Problems you have had to face because of your gender

[Erttheking]

(If you have anything less than pleasant to say to anyone because of your political views, this thread isn't for you)

Life sucks. Bullshit somehow manages to work its way into every corner. Both genders have to put up with a ton of bullshit. My friend regularly tells me how much of a pain in the ass it is to buy clothes for women, how much of a pain it is to have to shave her legs, and how her sister keeps saying she won't get a man unless she wears her makeup, something that we both joked about by saying if a man wouldn't date her unless she had makeup, she probably wouldn't want anything to do with him.

There's plenty of bullshit I have to go through as a guy. People always assume that I play sports because I'm big, something that has made me honestly consider getting a t-shirt that says "I'm 6'5, no I don't play basketball, you can stop fucking asking". I suffer from bouts of depression and it always hurts the most when I'm in public and the feel the pressure not to cry. It's frustrating because I KNOW it's bullshit but I still don't want to go through the embarrassment of crying in public. Oh and god help me if I get associated with anything pink or girly, God help me if I admit I'm a fan of a good well written and honest romance and I'm not a fan of Harems where there aren't an emotional attachment, I'll get accusations of being "queer" thrown at me faster than I can blink. Also I'm supposed to be insulted by that.

Ugh. What about you? Any problems you have had to deal with because of your gender.

And keep civil for god's sake. I know the forums are pretty vicious nowadays, so be nice. There are plenty of other threads out there to be angry in.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Being male and having a sister, I always got served last at the dinner table.
That's all I can think about.

 

[the December King]

I have some gender-based hangups at the moment, and they are, if not entirely my doing, at least only partially enforced by cultural beliefs. But I'm worried that they are about to cause me some physical grief...

I feel that men-folk should still do the heavy lifting, as most I know are still physically stronger than the women in my life. Well... I have been feeling strange twinges in my chest lately, especially after minor exertions, and am worried that something is not right.

But I STILL insist on doing the physical labor needed at home or among friends. I know, I'm bringing it on myself- I think a healthy dose of cardio/strength building combined with a diet overhaul will help me adjust, as I've been desk-bound for the last two months with a hellish series of deadlines, and need to get back in shape (or closer to shape, let's say).

The alternative, letting the women-folk do the heavy lifting, will be met with choruses of derision and mocking, from both genders. Almost always. Even if those women have been doing nothing BUT cardio and strength-building, or at least staying fit, the opportunity to mock a man who is weak is not to be passed up, is it? At least, from what I've seen and experienced.

ertheking, I appreciate your willing to open these dialogues. Hope this helps!

 

[Itdoesthatsometimes]

I got bullied out of wearing purple when it was my favorite color, My life has been black ever since.

 

[Kae]

Can it be something weird like that I looked like a girl when I was a teenager and people often confused me mostly because my mother introduced me to them as a girl to annoy me?

She's an asshole she's always trying to annoy me, it didn't help that I looked like a girl because I looked exactly like her so she would show them pictures of her when she was young wearing dresses and say it was me, she was like the master of trolling.

Besides that my father was overtly harsh on me and always trying to make me tough, probably because of the whole being a small girly looking boy, he was always pushing me, which was fine because I'm naturally tough so it wasn't like a huge bother and I often called him a pansy and a ***** to piss him off and when he'd hit me I'd tell him he hit like a girl, the only time it really bothered me was when I was 7-8 I'm not sure but I accidentally set the bathroom on fire because I tripped and dropped a candle[footnote]We didn't have electricity that day and it was really dark.[/footnote] and it fell directly on the trash bin, anyway I managed to stop it somehow but my T-shirt was all charred and I just kinda walked out of the bathroom and sat down and started crying, which was weird because I rarely ever cry, but anyway I don't know if I was panicking or something but my father came and saw all the smoke and he slapped the sit out of me and told me to not be a pansy, which doesn't really seem like the right thing to do, to his credit it did work, fire doesn't scare me at all and I'm not really afraid to go into it if I have to proven by the fact that I entered a car that was on fire with a fire extinguisher and extinguished the fire, it still seems a bit harsh and it did leave an impact, I was always a bit stoic and inexpressive but I became even more stoic and inexpressive after that, plus much, much angrier.

Oh yeah a lot more minor, but because now I'm rather tough looking[footnote]I've got scars and I'm fairly stoic.[/footnote] people expect me to squash bugs when they are around the office and roaches really freak me out but I have to swallow it and squash them because no one else will do it and it feels awful and it makes me want to puke, since I'm pretty stoic nobody really notices that I'm freaking out when I do it, and I normally say a silly one liner after that in order to try to calm myself down, I think last one was "The trick is to squash them gently so that they don't get smeared on the floor." while sounding really bored and uninterested, which of course it would make people think I have no problem with doing that kind of stuff.

 

[Eclipse Dragon]

I used to tutor martial arts classes. We always had an issue getting the guys to hit the girls in sparring lessons. The girls had no such reservations and would wail on the guys. They did eventually get over it and fight back however.

I've come across the expectation that I should want to have children, want to get married or I'm some sort of selfish, cold hearted, lonely person. This probably though, I don't think is strictly a female problem.

I am a lady, I live with a guy. We are not together. Nobody knows what to make of us.

At first impression, we are assumed to be a couple, except when we're shopping, then people think he's stalking me. (He is significantly taller than I am)

My other roommate is female, but she has short hair and a stocky build, she's most always assumed to be a guy (and we are assumed to be a couple), and if they actually get her gender correct, she's assumed to be a lesbian.

 

[Dizchu]

I'm trans but most people see me as male. I get all the expectations societies thrust upon males and when I inevitably can't live up to them I get told off or mocked for it.

But even then, when I don't fall in line with the expectations of females when I'm in "girl mode", I get accused of being insincere. When I wear makeup and look girly but wear a death metal t-shirt and jeans I get asked why I'm not wearing shorts and a girly top.

But they're not really BIG problems, the problems I actually face is because of me not quite being one or the other. I feel like I don't really "belong" in society, in a way that's kinda depressing. I don't know anyone else like me, personally. It makes it hard to discuss my problems.

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

Well, I used to play a lot of hockey, but because I'm a dude we'd do more football in school (because boys don't play enough fucking football) rather than play hockey which is apparently more for girls. When we did play hockey on occasion, it would be met with bitching and moaning from most of the guys and they would be shit. Conversely, when we played football they gave me grief for not taking it seriously (they loved to act like it was the fucking FA final). How a game that involves smashing a rock-hard ball around with a stick is feminine, I don't know, but that's the way it was.

Woe is me, I know. I'm a regular Emmeline Pankhurst.

 

[EeveeElectro]

I'm too scared to walk through the city centre when it gets dark, or when it's early morning. That's when most of the crazy people/drunks are out.

I don't feel safe as a fairly small woman, walking around. I get catcalled and it terrifies me. I always walk on well lit streets. I'm usually looking over my shoulder.
One time, a lady approached me and said, "Hello, are you walking this way? [we were going under a bridge, then past some alcove things where homeless and crazy people always hang out] Can we walk together? It's always really dodgy round here."

There's only a few CCTV cameras and a lot of blind spots where I work. Last year three girls were grabbed and bundled into a van because the cameras weren't on them. I started carrying a knife with me for a while after that and always got a taxi to pick me up from right outside work.

Until my city sorts itself out, I won't feel safe. I told all this to my workmate and he just laughed and said I'm being silly. He's a big burly gym buff. I do suffer from some anxiety but fucks sake.

Other things include:
Disregarding my opinion because of my gender.
Hearing, "you won't know, you're a woman" several times.
Thinking I appreciate being chatted up.
Going into full FBI mode and quizzing me when I start talking about something nerdy.
Hearing, "Aww go on sugar plum princess, give us a smile!"
Sometimes I just feel generally disrespected by men. Some will be horribly patronising or rude then turn around and be the nicest person ever to the pretty girl wearing make-up. I'm sure there's no nasty intent behind it, but I always pick up on it.

It's fucking great being a woman sometimes.

 

[Kopikatsu]

The worst was probably being unable to get aid when I was homeless because I wasn't either a black woman or a single mother (or both). As in, they explicitly told me that if you aren't one of those two groups, then you shouldn't even bother. Was kind of a joke, especially because one of the women who came in to apply for food stamps drove up to the office in a Bentley. Meanwhile I was sleeping behind Publix and eating out of trash cans.

 

[Phasmal]

I'm too scared to walk through the city centre when it gets dark, or when it's early morning. That's when most of the crazy people/drunks are out.

I don't feel safe as a fairly small woman, walking around. I get catcalled and it terrifies me. I always walk on well lit streets. I'm usually looking over my shoulder.
One time, a lady approached me and said, "Hello, are you walking this way? [we were going under a bridge, then past some alcove things where homeless and crazy people always hang out] Can we walk together? It's always really dodgy round here."

There's only a few CCTV cameras and a lot of blind spots where I work. Last year three girls were grabbed and bundled into a van because the cameras weren't on them. I started carrying a knife with me for a while after that and always got a taxi to pick me up from right outside work.

Until my city sorts itself out, I won't feel safe. I told all this to my workmate and he just laughed and said I'm being silly. He's a big burly gym buff. I do suffer from some anxiety but fucks sake.

Other things include:
Disregarding my opinion because of my gender.
Hearing, "you won't know, you're a woman" several times.
Thinking I appreciate being chatted up.
Going into full FBI mode and quizzing me when I start talking about something nerdy.
Hearing, "Aww go on sugar plum princess, give us a smile!"
Sometimes I just feel generally disrespected by men. Some will be horribly patronising or rude then turn around and be the nicest person ever to the pretty girl wearing make-up. I'm sure there's no nasty intent behind it, but I always pick up on it.

It's fucking great being a woman sometimes.

Yeah, pretty much this. I often walk with my co-workers to the bus stop when it's dark, the girls will wait sometimes an hour or two after their shifts are done to walk together.

As well as that, I'm a pretty small person in general. A couple of years ago, a very large male friend of mine was joking around about how small I was and decided to just pick me up to show how easy it would be for someone to `just walk off` with me. I would advise everyone, don't fucking do this. Long story short I may have bitten him a bit.

Another thing is hearing guys say `Women like X` and you chime in like `Woah no most women HATE X, don't do it! It's rude/disrespectful/scary` to just get ignored for another guy going `Oh no women TOTALLY like X`.

And I also find it difficult to be passionate about the nerdy things I like around people I don't really know. I just want to love the things I love without having to worry if some shitlord is going to come out of nowhere to try and `check` me. Especially when none of your guy friends ever have to put up with it.
I'm expected to know every single fact about any random game or I'm not `real`. And I've had guys take it REALLY personally in games when I correct them on something they're wrong about. And of course anything I do or don't do is proof that all women are this, that and the other.

That's what I can think of right now. I don't like to dwell on negative things.
And just as a disclaimer, I don't think it's a competition on who's problems are `worse`.

 

[Jamieson 90]

If you're a guy and you work with children then you can expect a shit-tonne of suspicion being aimed at you, yet women in the same circumstances seem to get almost a free pass. It's kind of a self fulfilling prophecy; people don't think women can molest children so they don't suspect women and therefore less women are caught molesting children reinforcing the idea that women don't molest children.

 

[Zontar]

If you're a guy and you work with children then you can expect a shit-tonne of suspicion being aimed at you, yet women in the same circumstances seem to get almost a free pass.

Oh god this. The year I worked at my municipal day camp I got accused of doing something every other day by one of the parents who had their kids complain about a monitor and assume it was me they where talking about. I also got complaints about my treatment of the kids at times. Though I did like the looks people gave when I pointed out that 1) I was doing things by-the-books, and that 2) they didn't complain when anyone else did the exact same thing.

 

[ZeroFarks]

Try getting any kind of secretarial job when you're male. Doesn't matter if you can type 100 words per minute and was on the design team for Excel, forget it - it's not happening.

Also depressing is the sheer number of places in 21st century USA will not hire males to be servers in food establishments - which, if you think about, is two types of sexual discrimination at the same time.

These same establishments also refuse to let women in their kitchens, which is not on sexist but also hypocritical since these same Neanderthals think that at home women should do all the cooking. WTF?!

What's the worst is the people who will try to exploit sexism to their own advantage. "You should be responsible for fixing the (mechanical object) because you're male!" Excuse me? Valentina Tereskova would like a word with you, miss.

 

[Angelblaze]

I'm too scared to walk through the city centre when it gets dark, or when it's early morning. That's when most of the crazy people/drunks are out.

I don't feel safe as a fairly small woman, walking around. I get catcalled and it terrifies me. I always walk on well lit streets. I'm usually looking over my shoulder.
One time, a lady approached me and said, "Hello, are you walking this way? [we were going under a bridge, then past some alcove things where homeless and crazy people always hang out] Can we walk together? It's always really dodgy round here."

There's only a few CCTV cameras and a lot of blind spots where I work. Last year three girls were grabbed and bundled into a van because the cameras weren't on them. I started carrying a knife with me for a while after that and always got a taxi to pick me up from right outside work.

Until my city sorts itself out, I won't feel safe. I told all this to my workmate and he just laughed and said I'm being silly. He's a big burly gym buff. I do suffer from some anxiety but fucks sake.

Other things include:
Disregarding my opinion because of my gender.
Hearing, "you won't know, you're a woman" several times.
Thinking I appreciate being chatted up.
Going into full FBI mode and quizzing me when I start talking about something nerdy.
Hearing, "Aww go on sugar plum princess, give us a smile!"
Sometimes I just feel generally disrespected by men. Some will be horribly patronising or rude then turn around and be the nicest person ever to the pretty girl wearing make-up. I'm sure there's no nasty intent behind it, but I always pick up on it.

It's fucking great being a woman sometimes.

All of this, ALL OF THIS. I was once told, to my face - not over the internet - that I should be glad that I was stalked over the course of years, multiple house moves and court battles.

Since we're on a gaming forum, I can't speak in chat without being insulted.

And then I get told, when I say something like 'It sucks that women can't seem to play normal games without being harassed', that I shouldn't be telling people I'm a woman in the first place - which is the most blatantly gender shaming gaming opinion that I've seen being commonly shared.

If, going by your opinion/beliefs, I have to stop using certain functions of your gaming console/game in order to play comfortably because I'm a woman, there's something wrong.

 

[Lieju]

Nggh, yeah, I have been sexually harassed on street but generally I get more comments the kind of people loudly wondering if I'm a boy or a girl and calling me names ('dyke' if they decide I'm a woman and '******' if they decide I'm a guy).

I'm fine with it when children do it but why the fuck do strangers on the street care?

I've always been good at math and just been outright told I'm not. I was suspected in elementary school for cheating (because girls can't be good at math) and I've been told by teachers that:

"When a boy is good at school it's because they find the subject interesting. When a girl is good at school it's because they want to please the teacher."
or "Girls are good at languages, boys at math."

Is it any wonder girls were discouraged from taking math in high school?

I stay away from online play but it's not uncommon for guys to hit on me in places like Bricklink (which is a site for buying and selling LEGOs) and the only thing they know is that I have a feminine name.

etc.

Also I'm (like women generally are) on the lookout for people who will likely sexually harass you on public transport.
I tend to avoid that by not being feminine, but it's common for drunks to harass random women.
They also harass men, but I have never seen it get sexual.

And the whole gendered bullshit with what I'm supposed to like, ngh.

My mum quickly enough realized I liked dinosaurs and monsters and bugs more than dolls, but unfortunately she was an exception.

I specifically said time after time I didn't want Barbies or dolls as gifts.
But of course I got barbies and dolls.

I had people just tell me to my face what I liked.
Not even what I was 'supposed to like', people (like a classmate's dad who had never met me) told to my face his daughter had told him to get me a monster-toy, but he ignored it because 'you don't like monsters'.

???
Excuse me, I might be a six-year old but I think I know better what I like than you?

 

[Jiggle Counter]

Problems I've had to face because of my gender.

As a guy, the negatives are mostly tiny whiny things.

1. Male public toilets are like a dead cat's arse.

2. Male sex organs are terrible. They're always in the way, they're sensitive, and they don't obey your logic.

3. You can't have female friends when you have a girlfriend. Some friends will openly flirt with you, even when it's been made painfully clear that you are in a relationship.

4. Being treated as a trophy/bank.

5. Being taught about women, by women. (The reason this is a problem, everybody is different. The person teaching you is different, so you can't tell what is considered a common yet true stereotype, and just a personal issue)

 

[CpT_x_Killsteal]

As a guy I'm not supposed to cry (and god forbid someone sees you do it).
I'm supposed to be the central support of my half-broken family (ok maybe that's a personal issue).
I'm supposed to be sociable, get a girlfriend, lose my virginity, and stop being a loser.
I'm supposed to like sports, and cars, and want to get a Driver's license as soon as possible.
Going to bars is supposed to be my faaaaavourite past-time in this bogan-arse hellhole of a country.
I'm supposed to give two shits about State of Origin.
And god knows how often I've been pressured into becoming a fucking tradie by my dad and his friends.

God damn it, it's too early in the morning to get pissed off. :/

 

[Westaway]

You just made a thread about this last month. It was called "Problems men have to deal with".