this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2025
347 points (100.0% liked)

WomensStuff

564 readers
135 users here now

Women only trans inclusive This is an inclusive community for all things women. Whether you're here for make up tips, feminism or just friendly chit chat, we've got you covered.

Rules…

  1. Women only… trans women are women, and transphobic or gender critical talk isn’t allowed. Anyone under the trans umbrella (e.g. non-binary, bigender, agender) is free to decide whether a women's community is a good fit for them.
  2. Don’t be a dick. No personal attacks, no aggression, play nice.
  3. Don’t hate on groups, hatefilled talk about groups is not allowed. Ever.
  4. No governmental politics, so no talk of Trump actions etc. We recommend Feminism@beehaw.org for that, but here is an escape from it.
  5. New accounts or users with few comments may have their posts removed to prevent spam and bad-faith participation.

founded 5 months ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 25 points 3 days ago

Well, yes certainly there is evidence that domestic abuse behavior is often repeated by children who grow up in that environment, but that's kind of an extreme example of what I'm trying to describe.

There's an attraction to the "bad boy" figures. It's deeply interwoven with the cultural experience of romance, and it's more subtle than obvious examples of physical violence. If you are a woman who has felt attraction to Steve McQueen, or John Bender (Judd Nelson) in The Breakfast Club, or Han Solo, or if you were on a "team" for the Twilight series (or you liked 50 Shades of Grey), etc... you experienced this.

Aggressive behavior is frequently associated with perceptions of strength and dominance (not in the D/s kink sense, but in the being in control or leadership sense) which are generally attractive.

So to bring it back to the original, I don't think it's valid to simplify this issue down to just "bad men" being deceptive. Certainly that does happen, but reality is far more complex than that and framing it this way paints the women as only helpless, foolish victims, which robs them of their own agency.

The truth is that women do in fact pick "bad men", not in ignorance or because they were deceived, but knowing full well what they're getting into (when your parents don't approve of your boyfriend and that just makes you want to keep him more)... this is bound up in thousands of years of human culture. There is absolutely need for change, but... It's just not as simple as the idea presented in the original post. People are far more complex than that, in their emotions, in their desires, in their relationships.