Your examples of how men just don’t *get it*

[AsYouWishButtercup]

What are your examples of how men just don’t get What life is like for women?

Mine was a dad at school drop off today who asked if I was still training for a half marathon. I said no as I’ve just had surgery but TBH it it nigh-on impossible to train in winter outside because of the dark nights and by the time I leave work it’s too dark to start a run

He said “Why don’t you just invest in a head torch” when I explained it’s not the lack of light that’s the problem, it’s the danger of being attacked, it seems the thought had NEVER occurred to him that women have to factor these things into everyday life. I’m constantly amazed that men are surprised by these things.

Me "I'm so sick of being shouted at by men when I'm running/walking."
Partner: "it's not just women; I get abuse when I'm cycling."
Oh fuck off!!!

@Imayhaveerred

All the (mostly male) transport planners wanting to encourage more walking and bus use instead of cars.

I’ve spoken to more than one who has just never thought that one reason we drive is that we can lock our doors and protect our personal space.

That's interesting. I've had similar experiences with estates and grounds teams regarding lighting. So largely male-dominated teams centering an environmental/money-saving approach to lighting and not considering the impact on safety (or perceptions of safety) of replacing brightly lit spaces with reduced and low lighting. Not in an uncaring way either. It just didn't register with them that some people (women!) would prioritise personal safety over the environmental benefits, because they wouldn't themselves think in that way when confronted with a shadowy car park. Shows the importance of diversity in teams in any case!

One of DHs Fb friends posted this and he showed me and asked if it was true and if it was, why did we do those things?

I think because he's not a threat to women he's never thought about the fact most women around him don't automatically know that.
I remember his face when I gave him examples of situations in which I've done those things. He was a strange mix of surprised and gutted.

Speeches at weddings where the groom/best man recount the drunken nights out and stag dos where the groom or other males have either been passed out drunk on their own somewhere or have ended up wandering around cities abroad alone, completely off their face. And how funny these times were. Which was fine and they were good stories but it made me think if that was me and my female friends it would probably have ended quite differently and even if nothing had happened to the drunk or passed out woman it would be pretty unlikely to be a time we’d recount as a funny story.

@Aroundtheworldin80moves

I don't think many men get how crap periods can be. They get the bleeding part. But the aches, planning around toilet trips, tiredness, feeling hot, thirst.. Usually just jokes about grumpiness.

We like to go camping in our canoe. DH just books a date. I dread it coinciding with that time.

Yes prior to my hysterectomy I had to plan every single event around my periods as in addition to the pain, the heavy flow, the stomach upset, they used to cause me to vomit.

I like cycling in the dark - in the light I get more sexist abuse off drivers but I never hear a peep when it's dark and they can't see that I'm female.

My DD has extremely heavy periods - and I mean she soaks through double super heavy nightime pads in an hour and has blood flooding down her legs.

Her 'D'F, my ex, told her she was exaggerating and forced her to go on a 2-hour walk 'as it would help'. Not a fucking clue!

I have told this story before but on this thread I think its ok to tell it again. before I retired, I managed a community rehab team. We did lone working in the community so we had a very comprehensive lone worker personal safety policy, did training, all the stuff. We were a team of women of various ages with one bloke...pleasant intelligent sensible married man who was built like a brick outhouse. We came into work one morning to find he had been attacked by someone with mental health issues and a grudge against the NHS....he wasn't badly hurt but very shocked. He was a close colleague of mine and when we talked about what had happened...part of an official debrief....I took him through things that he had done that the women on the team would not have done....not to victim blame but to help him to understand how it had happened. His reply was that he didn't think it happened to men.
I am absolutely not saying that all women should go around in fear, but i honestly do think that its not uncommon for men not to understand why women do automatically take precautions that men don't think of.....by the way the attacker was a woman.

@WoofWoofMooWoof

My DD has extremely heavy periods - and I mean she soaks through double super heavy nightime pads in an hour and has blood flooding down her legs.

Her 'D'F, my ex, told her she was exaggerating and forced her to go on a 2-hour walk 'as it would help'. Not a fucking clue!

Not the point, but I do hope your DD is being treated for this. It sounds like it's been going on for a while.

@WoofWoofMooWoof

My DD has extremely heavy periods - and I mean she soaks through double super heavy nightime pads in an hour and has blood flooding down her legs.

Her 'D'F, my ex, told her she was exaggerating and forced her to go on a 2-hour walk 'as it would help'. Not a fucking clue!

She needs a hospital consultation if she hasn't already had one. She should be on tranexamic acid at least and probably iron supplements.

I took him through things that he had done that the women on the team would not have done....not to victim blame but to help him to understand how it had happened.

It’s quite hard to see how this conversation would have been helpful. Women don’t universally take the same precautions. Has he not followed the personal safety guidelines?

@TheOrigRights - Yes, she is only 13 and has been on 3 different meds and is now waiting to see the gynea again. She's just had a month-long period and is on iron tablets because she's anemic.

@A580Hojas - she was on tranexamic acid and other stuff and it didn't work. She is taking iron tablets.

@Tonkerbea

There was a really interesting R4 programme on this today, give it a listen if you get chance. It included poetry and I think one of the people behind Take Back the Streets.

It mentioned how even in Primary Schools boys take up space differently, which reminded me my daughter's school have a rota for the football pitch to ensure the girls get a look in, or the boys dominate.

This male perceived 'right' to space starts frighteningly early.

My husband jokes he's always getting in my way (we both WFH).Nothing OTT, like following me into rooms to hang out when I want down time, like that other thread. It's more if I move to, say, the bin and he is headed to something near the bin, he'll not read my body language and he'll just stride to where he needs to be. I don't know if I'm explaining it well, but it's really starting to piss me off because it's like he's assuming right of way, to use a driving analogy.

I know exactly what you mean and I’m noticing it with both my DH and 5yo son. It’s exhausting always trying to correct it but I have to do that me and DD get the boundaries and space we deserve. Men get annoyingly dominant over space too. I went to the supermarket today and a man was maybe 6 feet back from the sauces. I reached up in front of him - not barging him out the way, just my arm was a few feet in front of his face - and he said “EXCUSE ME!” Really abruptly. My snap instinct was to apologise but then I thought “no actually I did nothing wrong, you are way back off the shelves and obviously your tiny penis shrivelled at the thought of a vagina-attached-to-a-person not simpering and coyly asking permission. Fuck you”. I just sniggered and slunk off.

Can I recommend a game of patriarchy chicken? Super fun but prepare for bruises.

@PurpleDaisies

I took him through things that he had done that the women on the team would not have done....not to victim blame but to help him to understand how it had happened.

It’s quite hard to see how this conversation would have been helpful. Women don’t universally take the same precautions. Has he not followed the personal safety guidelines?

They were not guidelines but rules in the policy. I am not going into details but the things he did and did not do had been covered in training...they weren't things that you can say "you may not do this" but they certainly were things that the women on the team would have not done as a first response. the conversation took the turn it did because he expressed the view that from his perspective, the attack had been unavoidable. My point was that a woman in the same situation would have seen warning signs that he missed.

I was on a community fb page saying I was nervous of the (ex offender) door to door salesmen that sometimes visit our neighbourhood. A friend's husband posted that he just told them to just go away. Friends husband is about 6'3" and reasonably stocky. I am 5ft and the time I told one of them (politely) that I didn't want to buy anything , he got aggressive and put his foot inside the door.(he was also over 6' tall)

@MorrisZapp

These threads always confuse me. Women detailing all the ways in which they limit themselves in order to mitigate the threat from male violence.

But if anyone suggests that anyone else should take or indeed even think about these measures, this is viewed as 'victim blaming', because literally the only thing that causes women to be raped is rapists.

Is it OK to want to take care of your own personal safety or isn't it?

No that’s not the same - victim blaming is suggesting the ONLY solution is for women to correct their behaviour and not even considering telling men to correct theirs because that would be out of order.

@Tonkerbea

There was a really interesting R4 programme on this today, give it a listen if you get chance. It included poetry and I think one of the people behind Take Back the Streets.

It mentioned how even in Primary Schools boys take up space differently, which reminded me my daughter's school have a rota for the football pitch to ensure the girls get a look in, or the boys dominate.

This male perceived 'right' to space starts frighteningly early.

My husband jokes he's always getting in my way (we both WFH).Nothing OTT, like following me into rooms to hang out when I want down time, like that other thread. It's more if I move to, say, the bin and he is headed to something near the bin, he'll not read my body language and he'll just stride to where he needs to be. I don't know if I'm explaining it well, but it's really starting to piss me off because it's like he's assuming right of way, to use a driving analogy.

This is so true. Men just carry on walking if a woman is 'in the area', whereas women step aside. If it was two men heading for the corner of the kitchen where the bin is, I wonder who would take priority? The bigger one I guess?

I have take to saying to DH 'you are in my way!' I don't think he gets it, he just says 'no, you are in my way,' without any irony.

@VaddaABeetch - I agree about the strength thing.

Men ask women why they didn't call out/fight back against an attacker -uhm, cos I'm 5ft1 and even an average size and fitness bloke could overpower me easily, I probably wouldn't yell or fight back because I'd be worried that I'd just piss my attacker off and he might maim or kill me.

I also think this whole idea of a woman must fight back is based on a few misogynist ideas with a long history:

• it's not that it's expected a woman can overpower a man but that she has to try to in order to 'prove' she wasn't 'willing'. If someone hears her shout or finds wounds on the attacker, that lends her some credibility as 'innocent victim'; and
• a woman's 'chastity' is so important that she's actually better off dead than raped and therefore 'damaged goods' for any other man, so she should fight back even it means her death because then at least she'll be a 'chaste' corpse.

These of course sound obscene when put that way, but honestly society still doesn't seem to have got over these ideas, so ingrained are they - starts right there with the Old Testament, and I'm sure is older than that.

@Fizbosshoes

I was on a community fb page saying I was nervous of the (ex offender) door to door salesmen that sometimes visit our neighbourhood. A friend's husband posted that he just told them to just go away. Friends husband is about 6'3" and reasonably stocky. I am 5ft and the time I told one of them (politely) that I didn't want to buy anything , he got aggressive and put his foot inside the door.(he was also over 6' tall)

This is another thing - men giving road rage, hurling is it’s to women in the street etc. once I overtook a cyclist with loads of room, and he followed and confronted me in Asda car park saying I was too close. He showed me his helmet footage - I wasn’t too close at all. I said to him what I always say to these men - “If I was a 6 foot 4 burly bloke would you be approaching me or is it just women you pick on”. Watch them have a tantrum!

On a date the other night and got taxi back to mine and he asked why I got the taxi man to drop me 2 mins from my house. My automatic reaction was 'so he doesn't know where I live'

Until he asked me the verbalise it I didn't even realise I was doing that as a from of protection, it just seemed a natural reaction to me.

@CorrBlimeyGG

There’s a good reason to be scared, a woman has literally just been beaten to death by a man for no reason, at 4pm in the afternoon.

While it is horrific, and more than likely happened because she was a woman, you can't stop living your life as a result. Acknowledge the risk and do what you can to stay safe, but don't let that stop you doing something you enjoy.

(I've never heard the period holding it in thing either. No one thinks a period is like having a wee.)

Where I work a woman had a tampon stuck. A member of staff in ED asked why 'she couldn't pee it out '

Tbf my parter is a male and he has been anxious about me running alone after dark for fear I’ll get attacked by another man. He would rather go with me but it’s not possible as we have a toddler so one has to stay at home. I’m happy to run as there are street lights the whole way and it’s fairly busy until around 6-7pm, but I wouldn’t go any later than that.

I’m quite a small woman and my dp is a rather large man, he feels safe running at night, neither of us feel it’s safe for me to run at night.

@IntermittentParps

My (male) DP, who is a loudly vocal feminist in many ways but very much TWAW. He would just not get it if I tried to explain why women and girls need female-only public loos and changing rooms etc. I can only surmise that it's because he has simply never been subjected to the male gaze as most/all women and girls are.

Even if it was his 10 year old daughter getting undressed for swimming - he still wouldn’t get it?

I had to explain in an official HR investigation why I took someone at work threatening me extremely seriously despite it being a bit of a vague threat and was now refusing to be in the same room as him alone. Because he threatened me and he's physically much stronger than me so I feel unsafe? The man doing the investigation just didn't seem to understand why I was so worried but the women got it.