I *calmly* shut down unwanted male attention today!

@karin70 Love this— love that you found a way to deal w the unwanted attention in a way that feels good to you. And love how happy you are for yourself. Thank you for sharing!!
 
@karin70 That's amazing! Hopefully I'll be able to use your badass tactic once the gyms in my area open again (just need to build up a tiny bit of courage first).
 
@theconvolt Thank you!

The thing that really changed it for me was reading a story here on Reddit where a woman would turn off her music and engage with men - thinking she needed to be polite.

And the responses were saying: you don’t owe him polite or a response.

He’s being rude by interrupting you. You don’t owe him polite back.

And that really made the difference for me!

Good luck!
 
@karin70 Great job! Put ‘em in their place. :)

A lot of them do feel threatened and feel the need to push someone’s buttons to feel better about their fragile egos.

Before COVID got serious and I used to go to the gym a few times a week (moment of sadness for what feels like another lifetime), there would always be those guys who’d spend most of their time on their phones coming up to me to ask me how many sets I have left even though they were just floating around with their noses in their phones the entire time. A lot of them just can’t bear to see women on what they think is their turf. Sucks to be them.
 
@dainiakelly5 Guy here... I obviously can’t speak for all men but the whole thing about men feeling threatened by women is so minimal I doubt any guy that would approach a woman sparing or hitting a bag would almost never be the type of guy that is threatened buy women who is physically active. Guys just aren’t wired like that. I felt it was important this was understood cause I hear it a lot and it is dead wrong and could lead to a difficult or dangerous situation with the wrong man if this is your understand of their mindset.

However I do agree with what you said about some guys wanting feeling better about their egos. Generally these are the same guys that will offer unsolicited advice to guys at the gym as well.

Aside from this my thoughts are these guys are curious about a woman fighting and are interested to know more about this unusual and obviously healthy and fit woman. It’s not that surprising there eager to share in this activity with

someone they find attractive or at the very least interesting and a natural way to introduce yourself into the situation is to offer advice. I don’t think it is necessarily sinister but I do appreciate how irritating it is to be constantly interrupted in this way.

Very well handled OP..!! I would definitely recommend this tact for men and women being offered unsolicited advice... Good for you.

Edit... I clearly massively missed the tone of this subreddit it was late and was more thinking about OP’s experience.

I’ll gladly take the downvotes if my post gives a different perspective. How else are we supposed to understand each other and move forward.
 
@theodore7406
this unusual and obviously healthy and fit woman.

I was giving you benefit of the doubt until this and then literally physically grimaced.

Like ... did you seriously just say that a woman being fit is unusal in a goddamn women's fitness sub?
 
@brixken7 I was talking about the perspective of the guy that approached OP.

He has no concept of this interaction being posted on a woman’s fitness sub.

It was more that from the guys perspective he sees someone he is interested in. I could have worded it better I guess, it was late and I kinda lost the thread of my point.
 
@theodore7406 I appreciate that you're trying to be nice, and maybe you don't bother women working out.

However, women are not all social idiots. We can read the cues that men correcting our form are sending. Please don't try to excuse all men harassing us when you don't live through those interactions. You can explain yourself, but you don't know what women live through.

You sound nice. If you're here being polite, I hope you continue to read and learn how we want to be treated. And instead of correcting us, try to educate your guy friends on just why we are not interested in having our form corrected without a request.
 
@dawn16 Thank you for your response. It was late when I stumbled across this post and didn’t anticipate a lot of the responses I got, lesson learnt I guess.

I agreed and empathised with OP and excuse no men doing this and agree it is extremely irritating when all you want to do is work out.

OP mentioned how often it happens and wanted to share why I thought that was the case.

My only counter was men aren’t threatened by women as much as is stated in the comment above and I felt it was important this idea isn’t thrown out there as a rational for a guys behaviour. That was all.
 
@dawn16 What do we know?! We’re just hysterical, over-analyzing, fragile little beings that need men to correct our every thought because, bless our little hearts, we can’t read social cues because we’re women!!!

/s
 
@theodore7406 "Guy here in the women's fitness sub, just feel the need to correct your experience. Allow me to clarify that the OP, a woman interested in sparring, is not like other girls and us men find this intriguing. We prefer using the opportunity to mansplain to see if we can engage with you sexually. Anyway, I've dropped this unsolicited advice here so you can handle future unsolicited advice."
 
@theodore7406 Please stop intruding and mansplaining in spaces where women-identifying individuals can safely share their frustrations without someone invalidating their struggles. No one cares what a man’s intentions are. It’s predatory and makes women feel uncomfortable or just straight up pisses us off. You saying such and such ain’t so is invalidating someone’s experience of being harassed while trying to do something they enjoy. Please leave us to express our frustrations without being mansplained at.
 

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