I was the recipient of unwanted advice from a random man today.

[Pollydonia]

..and actually remembered to say " thanks Random Man !" He just looked confused but another woman near by burst out laughing.
It was in the gym, I was doing my own thing , he tried to tell me to do it " his" way .
Seriously though, I'm 49 so I'm less likely to be intimidated by shit like this. I've also emailed the gym as a heads up .

Verbal violence!

@MarieIVanArkleStinks great post.

OP, well done for reporting.

Was just talking to my son's that both attend a gym and they both responded with a 😳 look when I asked them would they ever volunteer to "help" a girl attending their gym.

The both said absolutely not, it would be viewed as "really weird and creepy"....

I think decent men don't do this.

It's firmly twat territory.

Brilliant post.

Do you realise I may not be a total idiot, and that I am (despite some doubts here) a woman who is exposed to this constantly? Do you?

I am a foreigner, a daughter of extremely poor migrants in another country. My mother was a domestic worker since the age of 12 until 25 and then a cleaner who can still not write properly in her mother tongue, let alone in the country where she was forced to migrate.

Does it occur to you that I may understand discrimination against women and why we are socialised in a particular way? That perhaps, just perhaps I understand a little bit of power dynamics?

I think boys should be socialise more like girls instead of trying to 'empower' girls.

Having repeated that idea that is obviously not very catchy because we all wnat to have thngs we bitterly criticise when it comes to power and money, I never engage with threads like this, never feel the need to have the last word. I suspect there is an important part of my reaction that is fuelled by an anti middle-class fragility sentiment, which is not appropriate in the context of this thread. So perhaps there is a bit of envy towards the kind of self-confidence that the OP showed.

If I cannot cope with middle-class women discussin women's right and feminist issues It is probably time to quit mumsnet alltogether.

Brilliant? She lost me at 'handmaidens'

I find this kind of response as 'engaging' with male behaviour by copying it.

You mean a woman speaking plainly and negatively about male behaviour is literal violence?

OK!

I am a foreigner, a daughter of extremely poor migrants in another country. My mother was a domestic worker since the age of 12 until 25 and then a cleaner who can still not write properly in her mother tongue, let alone in the country where she was forced to migrate.

And I am a Northerner. My grandmothers were allowed to work, doing some very hard and dangerous shit during WWII then were told to go back home and mind the kids, whether their menfolk had survived or not. They stood on picket lines with pans of scouse, took in waifs and strays to help keep their men in work, dangerous, poorly paid work on docks, ships, down mines etc; lived through the deliberate decimation of their communities in the 60s - all moved out to more middle class appeasing spaces. Some of their street remain empty, see the £1 houses of Liverpool.

Make no assumptions. Many of us are not middle class, neither vaporous and delicate nor stonkingly healthy! Some of us are from destitute beginnings despite have been born in the UK! Hardship Top Trumps never works well here because of the sheer variety of women posting.

www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/nostalgia/gallery/how-liverpools-notorious-slums-were-19185027

These are the streets I grew up in. The streets were my parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles lived and are some of the pictures in the archive. By the time I was born the bomb holes still existed and the one room family homes, as pictured, were where some of my friends lived, just around the corner from the multi generational house I grew up in!

Sorry to anyone else, but the "we had it bad" crud really aggravates me. The assumptions that underly them are often ludicrous.

I think boys should be socialise more like girls instead of trying to 'empower' girls.

Yes, a lot of people think that. And some even try to do it. But the majority of males will still behave with entitlement and superiority because that is their conditioning - not just in the home, but outside in society.

At some point, enough boys may be socialised to behave in gentler, kinder, more appropriate ways to tip the overall balance into it being the "norm" - but it's not happening so far. So far, male bad behaviour is currently being overlooked even more than usual, if one considers (e.g.) some of the more recent rape trials, where judges have pretty much handed down slaps on the wrist rather than a decent sentence. Good luck with your wishful thinking - in the meantime we have to live in the world as it exists at the moment.

I think boys should be socialise more like girls instead of trying to 'empower' girls.
Having repeated that idea that is obviously not very catchy because we all wnat to have thngs we bitterly criticise when it comes to power and money, I never engage with threads like this, never feel the need to have the last word. I suspect there is an important part of my reaction that is fuelled by an anti middle-class fragility sentiment, which is not appropriate in the context of this thread. So perhaps there is a bit of envy towards the kind of self-confidence that the OP showed.

There is a great deal to unpack here. Sheesh.

When do you think this novel approach to raising boys will take effect? I have been waiting.

Nice one OP 👊

Brilliant? She lost me at 'handmaidens'

We wish…

That's not half as clever as it probably sounded in your head. It's just plain rude.

It’s just too easy though, sometimes.

Dunno like, I've wondered man or handmaidens a couple of times myself on this thread. Hard to tell the difference sometimes.

Does it occur to you that I may understand discrimination against women and why we are socialised in a particular way? That perhaps, just perhaps I understand a little bit of power dynamics?

This wasn't addressed to me, but ...

Yes, it does. You're female. Every female has a degree of insight into this; our biology has meant it's impossible not to and this applies no matter what area of the globe we're from.

This socialization also extends to a set of assumptions decreed - from society, culture or what you will - about what it means to be a particular 'gender'. Certain behaviours, traits or modes of interaction, expression and behaviour are deemed to belong to that gender, and strict social censure is often levelled at those who step aside from those diktats. This is why so many feminists are so deeply critical of gender ('gender critical' is a misnomer - this is precisely what feminism has been doing since the year dot). What we, as women, have against us is a material, physical biology that means we are weaker and easier to subdue and overpower than men. That amounts to the difference between the sexes.

I think boys should be socialise more like girls instead of trying to 'empower' girls.

But you and I both know, @camaleon, that this is never going to happen. The word 'should' is about the most futile word in the English language. It also subscribes to the gender stereotypical behavioural traits I mentioned above. There is no 'women are tender, gentle nurturers and men are confident and assertive of their rights' gender differentiation. None, that is, other than what is conferred, socialized, and ideologically dripfed into us by a society that's overwhelmingly set up to cater for the interests of men.

This is what we are up against here. But the fundamental issue here is that the statistical, physical threat posed to women, the assumption that invading our time and space and claiming it as theirs by right, usually emanates from men. Of course women don't like this, but our inclination is to shut those interactions down and not engage, as opposed to declaring open warfare where we too, might be in danger of becoming a statistic.

If you don't believe me, check out the hashtag #countingdeadwomen. This isn't selective paranoia or misandry: the threat is real.

If I cannot cope with middle-class women discussin women's right and feminist issues It is probably time to quit mumsnet alltogether.

I wouldn't make any assumptions about class from these boards. MN members are from all walks of life. I hope you'll decide to stay.

You assume most or all of us replying are middle class?
Why?

Im not an immigrant but I'm a daughter of an immigrant, I'm a cleaner, part time, brought up kids by myself, no parents to even help, but you think I'm middle class.

If you believe boys should be brought up differently then you go right ahead and start that up. I'll be right behind your cause. I'll even send money if its needed.

Once upon a time I had no self confidence, still dont, but with age I find comes a particular lack of caring what others think.

A few years ago, I was sitting on a train in the middle of the afternoon. Two men sat down opposite me.

One of them started by saying, "So what's in the bag?" It was quite obviously a guitar case (soft gig bag) so I didn't answer as nearly everyone on the train had a bag and it wasn't clear initially who he was talking to. I generally don't mind answering, "Excuse me, what guitar do you play?" questions and often do. Because it's usually being asked by another musician or someone who is interested and a conversation can often pass the time pleasantly.

By the time the "Snotty cow" and "Fucking women who think they're too good to talk to you" and "ugly bitch anyway" comments appeared, it was obvious he was addressing me.

By the time the thinly veiled rape threats and (actual) verbal aggression started, it was quite obvious to everyone in the carriage that he was talking to me and a man in the seat across the aisle was trying to catch my attention.

When it got to his stop, he silently indicated that I should also get off the train. It was clear he was uncomfortable and worried but didn't want to antagonise the men further. They were quite angry by this point that I was ignoring their demands for attention.

I followed him off the train, thanked him, he said no problem and asked if I were OK. I said I was and we parted company. I waited for the next train and continued my journey.

It was a cross city line with trains every 10 mins and stations a few minutes apart. It took 2 stops for an 'innocent' question to turn into threats of violence. I heard the angry shouting from these men as the train doors closed. They had no compunction about behaving like that towards a strange woman in full view of a carriage full of people. These men do not deserve my, or any woman's, attention and I'm not going to be told to 'be polite' to them by anyone.

Most women can tell the difference between men engaging in pleasant social interaction and those commanding the attention of strange women. Most can tell the difference between arseholes and men who are genuinely expressing a concern for our wellbeing.

That’s terrible @GreyCarpet !

how quickly it turned!

That's awful @GreyCarpet but shows how quickly low level behaviour can escalate.
I'm nearly 50, I've seen it for most of my life and I'm now confident enough to call it out.
But just look at how offended some posters are that I did, even though I was non confrontational and followed a policy designed to help the gym keep an eye out for this behaviour.
It's sad that the attitude that male entitlement is absolutely fine is so entrenched.

It is indeed. As was the horrendous story about the shoes. Trains are a real area of concern for women these days; a particularly ominous note is usually present on Friday evenings and was there all the time immediately following lockdown. It was like a cauldron with the pressure built up inside it.

I've had men trying to intimate me out of my table seat (I was working there on a laptop) by shrieking, shouting, nudging me, using the foulest language they could all round my table seat and across the aisle. Three or four of them, I think there were. Because I'm a stubborn boot I set there immovably, wearing noise-cancelling earphones with heavy rock music blaring loudly to drown them out, tapping away on my keyboard. I did have to ask them calmly to stop treading on my foot. The sensible thing to do would have simply been move rather than engage in patriarchy chicken, but I felt safer as the carriage was relatively full.

There was a more ominous situation when I disembarked from my London train at a lonely, quiet provincial station after dark. I was the only person present. A man was walking his dog, as people do all the time so, at first he didn't register. He then started walking up and down within my immediate vicinity, 10-20 feet each side of me, but in the car park which was set down and behind the platform. That got in my peripheral and I started to feel uncomfortable. Then he came onto the actual platform and started pacing up and down there, too. So I relaxed. Obviously he was just waiting for a train, fine. By this time I could see the lights of the approaching train in the distance. But then he stops pacing and stands about two feet away from me. My spidey senses kick in again, and this time I'm alarmed. Thank the gods, the train then pulled up and I boarded, fully expecting him to get on after me. He didn't, he simply walked away. At this point I broke out in a sweat. The conductor, who was at the door where I boarded, watched him go for a clear minute without closing the door and giving the signal to the driver to move on. I can only think he must also have seen something odd in the man's behaviour.

To this day, I park at that station so I can leave immediately after I disembark.

Last September a man sat opposite me in a table seat - again I'm working. He makes a big song and dance about taking his seat, leaving a scarf hanging off the rack nearly into my face (why I don't know, possibly to draw attention to his presence). I hear the click of his phone as he starts snapping photos, but when I look up his phone is pointing directly at me. I glare. Then I look up again, and again the phone is pointing at me and I'm reasonably certain he is filming me. I left, retreating to the furthest carriage I could. Had he followed me I'd have texted the transport police.

I now don't sit at table seats anymore.

That's awful @GreyCarpet but sadly so familiar. From being peeped at and wolf whistled as we're walking along and minding our own business, to being told to 'smile love', to unsolicited 'advice' from random men, to attempts to strike up conversations with us, to far, far worse - this is something that women have to learn to navigate from a young age and I'm fucking sick of it.

I see some commonality between this thread and the one a new mother posted. She is uncomfortable with people telling her husband in various ways that her body still looks good after giving birth. There are too many angry, mocking, envious comments.

reactions read like this to me:

1. She should gratefully accept these “compliments”
2. This is not a real problem. I have worse problems.
3. I wish I got compliments
4. You are just bragging about being attractive. How dare you.
5. You’ll be old and wish people looked at your body

I am turning 50 this year. I think we’ve gone rapidly in reverse in the past few years with respect to how women are treated and how we perceive our place in the world.

@WibblyWobblyJane

Agreed, and even sadder to see these sickening responses from women.