Minor male entitlements

And YES about voice. My best male friend likes to lecture me on feminism. I don't bother to express my opinion because I can't be arsed to argue. I know what I think and that's enough.

Bland - it isn't really what the book is about. It was really good though. A lot about the frustrations of a women feeling trapped within her family and the professional frustrations, alongside a sort of mystery storyline. I felt like, for once, I was reading a book with an authentic female voice. Even female authors often struggle.

Oh, another one. A female colleague recently mentioned to me how uncomfortable she felt about being the only person in the room who everyone else kissed as a greeting.
Yes she is always the only woman in the room. The men think they are being welcoming and nice. They are usually a decade or two older than her. She finds it intimidating and physically too close.

Yy penguins I will get thdt book

The expectation that, at a physical level, they will look down on women. I have written about this lots of times, but I am tall. In work sometimes I would wear very high heels. It was quite revealing the subtle ways the behaviour of certain men changed when I physically looked down on them.

(I meant steering through doors and such, not as part of a dance, btw!)

Ok sure let's do this thing

So I already mentioned the stepping in front and walking thing (I delight in overtaking then staying two steps ahead. Irritating? Yeah it's what you were doing to me, man!)

Another one - and oh yes this is minor - cleaning coffee cups away.
We have a coffee stand in the meeting area at work. I'd say nine times out of ten the men I am meeting with (it's 9.5 times out of ten men I meet with because I work in a man's world) leave their cups on the table when we've finished rather than clearing them away.
They are usually there as my external guests so I clear their cups for them. They look a little shamefaced occasionally.

The way that all conversation on a topic stops when men drag in some almost irrelevant points and refuse to stop raising them.

That even in female dominated workplaces any male members of the team are automatically deferred to in meetings and often sometimes promoted beyond their skills.

Oh god yes, the entitlement in physically steering a woman around a space.

Steering women by the waist. I'm pretty sure this is dying out now but, oddly, I seem to notice more men under 40 doing it now than chaps my age.

A common family entitlement: It is the weekend. A woman with young children needs to do a job which needs some quiet/space/whatever. She checks with her partner that he is ok to be in sole charge for an hour. A man is, IME, far more likely to simply announce that he is doing X. I read a novel by Sarah Moss called Night Waking where she gives a very vivid picture of this imbalance within a family as the female protagonist starts playing her husband at his own game and simply legging it from the kids.

Say your stuff Just. Just pick up where it left off.

I'll believe you
Can we have this thread again from scratch? Because I was really looking forward to reading it and had stuff to say.

it is very reassuring to see that someone else understands

I'm shocked and saddened that you don't take this for granted! You've been very clear :)

That was to the glorious Buffy btw.

Really? Ok. I feel the opposite. Pandering to this what-aboutery inhibits real discussion in my view. But good luck with fighting the good fight. It's a fight I've given up with online (spent plenty of time trying it in other places) because I find it depressing, energy sapping stuff which doesn't actually achieve anything because the people you're arguing with aren't in the market for a change of view.

Anyway, not meaning to snipe. Strength to your arm.

buffy

I very much value your posts and don't recognise the description given of you in pans recent posts

Buffy hasn't been dishonest, Pan. She's repeatedly highlighted that "the whole premise of the thread has been: these little entitlements that men have that take from women, and that men don't even realise that they are taking anything" - and that your responses have illustrated this very point by requiring her to frame her views in a manner you find acceptable.

In expecting you to understand this without having it explicitly clarified, maybe she over-estimated you?

Making an obvious comment here, most men I know could come up with at least one "irritating thing men do from unthinking entitlement", instead of barging into the discussion with clear intent to demolish it.

I'll leave you to it.

Minor male entitlements: when organising a family trip out, it is a rare family indeed where the husband/male who proactively packs all the things the kids will need. DH is great, but would be utterly befuddled if we reached somewhere and there were no nappies/jumpers/wipes, unless he had been specifically asked to pack them.