Man, I feel like a woman.

[TheOnlyOneInTheMNVillage]

Are there any really daft times that you feel silly about something purely because you’re a woman? I don’t mean the serious things, like in the workplace not being paid enough/promoted, but times when being female is totally irrelevant but you feel…lesser?

Mine is when I wash my car. I feel like men waiting in the queue or generally around see me and think ‘Well she’s doing a terrible job’, ‘She’s missed that bit‘ etc. I feel embarrassed washing my car purely because I’m a woman , even though I do an okay job and I doubt anyone else is watching me.

Is it just me or do you have scenarios where you feel like you’re being judged purely because of your vagina?!

As I say, lighthearted stuff, we all know about the serious shit that goes on out there.

At the gym. Mostly a 'guy gym' weights etc. I stand out like a sore thumb.

I’m always extra pleased when I reverse my car, especially if it’s a bloke coming the other way. I assume they think I’ll be rubbish at it and I’m shit hot.

I always feel judged if I'm holding a hammer. Even if I'm breaking the ice in the birdbath I can feel those judging eyes (from DH and two different male neighbours in particular).

Parallel parking. I'm actually not bad at it, but if any men are watching (or even in the vicinity) I immediately feel really nervous and if I don't get it first time I feel like they're all thinking 'useless woman driver'

I hate, hate, hate parallel parking the car when there is a man, or worse, men, standing next to the spot. They always seem to be taking notice, and always smirking or even worse trying to 'help'. The frustrating thing is that I live on a road where you have to parallel park, no driveways, so in many ways I am pretty good at it, but I still have days, whether being watched or not, when I just can't do it, and I certainly can't do it if I feel I'm being watched.

Ugh! Drives me nuts, especially when sometimes I have to just drive away from a good spot because I cannot bear the patronising grinning if I happen not to slide in there perfectly first time. FWIW, my husband isn't any better at it than me at it, in fact he says I'm better than he is.

I’m really good at reversing down country lanes as I do it daily and I have had a man tell me before ‘I didn’t think you’d be any good at that because you’re a woman’.

Absolute tit.

Yah, twat
i actually had to reverse one blokes car for him (not from round ere), he was very appreciative but also quite bemused.

I went to get into my car outside a pub once and a group of blokes were standing outside. One of them shouted 'you've parked that really well love!' in reference to the spot I'd squeezed my car into. I responded with a look of puzzlement and asked him why wouldn't I have?

The look I get from men when they are waiting at the petrol pump so that the pump is at their correct side and I drive in and pull up to any pump cos I know they can reach the far side of the bloody car!!!

I don't drive but we all went to soft play by car - DH driving obv. We got blocked in and couldn't find the owner of the car behind us. I was walking around the estate seeing if I could find them. Some guys from the gym next to the soft play asked if I was struggling to get the car out. Erm, no... My husband is though?

I used to work in construction.

I had to be on site at 7am to test the concelrete before they started laying it. This meant taking buckets out of the concrete truck, scooping some into an upside down funnel thing, and tamping the concrete about 30 times. Then scooping the other half in, tamping and then taking the funnel off and measuring the slump. If it slumped too much I'd have to send the whole lot back.

And I had to do all that, aged 20, in front of about 30 blokes who had just had their morning coffee and who wanted to get on with it and not wait for me to do the slump test. If they ignored me and started pouring the concrete before I'd tested it, and I sent it back, they had to dig all the stuff that they had started to work on.

So washing a car in front of a few blokes doesn't really phase me.

Why are we so afraid of the male gaze?

So silly isn’t it? I was thinking the other day that if women had even half of men’s confidence then we would easily rule the world.

Taking the car to the garage.

Playing pool or snooker in a pub.

I am not sure that women are silly to be afraid of the male gaze. We have been conditioned to think their opinion of us matters!

Yes you’re right. It’s just so frustrating that seemingly normal or even enjoyable things can be overshadowed.

Ah stereotype threat. I'm good at driving. Give a lift to my in-laws and I'm a wreck because they expect women to be bad at driving and I get so nervous.

"if women had even half of men’s confidence then we would easily rule the world".

This is why they tear us down! To preserve their male privilege within the patriarchal status quo. Many women have internalised the same ideas. I don't suppose most of it is even conscious.

Your thread has reminded me of this poem. I think it applies to adults too.

https://images.app.goo.gl/2vko5QV2kwEGGcA87

I got a black belt in taekwondo in my 40's but still felt like a beginner in class if I was the only (old) woman.

When I bought my first motorbike, the salesman, who was a good few inches shorter than me, told me I needed a particular type of bike because women are shorter than men... it was very odd.

I went to a girls' school and I've studied and worked in male-dominated environments, and the phrase "there are bigger differences within the populations than between the populations" has always felt about right 😁

Reversing and parking.

Because its often threatening, patronising or deliberately intimidating?

This sort of sexism drives me mad. I work in a school, so you'd think people would be on board with equality.
I had some boxes that didn't quite fit into the wooden shelving in my store cupboard by a tiny smidge so I went over to woodwork to borrow a plane to enlarge the gap . Good grief you'd have thought I'd asked for a chainsaw judging by the interrogation I got from the DT technician - what was I going to do, was I sure I knew how to use it, wouldn't it be better if he came and did it for me. A few weeks later my colleague (more junior and way less practical, but older than me and male ) went to ask said tech to drill some holes in a piece of wood, and he was just pointed to the electric drill press and told he could use it !

I get the embarrassment reversing and parking in front of men too. Our neighbour opposite was a lovely sweet old man, but when I had just learnt to drive he had a habit of watching me reverse into the drive and commenting on how well (or not) I'd done it. Which really wasn't helpful, and I just assume any other man watching me maneuver is judging me in the same way.

I can drive a 2 ton digger and did so weekend after weekend while we built our house. Digging foundations and shifting 100 tons of earth.

A lot of women would pause as they went by and give me a thumbs up.
(they couldn't actually say anything as it was too noisy)