To want women to stop saying sorry all the time?

[tryanotherone123]

There's just too much sorrying. Yes it is now a verb.

Sorry to bother you, sorry I want, sorry I need, sorry I've inconvenienced you with my breathing. Constantly all day in every interaction. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry.

If you drop an anvil on someones toe, fine, apologise. Otherwise this is not a good way to navigate the world.

Saying sorry when there is nothing to be sorry about is just apologising for existing. Who would do that. Why should we be so fucking sorry? And if we are not actually sorry why do we say it? I do know why - women aren't supposed to assert their own needs and wants and we have to try to manage other peoples behaviour towards us.

Maybe we could change that if we all just stopped being so bloody sorry. Please.

I agree.

I was at a busy supermarket last week and a couple of times found myself saying sorry automatically when either I or another person nudged together or touched trolleys. It was out of my mouth before thinking it.

The second time I was leaving the cashier point and someone else moved in front of me suddenly. “Sorry” was out of my mouth immediately.

As the person (a man) carried on walking without saying anything or even looking towards me - I realised he had been at fault not me.

I decided then to restrict my sorry’s to only times that I’m at fault.

It's very interesting.
It's working out well for me at work. I told my boss about it and she's very supportive. I've started being so much more kick ass . I hit a hard patch the other day and she said "You've started saying sorry again, you have nothing to be sorry for."

So guilty of this! I play tennis and endlessly apologise to my partner, and even my opponents!

@rookiemere thats fantastic! It would be great to be kick ass, I will give it a go. I hope you manage to continue, your boss sounds great.

It's a difficult one. I do think alot of it is British rather than female.

Two examples spring to mind that made me realise how nuts it is. I was with a Dutch female friend in krakov at an event where a female police officer was on duty to escort people across the road through a running race. She didn't notice us instantly so I said 'I'm sorry but could we cross please' My Dutch friend was horrified and pointed out that the whole point of the officer being there was to escort people across so essentially I was apologising for inconveniencing her to do her job.

And the second was a male security officer at an airport who apologised to me when I swung round without looking and hit him the stomach with the tray.

I wouldn't consider myself lacking in self-esteem yet I do it constantly. I'm really trying not to.

PS At least I don't say "I'm sorry but..." and then proceed to say something I'm clearly not sorry about at all. Or "I'm not being funny but...". No. You're not.

In my experience if you don't do it you can often come across as aggressive and confrontational and over confident (go figure). I had to train myself into doing it a bit more, specifically at work. It was frustrating as hell because I did genuinely look round and see male colleagues speaking straight without all the self deprecating and that was fine.

I concluded that I effectively wasn't acting as expected for a white British middle class female. So it was unsettling my male colleagues (the feedback only came from male colleagues). Once I started adjusting my approach for them the negative feedback went away. I continued speaking normally with female colleagues and continued to not get any negative feedback from them. 🤷

The other one is if you are late to a meeting because of an over running meeting, saying thanks for waiting for me rather than sorry I’m late.
That doesn’t always go down well.
I’ve heard people do this a few times. I remember one response was ‘well I didn’t have much choice did I’ That was awkward and also true. Another time someone rolled their eyes at a colleague and they nodded back in agreement. it was meant to be discreet but I was deliberately watching for reactions.

Sometimes saying sorry is appropriate. Sure, it’s not your fault a meeting ran over but at least an apology can go some way to making a person feel a bit better about being kept waiting.
Thanks for waitng is so over used it’s a cliche and now sounds fake.

I'm so guilty of this and have been since I was a child. I especially hate doing it when I'm in work and say sorry to a man. Since becoming a parent I thankfully seem to do it less, don't want my daughter to learn it

Absolutely, I've been guilty of doing it a lot in my life. No idea why really, just trying to be polite.

The trouble is though that as a pp has pointed out, it's expected of women. Women are labelled aggressive, bitchy, bossy, feisty, fiery, sassy, confrontational, a Karen, if they don't behave meeklly.

Especially if people are used to you being a pushover and you suddenly change even a little.

Is that not just more of a British thing than specifically female?

I do this ALL THE TIME. I am British, a woman, an anxious introvert and a people pleaser. Time to cut back, I think.

My DS does this all the time 😔

I feel like I'm very broken him. I tell him constantly he doesn't need to apologise unless he's actually done something wrong, it's okay.

He's always been extremely emotionally intelligent and I really hope it comes from that & not low self esteem (he does think he's pretty amazing at a lot of things).

I am also actively trying not to start work emails with 'Apologies/sorry' and 'i just need...' because it's work & shouldn't apologise/minimise for needing something functional, but it's hard to break the conditioning.

Whilst I agree with you...

-"sorry to bother you" is just politeness

• the most annoying over-apologisers I've met have been male!

It isn't something I do unless I am genuinely apologising for something.
But, I think I'm in a minority.

@notacooldad I agree there are occasions when an apology is appropriate and I will say sorry if I know I have genuinely done something wrong. It actually feels a lot more meaningful now I'm not saying it because it's raining or the person I'm talking to got stuck on the bus.

@ThreeEggOmlette funnily enough although my New year's resolution was purely about not saying sorry so much, it's leaked into other things and I've started being a lot more direct in emails and taking out words like "just" and "perhaps" and "I wonder if you could".

I have made a conscious effort in the last decade or so to stop apologising all the time, to stop using exclamation marks in my emails as much, and to basically send emails and leave messages as though I were a man.

Alongside this I also try and say thank you when receiving a compliment rather than batting it away. It is freeing!

I think this is mainly a British thing, not a man vs woman thing

I like this idea

I don’t agree that an apology for being late is unnecessary or weak. A minute or three late and I say nothing. More than that and I apologise, much more and I apologise and explain - as long as it’s not in a grovelling tone, I think it’s only polite. I’ve had two sorries, both from men, today: one for being late to a meeting, the other for responding to an email with some delay. Fine. I appreciated it.

This is not the same as apologising for asking a question or challenging an opinion or speaking up in a meeting. Absolutely agree those sorries need to go.

She did what?!

The first rule of patriarchy is that everything is women's fault, therefore it makes sense for us to constantly apologize

Where I live, pardon me/excuse me is replaced by sorry. Men and women say it equally. Sorry is said an awful lot round here.

I'm trying to stop saying sorry. . . . .
It's a work in progress

It’s so ingrained that I say sorry to inanimate objects when I walk into them 😂

Like others, I’m really trying to swap it for “thank you for…” and “excuse me..”.

I see it a lot in female students I teach when they ask me a question and I really try and encourage them not to apologise, I am more than happy to answer their questions, it’s literally what I am there for and they nothing to apologise for!

Then I find myself doing the exact same thing in meetings 🤦‍♀️

It’s a hard cycle to break, having had to pretty much aplogise for existing as a child at school myself.