serious question for men who’ve been in relationships with women, not gonna elaborate on context for the time being but might later: how do you hold women responsible / accountable for ways they’ve hurt you? (in your own sensemaking at least, not necessarily confronting them)
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okay this was a little too vague so in a bit more detail: i have a lot of trouble getting angry at women for hurting me, generally speaking i take on all the blame myself, there’s something wonky here about treating women as perfect blameless angels or as like moral children
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and i am wondering if other men here have struggled with *that* and what they did about it? this is sort of pre- angrily confronting them because the problem is i mostly don’t feel angry but i… worry the lack of anger reflects a distorted view of the situation
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and the genders are specific in the situation b/c i feel like for me this goes back to deeply internalizing feminist memes as a kid about how men are the ones hurting women all the time and we should all feel very bad about it
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“QC doesn’t this probably have something to do with your mom too” oh you best BELIEVE it does, she’s the only woman i really know how to be angry at but i still don’t expect her to ever take responsibility for anything she did to me
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alright so i gotta say i’m frustrated by a lot of the responses here and here are some snippets from a convo with a friend (who actually inspired this thread) that get at why. this is sharp trenchant analysis, get it while it’s hot
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okay i also want to be clearer about this - when i talk about "responsibility" and "accountability" i am explicitly *not* talking about "blame" or "fault," that's why i used the words i used and not those words
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Replying to @QiaochuYuan
i do this by holding everyone to the same standard (none). there is no blame, there is no fault, everything happened exactly the way it had to. i've still cut certain people off even after forgiving them because i can't ask them to be other than who they are
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when i reflect on *my own* mistakes, i don't blame or fault myself, i try to see the ways in which i could not possibly have done anything else given who i was and what i had access to at the time, *and* i hold myself responsible and accountable for doing better *anyway*
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i believe that i have a responsibility to the people around me to become a better person, own up to my mistakes, try to clean up my messes if i can. the question i am trying to ask you guys is: do you hold women to that same responsibility? how? if not, why not?
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honest question: is it your responsibility to hold them accountable? Why must *you* do this? Alternative would be for you to react, do what feels right, and allow them to observe choice & consequence for their own damn selves
that's what the rest of us are out here doing
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i.e. if someone is doing something to you harmful to the relationship, framing this as "you must hold them responsible" feels like it's smuggling in an assumption that (a) the relationship must continue and (b) it's on you to fix. Maybe that's...not true if they're the aggressor?
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who do you expect to hold you to that responsibility? how would you expect them to do so?
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holding people, esp women, to that standard is about the most intimate thing I do. my wife and I hold each other and our daughters accountable in this way, and my sister and I to a lesser degree. not sure about anyone else
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both my answers in this thread are observations, not endorsements
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I know my out of channel responses frustrated you, but I'm still going to say a thing here.
The specific words you're using - and what I'm seeing as you doubling down on your way of looking at it (including judgment, given the screen caps!) --
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-- lands to me as extremely disrespectful to men who are trying to lead good, functional lives including partnerships with women (and friendships with women)
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I'm honestly confused about what this means? Like if we're still in a relationship, then there can be commitments to that, but you mentioned this also applying to people you hadn't spoken to in several years. If we're no longer in contact, what responsibility to they have to me?
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I could make sense of this if you meant something like, if they hurt me in the past and I was still hurting and I felt like they had the power to do something about it, what would I do?
In that case I'd probably reach out and try to talk to them?
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I'm too am confused about what you mean by "holding" women to that same responsibility here. I know it's a common concept to use, but I never feel like I can pin down it's meaning.
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For *yourself* you can *choose to do* all those things (try to become better person, own up to mistakes), but how does one "hold" someone *else* to those things?
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