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Feminism- experiences of man-whispering and the refusal to do so...

It must be said that both wives were previously with the sort of angry, controlling manchildren women are taught to whisper around and placate. Both were physically assaulted by them.
 
But I will say - reluctant as I am to continue this now I've remembered its public - she doesn't believe she's ever directly encountered sexism, however she defines it.
 
kalidarkone said:
I've failed again:(:D
I'm not very good with the male chivalry ting.... I got on the tube to go to Victoria to getc the bus back to Bristol and despite there being plenty of seats I chose to stand up cus I'm gonna be sat down for 2.5 hrs and I get to have a likkle dance round the pole to the jungle coming through my headphones:D
The guy standing opposite me gestures and points behind me to a guy sitting down who is gesturing 'Do I want a seat'? I take my headphones off and he repeats do you want to sit down? (There are other seats available)
I feel a bit bad about my response cus his intention was to be polite....
So I say 'Do you think I'm old'?
He says 'No'
I say 'Do you think I'm pregnant'?
He says 'no'
I say 'OK just checking *giggles* errm no but thanks for asking'

I then felt I'd been harsh and rejecting but at the same time found it odd that I'd clearly chosen to stand up and as he hadn't asked the guy also standing I thought he must of thought there was something inadequate about me:rolleyes: - which is what chivalry is really.

I felt slightly concerned that I had humiliated him, however I felt slightly humiliated by him asking if I wanted a seat in the first place.
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I know this is inconsistent and probably confusing from the outside, but it feels very sensible and obvious on the inside:

Most of the time, while I’m just going about my business on a normal day I have no expectation or need for someone to give me their seat or open the door for me.

But sometimes, I do. Like when I’m all dollied up in high heels and in full Show-pony mode, then I feel insulted if my date doesn’t hold the door open for me and allow me to sit while they stand. It’s partly that I’ve put on the full show and I expect and need a stage, with the curtain raise effect of having the door held open for me, and partly because it’s bloody awkward to negotiate heavy doors and so forth in all the clobber.

I bloody love dressing up. And if I’m lucky enough to be dating someone who appreciates it as much as I do, then part of the whole thing is the showmanship (showwomanship) of the chivalry too.

I’ve been on dates when I turned up in full glam and didn’t get the chivalry, and felt angry irritated and insulted.

It’s about the clobber, the glamour, the clothes and the show, not about needing to be pandered to by virtue of my gender. It feels like my date ought to be part of the show too.

If I was on the way to the date on the tube dressed that way, I’d be glad to get a seat but not expect anyone to give me one.




This isn’t about chivalry but :
When I was dealing with cancer treatment, I really really needed people to hold doors open and give me their seat. About half the time, I had to ask, even when I was bald as an egg and obviously struggling. Some of that was because everyone dives into their phone as soon as they sit down and they just didn’t notice me. I wondered if they sometimes weren’t sure if the bald woman was ill or just really really hardcore.
 
SheilaNaGig yeah its about context I guess. I too like to dress up and go out and in that scenario appreciate a door being opened or a chair pulled out....but in day to day I will open doors for people. ..

Funnily my ex was brought up to behave very gentlemanly/ old skool brit .... and was taught to never sit if a woman was standing even if he wanted to sit and the woman was happy standing and he would just kind of hover looking uncomfortable....he had to get over that with me because at one point I'd prolapsed a disc and could not sit down:D

The point I was trying to make regarding the guy offering me a seat on the tube today was more that I was suspicious of his offer. I expressed that in a pretty raw and direct way and then felt a bit bad because although I don't do the whispering thing I feel as though I ought to just because it's expected of me although -it feels very alien to me.

I'm a bit aspie and can be quite black and white initially and have a directness that I partly atribute to my Jamaican heritage.
 
S☼I said:
All of which is a long way of saying I'm not friends with blokes. Some men, yes, but no manly men in the trad sense. The few male friends I have...one is gay and lives with a retired headmistress by the seaside, another runs an arts cooperative and has a girlfriend from a rich American family, two others are happily married and are very quiet and gentle men, and my best pal is like me in that he rejects blokedom and is uncomfortable with it.
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Your previous posts and this one have made me think of how abuse may have a gendered aspect for boys which people don't really discuss. Speaking really really broadly, for girls we are naturally to blame and at fault, powerless and ashamed about our abuse whereas for boys there is an idea of them either deserving it because they act out and you need to break their will, being expected to take it on the chin and not whine, or simply never being able to talk about your experiences in anything but jokey ways meaning you could never talk about really horrific things.
I've been thinking about this (intermittently) since the Christian Brothers scandal in Ireland (and so much could be said about that..). This really stuck in my mind because I knew some people involved, including a boy who hung himself at age 13 because he was about to get in trouble with the brothers again. What I personally observed (as well as the institutional, religious and economic factors which perpetuated their terror), was the horrible, oppressive secrecy about it.
Nobody could ever talk about it; they knew it when it happened, hid it when it happened to them. I can't help but feel that the pressure to man up, fight back and overcome compounded the trauma of being abused. I know girls also have the pressure of silence but it seemed to become an almost pathologically internalised silence for the boys I knew.

Maybe you lot should start a thread about that too :p :)
 
This tweet today reminded me of this thread. An interesting take. In many ways, feminism is the act of 'holding the grudge' - of not just going ':rolleyes: Men, eh?' and of insisting the mistreatment of women does matter and is not to be brushed away or 'tolerated' to keep the peace somehow.


 
Incidentally my FIL is down here at the moment and *everyone* is manwhispering him. (Even, I am ashamed to say, me). Fascinating to see an old school patriarch in the wild- my parents have always been partners* so I didn’t really grow up with it in closeup.

*not a perfect relationship or perfect gender roles by any means, but never got the impression they considered one another as anything but equals
 
On the whole man whispering thing....
Ive noticed that in working with teenage boys (many of whom have issues with delinquency) that they do not appreciate getting a telling off from female staff and can act up on foot of a telling off.
They automatically assume the female teacher is nagging and they will become antagonistic.
It really pissed me off yesterday when 6 teenage male students were sent into detention to me and they were giving guff and acting up so I gave them a bit of my mind in a pretty forceful manner and they sat down quiet enough. Then a male teacher arrived and for no reason at all started to go to each one and talk to them. He left...and of course the 6 decided it was ok to start acting up again.

Fucking fuming I was cos the male teacher basically undermined my authority in the situation and he wasnt even on duty.
 
Lupa said:
On the whole man whispering thing....
Ive noticed that in working with teenage boys (many of whom have issues with delinquency) that they do not appreciate getting a telling off from female staff and can act up on foot of a telling off.
They automatically assume the female teacher is nagging and they will become antagonistic.
It really pissed me off yesterday when 6 teenage male students were sent into detention to me and they were giving guff and acting up so I gave them a bit of my mind in a pretty forceful manner and they sat down quiet enough. Then a male teacher arrived and for no reason at all started to go to each one and talk to them. He left...and of course the 6 decided it was ok to start acting up again.

Fucking fuming I was cos the male teacher basically undermined my authority in the situation and he wasnt even on duty.
Click to expand...
How annoying.
Do you think your colleague thought he was being 'helpful'? and do you think he would have acted the same if you had been male?
 
I haven’t had to do this for a while in the workplace but I used to. I worked in finance and then as a civil servant. I had a serious job with lots of responsibility but was often mistaken for the secretary.

I learned quickly that I had to treat the accountants and solicitors that I dealt with in a way that didn’t appear to be a direct challenge to them. I had to massage egos, cajole, compliment etc to achieve anything or they’d just have a tantrum and shut me down. What I liked best was when they’d ask to speak to my manager because they were all women too.

I’m now in a field where men are very much in the minority and was recently interviewed by three all women panels.

It’s refreshing. I’d really like to see more men in the profession though, I don’t think it should be seen as a woman’s job.
 
friendofdorothy said:
How annoying.
Do you think your colleague thought he was being 'helpful'? and do you think he would have acted the same if you had been male?
Click to expand...


No idea. Things were fully under control when he came on the scene but he probably heard me giving out a bit earlier.
If he was doing it to be helpful I would have expected him to come over to me first and ask if everything was ok. Instead he went to the boys (16yr olds) and leaned against the wall and chatted with them about sports etc... I found it odd and I certainly would not do it to a colleague unless they looked for assistance.
 
Saw a cracking production of death of a Salesman tonight at the Young Vic with Wendell Pierce from The Wire playing Willie Loman.

Interesting to see it again in the light of this thread: man-whispering at its finest and lots of victims of toxic masculinity and capitalism.
 
Winot said:
Saw a cracking production of death of a Salesman tonight at the Young Vic with Wendell Pierce from The Wire playing Willie Loman.

Interesting to see it again in the light of this thread: man-whispering at its finest and lots of victims of toxic masculinity and capitalism.
Click to expand...
Arthur Miller is ALL about toxic masculinity. I think he’d have found that phrase very apt.
 
Wonder if me and Mrs SI are inadvertently man-whispering to our son...and teaching our daughter placatory behaviour around aggressive males. Basically his Asperger's makes it difficult for him to read emotions, and his sister hasn't learned to filter out his "quirks" (endless talking when he's into a subject, annoying or sudden noises, banging things, repetitive behaviours) so she can react to it in a way that frustrates or confuses him. And because he doesn't know why she's cross or tutting or crying he can go from fine to throwing things in a heartbeat.

Don't know how else to tackle it other than modify yourself around him like we do.
 
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