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?

If the refer to DW, i am for a split sceond i wonder if they are male, or lesbian. Then i just read on.

Flirting with a women doesn't necessarily mean a man fancies her. flirting is two a penny.

I don't think my behaviour is very different and I don't recognise a lot of these scenarios. If anything I am more likely to take more care over my appearance and try to 'impress' in female company because women notice and judge these things much more than men in my experience.

YY and it wasn't flirting when done around me either. It was my cousin's boyfriend and his army mate and c's BF was laughing and saying oh, no, you don't want to see this one, no don't show it to them X, gf gets really upset. Neither of us were "targets", I had a small toddler at the time and quite obviously wasn't up for casual sex and the other was already attached to one of the guys.

Yes it's upsetting, no shit. We decided to go to bed and leave them to it. Had an, um, enlightening chat about the boyfriend with my cousin when the two of them went out the next night. But this was about 3 years ago and they're still together. Depressing TBH.

I'm not a man and obviously I'm extrapolating from a fairly small sample of experience here, so I'm sorry if I'm misrepresenting things (although I think my position was made clear in the first place, I hope!)

The "talking about women or not" thing you're saying is correlating, though. What I mean is men don't tend to sit around saying "Wow, women. A bunch of bitches." like women sometimes tend to sit around saying "Men, what a bunch of lazy arse bastards." It was more that I noticed an increase in the use of sexist language, but this might have been more that all of the men in that group were sexist or accepting of sexism whereas in mixed company it would be likely they would offend. Similar to how some people are horrifying racists in the privacy of their own homes but put a filter on it in public, at work, etc. When they realise or think they are in the company of other racists they will quite happily drop the filter. We probably all do it to an extent with something or other - I do it with swearing. Literally could not, actually find it physically uncomfortable to swear in front of my mum but as soon as I realise I'm in a "sweary group" it flows freely and I have trouble stopping it!

Flirting (assuming we're talking between a man and a woman) would have to take place in a mixed environment where all participants are aware the environment is mixed, the inclusion accidentally or secretly of a man/woman in the exclusive opposite sex environment is quite different and wouldn't involve any flirting at all because the whole point is that the majority group in that room/situation at the time believe the group to be exclusive. And when people are comfortable that the opposite sex (or whatever other group) is securely out of the situation, that's when behaviour changes.

male dp is back from the pub where he was with all male pals

in the interests of research i have asked dp what they talked about. (note that although i trust he is telling the truth i have no way of checking, and he's hardly going to tell me if they've been sitting around watching hardcore porn)

these were some of the topics:

• talking about work
• gossiping about who is dating who at work
• sport
• passing comments about the barmaid's large breasts
• some crap about a tiff on facebook
• weddings/engagements
• unfortunate surnames for army officers

Of all the post that's what you picked up on?

If a woman tells you that she was there and it's not flirting no way, that's not good enough for you, you need to tell her she's wrong?

Bizarre.

It wasn't flirting. It was male bonding that I happened to be around for and they didn't "mind me". That is what I am telling you.

And the amount of SHIT that women and girls get told to put up with from men on the basis that oh they fancy you/they're flirting/they don't know how to behave around girls/they're just trying to get your attention etc it's bollocks. I didn't expect it to happen on here.

That's an interesting point though. The kind of all-male environment behaviour I was talking about earlier, you can't really do in a pub. Because it's not actually an all-male environment, it's mixed.

But the all-female environment stuff we were talking about nearer the beginning, I get that in a pub/restaurant/cafe when in a large enough all female group and not just at people's houses/in the loos/online/etc.

ime the really graphic photos, insults, over-the-line banter happens via private whatsapp groups or facebook messaging

PG - that sounds about right. The last time i was out with male only friends, we spent the whole drunken evening in a pub, basically discussing whether the Earth was getting lighter or heavier

Apologies if I am taking this thread off on a tangent, I've necked the best part of a bottle of red and am beginning to feel the effect!

Women who prefer the company of men. The argument for this always breaks down into two parts:

Firstly: Women are shallow, bitchy, only want to talk about clothes, diets, babies and men . I know very very few women like this and they are equal in number to just as vapid men. The majority of women, like the majority of men, are fully formed human beings with a whole range of likes and dislikes and many interesting things about them.

But, it is the second part which most strongly hits me. Women are judgemental whereas men take you for who you are. So.... What shall we take from that, if men took women for who they are then sexism would not exists, women would be judged solely on our ability/personality.,So we have a paradox, what do you think is true Elephants are women being oppressed due to our sex or do men take all people on face value and not judge them by arbitrary criteria? If men are taking are only judging our individual personality and ability and not our sex then women must be inferior, apart from the special snowflakes like yourself of course. Of course let's not forget People of Colour too, the lovely non-judgemental men would not discriminate on something like skin colour, it's just that white, middle class men are so much fucking better than the rest of us.

Dreadful grammar and spelling, like I said lots of . Definitely won't be enough left for tomorrow's stew like I convinced myself when opening. It's my silly womanly way .

Sorry, me again . I need the online equivalent of my mum to come on and tell me that it is time to go to sleep.

In my experience there is one group of women where the normal rules of women only groups does not apply and I am always concerned by the number of women who's only experience of all women's groups is such gatherings. That is the "wives and girlfriends" group. Can anyone imagine all the partners of their female friends being expected to get together and be friends. That they should have a "boys" night together whilst all us women have a night pass for some real fun. If partners of females meet and like each other then that is fine but they are not expected to get on in the way women are. In the WAG group the men are there in spirit if not in body and of course they solely dictate who can be a member. It is incredibly infantilising really.

Hmm, interesting topic. I realised long ago that there is a 'me' that I used in front of men, and then there is a more real version of me that I used in from of my female friends. It doesn't help that some men who I considered friends, ended up hitting on me, forcing me into finishing the friendship because they were married/attached.

As a young woman, I have done that whole flirty/giggly, I-not-as-smart-as-you thing in front of men, but wouldn't do that now. I have come to a point in my life where I want to be a more authentic me in front of all people, regardless of sex, but haven't worked out a solution for this particular issue yet. And I am not sure than some men (and indeed some women) are ready or open enough to be able to accept the real me .

I find it interesting to note that my local photography club (which I haven't joined for the following reason) has a subsection devoted to nude photography. I see this as a male interest and would not be comfortable attending when I don't know the attendees. It makes me wonder how many women are members of the club or whether they (the men) just don't care and this is what they want to discuss and share.

Why was CKDexter deleted? I can't pm them either for some reason.

I think the post breached MN rules on references to trans people.

Oh yeah, I remember it now.

Has CK been banned then? Or suspended? How do we find out?

Send a message to MNHQ and ask via the report option and ask if she's been banned and if you can tell us all once they have answered?

It feels so sinister that a thread like this with women talking about our reactions, feelings etc gets sort-of spied on with posts getting reported.

I find myself feeling apologetic in front of men if the subject veers to "girly" topics but have managed to control that (with the help of FWR!).

I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing for men and women to have separate spaces (for purposes of comfort) as long as it doesn't limit opportunities. This old diehard sailor guy was giving us a tour of a submarine once and said "we didn't want women here spoiling our fun, I'll be honest". It made sense to me then but at the end of the day it's unfair to deny someone an opportunity bcs of how they were born. It's simple really.

Plus I've never understood this idea that men should modify their swearing in front of women. We're not precious little flowers. Swearing I don't mind half as much as sexism.

Super, I don't think it's spied on - MNHQ have chosen a line on such moderation (which seems to be more "generous" than many sites) and if it's breached then they will delete without really focussing on the rest of the thread.

As a separate example, I just reported a post containing r**d - I agreed with the poster in question that the man being described was a total cockwomble but the language breaches guidelines.

(It wasn't me that reported CKD, by the way)

I see that as an overt statement emphasising that we're different. I hate it. Not that I want to be sworn at. But 'fucking politicians' is normal speech.