Elderly gentleman refused my help getting off the train

[givemeareasonto]

I’m getting the train to visit a friend today. On my first train there was an elderly man who had a suitcase and another bag with him, as well as a walking stick. He had assistance to get on the train.

I was getting off at the same stop as him and he was looking around a bit aimlessly, obviously looking for help. I asked if he needed a hand to get his things off the train and he scoffed and said “he wouldn’t take help from a woman”.

I left him to it, but to be honest it’s left a really sour taste in my mouth. AIBU to think this was a really dick-ish thing to say? I wanted to snap back at him and say if he didn’t want help from a woman, he shouldn’t be travelling with more than he can cope with, but I didn’t.

So because one person, potentially with a different first language, said no, you refuse to help anyone ever again?

I live in London and frequently, like thousands of other Londoners, help people up and down tube steps with buggies and bags. But I do wonder whether some visitors feel worried because the Social Media Right wing loons and bots portray London as a place where you are likely to get stabbed and robbed every time you venture out in public - so trusting your possessions to a stranger might well seem too much of a risk.

Sorry you had to deal with that! Horrid behaviour from her and drink is no excuse x

My Step dad is quite infirm and he did all the "man jobs" my mum was a single parent when I was younger she did the "man jobs" so was capable but let him do them when they got married.
anyway my mum is his carer now and he still has issue with her putting bins out or cutting the grass!

Very classy

That would be my grandad... He's always been socially awkward (ASD runs heavily in the family, I'd be very surprised if he wasn't autistic) but was also brought up to both respect and look after women. Which makes sense - he's nearly 90, times change.

In him, this meant he enabled the women in his family to be as educated and well employed as they pleased by funding education, doing the childcare, cleaning and paying for life, also working and doing everything for all of us - firmly including any traditional 'man jobs' like carrying, gardening, grotty jobs etc. He scrubbed his own floors on his knees with a broken hip at 80, because he thought it was unfair for my grandma to start doing it having never done it before and also unfair to hire help or for me to do it instead... He has always been a kind, independent, non-sexist and generally selfless man who has given a huge amount to the world. I can 100% imagine him saying something like this though! He said similar to me when he had had his bladder removed with cancer and needed help with his stoma initially. He just really struggles to accept he is no longer physically able and is getting frail and is also bloody awkward in his turn of phrase.

Why are you choosing to be so offended by this?
You offered, he declined.

Yeah, sexism is bad; but ageism is just a jolly bit of harmless fun, eh?

Maybe he thought others would judge him for having a woman help him. People do judge if a man and woman are together and the woman is carrying the heavy things.

We have only your opinion that he "scoffed", and even if he did how was his response any more graceless than you coming on MN to tell a bunch of random strangers every detail of the exchange and asking for their opinions?

I agree with people who have said if he was very elderly possibly late 80s or more I would have treated this as a generational attitude.
I wouldn't!
I worked for a company a while back which had an 'elderly man' as Chairman. He was a pompous, sexist arse. One day it suddenly struck me that the 'elderly man' was of an age to be one of the 'Male Chauvinist Pigs' that we women came up against when I first started work back in the last millennium. The MCP have had decades to mend their ways, so if they haven't then that's their problem.
I left the company after one-too-many MCP incidents, despite the rest of the team being lovely (if you looked past their enabling of the MCP, that is).

Next time, OP, pretend he is deaf and bellow (so the rest of the carriage can hear), "WHAT'S THAT? You don't want help BECAUSE I'M FEMALE?" See if he gets any help then.

If it was said in a sneering way, yes he was particularly rude. If said kindly, I'd just put it down to embarrassment and having been brought up differently in a different time and go about my day.

I also wouldn't rule out the possibility of age-related mental decline that has robbed him of his better manners.

All this to say that it's not ideal but I can't fathom giving it as much head-space as you seem to have done given the only person who has really suffered for his attitude is himself.

Why have you?

Yes, and it’s absolutely shitty and thoughtless of them.
A while ago DH had a period of atrial flutter - he could walk ok on the flat but his heart simply couldn’t supply more exertion than that, he’d be out of breath going up a slope etc. One day during this period we bought a sack of bird seed - only about 12kg so the same weight as my dog who I regularly carried up and downstairs. DH held the door for me as I carried it to the car; a couple maybe in their 70s was coming in and the bloke piped up ‘you should be carrying that!’. Oh the look on poor DHs face - I was absolutely furious and replied curtly ‘no he shouldn’t, he’s got a heart problem’.

That sort of assumption about who can do what based solely on sex needs consigning back to the 20th century.

You offered to help, he refused ,OK a bit rudely. End of. Are we all so thin skinned that we rush home to start a thread on mumsnet to say how affronted we are by a rude old guy on a train.

If he genuinely “scoffed” then he’s a dick.

This.

Tonight on 'Sweeping Statements from A-Holes....' it's Liz from Derbyshire.

Eh? Even if he is indeed just 100% sexist, I don't see why that would make him shocked at the idea of a woman doing a 'traditionally female' job? He'd probably be more shocked at a bloke turning up to do it, to be honest.

Perhaps it’s the way you asked perhaps it’s something about you. That puts people off Perhaps he thought you were gonna rip him off and steal his bag and run off with it Perhaps his wife had just died and he had too much on his mind. There’s 1 million reasons which you forced me to think about and it’s ridiculous that you would even spend one second thinking about it you asked he said no that’s all there is to it. People have the right to make their own decisions.

That attitude in and of itself is sexism or assuming you are a women, internalised misogyny.

Where did Gwen say that was her own attitude?

It's perfectly plausible that a man of his generation (or indeed any generation) may feel that way, and react accordingly. Nobody is saying that they are right or wrong to feel that way; but it isn't up to somebody else to tell anybody how they should feel.

I think I agree. And I think the retelling of it might not really reflect how it was meant but, understandably, the OP's interpretation

Sure. The difference is that in this case the man did need help but wasn’t willing to accept it from a mere female.

People can be twats.

I'd have probably just shrugged, said, "alright then", and continued on. I may have looked back to see if the door then closed in his face, just for my own amusement...

She said it was a possibility, not that he did.

So frail old men can be dicks too, not sure I'd let it ruin my day. So many people are rude (in cars, on trains, in shops, on the street) leave them to it.