Women’s hour - birdwatching. WTF is wrong with some women?

[crawlingovertheline]

Caveat first - I know we’re all different but COME ON women!!
The feature was about a woman birdwatcher called Lucy. She was encouraging other women into bird watching (wonderful).
However, as she was explaining her backstory, she explained how “scary” and “terrifying” and “intimidating” it was….picking up some binoculars. (Yes, you read it right, these were her words) and it was only after two (male) birdwatchers helped her that she felt confident enough going birdwatching.

Now listen, I know some people are not confident but REALLY? REALLY???? You can’t pick up some BINOCULARS without help from a man? (Two men)

Women have fought in wars, we give birth, some fight and strive to survive, are women so weak now we can’t have agency over taking up a completely risk free hobby?

What on earth is happening?
YABU - maybe it really was scary, terrifying and intimidating
YANBU - this is disappointing, come on girl wake up!

You know what else is pathetic? Starting judgemental threads about other women on Mumsnet.

Haven’t heard that one, but I think the younger millennials had the victim mentality really drummed into them. I heard a woman on radio 4 last week talking about hearing “those boots were made for walking” and thinking it was so amazing to hear a woman feel able to use words like that. I googled her and she was born after the spice girls broke up 🤣

My family bought me binoculars for my 40th birthday. What were they thinking??!!!

This has made me laugh out loud.

There's a world of difference between "a bit intimidating" which is a fairly normal emotion to feel when trying something new and out of your comfort zone and "terrifying and really scary," which is an over-exaggeration and diminishes the experience of people facing actually terrifying things.

If she'd said what you've decided she meant nobody would have bothered starting a thread. People can only comment on what she actually did say.

I've obviously been doing bird watching wrong as all I did was buy some binoculars and an identification book and then wander around my local countryside and some nearby RSPB reserves. I've occasionally talked to other people, men and women, that I've bumped into but I didn't realise you were supposed to join a group and be shown what to do by a bunch of patronising men in order to do it properly.

I do agree with you OP. It's something that frustrates me no end, a kind of self-perpetuating weakness. You see it a lot on Mumsnet.. women afraid to do various things, especially related to driving e.g. drive on a motorway, drive in an unknown town, drive at night. Almost like it's inevitable that this could not be expected of them. Could you imagine a man posting on a forum and saying they were afraid to drive on a motorway?

This is such a horrible thread. You have no idea why it was those things and what had led her to that point. Vile vile vile

Really? Vile, vile, vile?
The same hyperbole as the woman who was 'terrified' to pick up a pair of binocs in fact.
Why don't people speak normally?

Really?

Someone being a woman doesn't mean they shouldn't be judged. It's not sisterly or feminist to withhold reasonable criticism.

This!

stating a comment is vile isn’t hyperbole.

How is it reasonable criticism, you have no idea why she was terrified there are so many reasons she could’ve been apprehensive about starting a new hobby, it is not reasonable criticism just a total lack of empathy, although that does seem to be what mumsnet is all about and the world in general to be fair.

'Vile, vile, vile' is hyberbole though. I do think the media want the 'journey' arc, so everything has to be a sob story about overcoming obstacles, otherwise it wouldn't get reported. Like others, I find it tiresome and in the context of such a safe, innocuous hobby as birdwatching, silly.

Anyone, male or female, can feel a wee bit imitdated taking up a new, unfamiliar hobby. It doesn't always have to be a feminist triumph against the odds to try something new - sometimes it is just trying something new, which is to be encouraged. It is a shame the media insist on the hackneyed 'As a weak and feeble woman I had to overcome my terror of men in cagoules to observe a great tit' angle.

That was just this woman’s experience!!! And it isn’t hyperbole the comment was horrible.

As a lifelong feminist, and a woman, I felt embarrassed by the interview. I thought it was regressive and did us/women a disservice by perpetuating the (false) notion that ‘we’re’ not capable of doing such an innocuous thing as to join a bird watching group. I felt enraged enough to start the discussion to say WTAF was that about.

From so many posters on here who have testified, it (birdwatching) is not ‘terrifying’ ‘scary’ or ‘intimidating’ unless you choose it to be. I believe in this case, those words are typical of the victim mentality that the interviewee demonstrates in other publications.

It’s tiresome and does feminism no favours whatsoever.

It might have been a pair of binoculars that were the size on an adult human that needed two bug strapping men to hold up. 😉

But that isnt what she was saying, she was saying that was her experience. And that is totally valid. It just wasn’t aimed at you.

Or perhaps when she was younger a pair of binoculars fell on a family member and crushed them so she has binocular related trauma, we just don’t know

It was Woman's Hour and (I presume) the feature was meant to educate and inform the listener and hopefully encourage more into bird watching. She certainly knows her stuff, but she really didn't consider how she was coming across when describing her experience. They could have got another woman to describe a more positive experience ie. where she wasn't scared and intimidated.

Update: The first baby has hatched and is having regular feeds.

Not for the squeamish though.