Problems you have had to face because of your gender

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

I've had it too good to complain much. I just wish I wasn't required to display my masculinity at every turn. I mean, its going down since I left my hometown but gods that's tiring. That's about it though...

Tumblr hates people like me. Comfortably straight, white and male and have been all my life.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

I've been marginalized by women before because I'm "just a stupid guy and guys only think with their dick-brains." I don't hold all women accountable for that though, just the ones who treated me like shit for how I was born.
Because I tend to listen to people and actually respond thoughtfully, I've been pegged as "gay" despite being absolutely 100% straight. Sucks to be a guy who doesn't conform to the stereotype but I live with it anyway.
I'm kind of a walking contradiction but I was raised in a female-centric environment so my views and mannerisms are way different than the societal norm. Its why I don't get into the gender debates much. I see things a certain way and treat women and men equally (meaning I don't gender differentiate at all). I judge people by their actions, not genitals, sexual orientation, etc.

 

[The Lunatic]

As a guy, my mental and emotional well-being is pretty much worthless to a lot of people. I've struggled with depression for a fair time. I get suicidal, that kind of thing. It's not something I particularly talk about, but, I guess it's relevent to this.

But, anyway.

A few years back in college, during one of my swings, I simply didn't feel capable of doing the work that week. It was something minor and trivial, a small piece of research that wasn't even graded.

The tutor questioned me about it, and in private I expressed that due to personal reasons I hadn't done the work, it'd be a little late and I didn't really want to go into it.

He basically said "Riigghhtt" and stared at me as if I was simple.

Not very pleasant. This tutor was also frequently questioning the women in the group often about "Are you okay?" and usually spent a fairly larger chunk of time on individual tuition with them than the male members. Often excusing female members of the group from entire sessions if they complained about not feeling up to something. Eventually a couple of them cottoned on and gamed it all year. Eventually calling him out on it at the end. Which was rather amusing.

I believe he cited his reasoning for acting in such a way as something to do with "The time of the month". Which just seemed insulting for both genders.

As for me? Well, he branded me as lazy based on our limited interaction and despite getting distinctions and merits in my areas of study, I was constantly berated for "underachievement" whilst other tutors sang my praises. However, as the head of the course, he had the final say. I do wonder if the event affected my grade particularly.


Fast forward a few years, and I'm in University.

Similar situation. However, this is spread to the entire group. The class is 60% Male, 40% female. Tutor spends 90% of the class time talking to the female members of the group and providing them feedback.

Basically, he'd go around everyone in class and look at their projects and provide feedback. Males were basically "What are you working on?" followed by "Oh, okay". Females got an awful lot more time, more allowances with things and there was an incredible noticeable bias towards them. To the extent basically the entire class were complaining about it and the female members of the group felt they were unfairly praised and thus not learning appropriately.

He'd call out male groups for not making female characters, yet would never mention to female groups for having an all-female cast. Pretty much always negative about things, he wasn't a particularly pleasant person to be around if you were a guy.

He'd cite the achievements of the female members of the group as his reasoning for spending time with them, however, given he'd spent half the year in this setup, it's not terribly surprising to find that people who get the most amount of the tutor's time do well.

As far as I'm aware, nothing came of it, despite a large section of the class lodging a formal complaint.


My family is pretty indifferent towards my mental well-being. I've tried to explain and ask for help, but, despite my parents doting on my sister in her times of depression, I've basically been ignored with it. My worth is more one of monetary and educational achievements than any form of happiness to them.

Not that I mean to sound overly morose, I've had some good times too. And despite the disadvantages of my gender in both instances, I've emerged with degrees and diplomas.

So, yeah, I guess I've had my fair share of this kind of thing. I don't "Blame" women for any of these things or anything nonsensical like that. And I imagine those not particularly fond of me believe my opinions to be "Getting revenge" after reading this.

Frankly, I've always maintained that there are issues on either side. I maintain that people should really just stop being shitty to one another. Accusing people of being things they aren't, decrying opposing political beliefs as stupidity, harassing people in any form. It's all wrong to me.

But, anyway. I think that's probably enough of my depressed ramblings.

 

[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?

When I first read this part I thought; "D: Kids are saying what to you?!", but then I realized you were talking about kids asking if you were a man or a woman.

Right? Kids were asking you about that, right? Not the other thing. Yeah, little children are always much more polite about it.
And I just go "Does it matter?" to them, and the response generally is "I guess no."

 

[Laser Priest]

As a man, I got a running knee shot to the groin once. It didn't feel very good.

Yeah, that's about all I've got. Being male never really caused me any problems. The fact that I was (and mostly still am) a tremendous nerd was generally an easier target for anyone who felt like bothering me.

Even living with two sisters, when I got the short end of anything, it wasn't because I was the boy, but because I was the youngest.

 

[L. Declis]

As a guy, the immediate assumption by all women I met is that I must obviously want to have sex with them. "Can't be friends, he has a girl, he must want to bone me", despite me simply wanting some friends to chat to. There are also the girls who are confused when I don't want to cheat; "Of course you want sex, you're a guy" kinda logic.

There is the fact that in China, it is assumed that the guy will buy a house, car and have an amazingly well-paying job, as well as pay for the wedding (which is interesting because it's the otherway around in my culture). Now, this isn't exactly fair to start with, but the houses in China are stupidly insanely expensive, and even if you buy it, it returns to the government after 80 years so you're not even passing it onto your children.

Now, my fiancee personally has no problem with the fact that I am not a millionaire, but I know her family expects it of me due to the fact I am the man (AND A FOREIGNER AS WELL, NO LESS!) that I would obviously be able to afford a million-pound flat which would be a tenth of the price in Europe.

There is also the fact that I have had clients turn me down because I am male; "Sorry, no, we wanted a female tutor" or "No, sorry, we only want to hire women because our clients are men so women do better."

Plus, having been in an abusive relationship, no one gives a crap if you're the guy. It's funny to them, but if I turned around and gave her a slap, oh, I'd get beaten to a pulp. She drives me to consider suicide though, and I just need to "grow a pair".

As a guy, my mental and emotional well-being is pretty much worthless to a lot of people. I've struggled with depression for a fair time. I get suicidal, that kind of thing. It's not something I particularly talk about, but, I guess it's relevent to this.

This is true; men do get told to "man up", and even health care professionals get a look on their face if you're a bloke saying things aren't going well.

 

[Julius Terrell]

(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.

Hey mr. 6'5" try being 5'3"! Most women don't even qualify me as a man at this height. Most of my adult life, my dating life has been one epic failure. Trying to get women to be attracted me has been one huge exercise in misery. It's great to be friends with women and all, but as soon as I say to them that I'm attracted to them then all bets are off.

People never show an ounce of compassion whenever I bring this subject up. People just say suck it up. Well fuck them and most answers that just amount to nothing. Women say I should wait for the right one, and men say to be confident.

All the confidence in the world isn't going to make someone attracted to you if they weren't from the beginning.

Our gender is always pressured to pursue women, but I get called a bunch of insulting names like (stalker,wierdo, and few others) simply because I'm doing what men are supposed to do.

It's like I get all the headaches of being a man, and none of the pleasure.

Lastly, women always say "Just wait for the right one to come along" As if we men get the luxury of doing any kind of waiting. Never ask a woman for advise because the advise usually only pertains to her view point(hence waiting).

 

[Sabine Blochberger]

Worst thing to happen to me in the last year was being fired because a male collegue couldn't handle a woman being his equal (or, god forbid, better). Our competences didn't even overlap, yet he went complaining to our boss behind my back.

And along with that, I'll echo what others said before in this thread - as a woman my opinion and knowledge are often dismissed because I have breasts. Hooray.

 

[ferrisD]

and all the females be like: "I am not your houswife"

http://www.statista.com/statistics/312410/should-woment-aspire-anything-outside-household-produce-children-tend-family/

 

[Eddie the head]

Worst thing to happen to me in the last year was being fired because a male collegue couldn't handle a woman being his equal (or, god forbid, better). Our competences didn't even overlap, yet he went complaining to our boss behind my back.

I'm not sure about where you're from, but you can likely file for a wrongful firing. Or something similar. If that's truly what happened.


More on topic. I'm sure there's somethings, but nothing has seriously hampered my ability to be happy. My last job use to make me stay and do a job I hate if I finished early so I would take over for this one girl when I was done, because they didn't make her stay. So I guess that's the best I got. Although I know she had a bad back so it could have been something else entirely. So that might not have even been a thing. Hmm.

Anyway I'm sure it happened, but I'm a mostly happy person so I don't care.

 

[wAriot]

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 think this is really limited to females, though. Just saying. I really love biking in the morning on weekends, but it's the time when most of the drunkards/junkies leave the pubs, and they really can't control themselves. I've been threatened more than once, one time some dude tried to steal my bike when I was resting (although he didn't have the coordination to even get on it), and even a gay man suggested we could do certain things "behind those bushes" (the bushes in question where a bunch of trash bags).

Now that I think about it, that was probably the only time I was "harassed" because of my gender. Aside from that, I only got a few (serious, not joking) "man up", "men don't cry", "you are a man, you should be more polite to women", etc., through my life. Nothing particularly bad, and I usually don't pay much attention to it.

Addendum: it's actually surprising to me, but I can't really think of any situation where I've been bullied, even though I am short, a "computer geek", bisexual, and quite antisocial.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Just to be clear, this problem is pretty much tivial compared to other problem posted on here.

Since I'm a guy, it's automacially means I am buff and can take the weights at ease. When it come to delivery or moving heavy stocks, we (me and another male co worker) always get the heavy lifting duties. Same apply to pallet truck moving especially the heavy ones althought the female staffs do it as a last resort (if none of us are in). Needless to say there has been a few times I had an aching back despite bending my legs. It doesn't help the fact that most of the staff are female now that two of the guys had left (one got transfered and the other quit). Yes I know they phyically weaker but still, I would be fine if it take two of them to lift the heavy stock or even better if they help us out with the heavy stocks (two people lift).

It also annoyed me that the manager had hire two women for the temporary Christmas staff and while those two are great (experienced) but those two can't handle heavy lifting either.

 

[Eclipse Dragon]

Oh God. That reminds me of one of the women I trained with in my Aiki Jujutsu courses. She was actually an instructor in some other art, I forget which, and had a lot of experience with people holding back because she was like 4'11" and a woman. Several times she'd ask if I was going easy on her--my favourite was when she was practically sitting on my arm in an armbar. So I demonstrate that even trying to power out of it, I can only really get my arm like two inches off the ground, and was in no real position to get her off without hurting myself.

Personally, I was surprised I could even pull that off.

Being the tallest regular was sort of amusing because a lot of people wanted to use me as "practice." Especially the short ones. It got to the point where I don't think I could fight someone my own size if my life depended on it.

<..>

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.

Ehhh, I can sympathise with the guys on that one.

I attend a mixed gender martial arts club. (I do the grappling stuff rather than striking.) And, yeah... never been entirely comfortable wrestling with the girls.

I mean, I do it, it'd be patronising for me not to, but for me, a 6'1'' 220 lb guy, to be overpowering, choking and submission-holding women half my size and weight still feels kinda wrong.

Well this is an interesting pair of quotes.
There is an advantage to being small in martial arts. (Don't get me wrong, there's certainly also an advantage to being large). Small people though, are harder to hit in a competition setting, and in grappling they're harder to grab and keep hold of.

As far as holding back, It may be hard to overcome that thought process, but in a setting where a real attacker tries to grab you, they certainly won't go easy.

Yeah, I ran into this recently when picking out things to get my nieces. The oldest one took to a plush snake I've had since I was a kid, so I gave it to her, but wanted to give her little sister and brother something too.

Wanted to give her sister a dinosaur plush, but my oldest niece and my Mom both said "nah, she doesn't like dinosaurs". About a week later while we were visiting for Halloween, I ask the younger niece what she would like and she says " I like dragons!", so I also ask her if she likes dinosaurs, and first she says no, but then says "Actually, yeah I do a few moments later".

I got a dragon to give her, and I can give the dino to their little brother, but it was odd that both my older niece and mom were trying to say my other niece couldn't like dinosaurs because they aren't "girl things". Even though I just gave my oldest niece a life size snake plush (not generally considered a "girl thing") and she loved it. Eh, I guess sticking to "the old ways" just makes crap easier for people. Just seems limiting to me.

My two nieces are very much into dragons and the entirety of my family blames me for that. I've always loved dragons and dinosaurs from an early age. I also embraced both girlish and boyish toys, I didn't care, I had my own reasons for wanting them and my parents just let it go.

The beauty is when toy companies realize this and start catering to it.

Spoiler

Screw your rules, I have money!

I still buy this stuff, my parent's role their eyes, but they know that Toothless dressed up as Thor will make me happy. The other day I got this.

Spoiler

It's adorable and soft and the Target employee couldn't resist the jab at an adult 25 year old female buying a dragon plushie, but It's my money and I'll spend it on the shit I want, that's the glory of being an adult.

 

[Guy_of_wonder]

Being a 20 year old man, I'm expected to find a woman that i like and start dating. The problem is that i have never had a girlfriend and don't know what to do. I am also an introvert and don't really know how to hold a good conversation. But society expects ME to find a girlfriend when i don't know how to get one.

A few weeks ago, my mother asked if i was keeping myself for marriage. She said it as if being a virgin is a bad thing at my age.

This societal norm is also muddied more by me questioning my sexual preference constantly.

 

[Gizmo1990]

OK this is small and very unimportant compared to some of the stuff in this thread but I hate it.

I am a guy who has long hair. I like having long hair. When I am at work I get told that I must have it tied back. Normally I would have no problem with this, if managment wants people with long hair to tie it back fair enough, but here is what pisses me off. Women with long hair are not required to tie their hair back while at work. I pointed this out to my boss and he said that he would have no problem with me and the two other guys who have long hair not tying our hair back but that his boss is the one who made the rule. he then went on to say that when he asked his boss why he replyed 'Only women should have long hair and men in this office will tie there hair back until they learn their lesson'.

That was a direct quote.

 

[Aerevolt]

I'm a woman working in a male dominated field. They all act like I can't lift more than 5 pounds (2.3kg). I have to say "that's ok, I've got it" several times a day.
They also ask me when I'm going to get married and have kids. I don't know when I'm gonna get married, the guy I'm currently seeing has made no mention of it. And as for kids, I tell my coworkers all the time that I'm not interested. And they press me on it like it's what I'm supposed to do.

 

[Erttheking]

I think the motivation here is to maybe promote some kind of "look we ALL have to deal with stuff" thing but in my (probably unpopular) opinion I don't think this helps any with the disdain people have to gender issues

If you have any other ways to get people to talk about gender issues without clawing at each others throats and getting into the Oppression Olympics I'll be happy to hear it. I'm not being sarcastic, I honestly would. I'm at the end of my rope here. This is all I got.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

If you have any other ways to get people to talk about gender issues without clawing at each others throats and getting into the Oppression Olympics I'll be happy to hear it. I'm not being sarcastic, I honestly would. I'm at the end of my rope here. This is all I got.

If it's any consolation, I don't see anything wrong with your post.

Honestly, in spite of being genderqueer on hrt and soon surgical treatments to achieve my fairly comfortable default, I've had a pretty good life. Sure, half of my family has disowned me and the other half either treat me with kid gloves or just ignore me, but I've been fairly successful with my education. Went to a good university, and I've had a fairly good career that after only 12 years working I've invested enough money to take three years off work to study again (starting next year).

I think it will be a qood way to fully transition into a new life. With a new name, new place, new friends, start fresh. Which I think is probably the trickiest thing for most gender non-conforming peeps. The idea that you have to rewrite a lot of yourself in the process. You lose those friends and family you would have lost regardless coming out in a pretty quick succession, so there's a major jolt to the system. But there is something liberating in reinventing yourself, your surroundings, and collecting new people to associate with.

No complaints really. I mean, regardless of who you are, we are all met by the absurdity of the cosmos. We all face the barbs of despair, and in the end all tests of character are necessary to be the person you are now. In the end it is of ultimate merit to be able to despair, because apathy is what really breaks the human spirit.

Pretty darn lucky in most ways that a person can be lucky in, so no regrets.

 

[Guy_of_wonder]

They also ask me when I'm going to get married and have kids. I don't know when I'm gonna get married, the guy I'm currently seeing has made no mention of it. And as for kids, I tell my coworkers all the time that I'm not interested. And they press me on it like it's what I'm supposed to do.

All humans are expected to reproduce. In terms of biology, that is the sole reason we exist. Some people just don't want to have children and people that have had children or are planning to just can't get past the idea. Myself, i don't care for children, nor would i want any in the future. We also don't need more humans on this planet to destroy it faster.

 

[Plasticaprinae]

People asking me "What, did you break a nail?" in a condescending manner when I look at my hands (I dont even have nails that go beyond my fingertips)

Men who keep flirting with me when I make it exceptionally clear that I am taken or not interested. Usually I avoid saying that im dating a girl, because some men take that as a challenge.

Not being able to talk on certain websites as a woman.

Always being asked by my mother if I want children, how many, etc.

Being told by my mother that my brothers and father will hassle any boyfriend/husband I get and that I wont be married until im 40.
---

Overall I havent experienced many troubles as a woman, but I like staying inside and not many people walk around my city. My family also treated me very similar to my brothers. I was allowed to decide that I didn't want to wear dresses, but I did want to play barbies and games.

On the male side, my brother knocked up a woman when they were both 18. The woman got custody, but my brother was allowed to see his baby. Later on, when the mother got into heavy drugs, she emotionally abused my brother by saying that her new boyfriend is a better father than he ever was, that his son doesnt need him anymore, and wouldnt allow him to see his child. My brother now has custody over his son, but only after the mom already proved she was a danger.