To call out a man for barging into me?

[Giraffe007]

Walking in to a supermarket, wide entrance, plenty of room, a man clearly in a hurry, walking fast, barged into me, knocking my shoulder hard.

Was I being unreasonable to shout after him "what's the problem? Entrance not wide enough for you? I was with my teenage son, who was mortified, not a the man's rudeness, but at me calling him out for it. BTW, the man ignored me, but a a middle aged woman, I'm used to being ignored.

Good for you

‘Some argue that we shouldn’t be so quick to assume intent. That there’s a danger in mischaracterising clumsiness or haste as malice. But we must ask: why is preserving the innocence of men more urgent than acknowledging the harm experienced by women?

Of course, naming carries risk. It can be misused, stretched beyond intent, or dismissed as an overreaction.

But that risk must be weighed against the long history of women being ignored, especially when the harm is ambiguous or inconvenient to acknowledge’

Cheers

I’m not from the UK but I’ve noticed this when we were traveling there this summer. I’m a small, slight woman and have had to dodge 6ft6 men bulldozing straight at me. It’s really shocking.

I haven’t experienced similar in Germany, France, Netherlands, Ireland, Denmark or Belgium - just that normal, polite making way for each other and occasionally the pavement dance when both parties give way in the same direction.

It's a shame you didn't stick your foot out as he was barging towards you.
My DC would be embarrassed by me shouting too, I wouldn't care.

Butsukari or no Butsukari, gendered violence or not, one human barged into another. This was unacceptable and deserved to be called out.

YANBU.
and even if the man didn’t realise how unacceptably he’d behaved, maybe on reflection the OPs DS will realise it’s not ok to barge into people and that it’s actually fine for the person on the receiving end to complain.

That is indeed what I highlighted.

Patriarchy chicken innit

I'd noticed this, and read a similar article. Now I play "misogyny chicken". When I see someone walking towards me, I hold my line. If we get close, I stop and stand still. Some men will say 'oops, sorry' and get out of the way. Most often a man will also stop, and look confused as I don't move out of his way. I just smile my sweet p/a middle-aged lady smile and wait until they move around me. Occasionally, they don't move or not enough enough and barge past.

My observations are that this is in contrast to walking towards a woman, when we are both so eager to get out of each other's way that we are doing that stupid embarassing dance on the pavement, both going one way, both going the other...

However the people on mobiles phones who are not looking up at any point. That is both sexes.

How was OP passive aggressive?! She directly challenged the guy? Sarcastic and annoyed maybe but hardly passive aggressive lol

Also she isn’t rude, she had a human and non physical reaction to a man who just violently barged into her without apologising. So the rudeness is surely all his.

What would you have had the OP do?

I walk in straight lines now too, after decades of skipping into brambles and off kerbs into busy traffic just so men didn't have to look where they were going. Lots of women have started to not accommodate men and I wonder if UK butsukari is a reaction to this.

I think we have to call it out, if it is in a public place, so safe to do so. Even if it just inconveniences a man by delaying him for a minute or two while you ask why he did it and if he was aware and did he do it on purpose. Just making it difficult for them to get away with it, whether intentional or not, is important.

My friend and I decided when we hit 50 thet was the time to start calling people out for misdemeanours.

This is a thing apparently. Men barging into women in public, deliberately.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5390561-men-are-pushing-women-over-in-the-street-as-a-trend?utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=share

You did the right thing @Giraffe007

May not have been deliberate from him but it was certainly because he didn't care and wasn't bothered about hurting a woman he was walking past. Bog standard misogyny. I've definitely started calling it out more since hitting my 40s. Do not care anymore.

He probably did it deliberately. There’s a craze among misogynistic cunts to shoulder barge women at the moment.

YANBU. I get men barging me on a regular basis. Obviously they think I'm a soft touch and that I should be the one to move out of the way,because I'm physically disabled and getting on in years. Luckily I'm quite sturdily built so they often come off worse. 😂

The other day a man was walking towards me. He (quite unnecessarily) moved over so he was in my direct path. I braced for it and kept my line.

I absolutely walloped into the side of him but didn't break my stride. He got all pissy and yelled after me, I ignored him. 100% he was expecting me to obligingly get out of his way, like women are conditioned to do.

This was the week after a man pushed past me (making contact) on a perfectly wide enough pavement and then spat a huge globule of phlegm right into my path.

Absolute wankers the pair of them.

Definitely but I think it’s been going on for a while. I remember as a (very slight in those days!) 25 year old moving to London, walking across the concourse at Victoria station and an absolutely huge man seemed to just plough straight into me before I could even think twice about it. Literally knocked me off my feet, but stared straight ahead and kept his pace. At the time I thought it must have been my fault but I know better now. And for Christ sake even if it was, you don’t knock a woman to the floor and carry on without a by your leave unless you are a complete cunt.

Tell your son to get used to women telling men they're twats

Better still tell your son to get used to men being twats, and pray to god that he doesn’t become one.

Good for you, the older I get the less I'm willing to put up with shit like this. I usually say something like 'Sorry, was I in your way there?'

Patriarchy chicken. And be aware that on the rare occasions a man changes his course (slightly) to get out of your way you're expected to be truly grateful and give fullsome thanks. I was called a cunt lately for not saying thank you when someone changed his course by a few inches so we didn't collide.

Are you suggesting that the man is assaulting women on such a regular basis that he did not realise he was being shouted at by the person he hit?

The OP said:
"what's the problem? Entrance not wide enough for you?"

So I would say that most people could work out what happened.

OP i note the man managed to not cross path with or barge into your teen son

Nope I’m not suggesting that

He had already walked past the Op
He was “in a hurry”
He “ignored me”

So on the basis of that detail, I have fairly reasonably presumed he wouldn’t have necessarily realised someone shouting “what’s your problem?” Behind me that it was directed at him!

I’d call out the teenaged girls who seem to exist in a permanent state of inattention in our town if I thought they’d even notice. I think middle-aged women are particularly invisible to them.