How to respond to men "helping" when I've said no

[noraheggerty]

This happens to me a fair bit. A man will ask if he can help, often it's to carry something for me, or lift a bag onto the luggage rack etc. If I would actually like some help then I'll say yes. But usually I don't, so I say no. They ask a second time; I say, again, politely, "No, thank you".

Then they literally manhandle my property, taking it off me, pulling on the bag straps to wrest it from my grasp!

Is this normal? I am a fair bit stronger than the average woman, so perhaps with some things I might be carrying or doing, they just can't believe I don't need help? But the other day someone did this with my violin case! Which is not in any sense a heavy item. So it's not always that. Not that it makes any difference why they are doing it, it's still crap but I'm just wondering if I get it more than other women.

Do you all experience this and if so, what do you say to them? Until now I've tended to just let them do it because I don't want to be rude. But I've decided I'm not going to put up with it any more, so I could use some advice on how to respond.

Yes, only when travelling for work in London.

Never got the chance to say no, just picked up my case abd carried it up/down stairs sbd left it at the bottom.

I wish it was a conversation. I would have gladly accepted the help whereas just grabbing it feels a bit dehumanising and I'd rather struggle myself

He definitely put it in an overhead locker somewhere on the plane as Lost and Found retrieved it for me a few days later. I just couldn’t find it at the time. He was sitting next to me and dd on a 10-hour leg of a 28 hour journey so I didn’t want to start a big argument but if I’d known I wasn’t going to be able to find the bag I would have pushed back harder. Unfortunately, hindsight is 20/20.

That is brilliant thank you!

Yes I'm in the UK.

As for the reason it happens to me while some posters have never seen it in their lives, I think it's this.

I'm a lot stronger than most women, and certainly most women of my stature. This is partly due to genetics, but more to my love of weightlifting, hiking/camping, DIY, farm work, and never having owned a car so shopping, camping gear, everything is carried on my back or on my bicycle. For decades.

Some men see me doing tasks that they can't believe a woman is able to do, and some of those men also don't seem to believe in women having agency over our own bodies and belongings.

Skeptics: spend the winter living alone on a canal boat , foraging for & chopping wood, hoiking bags of coal etc on a bike, with no help because there's no-one else there. Or on a farm repeatedly pushing 80kg of animal feed through thick semi-frozen mud in an aging wheelbarrow, also with no help because, duh, it's your job. Then get on a train with a massive rucksack and two stuffed panniers, that you are more than capable of handling and have perfectly under control, whilst being 5'4" with big tits and I almost guarantee you will find out what I'm talking about.

I won't be putting up with it any more, but will complain loudly and firmly if anyone grabs me or my stuff again.

Thanks to pp on this thread for your various perspectives. It's helped me think it through.

To the naysayers : the world is a bigger place than you think, with more experiences in it than you can imagine.

To the defenders of the men's behaviour: please sort yourselves out before you let a man ride roughshod over your agency, body or belongings in a worse way than "helping" you up the stairs.

@GarlicPint thank you. I struggle with assertiveness in general. I will look at courses - that's a great idea!

This has never happened to me

This happens to me on planes and buses, men offer to help put my luggage in the overhead lockers or help onto the bus. Sometimes I let them and say thank you. I don’t give it much more thought. I have never in all my 50 years experienced a man wrestling my bags out of my hands after I’ve said no, neither have I heard anyone say that’s happened to them, and I lived in London for nearly 30 years.
If someone was to do that I would assume they were trying to rob me and I would call the police or something

To my ranty diatribe above, I meant to add:

"... And then if a man offers help, say no in a small, girly voice, accompanied by a simpering smile..."

I realise it's not just being small and strong, it's being small, strong and unassertive.

Also I'm not visibly muscular. I guess I must be what gets called "wiry", except that it's hidden under a layer of fat, and the resulting shape is quite curvy.

@Nomorethan3 has now dug up an old thread of mine and followed me there to express fake concern about some serious issues I was talking about.

It's a particularly shitty troll account, it seems, actually trying hurt people, so be careful.

Do report, if you haven’t already, that’s not ok. Be assertive!

really odd - wtf wouldn’t someone just say ‘do you want a hand’? To which you can just say yes or no (with whatever degree of thanks seems appropriate) and that’s it?

I think this is more to the point. Lots of women are strong and muscular, even if they don't look super muscly. It doesn't bother men unduly, ime. But if you simper and giggle and act like an idiot so that it sounds like you don't mean what you say, then I can imagine a man thinking you are just trying to be polite or modest or maybe you're acting like you don't know your own mind because you dont. It's still very rude of him to insist or to physically take your bag (beggars belief, tbh), but you need to say no like you actually mean it. Smile and say, "no thanks." It's not that hard.

And don’t smile unless you want to. Or maybe practice shutting off the smile if, after you’ve said ‘no thanks, I’ve got this’, they persist.

I'm older and walk with a stick so I often get 'helped' even if I don't need it. I just let them - it makes people feel like they've done a good thing and I don't want to discourage them from helping someone who actually needs it in the future.

yeah seems unusual that it's happened so regularly, and I've just come back from a few months travelling alone. Occasionally men have asked if I needed help putting something in an overhead locker, once or twice I've asked if I needed help. I've also seen women help other women btw.

Nobody has ever taken anything out of my hands without asking.

This my experience too.
I just say ‘I’m okay, thanks’ or ‘thank you, that would be great’ depending if I do or don’t want help.
I also offer help and have carried pushchairs over bridges etc.
Never had my bags wrestled off me.
wonder if I’m not attractive enough.

Never had my bags wrestled off me.wonder if I’m not attractive enough.

There's definitely a hint of, "oh dear, I'm so attractive, men just can't control their chivalrous urges around me!" 😂

I've had this but they backed off when I said no thank you. One guy did comment "Big strong girl, doesn't need a man to help!" Well, er, yes.

No one ever offers to help me, I've wrestled bags, prams and suitcases round the Underground and across public transport for years and have to ask for help every time. However my sister and a friend can't go anywhere without some man aggressively helping. Its weird, we are all a similar size and height, but somehow they come across as a target. I put it down to them being smiley people and my resting grump face. Or pheromones.

Once DSis had her bag taken off her and carried against her will. She met me outside the Tube station and the man handed me her bag and walked off.

Maybe you're sending mixed messages. Saying no whilst smiling would confuse me - maybe they think you just don't like to ask but actually want the help. It's one men sometimes can't win - ask to help and women think you have an ulterior motive - don't ask are you're rude and ungentlemanlike.

The word 'no' is unambiguous. It's very diffcult - no, impossible - to misinterpret.

That's wasn't the point I was trying to make.