Check your age. Once you enter your 40s, you become invisible to the opposite sex.
There was a thread around here a while ago where someone (a man) was discussing the fear of helping a lost child, especially if said child was female. Many male board members expressed sympathy to that sentiment, and many female board members found that to be saddening.
I think this thread taps into that same instinct - that men are often met with suspicion when they are trying to help a random person.
Now see, I’d be more apt to share if they were NOT wearing pants. Better story to tell.
[QUOTE=Quartz]
I was walking home earlier today - after lunch - when it started raining. I had an umbrella and offered to share it with a lady who had been caught out and was sheltering. And instead of accepting or politely declining she shrank back. How sad it is that a woman feels she cannot share the umbrella of a man. How much sadder it is that she was afraid.
[/QUOTE]
*woman
I wouldn’t share an umbrella with my own husband, if I had a choice. It’s awkward and potentially uncomfortable, especially if sharing it with a stranger.
It looks like none of you gentlemen have been reading this thread.
Again. Women can’t tell if you mean them harm. This woman was behaving in a manner that has hopefully kept her safe for her whole life. It is not up to you, Quartz, to judge her for behaving in this way. Because your offered courtesy is not more important than this woman’s sense of safety.
We aren’t choosing to be afraid of men because we want to. We aren’t choosing to be threatened by kind gestures because, how dare men be kind. We are afraid because we have reason to be.
Sorry if that hurts your feelings. What are you going to do about it?
Thank you for articulating that. It is sad that we have to be cautious about things like that, but I’d rather be cautious than groped by a stranger.
And that’s sad.
Were you wearing … clown pants?
If you have a problem with another poster based on past posts they’ve made, please take it to the Pit. This is bringing up past history and posts in a thread not about it. If you wish to use it as a way or reason to explain stuff, that’s fine…but please do so in the Pit as things like that (insulting or pile on posts like this) is better suited for that forum.
OK.
[QUOTE=araminty]
What are you going to do about it?
[/QUOTE]
Help my nephew to be the sort of man whom women can trust and help my niece to not shrink back from men but to consider them properly. Otherwise, lead by example: I live next to a school, so hopefully if pupils see me offering to share my umbrella they will follow suit.
While I concur with araminty’s comment that it is up to the receiver of an offer for help to determine how acceptable it is, not the person making the offer, there is no reason to decline such an offer by recoiling in horror (unless Quartz was not wearing pants - he has not made that clear).
The OP expressed that the woman could have been more polite in her declining the umbrella. I think that is where feelings got hurt. I don’t think anyone is arguing that anybody should be more accepting of help men offer, or that women should not judge conservatively offers of help from anyone. I also agree with the post that sharing an umbrella is a bit more intimate than, say, offering them a Kleenex - that needs to be kept in mind by the offerer, to be fair.
This may turn into a long post, but I’m going to lay out for you everything that probably went through that woman’s head in the couple seconds the offer was made and declined.
As a 5’3" woman, I won’t share an umbrella with anyone taller than me. It means I’ll get wet, unless that umbrella is 6 feet across.
Unless the umbrella is at least golf sized, it’s a guarantee that at least my shoulder and possibly entire side will still get wet. At the very least, I’ll have to brush shoulders with the stranger who’s holding the thing. No thanks.
If someone offers to share, well, where are they going? Are they going to walk me all the way to where *I’m *going? If not what’s the point, I’m still going to end up wet. And I likely don’t care to have the conversation about where we’re both going. I’ll stay put, thanks.
Now, as a woman I can tell you the shrinking back thing wouldn’t happen with me, I’ll be direct and look you in the eye and decline with a smile and a thank you. But - I also extremely likely am carrying on me a knife, pepper spray and a gun. So.
PLUS - you know, she could also just be a very shy person and would have done the same reaction with another woman or child. You don’t know. May have had nothing to do with you being a man.
Maybe she just didn’t want to share an umbrella? I’d rather wait it out than share an umbrella-- it’s always awkward and half the time you get wet anyway. Umbrellas are really single-person devices.
I haven’t owned an umbrella in recent memory. If it’s raining I pick up my pace a bit and get wet. I eventually dry. And there’s no worry about taking out a stranger’s eye.
Have you ever offered to share your umbrella with a man?
mmm
This will go well.
Oh, I see. Women are not considering you properly. Shame on those hussies.
They hatched from the eggs he keeps there.
Geez, people, of course he was wearing pants! And they matched with his umbrella hat perfectly.
