I don't think men should get such a bad rep - women can be just as damaging, even if it's not necessarily physical (although that does happen more often than people realise). How many times have I heard someone's wife/girlfriend put her man down in public or, worse, when he's right there with her? Slagging him off, calling him useless, poking fun at his sexual prowess or lack of it etc etc...my sister does this to her husband and I pulled her up on it once. she came back with "well he's done nothing to earn my respect so I can say what I like about him and to him" which I thought was just wrong. Just because he doesn't meet her expectations 100% of the time does not qualify him for verbal and emotional abuse - because that's what it is, at the end of the day. I've had to ask her to not speak about men in front of my daughter too because of how disparaging she is about them. She had one bad relationship years ago and refused to get help over it afterwards and now it's everyone's fault that she can't deal with it. All men are useless, all men are pigs, all men blah blah blah - why in the hell she got married I'll never know. Maybe because she can bully this one?
My first and last serious relationship before getting married was to someone 8 years older than me (my daughter's father). Now that was a bad relationship and it took me 3 years of counselling to get over it but I don't for one second think all men are such and such or that they ought to be tarred the same thanks to one bad guy. Sure, it's made me a tad more cautious and maybe more sensitive to certain subjects but that's only served as being a good thing in the long term.
