Americans, men and the ‘pumping of gas’

[RubyFakeLips]

Despite being over 40, I’ve become more and more into TikTok of late (I have a tween). The algorithm has obviously gone all fucked up for me and my feed has lots of country Americans, a plethora of ride on mowers, big trucks and actual cowboy hats. Not really my cup of tea but I’m obviously gripped.

Weirdly, lots of them seem to demonstrate being a gentleman (their phrasing) by “pumping their woman’s gas”, which it turns out is not a euphemism. Also lots of criticising men they’ve seen not pumping the gas and allowing a woman to fill up her own petrol.

Is this a thing?! Is it really seen as chivalrous to do your wife’s petrol? This is not a thing in the UK as far as I know, or is it?

@nahnahna

This thread is feeding my obsession with the American south, I love it !!!!

I live in the American South, and I know how to pump my own gas. However DH does it if we are together, and often he will check my car and take it for a fill up. I don't think it is necessarily a Southern thing. I am a Southerner, but he's a Yankee from New York.

I think it should be like this! I’m guilty of ignoring my fuel light as long as possible because I hate the whole process of ‘pumping gas’. If I could just drive up to Tesco and someone a tall, handsome man in a ten gallon hat did it for me I’d be a happy chappie!

Not that we will have to worry about it for too much longer anyway!

My husband starts the car for me in winter! He’s a good egg.

I’ll never not use the phrase ‘pumping gas’ instead of ‘getting fuel’ now!

If we’re in the car together, DH will fill up. It’s not that I can’t, I have a work vehicle that I have to fill up, it’s just I’d rather not given a choice.

It’s probably that we also have very different thresholds. I’m a wait until the light comes on and still possibly drive past a petrol station (I once got down to 10 miles of range, which is about as far as I’ll push it). DH on the other hand, he starts talking about needing diesel when it’s a quarter full and gets panicky if we get below 1/8.

Every time I hear of Americans and 'gas', I instantly remember a bit from a Scooby Doo cartoon I saw years ago, where the crew are driving into a combined diner/fuel station and Shaggy reads the sign out loud "Eat at Barney's and get gas!"

I'm about 7, so this never, ever stops amusing me

@Ihaveattached

This thread is absolutely hilarious 🤣

I remember a really bad song in the mid 90s when I bought a tape of love songs (forgive me it was in the Middle East and there wasn't a lot of choice of music) and 13yr old me sang along to a song called Hey Ronnie which involved pumping gas.

Oh, yeah, I've got John Stewart in my head now:

Oh, my buddy Jim Bass, he's a-working pumping gas
And he makes two-fifty for an hour
He's got rhythm in his hands as he's tapping on the cans,
Sings rock and roll in the shower...

Poor Jim is deffo out of a job now, with all these TikTok cowboys pumping for all the laydeez for free!

@TheVolturi

Cmon Ruby admit it, you're aching for a cowboy to come and pump your er, gas aren't you!

When this thread was in the 'trending now' section on the desktop site earlier on @TheVolturi's post was shown as 'Cmon Ruby admit it, you're aching for a cowboy to come....'

I'll let anyone with an overactive imagination involving cowboys finish that sentence themselves.

We live in the Middle East and attendants pump your gas here (and bring the card reader to you, so you don’t leave the vehicle at all unless you want to go into the shop) I have to confess to feeling a wave of panic when we are back in the Uk and I have to do it myself as I always feel I’m doing something highly technical and potentially dangerous!

Even better, here we have fuel delivery trucks. You can order it 24/7 through an app and it comes to your house in the middle of the night or whenever you want and fills your car up. So convenient!

I live in Cyprus and during the day every petrol station does it for you - in fact I get a bit annoyed with myself if I forget and then realise I need to do it on a Sunday because I have to do it myself. In the last five years I’ve probably done my own fuel maybe 5/6 times? When we go back to the uk I always ferma bit under pressure at the petrol station because I have to do it myself and there’s people around! Arrggh!

For me (in UK) petrol stations are one of those areas where you are still straying into a fairly male-dominated world, and as a woman you might feel focused-on and judged by men as to whether you are doing it properly. I often find I'm in the minority or the only woman there when filling up. So I can understand why some women might find it intimidating. However, the only way to get over that is to do it yourself, and thereby also ensure that the petrol station has more women filling up and just becomes 100% normal.

My husband scrapes the ice off my car and will take it to fill it up sometimes... just as a sweet gesture! We are NOT trump voters!!

@YesIReallyDoLikeRootBeer

I'm American, and my DH pumps my gas for me. I can do it, and do when I'm alone but in general he pumps it for me. Men here also will "start the car" for their DW or Partner in the cold weather. I remember a thread here a while back where people were shocked that men in America did that. So yes it is a thing here, but also women CAN pump our own gas. As for states where you cant I believe there are only 1 or 2 where it is not allowed.

I lived in the USA until recently. Can everyone please stop talking about "what happens in the USA"? There are 50+ states and they all have their own laws! It's not like being in England or even like being in the UK.

But as it happens - I don't know a single un-surrendered woman whose DH pumps gas for her - that would be weird in at least 45 states.

When I drove my car for the first time in months after lockdown I went to get petrol and couldn’t get the petrol cap open. Normally you just press it and it pings open and it wouldn’t…I tried prising it open and it wouldn’t budge. I decided it must have got stuck and came home with no petrol.

Where dh opened it fine. I think I must have locked the car before trying to fill it which apparently means you can’t open the petrol cap.

Maybe I need a man to pump my gas! 🙈😂

It is considered polite for men to pump the gas for women. I took my grandson to the gas station at age 10 and taught him how to pump gas. If he is in the car with me, he takes the credit card and gets the gas. He is very proud of being "grown up" enough to do it. (Of course, if he is not with me I am perfectly capable of doing it, and I do! But in my area of the U.S., encouraging gentlemanly manners is more important than showing off my independence.)

You have to be 16 years old to operate the petrol pump in the UK.

This thread should definitely be on classics!

That’s reassuring harebright I was worried about underage pumping.

Sometimes I pump my husband’s gas for him. He can do it himself but I consider it one of my duties as his wife.

My dad warms the car up for my mum every morning, and turns it round in the drive, he even has a special heater for the job on really cold days . The funniest is when he turns the caravan round, hitches it, warms the car.. all the manly jobs.. then my mum gets in and tows it. She's capable of towing a huge caravan but obviously cannot switch on the heater herself.

This is a funny thread!

I cannot drive (finance and also got Narcolepsy) but funnily enough when I was younger I always worried that if I got a car how would I (ahem) pump gas or as I am British how would I get petrol in my car??? I used to watch whoever was driving me park up (sometimes someone would park too far away!) and wonder if I would manage it.

Don't have that worry now! If by some miracle I no longer had a medical issue and could afford for parking round London and insurance etc etc, why I would get myself a "Southern" Gentleman to 'pump my gas!'

Sounds like a control thing. A woman can only drive as far as permitted by the amount of fuel put in the tank by a man, and can never drive to a place without him that requires a refuel. Yuk.

I don't think it was any more controlling in the majority of cases than any male/female job split, though maybe in some instances.
I think partly it's the gas stations are a bit messy, dirty, smelly, might end up with gas on your clothes accidentally etc ,and if you were going out somewhere and the woman was more dressed up, the man might do it - think it just stems from that, in the way that other more messy, less nice jobs ended up being male jobs.

My family members especially liked that they washed your windscreen and other windows, and headlights/brakelights if needed too. Even the self serve places have the buckets and squeegees and so on ready for you to do it yourself. I find it odd that this isn't a thing in England really and I guess people just do it at home with a cloth and windex or something. The stuff in North America gas stations has something in it to help get bugs off too, and of course in the winter weather there it needs to be done every time you fill up, to clear off the mud and slush and salt etc that sprays on it, which we hardly have here.

It's very convenient in the winter when it's really cold/slippery etc - the people working there have huge snowsuits, gloves and boots, really heavy, to use on the coldest days, and look like polar explorers in their orange outfits!

in my area of the U.S., encouraging gentlemanly manners is more important than showing off my independence.

What happens when the man dies first, as they are wont to do?

As we ‘speak’ I am sitting whilst dp pumps gas. A real mix of emotions here !

What happens when the man dies first, as they are wont to do?

My widowed momma then pumped her own gas, as any self-respecting steel magnolia would do.

Being called ma’am? Is that complimentary?! I think it might be similar to the crushing moment when you stop getting asked for ID or when my mum was offered an over 65s ticket at the pictures.

In the South, "ma'am" is age-neutral.

Also, I just want to make it clear that his gas-pumping for women is only done by men with whom the woman has a close association. You don't just rock up to a gas station on your own and some random guy comes up and starts pumping gas for you. Also sometimes women pump for other women. My mother always insisted on driving her car when we went anywhere together up until she was in her 80s. When we needed gas, I would be the one to get out of the car and pump it.