@ 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. āCan you come up here and help me move the table,ā he said, āsince itās light anyway?ā 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 Iād notice by myself. But I just say āsureā 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 thereās a bunch of chairs in the way so I tell my dad, whoās 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 heās started insisting he can call someone else to move the table and I keep saying āreally, we just gotta move these chairs that are right here in the wayā. 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 didnāt have time for bullshit about lifting some feather-light plastic table and I didnāt wanna stress myself out on vacation so I just insisted more forcefully on doing what I was doing.
Anyway, after Iāve 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 āno thanksā, adding āthis is really light reallyā for good measure because Iāve 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!, heās not gonna listen. He insists, I say no again, he comes up behind me anyway no matter how much I protest that Iām 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 weāve 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 donāt want them to fucking cause an incident because theyāre 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 theyāve become too focused on talking amon themselves and moving the table through the door in front of them to realize theyāre 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 wouldnāt 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 sheās trained and acted surprised despite the fact that sheād 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 Iām 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 Iām still holding the door open). Theyāll 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. Iāve had time to experiment.
My sister said the men at her therapy group do the same.
This isnāt courtesy. Youāre not helping someone who asked, or offering help and then listening to the answer. Youāre not saving women as a group. Youāre not making up for other menās sexism (or your own). Youāre being sexist. Youāre 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 ākindnessā 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 youāre so uncomfortable with any breach of the script that you canāt even walk through a door if a woman is holding it open for you, then thereās a problem, and itās yours, and working on it is on you, not on me. Same goes when you treat a woman like she canāt perform menial tasks.
