Male presence in recent days

[puppygalore]

Not sure if this should be here or in regular chat, but please move if not appropriate.

I've been following closely everything on the Feminism boards and media generally over these past few weeks and am feeling sad, angry and worried for my dd just as many are. My awareness is more heightened than usual, but I've just got back from a walk and I wondered if any other women have noticed a change in male behaviour recently. I mean in everyday life, not the ones shouting about it all over social media. I am not working at the mo and don't have a huge social circle, so don't generally have many people to chat to about this so thought I'd see what user of MN are experiencing.

I've been walking my dog (mostly on my own, at weekend with kids and H) had her for around 6 months now, before that I'd often go out to walk and run on my own and after the first lockdown would walk with the kids, never had any issues whatsoever before. However today I had no less than 3 men approach me in the middle of pretty desolate woodland.

One man who was alone, not dressed at all for walking on the muddy paths and instantly gave me an uncomfortable feeling, approached me asking directions for a bridge. I stood at a distance and pointed out the path. He stood overly close, I backed off, he came closer, you know what I mean. I was originally going that way myself but he sort of paused as if he was waiting for me so I turned away and waited for him to get ahead. He kept turning back to look.

Not far behind, another bloke out dog walking came striding down the path, I'd seen him further back going the other way and his off-lead dog had jumped all over my on-lead dog and ignored his commands, and the man had ignored me completely. Usually a walker would apologise and make an effort to get their dog to come back. The dog spotting my puppy of course did it again. At no point did the man acknowledge me except to sort of attempt to shoulder barge his way past me, I'd already moved slightly off the path but he clearly felt he needed the whole bloody place to himself. He didn't make contact but I felt like that was the intention.

I waited again to let him get gone, and another male dog walker came by. My dog had planted herself down to wait for his dog as she was all excited after the other dog going bonkers, and so now she was refusing to budge. Usually when she does this other dog walkers just laugh and go on by, or let their dogs say hello, so I moved to the side and gestured him through, his dog had already run ahead not interested in mine. This third bloke walked right up to me, said 'let me show you this', grabbed the lead right out off my hand and demonstrated a flick that apparently will solve all my dog related problems. I grabbed the handle back but didn't say anything, and just stared at him til he said 'enjoy your day' and went off down the path. I was actually too shocked to speak at the time and now afterwards am kicking myself for not shouting at him to get off my dog or whatever.

It made me think, these 3 things happening all today after a weekend of violence against women and harassment of women being all over the news and social media seems weird. Do men not read the news when it's about women or do they just not care? Do they not see that women might be especially frightened of them right now, if not before? Is this their way of 'reclaiming' the space? Are they that clueless? Or are they proving they are the 'nice guys' who either don't even acknowledge a woman or else are just being 'helpful'? It's worth mentioning I'm about 6ft and solidly built, but all 3 of these blokes were bigger built and taller than me. I've not had anything like this in all my months of walking, with any man larger or smaller than me, then all of a sudden 3 unpleasant encounters today. Has anyone else noticed that men generally are suddenly more in their faces? Or have I just been really unlucky today?

I'm so sorry, puppy.

I've noticed a change for the better in men that may have not considered these issues before. Which is good. But I have wondered if will also lead to an increase in men who are arseholes, acting even more like arseholes, now they can see what the issues actually are.

I'm sorry that happened.

So many people are determined not to get this.

They would probably say.

1. Just wanted directions! Why so suspicious. Poor bloke
2. Left you alone. Thought that was what you wanted!
3. Just being helpful. Did you need to be so rude?!

Sounds like a rough morning sorry. It just wears on you doesn't it.

I'm sorry you had a shit morning OP - does sound like the second and third were definitely meaning to be arseholes (first one might just be a bit slow on the uptake). I wouldn't have liked any of those interactions either.

DH did say yesterday that he worried whether the movement to end misogyny/VAWG might actually make the shit men shitter and more aggressive. I scoffed at the time, but now I wonder if there may be something in that... (sadly)

I'm sorry you had to deal with that. I honestly think some men STILL don't get it despite all the SE news. They have no idea how their actions come across to us.

Too many sorrys. We did not do this. Women spend too much time saying sorry. That's a habit we could do without. We need to speak out when things annoy or offend us. I would never allow a man to take my dogs lead, nor allow someone to take over the whole path. My dad was a great believer in women speaking out and that was in the 50's so there are no excuses. Every time you type or start to say sorry, stop and think - did you actually do anything to warrant an apology.

Do no mean to offend, but if we don't stand firm, we will not move forward and that matters for our children

I agree with you in a way, Highame in that I wouldn’t be saying “oh sorry” to the people who are doing this to me, which I do think is a bad habit people (women?) get into, apologising for our mere presence but I would say to someone like puppygalore that I’m sorry things have happened to her because I’m empathising, I’m not apologising for someone else’s behaviour.
I had something a while back but during the pandemic where a man on a bike, didn’t hang back and wait until we got up to a wider place on the narrow path through the woods, where he could overtake me, when I was walking my dogs. I told him to stop and wait while I got my dogs and that he shouldn’t be getting that close. After that, I mentally prepared some statements for future scenarios. A while after that, I saw a male runner come towards me and my dogs so I grabbed my dogs and got out of the way of both the left and right paths in front of me - but no, he wanted to go over the hillock where I was standing! I shouted that I’d purposely left the paths clear for him, to which he cheerily replied “it’s ok!” No it wasn’t 1) social distancing and 2) my dogs could’ve nipped him as he came so close! Again the other day, a man on a bike had caught up with before I even knew he was there! So now I’ve recalculated my phrases! I think they’re just stupid, oblivious idiots (my ones) and they’ll get a piece of my mind if ever they cross my path again!

Thanks all, I'm fine - the third guy was by far the strangest so it just made me feel unsettled on my way round the route.

I do understand your point @highame but I didn't post for sorries, I am interested to see if it's just me or if other women are seeing men who are acting differently. What should I have done? Why is it my fault? From my perspective if I'd not moved for the second one, he'd have shoulder barged me so I quickly moved back as an instinct to physically protect myself. For the third guy, yesterday I'd also have said 'no way would I ever let someone take my dog's leash' but today in the moment it happened so fast I didn't know he was going to do it til he'd snatched the leash. I imagine this is how so many people are taken advantage of and mugged, you wouldn't say about a theft that they 'let' someone take the wallet/phone etc. I had a split second to weigh up the situation, seeing him stronger than me, I'm alone, I had no real option other than grab it back and kind of tussle with him til he fucked off.

It's exhausting isn't it? Either wilfully ignoring what's going on or going out of their way to be worse. I am so depressed about it all at the moment.

Not been out enough to comment on personal experiences. I sadly would not be surprised if there are some men who do respond by being more unpleasant.

puppygalore most times you will not have time to think and you’ll just react/act instinctively and they may not be the same actions each time. You can only “prepare” to a certain extent, to train your instinctive reactions but it may not even pan out that way when you call upon it. I’ve been in certain situations numerous times where people say “I’d do this” “I’d do that” but it doesn’t really work like that, it happens so quickly that your brain doesn’t have time to compute.

To be honest I have had the opposite experience over the last 12 months. I'm a small-ish woman and the pandemic has been the first time I have been able to walk around without men constantly striding into me, brushing past me or trying to approach me. I really hope this is something that can continue post-covid although, given your experience OP, this may be unlikely.

I wonder about the other types of vulnerable scared. Someone who is old, disabled, frail, injured, has a child or vulnerable person with them and must protect them, as well as themselves?
As this is MN it would be interesting to discover what the assorted DH view is, on different mindsets and alertness and caution levels on a walk by yourself vs walk with your infant?
I have noticed men are less cautious, including with children, e.g. rough play but verging on careless, and not bothering with seat belts (the latter surprisingly common, when I started looking out for it, for instance one child barely school age, standing up to press his face against the front screen in dad's van, and because it was near a town centre and between two police stations, the passing traffic included various police cars (full of men). Even when the van was stopping at lights, they just drove alongside, waited, looking at everything going on and drove off.
On the point about not saying sorry and smiling, the problem is, if you don't have a sword, you need a shield. "A soft answer oft turneth away wrath". The O.P. says she is 6 foot. If she was 5 foot or less, and/or a frail old woman, with these men doing these things she would sorry and smile and simper and and do whatever else is in the well worn defence book, to calm rather than confront the clowns.

Men really do inhabit a different world, presumably by evolution as well as custom. Confrontation, competition, fighting and hierarchy is automatic with boys. You would have to assume that women gain more evolutionary advantage from cooperating with other women than by knocking them to the ground as a form of greeting, which appears to be a way boys indicate friendship. I see the way this is a men's world designed by and for men, in the fact that even a cookery or hosting overnight guests or holding a dinner party, or sewing, must be turned into a competition, if they are to appear on screen, alongside the men's football and all the other sport. More of the population are keen on National Trust than sport, but if it isn't for men and it isn't competition it doesn't count at all.

Very recently, there's a slight move from the man-in charge of a bunch of men panellists or comics, with possibly a token woman. And at last, some women are permitted to be seen, despite being older than 30. Some even appear on t.v. dressed, as men are, to the neck, the foot, and the wrist. Duh. How to be taken seriously and treated as an equal is not to hang out your naked legs, arms, shoulders and most of your boobs, so please stop it, sisters. I'm cross with Beyonce getting her award last night and hanging out her breasts. Nice enough dress, but above the shoulders would still be a nice enough dress. You are not looking for customers on street corners, you are accepting an award for music, not a prize for who earned most for your pimp this week. Put them away woman, we do not wish to be obliged to see it, any more than we wish to see a man's bum cleavage .

eyesopening and puppy we're all on the same page but I so often come across women apologising for something they couldn't possible have had anything to do with. I do now tend to shout if I think someone is going to barge past and scare the life out of them

nicegerbil a wry smile of recognition from me there, poor blokes just can't win can they?

There was a time where "sorry" was almost punctuation, for old fashioned English manners. A row of theatre goers would have a Mexican wave eruption of "sorry- ing", when a latecomer needed to pass along the seats, and the etiquette was that if you step on my toes, you and I have a brief ping-pong sorry-ing exchange, with you expected to win by pulling the bigger guns of "So sorry," "Terribly sorry".
At one time, dealing with international students, they discussed their impressions of England, and the "sorry-ing" was the biggest peculiarity they noticed, even the Japanese, who are famously world beating for elaborate social conventions