@ men: this is not courtesy
Yesterday we met up with a bunch of family friends and at one point my dad asked me to move a plastic table. âCan you come up here and help me move the table,â he said, âsince itâs light anyway?â I was a bit taken aback by the last comment since, well, I could just go and do it and if it was too heavy Iâd notice by myself. But I just say âsureâ and decide not to comment on that.
So I come up to my dad, lift the large but actually incredibly light plastic table (it was something I could evidently easily lift with one arm, for reference); I realize thereâs a bunch of chairs in the way so I tell my dad, whoâs on the other side of the table and might not see it. I put down the table and start moving the chairs. All the while heâs started insisting he can call someone else to move the table and I keep saying âreally, we just gotta move these chairs that are right here in the wayâ. He insists and I repeat that, and so on.
Now, most of the time when my dad is being unintentionally sexist I let him know, but this time all I could think of was that I really didnât have time for bullshit about lifting some feather-light plastic table and I didnât wanna stress myself out on vacation so I just insisted more forcefully on doing what I was doing.
Anyway, after Iâve moved all the chairs out of the way, I pick the table back on, my dad on the other side of it, and I start moving. Immediately another one of the guys runs up to me and starts offering to do this instead, to which again I say âno thanksâ, adding âthis is really light reallyâ for good measure because Iâve been here many times before and I know that unless I reassure him the object in front of me is so innocuous even I, a woman, can take it!, heâs not gonna listen. He insists, I say no again, he comes up behind me anyway no matter how much I protest that Iâm fine and picks up the motherfucking table (which is still being lifted by my dad and I as we move) on my side and starts walking with us while I refuse to let go. By the time weâve reached some stairs, another two men have appeared behind me and are also insisting I leave the task to them. Eventually they corner me on the stairs and since the stairs are tiny and I donât want them to fucking cause an incident because theyâre basically bodily pushing me aside, I let go. (Funnily enough I end up in a corner and have to yell to let me pass because theyâve become too focused on talking amon themselves and moving the table through the door in front of them to realize theyâre about to shove the legs of the table on my face).
I cannot tell you how livid I was.
When I told my sister, she told me about this one new guy who wouldnât hit her no matter how much she insisted it was fine during krav maga practice. She comes from years of various combat arts. He later realized sheâs trained and acted surprised despite the fact that sheâd told him several times to just do the exercise as he was supposed to.
I told her the two guys at therapy will literally refuse to go through the door if Iâm holding it open for them unless I act distracted while I do it (not look at them, make it look like I just casually forgot Iâm still holding the door open). Theyâll either bodily push me out of the way so they can hold the door open for me instead, or stay still and insist I go until I do it. Iâve had time to experiment.
My sister said the men at her therapy group do the same.
This isnât courtesy. Youâre not helping someone who asked, or offering help and then listening to the answer. Youâre not saving women as a group. Youâre not making up for other menâs sexism (or your own). Youâre being sexist. Youâre being condescending, not listening to the woman in front of you, aggressively trying to keep yourself in a position where you can be the sole offerer of things and the woman can only be in the role of receiving your âkindnessâ and exchange gratefulness for it, and making it all about your coming to the rescue - even though no-one asked you to in the first place. And if youâre so uncomfortable with any breach of the script that you canât even walk through a door if a woman is holding it open for you, then thereâs a problem, and itâs yours, and working on it is on you, not on me. Same goes when you treat a woman like she canât perform menial tasks.
