, you never give a reason why you believe a man in your life has a problem with 'sexual empowerment'. I also do not know what that term means, btw. You never explain if you mean that someone is empowered to be sexual, or that the 'weaker sex' is now equally or more powerful.

I'm not going to argue with you. I wasn't generalizing all men. Only a portion of them.

My OP does a pretty good job explaining exactly what I mean by sexual empowerment. If you're still having trouble understanding, then I don't know how else I can help you.

This thread has absolutely nothing to do with men in my personal life as all of them (as far as I can tell) are supportive of feminism.

Maybe we can agree to disagree?

So basically the media is telling you that some men believe this but you haven't experienced this behavior first hand from the men that you know personally? Doesn't that tell you anything?

Like I said, I'm not here to argue about it's validity. It's real and some men exhibit it. I have seen it too many times to discredit it to imagination or misconception. I don't have to prove it to anyone because it's also there for anyone else to see.

Like I said before, let's agree to disagree and get this thread back on track again.

How exactly does discussing your perception of the problem mean the thread is off-track? The premise is that you have a perception about some men. We are discussing the origin of that perception.

I'm going to say this a third time, because obviously the first two times were overlooked, or didn't get through to others...

I'm not going to argue the validity of the topic of this thread. It's not some misconstrued "perception" problem. It's reality. If you can't accept that, then maybe we can agree to disagree, but please, don't keep further derailing this thread. I find it extremely disrespectful.