Whether due to a deep lack of education or falling prey to misinformation and pseudo-science, some people are completely out of touch with reality. Specifically, some guys have no idea what it’s like to be a woman. And they have some really strange misconceptions that sound even more bizarre when said aloud.One Reddit user, u/astandre1, turned to the women of the r/AskWomen online community with a veryimportant question. She wanted to hear the most shocking casual things that other redditors have heard that showed just how out of touch some guys were with the female experience. Scroll down for their stories and get ready to facepalm a lot.Bored Pandareached out to the author of the viral thread, and she was kind enough to answer our questions. You’ll find our full interview with redditoru/astandre1below.This post may includeaffiliate links.
Whether due to a deep lack of education or falling prey to misinformation and pseudo-science, some people are completely out of touch with reality. Specifically, some guys have no idea what it’s like to be a woman. And they have some really strange misconceptions that sound even more bizarre when said aloud.
One Reddit user, u/astandre1, turned to the women of the r/AskWomen online community with a veryimportant question. She wanted to hear the most shocking casual things that other redditors have heard that showed just how out of touch some guys were with the female experience. Scroll down for their stories and get ready to facepalm a lot.
Bored Pandareached out to the author of the viral thread, and she was kind enough to answer our questions. You’ll find our full interview with redditoru/astandre1below.
This post may includeaffiliate links.
Co worker and I were at a Mexican restaurant during lunch midweek. Which made it mostly men and me and the waitresses. My co-worker was having a " not all men" moment while I listened patiently. When he finally took a breath i said " OK, sure. Do me a favor. Look around and tell me which one I’m SUPPOSED to be scared of? " He looked surprised then looked around before answering “how should I know??” I just smiled and said “exactly” I actually saw the light bulb click on in his head
We were very curious to learn about the inspiration behind the question on r/AskWomen, and the author of the thread was kind enough to tell us all about it.
“The thing that first brought up the question is a discussion I had with my partner over different experiences the opposite sex seems to be entirely unaware of,” she shared.
While on vacation with my SO, I commented on how f***d up it is that I automatically brace myself anytime a man walks behind me while we were drinking at a bar. He honestly didn’t know what I meant, and so I told him about all the times someone had treated my body as a free-for-all when I was out. It kind of shocked me that he wasn’t aware of this, as he had worked security for bars for years.A couple of years later he came home from work one night and told me he’d spotted a guy grabbing a woman’s as in passing. He promptly took the guy outside, gave him a lecture and refused to let him back in. Later on he was relaying this to a bouncer at another bar, the same guy comes up with his friends, and my SO promptly refused him access to that bar as well.
My 50 y/o male co-worker invited me (31F) to attend a salsa party with him.I told him that I generally don’t go to places with a lot of men under the influence of alcohol without my fiancée because I don’t want to be dr*gged or SA’d.He then asked me how I could be so arrogant to assume random men would be so interested in me that they’d go to these lengths to get with me.When I responded: ‘I’ve had that happen to me more than once and I don’t want to go through that again’, he started asking me invasive questions about the incidents to determine if HE’d consider the things that happened to me assault.I hit back with the most graphic trauma-dump of what happened to me and made him so uncomfortable that he had to step out for a bit.He did end up apologizing for his behavior and we now just generally ignore each other.
One of my male doctors recently told me " you’re 29 not 19 anymore" to explain my symptoms of extreme pain and fatigue among other things. Spoke to a female doctor next, She suspects it’s fibromyalgia.
Meanwhile, we were interested in getting the Reddit user’s take as to why so many guys seem to have a very warped understanding of the female experience.“I think men have plenty of misconceptions about women because unless you go through the biological changes and experience the culture around women, it’s truly impossible to understand,” u/astandre1 said.“There’s so much that goes on and there’s so much more depth behind each action and perspective than what most men assume.”
Meanwhile, we were interested in getting the Reddit user’s take as to why so many guys seem to have a very warped understanding of the female experience.
“I think men have plenty of misconceptions about women because unless you go through the biological changes and experience the culture around women, it’s truly impossible to understand,” u/astandre1 said.
“There’s so much that goes on and there’s so much more depth behind each action and perspective than what most men assume.”
My ex-bf was convinced that if a woman miscarried a child, it was because she didn’t truly want it on some deep down level. I still get so mad thinking back to that moment.
Once a man said, “isn’t it hilarious when the Uber driver has to wake you up when they drop you off?”And I said, “yeah I don’t know of any woman who thinks falling asleep in an Uber is ever an option.”He said, “oh wow never thought about that”
“Why did it suddenly have to be because of a man?” My boyfriend’s response to me being mad that a co-worker dismissed the same idea from her entire team (all women), our boss (a woman), myself (a woman) yet accepted it as gospel from the first male who said the exact same thing directly after I said it. My response was telling him what happened and him saying, “maybe she just needed to hear it four or five times, or the way he said it, or maybe just maybe she needed it said in a less b****y tone”.No, no sir woman everywhere get their ideas dismissed then when men repeat those ideas they are accepted. It happens ALL THE TIME!
Meanwhile, the redditor shared her thoughts on what guys could do if they’re feeling shy or embarrassed to learn more about women’s issues.
“Women are very complex creatures and one size does not fit all, but many women are very open about their experiences and they often appreciate when others try to be respectful and understanding of their experience.”
I always talk about how I love the city at night and how I wish I could take midnight walks. A dear friend said “why don’t you?” and when I pointed out how dangerous it was his reply was “just don’t take your phone, then you don’t have to worry about being robbed!” :D
i asked to go to the bathroom at school and the teacher said no. i told him i was on my period and “no” was not an option. this DUDE told me to f*****g hold it. “yOu CaN hOlD iT tIlL cLaSs Is OvEr” SIR that’s not how that works. i just left lmao but like??? seriously?? dude was married too… his poor wife
I was once on the phone with my husband as I visited a gas station, at night. I had to go into the convenience store, and I don’t remember why but I said something about locking my car doors on the way in.Him: “You lock the car doors just to run into the convenience store?”Me: “Yeah…?”Him: “Are you leaving your purse in the car or something?”Me: “No…I lock them so I don’t have to worry about some guy slipping into the backseat and hiding while I’m gone.”He was shocked that I do that. He said he’d literally never thought such a thing in his life.Sigh…
This isn’t to say thatallguys are ignorant or thatonlymen can have these sorts of misconceptions about important but basic questions. There are plenty of well-educated, supportive men out there. And gender has nothing to do with a person’s unwillingness to educate themselves and be more empathetic.However, this doesn’t change the fact that there are many issues that plague women in the world today. And guys getting better education about female anatomy and women’s issues could be the first step toward solving these problems. Living in a bubble of ignorance is no way to go through life.
This isn’t to say thatallguys are ignorant or thatonlymen can have these sorts of misconceptions about important but basic questions. There are plenty of well-educated, supportive men out there. And gender has nothing to do with a person’s unwillingness to educate themselves and be more empathetic.
However, this doesn’t change the fact that there are many issues that plague women in the world today. And guys getting better education about female anatomy and women’s issues could be the first step toward solving these problems. Living in a bubble of ignorance is no way to go through life.
I was in a crowded area near my family, holding a drink. I asked my mom to keep an eye on my drink for me. My dad blurts out, “do you really think someone is going to steal it?” Smh.
My ex genuinely thought our kids were all boys because they were planned and wanted.Apparently unwanted or unplanned pregnancies are always girls.Go figure.
The United Nations notes that one in three women will experience violence in their lifetime. However, since the Covid-19 pandemic, violence, especially domestic violence, has intensified.“At home, survivors of domestic violence may be trapped with their abuser, with limited access to support services, healthcare and justice systems. And in public, women are at heightened risks of violence navigating deserted public spaces and transportation,”UN Women explains.Another glaring issue is the gender pay gap. One area where it’s especially prominent is the health workforce, standing at around 28 percent. The UN points out that once occupation and working hours are accounted for, the gender pay gap is around 11 percent.
The United Nations notes that one in three women will experience violence in their lifetime. However, since the Covid-19 pandemic, violence, especially domestic violence, has intensified.
“At home, survivors of domestic violence may be trapped with their abuser, with limited access to support services, healthcare and justice systems. And in public, women are at heightened risks of violence navigating deserted public spaces and transportation,”UN Women explains.
Another glaring issue is the gender pay gap. One area where it’s especially prominent is the health workforce, standing at around 28 percent. The UN points out that once occupation and working hours are accounted for, the gender pay gap is around 11 percent.
My brother legitimately thought women could walk into an obgyn to get a hysterectomy whenever we want if we don’t want kids. Lmao
That my breasts “weren’t that big” when I was talking about getting a reduction. Dude, you don’t get to decide what is “too big”.
I told two friends (a husband and wife) about catching a plumber looking through my dresser drawer. They both looked aghast, and then the guy said “I hate it when people touch my stuff! Like, somebody at work moved my lunch and I got super upset.“The look the wife and I shared said a thousand words.
In some parts of the world, women and girls also have less access to education and technology. Meanwhile, in many places, even working women are still expected to do the lion’s share of the housework and childcare. Not only that, they have to deal with period poverty and stigma.
When I was talking to my family about how r***s are happening more often in our country, being 71,6% of them of girls under 13, my stepdad said “but today girls that age are very promiscuous, wearing inappropriate clothes and offering themselves to men” I was baffled and so angry I just said “have you ever been in touch with a kid that age? it’s literally a child, that’s horrible to say” but I just wanted to cuss him out
Often appreciate him, but Biden was talking about the dangers that black men face - a totally valid issue. But he said, incredulously, heartfelt, “Can you imagine not feeling safe walking down the street?!?” Sir, have you ever met a woman?
My cousin, who didn’t grow up near livestock or barn cats or guard dogs and isn’t a woman, tried to tell me that human women experience pain during childbirth because of Eve’s original sin, but that animals do not. I, who DID grow up near livestock and barn cats and guard dogs and am myself a woman who has given birth, pointed the aforementioned life experiences out and laughed in his face. Ever seen a mama cow push a calf out? She definitely feels that s**t.
Toward the end of what had been up to that point a very positive job interview (he was actually offering me the job), “well I’m glad to hear you just got married so you don’t have to support yourself. I can offer you $x for the position.” I told him I wasn’t taking a pay cut to work for him.
I was telling a male friend of mine about how I was in an elevator and this creepy guy got on and how uncomfortable I was. My friend then just loudly exclaimed “OMG you’re not the raving beauty that you think you are!”.
My dad said, in reference to the scene in Barbie where her a*s is slapped at the beach, that no man does that/no woman has that done to them, and that it was a major over-exaggeration. I had to leave the room I was so deeply angry.He has witnessed me being verbally sexually harassed since I was 12.
It wasn’t recently said, but i recently heard it. The first episode of Seinfeld, he does a bit about how ridiculous it is that laundry detergent is advertised as able to get blood out of clothes. He goes on and on about how it’s for serial killers. Like only serial killers ever get blood on their clothes.
I wanted to take plan B after having unprotected sex and he said “why don’t we discuss that in a few weeks ?”
Was on tinder looking for something causal. Started messaging a guy and he asked me “So, do you live alone?“I told him how murdery that question sounded and that if he wants to get laid he should refrain from asking that, but I was pretty sure he wasn’t a murderer.His mind was blown. He really did just want to know if we could meet up at my place since he had flatmates, but he had no idea how predatory the question would sound.
“Are lady pilots allowed??” - from a 32 year old man. My jaw hit the floor.
When I told my ex that I have my period for about 7 days (the last 2-3 very light bleeding). He told me to go to the doctor about that because 7 days are just too long.He just didn’t want to wait 7 days until I was ready to have sex again.
I had one friend that was 34 but only had male friends. He felt comfortable enough to ask me how periods work- if we can bleed for only one hour of the day and how we end up deciding what hour of the day to experience the period for…. As though we have control over it. Yes, at least he was trying to get educated but also holy smokes.
When my partner said to me that I didn’t need to worry about our drunk, belligerent neighbor who trespassed, called me a b***h, and burned our neighbors barn down if I was home alone all weekend cause “he’s harmless”. Babe..maybe for you but that’s not my experience as a female in this world. 🤣🤦🏻♀️
A light hearted one, but I was pretty surprised when men in the office began claiming the women’s bathroom was very fancy strictly because we had a box of tampons.
My boss got real excited to share his discovery of close parking spots to our workplace that is always available. The secret spot? In a dark alleyway. I unfortunately had to inform him that as a woman there is no way I could ever do that safely. He paused and it was like a lightbulb went off in his head, like he got a true glimpse of how we live in two different worlds.
An ex boyfriend told me that women needed to wash the inside of their v****as because “that’s were pee comes from. There are only two holes, the vagina and the a**s, right ?” My jaw dropped. We were 20+, both in university. Another dude I was seeing told me that “women exaggerate a lot on the catcalling/street harassment thing. It must happen at most, what, once or twice a year?”. I told him it happened every week. Sometimes everyday of the week. Especially in summer. He couldn’t believe it and said “wow that must be because you’re pretty. There’s no way it happens that often”. My brains BROKE.
One time I got up a little too fast while getting something from under a table and hit my boobs while on the way up. My friend panicked and he immediately asked if we needed to go to the emergency room to get checked out. I said no and asked why he thought so.He thought my breasts would explode and my nipple would fall off to allow the gallons of milk I store to seep out😐all I did in the 10 minutes after he told me that was blink.
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He phrased it rather more graphically, so this is the cleaned up gist:“Surely there must be times when a woman is attacked and just tells the guy to put the knife down because she’s up for it anyway”
My friend said that women don’t grow facial hair, so I had to explain how often I needed to wax my mustache.
When I was 19 I worked in a Frozen Yogurt shop and a rush of young kids would come in everyday after school and it was absolute pandemonium. One of these afternoons I was ringing up an older guy (maybe 70’s) and he said “It’s a good thing you’re a woman. You’re more equipped for this kind of thing than a man. Your natural instincts make it easy.” I just looked at him and said “That’s not really how it works. Have a nice day.”
I was telling this guy about my friend who is lacking support in her marriage and he said “how could he support her? He’s working.” And I was like “she’s working too?” And he just couldn’t compute
A male friend genuinely asked if feminism was ‘still a thing.’
‘We didn’t discuss it but she doesn’t need an epidural’
My dad somehow went almost 60 years completely unaware that public bathrooms often have lines because he’s never had to wait in one.
I got my period while hanging out with my then boyfriend. He said, “why can’t you just use a q-tip?”
My work place offers 6 months of maternity leave or 12 months at half pay. Had a male coworker tell me that was unfair because a woman could “pop out a kid per year for 3 years and it would count as a 3 years experience on her resumè”
My younger brother tried to mansplain how to deal with endo bloat to me once lmao
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When I vented to a coworker about a terrible experience being cat-called while on a walk during Covid. His response was that I should take it as a compliment.
While I was telling my ex about women feeling like a prey in public places or even in their own house. He looked at me, and said :” Wtf no one is hunting you, but I get it, I am also afraid walking down the street and being mugged"I was just like “You didn’t talk with a lot of women or they just didn’t tell you because they don’t trust you”
“Just tell him no, or you’re not interested”
I had to explain to my father why I prefer to take a packed bus at midnight over taking a taxi. That was kinda sad because it was my dad but he genuinely had no clue.
My brother, in all seriousness, informed me that “men don’t exactly speak nicely about women when they aren’t around” like this was supposed to be some huge revelation. I was so shocked because as a woman, it’s very clear to know this just because of how men treat women everyday… but my brother really thought that I wouldn’t ever think that.
My dad was trying to explain to me why he disagrees with allowing LGBTQ+ in the military. He said “can you imagine sharing a foxhole with someone and knowing he wants to be inside you?”
My partner recently used Scarlett johanson making 60 mil per movie as an example why the gender pay gap didn’t exist
“Men have always had it harder than women”.
“Women keep saying that they’re scared going out on dates, but men have just as much to worry about”. My male friend said this after getting scammed on a date like maybe 2 years ago. Apparently never recovered.
I remember my sister telling me that at uni she had to translate a book where a guy was talking about how women get period pains because subconsciously their body is crying for not being impregnated.
My colleague (to be fair, he is gay) thought the cervix was a large tunnel you could reach through (in normal non-labor times).He also thought women had no feeling at all in their vaginas and solely got sexual pleasure from the clitoris.
A guy on Reddit recently said that we only body shame men and not women.
I had some guy really try and insist that women are lucky because they can use their power of seduction over men….seemed pretty weird to me that he was so firm on that idea.
Someone told me that giving birth is easy and only takes a few minutes and thats it
Me: lists several other factors that might impact a situationMe: “…and also, maybe gender could have had a bit of an impact?“Man: “No.”
I said I was pregnant and two guy friends asked me if I was going to take plan b.
“Periods are unhygienic.”
To add context, I’m a trans woman who still dresses like a dude most the time.For a while now, I’ve had both male friends and my boyfriend trying to convince me to “dress more feminine” and to “just be myself.” They don’t understand that I pretend to be a guy for safety reasons, because so much as a feminine jacket can be enough to move me over into female territory as far as strangers are concerned. The worst experience I’ve had was someone trying to kidnap me (thankfully in a stupidly ineffective way), but if I’m wearing baggy guy clothes, I can throw my voice deep enough to convince people I’m just a feminine guy.Think my boyfriend is starting to get it, but said male friends do not.
My husband’s bf told him that plan B pill is for abortion and he carried that belief to our relationahip till I corrected him.
Happend yesterday at a friends party:Friend (male) comes later to the party and hosts introduce him to a female colleague of them. The first thing he (the male out of touch friend) said to a woman who has never heard of him:-Said without emotion or kindness-„You don’t look like this on your WhatsApp picture.“-And then continues with the other guests.Obviously someone showed him a picture of her. But he not even thought about that she doesn’t know.
Didn’t happen to me but I know a lady who got pregnant. She never wanted it but her husband did and he now convinced her to carry it out and she feels so bad and sick and says feeling it moving is really disgusting for her. He now tries to get her to do therapy á la “talk about it, eat two smarties, you’ll feel fine”
idk if this counts but some guys ik asked why we need international womens day
My husband sees clearly edited photos (I am talking almost cartoonish) and thinks: yup that makes sense.
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