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Relationships With Men - Strategy and Advice circle
I know this has been suggested in the past, but I thought it might be a good time to bring it up again since financing is an option now. I would be willing to help mod this circle for free though, lol.
Description:
A sub here where we talk about our relationships with men, be they romantic, friendship, family, coworker, etc. I think it could really help with outreach and welcoming in newcomers. There are plenty of women who want to get more into feminism and need advice for how to deal with men they care about from other women who have been through it. We could get A LOT more traffic if we had posts like "My boyfriend's porn habits are making me uncomfortable" or "My husband has decided to identify as a woman, what now?" or "My brother is sexist, how do I deal with him?" or "How do I handle my creepy uncle at family gatherings?". Reasonable responses from feminist women are the minority to questions like this on other sites. There is frankly a lot of religious spam to every single relationship question I've ever typed into a search bar. Women here really could offer a treasure trove of advice for women questioning their relationships with the men in their lives, and those reasonable responses would bring in more women who will be exposed to the rest of the content on the site. Yes, this could bring in some random women who aren't exactly feminist, but I doubt they'd make an account on here if they browse the rest of the site and don't like what they see.
If this becomes a thing that's possible please let me know so I can help!
I'm not against it, but I actually don't know the "right" answers regarding dating, etc. using the radical feminist lens.
FDS wasn't radical feminist and we would definitely need some sort of framework, right now I just have a feeling that: RUN! is the answer for most of these, but we just don't want to.
I don't think there are really any right answers. We may be able to come up with our own framework if we have a few volunteers. I'd love to coordinate something like that, ideally with women from a variety of age groups and backgrounds. I agree that the vast majority of the time the answer is either "disengage" or "RUN!' depending on the severity of the situation, but many women absolutely need the support to even be able to make those decisions with confidence.
But please don't call the circle "Men." Call it something else.
I am horrible at names. I am too literal. I would love some help coming up with something clever.
Heterosexual Relationships? Het Relationship Advice?
Well, I'd like there to be space for talking about family relationships too. Basically advice for navigating any sort of relationships with men that we interact with regularly.
Moids You Can't Avoid (I just thought of this, and it's funny, but I'm not sure it encompases the purpose of the sub obviously enough)
I literally asked another user for advice yesterday on this exact thing. She stated she'd been more upfront in asserting her needs in her relationship with her husband since becoming a radical feminist. I asked her how as I'm in the same situation with my husband. It's slow going. It would be super useful!!
Edit - this request was submitted by the user I asked advice from.... 😂👍☺️
Haha, yeah I wanted to crowd source advice. I have gotten some really thoughtful responses on here and I thought making a space where we're explicitely alowed to talk about those problems would make more women comfortable talking about it. I've been trying to think of a specific resouce for you, but I really just wing it.
At over points I spent a long time on the relationships board on Mumsnet because some of the advice that those women were giving was amazing.
Learning about the Shark Metaphor has been useful too
https://www.oomm.live/the-shark-cage-metaphor-spotting-potential-abusers/
We’re going to use a man in this example, but it could be a woman or non-binary person as well.
insert massive eyeroll
It's been a while since I read the article but, yes!, I remember doing the same thing!!! Not in the spirit in which the metaphor was first developed..... I wonder if the original author who created it supports it, doubt it as she worked with vulnerable girls. Women aren't assholes in the same way as men. Period.
I've been really slowly making my way through right-wing women by Andrea dworkin. Every sentence is mind-blowing which is why it's taking me so long.
That's really sweet of you. I have snippets that I find online where someone's words crystallise boundaries. For example Exulansic had one recently in her substack and she said we train people to expect a 'no' from you. Books I've loved have been Lundy Bancroft why does he do that?, Don Hennessy's how he gets into your head, Henry Cloud boundaries. Edited authors name
This! We have a "Loving Women" circle and a "Lesbian" circle but nothing aimed at women who are attracted to men...It's disappointing. Yes, I realize that there's a lot of relationship advice for women who are attracted to men out there already, but most of it is largely about how to pander to men. Having something closer to FDS, or any kind of viewpoint that doesn't involve pandering to men, and talks about how to avoid the pitfalls of dating & relationships would be great!
It could be very helpful.
Have you read the posts on the various relationship subs? The advice is TERRIBLE, which is driven by the fact that Peddit is 70%+ male AND skews very young. Women are given advice from essentially kids who don’t have experience in healthy, mature, ADULT relationships. (I say “adult” as in over the age of 25 as thats when the brain finally matures…..no offense to those who are younger, but you simply do not know what you do not know.)
I haven't sought it out, but I've seen the screenshots. I appreciate the range of age and experience of the women here. I'm in my early thirties now, and when I was younger I looked all over the place for advice and found complete crap, 90% of the time. I know good advice would have brought me to a place like this much sooner.