News Link: Explaining Women To Men

[Stickler]

http://observer.com/2015/10/guys-heres-what-its-actually-like-to-be-a-woman/

I read this article...and I thought...oh yes, my guy needs to read this.
Guys don't really get that we are afraid of them? That they have to prove to be not a threat before anything?
Or that we don't want to hurt their feelings when turning them down?

Keep in mind, I go for women too...and yeah, the fear is just not there with other women. I always thought that was down to my abuse...but maybe not.
Apparently untraumatized women find men scary too.

I told Mr Crazypants that he was way stronger than me, that I was aware he could kill me, and had been afraid he might do so?
He was stunned and horrified...I was surprised he was not aware of my fear.

 

[Friday]

Wow. I know I'm a chick, but absolutely nothing in that article rang true for me.

I'm not afraid of men, never have been. To gender-alize; Men are gorgeous, sexy, fascinating creatures.

IDK. Outside of a trauma response? It makes no sense to me to be afraid of men.

 

[nursenurse]

I dunno, I never considered myself afraid of them. I consider many of them to be insensitive jerks. They need to be more afraid of me than me of them :D

 

[Stickler]

...I really don't have a lot of female friends...or many friends at all due to the brain cooties...and the one that I do have does not care that I f*ck on the first date.

I will not poach my friends' love interests...now, sharing is caring, so if allowed to borrow I will.
...but "stealing" a friend's love interest? Nah.

But you know...I'm genderqueer and so far from normal I have to look on Google Earth to locate normalcy.

Normal people are things I have to read articles about?
So I was like...ooh, maybe not just my dad's terrorism...
Anyway...

I am a fairly big, sturdy female-bodied person as things go?
Taller than average, heavy frame, more muscular.
Maybe Texas breeds a large supply of guys built like linebackers or something?
Yes there are smaller guys, but I seriously don't feel that big, that tall or that strong compared to a lot of men I see...

It seems like there's so many of them that tower over my 5'9" ass like skyscrapers and outweigh me by a good...50-175 pounds...there are some big dudes around here. My brother weighs just under 400 pounds, and i regularly see taller/larger/more built dudes than him. My guy buddy is my height, weighs 250 pounds and could probably pick me up, he does remodeling. I could tell he was totally harmless though...just could.

Many guys do *not* give me that harmless feeling, including my main squeeze.
He gets in fights with other guys regularly and...well...that's not the model of masculinity I'm familiar with? Guys that do that around here are Trouble in other ways...
I think it's the culture where he lives, not necessarily him. He tries not to get into fights, but guys where he lives just beat each other up, apparently.

Too, Mr Crazypants lost it and smashed up his living room furniture a few months ago...then sent me a picture of the destruction without stating the fact that he was so ashamed of himself for doing so...

My internal kids thought " He wants to do that to us, because he's mad at us."...And we drifted away from him.

...We pointed out that he was way stronger than us and could hurt us so easily, and he said he'd never thought of that. We told him we took the smashed furniture as a threat. We told him we were afraid he would kill us and he was shocked.

...So maybe all that was a trauma reaction.

Mr Crazypants never hit his abusive ex-wife, even when she drove him to living in the shed in the backyard.

Rationally I am pretty certain he's safe.
Gut feeling? Not so much.
So there's that personal stuff...

Most of the guys that hit on me do NOT feel safe...well after the third no. If i have to say no more than twice it feels really creepy. I'm always afraid that I'm going to get attacked by the guys i turn down because HOW DARE I not want them?

I don't *want* to have to fight like a rabid weasel. I can, but I don't want to. And i may still go down anyway. Besides, biting chunks out of the guy's face might give me hepatitis.

I would not talk to this one guy once, he was giving me the " hey baby," routine. It was night, and not a well lit or crowded area. I was walking to (Punk Bar) to see a show (yay). He sounded drunk. I sped up walking. It pissed him off so bad he punched a traffic sign. I wasn't looking, I just heard the thud and the BRAAAAANG of the sign vibrating from the hit behind me.

That was over 15 years ago. I still remember it because it was creepy.
I also got sexually harassed at work for a while some time ago...not to a serious degree, just squicky...

I wish now that I had said " I wouldn't touch you with someone else's ten foot pole, dude, you're creepy. Stop talking to my tits."
I am a lot more assertive than I used to be.

...Sigh.
Actually, figuring out it's just me again makes me pretty sad. I was all, " It's not just me!"
f*ck, still is just me.
Men register as an instinctive threat to me...a guy raising his voice is enough to make me start shaking.

 

[Fadeaway]

This article rang very true to me. I think this should be mandatory reading for all men, especially the ones that think they are "nice guys". The creepiest men in the world to me are usually the ones that turn around and say, "Girls just don't like me because I am a nice guy, they only wants jerks." If you are thinking that, you are probably coming off as creepy to girls and not coming off as nice guys.

One example is this neighbor that started mowing my lawn without me asking, and dropping off 6 packs of beer at my door. I don't drink. I was extra terrified of men at that time, because I had just escaped my ex, and the domestic violence support group probably lent to increased paranoia.

Normally he would only talk to me as I was getting out of my car, which I always dreaded, but the first time he came to my door was shear terror. I was too terrified to open the door so I hid, and he kept ringing the door bell for what seemed like hours. (keep in mind doorbells are a trigger for me) I sat curled up on the floor afraid to move or breath, in fear that he would see someone inside. I would have called the cops but the front window was between me and my phone. If I grabbed it, he would have seen my outline through the thin curtains.

After that or maybe before, I can't recall , but I think after, he left a kitten on my doorstep., like too young to be away from it's mother, kitten. That is a whole other story though.

I was afraid he would hurt me due to rejection just like my ex. I moved shortly afterwards but the last time I saw him, he yelled, "Looks like you only want jerks."

 

[RussH]

It is a good article. I just wish they would do a follow up article about women needing to understand men.

 

[Stickler]

It is a good article. I just wish they would do a follow up article about women needing to understand men.

Still studying their tribal culture.
...there are rituals of playfully beating each other up followed by collective beer drinking. There is a mowing of lawns. Auto repair...

Seriously, though, regarding that? Dead Link Removed. Overgeneralizes, as you sort of have to, but discusses gender difference in communication styles and other matters. Very useful for both genders.
...Guys have to never be seen as weak... :( except they aren't robots. Male gender role commandments don't necessarily do guys any favors.

 

[RussH]

I completely understand the women feeling fear of guys, but do women understand what is like for a guy like me to be invisible to them?

 

[Friday]

...Sigh.
Actually, figuring out it's just me again makes me pretty sad. I was all, " It's not just me!"
f*ck, still is just me.
Men register as an instinctive threat to me...a guy raising his voice is enough to make me start shaking.

LMAO... Okay this came in a timely way. I was getting stuck in some of my own black&white thinking because of the article (f*ck. Am I the only chick who isn't afraid of men? What the hell? Again. Women confuse the hell out of me.).

Generalizations = Always wrong ;)

I've been baffled by a lot of chicks who, if they're afraid of men as a whole? A lot of things suddenly make sense. Okay, so clearly you (and the article writer) aren't the only ones.

Just as clearly, I'm not the only one who isn't. I've also known lots of chicks who aren't afraid of men. Blue/Not Blue thinking.

I would be interested in seeing some sociology stats on this, though. Like, what are the percentages? And how do those percentages split with trauma? & How do they break down culturally? The article is pure generalization. Women, all women, what women think/want/feel. Um. Nope. I'm a woman. That's not what I think/want/feel.

***

I was really shocked when I lived in a patriarchal country (by law, women were 2nd class) how LITTLE women feared men, when I had expected to find the opposite. As, to all contrary signs, women had far more right to be. Instead, what I found, was this huge kind of solidarity.

To be very clear, birds of a feather, bias was very much in place. The women I was meeting were very strong, as I was being introduced around, by very strong women.

Law didn't protect them, so they had to protect themselves. Were there some heartbreaking examples of type that I had expected to find as the norm? Yep. But they weren't the norm. For the same reason that battered wives aren't the norm here: Even given legal permission to be an asshole? Most men aren't assholes. And, more to the point, they don't want their sisters, daughters, or mothers associating with assholes, either. So they actively take steps to prevent that, even as women are taking steps to prevent that. To be very clear, I'm not says its a better system. Far from. Just that, the more I travel, the more I learn... People are basically decent. Even when they're not required to be.

I ended up not marrying this bloke, in large part, because I was afraid of laws which didn't protect me/my children. It's pure irony (and just so the way my life effing works) that I ended up marrying an asshole in *this* country! and our so called laws? Have done jack shit to protect me or my child. :rolleyes: I'd have been far better off marrying a good man/ good family, in a country where I wasn't protected by law... Than an asshole in a country where I am protected by law.

 

[Deleted member 28740]

Explaining one human to another, or even oneself. Yes, there is a huge problem with violence against women. And violence abounds. Pick the reason?

 

[scout86]

but do women understand what is like for a guy like me to be invisible to them?

No one should be invisible to other people!

The rest of it? My T said to me, just yesterday, "You really DON'T get that other people don't think about this stuff the same way you do, do you?" And, maybe the article represents one more example. Some of it, I guess makes sense. But, are men really so stupid that it doesn't cross their mind that a woman might worry about getting pregnant? getting dumped? getting stalked? I suppose SOME are that stupid or that self centered, but surely it's a minority?

On the "fear" thing..... My own personal experience have been along the lines of "women are WAY less trustworthy and dependable than men". I won't generalize that to the whole population. It's just MY experience and I know it affects how I see things. Beyond that, I've gotten a lot of mileage out of projecting the right kind of 'crazy' combined with with a certain look and "go ahead, make my day". LOL Although, now that I think about it, being considered "more trouble than you're worth" could come from appearing to be a lot of trouble OR not being worth much..... LOL

People are people. I think the differences between individuals are bigger than the differences between genders and I don't know how useful these generalizations really are.

 

[Stickler]

I completely understand the women feeling fear of guys, but do women understand what is like for a guy like me to be invisible to them?

...I check out guys all the time, and I don't think they realize I am doing so? Almost all of them totally miss that little side-eye look of...mmmm...So you *might* not be as invisible as you think?
Just a thought.

Women? They catch me sometimes. Embarrassing.

...I have found that if you keep seeking, you will find, but you have to treat it like cold-calling sales. 13 no's to one yes.

I was once enormously fat...and very lonely...and very horny. I was a waddling bully target, worse than invisible? But nobody wanted me sexually. I was sexually invisible and the butt of jokes.