My Struggle With Misogyny

[FlaviusAetius]

Hello, this is a rather poor way to start on this forum but this problems has been eating at me for a while now and I need outside help.

First and foremost despite the title I want to make it clear that I keep my feelings completely within. I've never outwardly expressed anger and hatred to a woman simply because of their sex, and I do not see a higher value in Men or really humanity in general at least morally.

With that said, I find myself feeling that women are so pathetically frail that there is no point in even bothering to ever marry. The main focus of this apparently weakness is in the form of pregnancy. It seems like so much can go wrong that there is no point in ever caring about women. They can get an ectopic pregnancy and have to kill their fetus that way, or it could have been conceived of rape and thus they want to kill their fetus. Why should I ever sympathize with the sex that secular society gives a license to kill?! This has also made me stop caring about the unborn, why should I care-they're created by such a imperfect birthing system that they'll just die one way or another or their mothers will just choose to kill them for whatever personal reason. I might as well just care about a child only after they're born like all the abortion loving secularists do!

It makes me not want to ever get married. If I somehow got married and had a child, while outwardly I'd probably show sympathy if she miscarried a child, inside I think I'd feel resentment toward her for losing my son/daughter due to this imperfection of the female body.

Beyond that, I also have problems with how the modern norm seems to be women expressing open sexuality. I see signs for "[bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse]-walks" at my university and it only shows how apparently social justice seems to just parasitically attach itself to hedonistic secular desires. (My apologies with using the the word that ends with "luts" that is the actual name of the organized gathering so I wouldn't know what else to call it.)

Again I need to make myself clear, I don't outwardly express anger toward women. When I interact with them I treat them as I would a man or anyone else. This is mostly because I understand how horrible humanity is in itself in terms of morality. I suppose this thread is mostly to get help to analyze why I feel utter disgust toward how women are the creators of children and how imperfect that system is and maybe get help overcoming this bias.

 

[Catherineanne]

Hello, this is a rather poor way to start on this forum but this problems has been eating at me for a while now and I need outside help.

First and foremost despite the title I want to make it clear that I keep my feelings completely within. I've never outwardly expressed anger and hatred to a woman simply because of their sex, and I do not see a higher value in Men or really humanity in general at least morally.

With that said, I find myself feeling that women are so pathetically frail that there is no point in even bothering to ever marry. The main focus of this apparently weakness is in the form of pregnancy. It seems like so much can go wrong that there is no point in ever caring about women. They can get an ectopic pregnancy and have to kill their fetus that way, or it could have been conceived of rape and thus they want to kill their fetus. Why should I ever sympathize with the sex that secular society gives a license to kill?! This has also made me stop caring about the unborn, why should I care-they're created by such a imperfect birthing system that they'll just die one way or another or their mothers will just choose to kill them for whatever personal reason. I might as well just care about a child only after they're born like all the abortion loving secularists do!

It makes me not want to ever get married. If I somehow got married and had a child, while outwardly I'd probably show sympathy if she miscarried a child, inside I think I'd feel resentment toward her for losing my son/daughter due to this imperfection of the female body.

Beyond that, I also have problems with how the modern norm seems to be women expressing open sexuality. I see signs for "[bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse]-walks" at my university and it only shows how apparently social justice seems to just parasitically attach itself to hedonistic secular desires. (My apologies with using the the word that ends with "luts" that is the actual name of the organized gathering so I wouldn't know what else to call it.)

Again I need to make myself clear, I don't outwardly express anger toward women. When I interact with them I treat them as I would a man or anyone else. This is mostly because I understand how horrible humanity is in itself in terms of morality. I suppose this thread is mostly to get help to analyze why I feel utter disgust toward how women are the creators of children and how imperfect that system is and maybe get help overcoming this bias.

Good grief! What a lot of anger!! With all that going on I am pretty sure there will be a lot of passive aggression aimed at the women around you; they will know full well what your attitude is, and if they have any sense they will steer a wide course around you.

So, that is the general version, but in my experience a general complaint hides a specific one, perhaps 99 times out of 100. So who specifically are you angry with?

Call me old fashioned, but I blame the mother. What did your mother do to make you so very, very angry with women, simply for being women? And while you are at it, who made you so disgusted about the act of conception and childbirth? Where does this all come from?

 

[FlaviusAetius]

Call me old fashioned, but I blame the mother. What did your mother do to make you so very, very angry with women, simply for being women? And while you are at it, who made you so disgusted about the act of conception and childbirth? Where does this all come from?

I really can't put the blame of my feelings too anyone in my family, especially my Mother. I've had cousins who got/got someone pregnant at an early age (20-ish) and all of them took responsibility to raise their children. I have an aunt who was told by a doctor to have an abortion because she was going through Chemotherapy for cancer, she didn't and now I have a lovely baby cousin that I visit in Mexico bi-annually. Heck, even my mother got pregnant with my Step-Father and I felt there was nothing but love toward my baby sister, even while she was still unborn.

If there is anyone to blame, its society that constantly depicts getting pregnant as getting some nine-month disease that makes some parasite grow in a woman (there beliefs not mine). How am I ever able to trust finding a woman who doesn't feel its their right to slaughter their unborn if they don't feel like having it? And even if I find a good woman who is pro-life, God decided to put me in a world where women can still miscarry, or have ectopic pregnancies where you're forced to either kill your developing fetus or die yourself! I suppose what angers me most is that women hide this secular hedonism as Social Righteousness, stating "and if you disagree with them then you're simply a crazed Pro-lifer who would let a woman die so that a fetus could be born". It becomes mind bending to hear this stereotype about what I apparently am and at this point I feel like just believing them and saying in my head "You know what if women are destined to all become these liberal 'stay off my body' types then maybe their right, I don't care about what happens to women!"

Edit: Also I want to take this time to thank you for posting; I really want to examine my problem and I don't feel I can get any progress without talking to someone about it.

 

[Johnnz]

It's one thing to to have issues with some of the blatantly wrong sexual values we see around us. That comes from living in a fallen world. But our response as a Christian is to see life from within our biblical framework, and that is something very positive. Go back to the creation story. There you will see reproduction as a primary function for humanity. Start from that position.

John
NZ

 

[FlaviusAetius]

It's one thing to to have issues with some of the blatantly wrong sexual values we see around us. That comes from living in a fallen world. But our response as a Christian is to see life from within our biblical framework, and that is something very positive. Go back to the creation story. There you will see reproduction as a primary function for humanity. Start from that position.

Ok, but I feel in doubt about God's wisdom. I understand the pain of childbearing is from Original Sin, but why would God make one of our punishments something that down the line will make people like me hate childbearing for killing so many women throughout the ages and cause so many miscarriages that leads to a person just ceasing to concern themselves with the unborn?

 

[Tomyris]

Yeah, well, sometimes it's no fun being a girl. YOU are not the one at risk in an ectopic pregnancy or going through childbirth, etc. I could go on but I won't. Society demands women simultaneously be athletic, courageous, beautiful, brainy, successful, rich and have a career and children. There are voices in our heads that we are not everything we should be no matter what, and men who still disregard "the weaker sex" as that. There is a certain lack of sympathy here for what women go through that is socially driven and you have picked up on, says Dr. Tomi the All-Wise. You are asking for help, so I will try to be nice.

You self-identify as Catholic. I would suggest you find John Paul's Theology of the Body and work through it. I think there is study material available, maybe even a group near you that you could go to discussions and share your feelings and work through things. Just don't share them accidentally with the Weightlifting Feminists With Anger Issues Support Group....

 

[Johnnz]

Ok, but I feel in doubt about God's wisdom. I understand the pain of childbearing is from Original Sin, but why would God make one of our punishments something that down the line will make people like me hate childbearing for killing so many women throughout the ages and cause so many miscarriages that leads to a person just ceasing to concern themselves with the unborn?

In the face of the great tragedies and disasters we see in history many ask that question - why evil? Why Hitler? Why the Japanese tsunami? Why famine and starvation on a massive scale? But that is a matter God has not informed us about fully. Our Christian position is two fold - we have the hope derived from Christ's resurrection that it will not always be like this on earth, and we don't have a God remote from our suffering, but one who has entered into ours ina very real way in Jesus.

John
NZ

 

[FlaviusAetius]

You self-identify as Catholic. I would suggest you find John Paul's Theology of the Body and work through it.

Ok, I'll look into it-I certainly know that I don't know much of my own theology so maybe I can find some answer there.

Yeah, well, sometimes it's no fun being a girl. YOU are not the one at risk in an ectopic pregnancy or going through childbirth, etc. I could go on but I won't.

Yes I realize this. It's probably where all this comes from. Men have an incredibly more easy life than women and not even on a societal level but just physical too since women are the only ones who can be child bearers and as a consequence be at risk during pregnancy.

I don't know how to solve this problem, and honestly it's stressing/angering me so much that I'm not going to keep trying to figure out a proper response in this one post.

Our Christian position is two fold - we have the hope derived from Christ's resurrection that it will not always be like this on earth, and we don't have a God remote from our suffering, but one who has entered into ours ina very real way in Jesus.

Ok, I'm just having difficulty hoping in anything. Really I feel like punching a wall I'm so angry so I'm just going to leave the computer right now...

Note: It's only partly from not finding any answers for this problem here. Most of this is coming from just general depression/anger in my life.

 

[Tomyris]

Our Christian position is two fold - we have the hope derived from Christ's resurrection that it will not always be like this on earth, and we don't have a God remote from our suffering, but one who has entered into ours in a very real way in Jesus.

I really, really like this.

Thank you.

 

[VictoriasImage77]

Women are not weak. Society and Christian culture, both historically and now, teach that women are the weaker sex and we women are raised to believe it.

We live in a patriarchal world that is slowly liberating women much to the dismay of many. Keep in mind your anger could be the result of being psychologically conditioned by a patriarchal society. The response to that is often anger against women's ability to make decisions for themselves whether it is recognized that way or not. Abortion is a terrible act, but I must bring up the fact that women only just recently gained any political and societal rights to speak of, and there are still cultures in which a man can kill a woman for adultery, or just the appearance thereof. You may express anger that a woman can kill your potential child, but imagine the anger of a woman who could be killed herself by her husband or father for something she may or may not have done. Also, most women do not commit abortion maliciously..but out of fear and desperation because the baby's father has left, she is ill, has no money, or that the child would be better in God's hands than to enter a life of suffering.

Childbearing is not a weakness. Things can go wrong with the male body as well in regards to childbearing. Sperm can be defective, etc. The male body can develop cancer, and is more likely to develop certain diseases. Men have a shorter lifespan than women and this is true for almost every culture. Should a woman never marry then, because her husband will just die before her and leave her a widow?

 

[Catherineanne]

I really can't put the blame of my feelings too anyone in my family, especially my Mother. I've had cousins who got/got someone pregnant at an early age (20-ish) and all of them took responsibility to raise their children. I have an aunt who was told by a doctor to have an abortion because she was going through Chemotherapy for cancer, she didn't and now I have a lovely baby cousin that I visit in Mexico bi-annually. Heck, even my mother got pregnant with my Step-Father and I felt there was nothing but love toward my baby sister, even while she was still unborn.

If there is anyone to blame, its society that constantly depicts getting pregnant as getting some nine-month disease that makes some parasite grow in a woman (there beliefs not mine). How am I ever able to trust finding a woman who doesn't feel its their right to slaughter their unborn if they don't feel like having it? And even if I find a good woman who is pro-life, God decided to put me in a world where women can still miscarry, or have ectopic pregnancies where you're forced to either kill your developing fetus or die yourself! I suppose what angers me most is that women hide this secular hedonism as Social Righteousness, stating "and if you disagree with them then you're simply a crazed Pro-lifer who would let a woman die so that a fetus could be born". It becomes mind bending to hear this stereotype about what I apparently am and at this point I feel like just believing them and saying in my head "You know what if women are destined to all become these liberal 'stay off my body' types then maybe their right, I don't care about what happens to women!"

Edit: Also I want to take this time to thank you for posting; I really want to examine my problem and I don't feel I can get any progress without talking to someone about it.

Again, there is so much anger from you. I know you think it is about the issue of abortion, but I think that is just a target for your anger.

You feel intensely, that is clear. I am not sure you know why, so you look around for a serious enough subject; a reason to be so very, very angry. You find the very emotive issue of abortion and think that must be it, and so your anger is focussed here.

I do not think abortion is the root of your anger at all. It goes far deeper than that. Abortion is the target, but not the root. What is the root?

I feel for you, because I can see that you want to be free of this anger, but you have to find the cause, not the symptom. Anger about abortion is, in my view, only a symptom.

 

[Catherineanne]

Ok, but I feel in doubt about God's wisdom. I understand the pain of childbearing is from Original Sin, but why would God make one of our punishments something that down the line will make people like me hate childbearing for killing so many women throughout the ages and cause so many miscarriages that leads to a person just ceasing to concern themselves with the unborn?

This is a different story, FA; can you see that?

The focus of your anger is now against childbearing. Before it was against women; now it is against women suffering.

I think your anger may well stem from resentment against your mother for falling pregnant with a child by your step father. You say that you felt nothing but love for your step sister; that is not natural. A certain degree of resentment in a child to the arrival of a sibling is natural, but perhaps you were not allowed to express that resentment in a safe way, and thereby dissipate it.

It may be that your feelings of resentment were buried under an outward facade of acceptance, because resentment would be punished in some way. That would certainly make sense; your mother might well have been anxious for you to accept the new sibling, and not want to hear anything else from you. The overt or even covert message from her would then be, 'love your new sibling or I won't love you'. That would do it.

Hence the extreme reaction all these years later to be angry with the loss of a child, and over positive about affirming childbirth and life; it is part of your defence mechanism. It is there to deny that you ever wished your mother would lose the child she was carrying, lose her new partner and be all yours again. All of that is very natural for a child to think, but at some point you thought it was bad, and you built defences around those thoughts. Your younger self could well have thought that if he allowed himself to wish people dead, they would actually die; he would have killed them. It is even possible that your very young self at some point wished a grandparent dead and then they died and you thought that you had killed them. Of course you did not kill anyone. All of this is normal, and natural. People wish other people dead every day; it is not murder, it is just human nature, even for good, peaceful, God fearing people. But you were not allowed to realise this, and your anger was turned inwards instead, because the only person you were allowed to be angry with was yourself; the same as everyone else.

The defences that you built against these thoughts are still there, and are now behaving as if they are around childbirth; they are not, imo. Your expressed opinions are not pro Life but something else; even those who are strongly pro-Life will usually accept that miscarriage happens, and that in many cases nothing can be done to prevent it.

I suggest you find a counsellor to explore this issue in detail; I can't really do it this way even if I were trained to do so, which I am not. But I can read people, very often. I suspect you are not misogynist at all; I suspect it is you are actually mostly angry with yourself.

I wish you well.

 

[Catherineanne]

Really I feel like punching a wall I'm so angry so I'm just going to leave the computer right now...

Note: It's only partly from not finding any answers for this problem here. Most of this is coming from just general depression/anger in my life.

I can see that this is a serious matter.

I recommend next time you feel like punching a wall, that you find a few nice thick pillows or cushions from a sofa or bed, find a timer, set it to five minutes, and let yourself go; punch away, on the understanding that when the timer goes off, you will stop.

And while you are at it, let some bad language out, and see what happens. Don't censor what you say; let the words come. Find out who it is that you are angry with; who you really want to punch. You might be surprised. Don't get hung up on thinking this is the same as actually punchiing them; it isn't. This is not a rehearsal, it is an alternative.

Anger that is not expressed will very often turn inwards and into depression. This is a safe way to vent some of that anger, and is certainly better than punching a wall. If you find yourself unable to stop at the end of five minutes, then you will know that you need to find outside help. Five minutes is a long time for punching a pillow! With any luck you will run out of steam and anger long before then.

This anger has been suppressed for a very, very long time. Don't be surprised if the issues that come out of it are very old as well.

If it works, then you can do it again the next day, but I would not really recommend more than once a day. I am not sure why, really, but once a day seems the most for this kind of behaviour. Alternatively, join a gym, and let out some of that anger in a workout. If you can't afford a gym, then take up running or cycling. The anger has to be vented; you are like a pressure cooker with the lid on and the heat turned up. The steam has to be vented a bit, and the heat has to be turned down. Exercise can vent the steam, and counselling can help you to find a way to turn down the heat.

 

[sally.b]

.

I suppose this thread is mostly to get help to analyze why I feel utter disgust toward how women are the creators of children and how imperfect that system is and maybe get help overcoming this bias.

You mention "bias." So I gather you recognise this is wrong thinking. There seems to be a desire in you for things to be perfect in this situation. Are you a perfectionist in other areas of your life? I find this can hinder ones outlook.

You realise most women have normal pregnancies do you?

 

[FlaviusAetius]

I think your anger may well stem from resentment against your mother for falling pregnant with a child by your step father. You say that you felt nothing but love for your step sister; that is not natural. A certain degree of resentment in a child to the arrival of a sibling is natural, but perhaps you were not allowed to express that resentment in a safe way, and thereby dissipate it.

With all due respect, I appreciate your attempt to dig below the surface-but I never had such satanic thoughts as to wish death upon the unborn, let alone my own sister. While I acknowledge I have some kind of issues to deal with and that my anger is unfocused I will not agree that it is anger directed to my youngest sibling.

You mention "bias." So I gather you recognise this is wrong thinking. There seems to be a desire in you for things to be perfect in this situation. Are you a perfectionist in other areas of your life? I find this can hinder ones outlook.

You realise most women have normal pregnancies do you?

Yes I realize this is not a healthy mindset and I would like to change it so whatever gets me so angry about human weakness simply left me. I'd describe myself as a perfectionist; albeit a rather lazy perfectionist. I have the need to have everything work as perfect as they can, but I really don't put too much effort. Academics come easy to me so I don't try really that hard and still maintain a A-B grade which is enough to leave me content. Physically I exhaust my energy embarrassingly quickly, and so I just essentially gave up on trying to be physically healthy. My metabolism keeps me at around 180 lbs. but I get tired quickly and so in my head I just abandoned all desire to improve myself physically in the first place.

When it comes to spirituality, my faith seems to have been crushed. From age 12-16 I had an amazing sense of faith; at 12 I had requested a Bible for Christmas and had begun requesting from my busy parents that they drop me off at Mass. Of course it was easy the early years, as a prepubescent boy I didn't have any sins that I couldn't easily confess to a Priest. Back then I honestly felt filled with zeal and barely marked with the stains of sin. Once I hit puberty then came challenges to my faith, with different sexual sins it became harder to confess and I found myself having to come back weekly for the same sins over and over. Around 16 I just gave up feeling that I'd never be worthy of God and the shame from confession just became too great.

Now without much faith in God I feel questioning about why he demands perfection from us and yet puts us in imperfect bodies manipulated by hormones and open to all kinds of atrocious thoughts and actions. I feel like a deist at times where God just simply doesn't seem to care about the world he created and then get angry when I think that He has the right to judge us and send us to Hell over the smallest sin.

Back to the topic at hand, yes I know most pregnancies are normal. I suppose my need for perfection makes the cases where death occurs seem cruel and unneeded parts of a world created by an apparently "loving God".

 

[sally.b]

I think I can relate somewhat to a number of things you have described.

For myself I have found my perfectionist attitude can hinder my walk. Also I had a minister that was a perfectionist and did a lot of harm to me and others in the congregation due to his expectations. It has left me in a slump. I find that one can walk for years in a limbo state, but at the end of the day we really need to go one on one with God for the answers.

Having said that I'm happy to discuss it further with you. I have a number of thoughts about it all going on in my head but I am limited in my typing abilities due to poor vision and arthritis.

 

[Catherineanne]

With all due respect, I appreciate your attempt to dig below the surface-but I never had such satanic thoughts as to wish death upon the unborn, let alone my own sister. While I acknowledge I have some kind of issues to deal with and that my anger is unfocused I will not agree that it is anger directed to my youngest sibling.

That is why you really need a counsellor or therapist, and not just someone on the internet.

Sibling jealousy is normal, not satanic. There is nothing evil about it; it is perfectly normal, and perfectly healthy. Little children do not understand the implications of death, and in wishing a sibling not to be around any more they are not being evil; they are being normal. Until you understand that, and accept your feelings for what they were, and are, you won't be able to move past the huge ego defences that you have constructed.

Good luck with that.

 

[RuthD]

I see you want help with your issues that cause you uncomfortabily and anger. I think seeing a psychiatrist would benefit you greatly, also a counselor and a support group. I am praying for you. You surely are not alone in your issues. God bless you.

 

[FlaviusAetius]

That is why you really need a counsellor or therapist, and not just someone on the internet.

Sibling jealousy is normal, not satanic. There is nothing evil about it; it is perfectly normal, and perfectly healthy. Little children do not understand the implications of death, and in wishing a sibling not to be around any more they are not being evil; they are being normal. Until you understand that, and accept your feelings for what they were, and are, you won't be able to move past the huge ego defences that you have constructed.

Good luck with that.

I think I found some miscommunication; on my fault since I didn't give this information. The fact is, I wasn't a little child when my sister was born- I was 15 years old when she was born and understood the implications of death and as I stated before was happy to have a new sibling in my life.

 

[sally.b]

When it comes to spirituality, my faith seems to have been crushed. From age 12-16 I had an amazing sense of faith; at 12 I had requested a Bible for Christmas and had begun requesting from my busy parents that they drop me off at Mass. Of course it was easy the early years, as a prepubescent boy I didn't have any sins that I couldn't easily confess to a Priest. Back then I honestly felt filled with zeal and barely marked with the stains of sin.

This sounds like you experienced something very real happened. I think that is normal to happen at the beginning. I think Satan wants to take that away though.

Once I hit puberty then came challenges to my faith, with different sexual sins it became harder to confess and I found myself having to come back weekly for the same sins over and over. Around 16 I just gave up feeling that I'd never be worthy of God and the shame from confession just became too great.

Our worthiness has to be placed only on Jesus and his redemptive qualities. Satan wants us to be ashamed. That is not from God. Come back to God and trust Him.

Now without much faith in God I feel questioning about why he demands perfection from us and yet puts us in imperfect bodies manipulated by hormones and open to all kinds of atrocious thoughts and actions.

God does not demand anything from us. Least of all perfection. We are in imperfect bodies due to the fall of man.

Even our food supply is imperfect and not as nutritious as it is designed to be, and it is getting worse. This is why there are so many allergies and illnesses arising exponentially. For example PCOS which is a disorder in womens reproductive, is directly affected by things like the way food is processed now in the last century, amongst many other things.

We will always have wrong thoughts, but all we have to do is bring them back to God and His Word.

I feel like a deist at times where God just simply doesn't seem to care about the world he created and then get angry when I think that He has the right to judge us and send us to Hell over the smallest sin.

I dont believe this is what God has expressed to us at all. I think a perfectionist mindset might like to play that one on you, but I dont think that is in line with God at all.

Dont feel I am coming down on you too hard, as I have the same sort of thinking and as I mentioned before it can be a hinderance.

I used to say, I dont appologise for wanting things right and in line with Gods word, as perfectionism is the very nature of God.

And it is, but the fact is we are not perfect.

Back to the topic at hand, yes I know most pregnancies are normal. I suppose my need for perfection makes the cases where death occurs seem cruel and unneeded parts of a world created by an apparently "loving God".

I agree there are so many things we dont understand and this is where we need to rely on our faith in God. We arent in control of those things nor are we meant to be in control and need to let go of that. Adversity comes from the enemy not God. God just asks us to pray and have faith in Him. He is the auther and perfector of our faith.


He started a good thing in you, and will continue, but you must focus on Him and listen to Him.


I hope this helps.