I love how some dude comes into that Twitter thread to explain how it feels to be viewed as a “monster” and let’s make this thread about MEEEEE and my FEELINGS and what about MEEEEE!
Mods, I think the re-opening of this thread can now have a re-closing…
Neither. It’s use a “reasonable woman” standard instead of use a “reasonable man” standard. Hey, you get to use it too.
Treating everybody in society exactly the same by treating everyone as if they’re able bodied neurotypical adult white straight cis Christian males didn’t work out well. We’re trying out some other variations these days.
Oh, good grief. Absolutely no one has said nobody should ever do anything nice for anyone else. What people are saying, as ought to be utterly obvious, is that you should ask first. ‘Would you like me to mow your lawn and/or to take your lawnmower in for repairs in my truck?’ Nothing in the world wrong with that. Maybe the answer will be ‘Sure, thanks!’ Maybe it’ll be ‘Thanks, but it’s OK, I’ve got this.’ (Which may mean that they’ve got it figured out otherwise, or may mean that they’re not comfortable giving you their address. Which of those it is is none of your business.) Maybe it’s ‘That would be great but first let me show you where those rare plants are, a lot of people take them for weeds but they mustn’t be mowed at this part of their growth cycle.’
No, actually. And I was a little girl in the 1950’s.
I do remember people of various ages and genders who used to like to chuck little kids under the chin. And I purely and absolutely hated it.
If little kids now don’t have to put up with that crap, I’m all in favor of the change.
And no, that does not translate to ‘nobody should ever touch anybody even if invited to’!
Remember kids: the difference between “doing something nice for someone” and “grand theft and murder” may be in asking someone. This is a lesson taught by Spongebob.
Moderator Warning
This is an official warning for insults.
If you feel a need to make comments like this, do so in the Pit, and nowhere else.
No, they are not in the same situation. Being a woman is a different situation than being a man. Women are statistically at much higher risk of being the victims of violence and rape than men.
Hint: they were being creepy then, too.
The difference is they could get away with it. Ah, the good old days!
I can’t quite follow UltraVires’s logic; in particular, I don’t see how he gets from “women want equality” to “women should be nice to creepy randos.” What I think he’s saying is that women should “man up” and stop being afraid of creepy randos, because HE isn’t afraid of them, and would be thrilled to pieces if someone mowed his lawn for free.
Well, I’m male, and I’m here to tell you that I would be completely freaked out if I was on the receiving end of LiveFree’s little “favor,” even if the gender was reversed and the lawn-mowing was done by a female.
Would I call the cops? Arguably that’s the smarter move, but my typical response in tense situations is to de-escalate and smooth things over. I’d manage a “thank you,” because one thing I’ve learned about people who pull stunts like this is that they want gratitude—lots of it. And if they don’t get it, they’re going be VERY displeased, because they went to a lot of trouble for you. Then I’d say that their selflessness and generosity has inspired me to step up and do my own yardwork from now on. Then I’d do everything possible to avoid them in the future, including switching gyms. Or maybe I’ll just drop gym entirely.
Speaking of Leave it to Beaver, the Beav and Gilbert tried mowing someone’s lawn without asking first. Spoiler alert: it does NOT go well. (To be fair, it was Eddie Haskell’s idea.)
When I was in high school in the late 1980s there was this retired principal who would occasionally visit. He was a very cheerful old fellow who loved the high school girls, and insisted on hugging all of them. They would line up to hug him. At the time, I thought that the old perv had a nice scam going, but he got away with it even though for students the school had rules against things like kissing, hugging and holding hands. A few years after I graduated he, his wife, and two of their friends were killed in a wreck while crossing a certain bridge. They named the bridge after him. I sometimes think about how the old creep would have been treated differently if he were pulling that shit today.
You should do something nice for him - since he sells frozen products, surely he would benefit from someone dropping by his house and performing routine maintenance on his freezers. Heck, maybe you do freezer maintenance for a living and have maintained 25,000 freezers, so it’s no trouble at all for you. Since your intentions would be good, no need to bother him by asking about it, just go ahead and do it and it’ll be a nice surprise. Don’t let anyone else tell you different - they’re just oversensitive snowflakes who forget how people back in the 1950s used to maintain each other’s freezers all the time and nobody kicked up a fuss.
I’ve got a friend, he is 73, and in poor health. He and I go to lunch occasionally. He knows all the waitresses in the restaurants in town, (small town) and has many of their phone numbers. He is on Facebook with them daily. If I asked for their number, they’d freak out. He tells me being considered safe is a good part of being old.
Now if the Swedish bikini team wants to mow my lawn, I won’t freak out. If three finger John from the bar does it, I’m going to get my gun.
Perhaps intentionally apt username/post combination.
Honestly, what more do you need to know about UltraVires than his username?
Got no use for boundaries
Got no use for locks,
so when you least expect it,
I’ll come and mow your box.
This is a really insightful observation. At least third-level metacognition. Maybe fourth, because you are observing them observing you observing them? I wonder if psychologists have studied this.