How women act differently in the presence of men

[msrisotto]

This was discussed briefly on a trans thread. I read it a couple of weeks ago and it has played on my mind since.

I'd like it if people could share their experiences of this. Before reading it, I didn't think being in the presence of men changed anything about me and other females but thinking about it more....it does. Examples:

When I have 'the girls' over for dinner or something, I hint heavily that DH goes to the cinema or out to see friends too. He does. Why do I do this? Him being in the house changes the topics we talk about, how raucous we become etc etc

When I spend time with my sister, I try to make it an activity that excludes her husband (and mine tbf). Things are different when he's there, she's different and I assume I am too.

In a work context - I work in a female dominated field. When meetings are female only they are completely different to when there are any men in them. I watch my colleagues (women) look to the men to respond to questions and topics that they are more than qualified to take the lead on themselves. And I always see the men talking over the women.

Have you noticed this?

Oh oh who was the poster who did the BRILLIANT categorising of male posters on a relationships thread once? And then got roundly flamed. But it was spot on, it was so so true.

Sounds AWFUL.

No wonder so many people want to come and hang around with women instead...

Bertie - you re right. Men change their behaviour when no women are around. Often as you say in a crude, competitive and bantery way. Its actually pretty close to what you see boys doing in a playground. Some bullying and hazing of other men and some misogynistic and pretty vile comments and attitudes being expressed about women.

All female groups can be just as bad in a different way.

Men modify their behaviour when women join an all male group as do women when men join an all female group. Generally, I think for the better.

What a fascinating thread. I'm not sure I'd even considered whether or not my behaviour changed depending on whether I was in a predominantly male or predominantly female group.

I actually find being in a group of women harder than being in a group of men. I've been in a male-dominated environment ever since I went to university 20 years ago, so I wonder if this influences my behaviour (perhaps I've 'learnt' to interact with men).

Hmmm

I was at a v male uni as well, oubliette, it was a science one and full of geeky blokes in heavy metal tshirts and that was just fine

BUT you made me think.

Is the reason many men push back against women getting into their "spaces" over the decades - so loads of jobs, professions, clubs, institutions and so on - is it because they don't want to have to moderate their behaviour "in the presence of ladies" sort of thing.

never thought of that before. That they might not want women eg working with them, not because they think they can't do it properly (although that came into it for lots of them) but because they didn't want to have to moderate their behaviour?

You see I always assumed that men didn't want women in certain jobs because of sexist assumptions that they wouldn't be able to do it properly.

But actually that might not be the main reason at all. It might be as simple as they don't want any stinky girls around spoiling their fun.

Seven - I think you might be onto something.

Seven I think I might have been to the same university (as a post-grad).

Good point - I can believe that they don't want to moderate their behaviour, and therefore prefer to 'keep the girls out'. I think this starts very young - I remember the boys at my primary school chanting "all join on for - no girls allowed."

ooooooooooooooooooooooooh dan dan DAAAAANNNNNNNN

I need to think of a clue!

1. It's been consumed by another institution now
2. Vimto

I meet up with a group of women every week; we knit, we eat cake, we chat, and I really enjoy the company. I can't put my finger on why, but I'd really hate it if a man was ever to join our group.

I get on really well with men as a general rule - lots of male friends, very constructive relationships with male colleagues - but my experience of men is that they always expect to be listened to, that their opinions hold sway and that they like to be in charge. Which can be a good thing, in certain situations, but would just upset the equilibrium of our group.

But if I feel like that about my knitting group, I suppose it's not unreasonable that men should feel the same about the groups that they feel a part of. If being all male is an important part of the identity of those groups, it's not surprising that they resent women butting in.

I haven't experienced the "bitchy all girl environment" thing since school. Although I have heard that it's common in certain working environments. I've generally found all-female environments - and it's not an immediate thing, it's always an established one although the ladies' loos does count as established particularly when everyone is pissed - in adult life to be supportive, understanding, genuinely warm and funny and often (weirdly) more intelligent and introspective than women tend to be in company.

I don't think men regulate their behaviour "in front of ladies" as much as in the past, in the sense that in mixed environments and especially slightly male dominated ones you get a lot of good hearted banter, creative swearing and low level teasing and some silly pranks etc in a way that (I think anyway) can be really fun and generally is a good thing. It's just that when you take women away and they get comfortable in that all-male environment it goes to another level which is (IMO) beyond fun and just stupid and tends to be quite hostile to the concept of women in general. So, OK, I'm not a man and perhaps it is fun and not stupid () but the anti women sentiments can get pretty scary, and not something that I feel safe or comfortable being around, in all honesty. And I've never seen anything remotely like that in an all female environment even when there is a reason to be hostile towards men - when a member of the group has been treated badly for instance.

And yes I can see some men wanting to protect their space to engage in humour like that, and to have their pissing competitions without being eye rolled at. But mostly if you think about the kind of men who campaign for all-male space to be preserved, it's about the same kind of stuff that you see on We Hunted the Mammoth. The Jackass type stuff is harmless enough I suppose but hostile sexism isn't. But perhaps that will die out (we can hope )

Men on their own rarely talk about women - at least that's my experience.

Don't they giggle over extremely revolting "porn" stuff?

They sometimes used to do that when women were around I imagined that sort of thing would be even worse if no females there.

Probably depends on the group of men / how old etc

Ah - I went to the other science one (which has since de-merged from a larger institution, and was convenient for the proms). My brother went to your one.

Thinking about it, although I find male-dominated groups easier in person, I prefer female- dominated groups online. I wonder if I change my online persona if I'm in a male-dominated forum?

Hello Oubliette's brother!!!!

If he was here we could reminisce.

Don't invite him though is wimmins space

Yes see I almost put that in Seven but I didn't in the end because I wasn't sure if that was just an isolated incident (and it was really awful and upset me quite a lot actually).

I think it's partly an "internet enables fascination with stuff you shouldn't look at but do anyway" thing - I remember a friend's brother showing me videos on his phone when videophones first came out of a man pushing one of those fibre optic things down his urethra, and then progressively bigger objects until the last one was a dildo. He then snogged me weird chat up attempt! But no now I think about it, I remember one of my friends from uni who lived in halls with a big group of blokes and they would get pissed and put "weird porn" on. And a friend of mine was a bit infamous among the other blokes for his fascination with hentai.

They don't tend to talk about women in the way women talk about men, meaning they don't talk about specific/individual women, no. But they appear to feel freer to make rape jokes and use more general objectifying language. Which I suppose makes sense?

I doubt he'll venture onto MN - he's probably on an online gaming forum.

Some men I suppose do go giggling over / discussing porn - and probably do it in front of women - as a sort of way of getting a 'rise' from the women, a good or bad one, they don't much mind - they're just pushing at boundaries... a sort of clumsy attempt at flirting and I do think that its a much more 'exciting' topic for younger men's banter when women are present.....but in general men don't much bother if women aren't around.

Yes. the porn that they share - that I have seen/heard about - is extremely demeaning and featuring women.

So no they don't sit around saying "so my wife said X and I said blah", they sit around saying look at this OMG that's gross and bond over images of women having humiliating / revolting / painful stuff done to them.

Again, IME. People seem to overshare with me though for some reason - so I was often lucky enough to see some of this behaviour although watered down probably.

A bloke I worked with used to forward on the emails that his group of male friends circulated at work FGS. This was back in the days before people realised that circulating obscene images on work email could get you sacked...

I really don't think that a group of blokes laughing over the sort of images I am talking about and then offering the single girl present to see it (no thanks) was a clumsy attempt at flirting.

And I mean actually. Hey girls! If a man or group of men tries to show you a film of a woman having something diabolically painful and/or humiliating done to her, don't worry about it, it just means he fancies you!

Bertie - I disagree with you there - men (again its only my experience) might talk about individual women - such as what their girlfriends or wives are doing - it's discussions about women in general we don't have - to be honest, we're just not that interested.