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Ah welcome to a man’s world, It’s going to be really fun for you
I transitioned to male 15 years ago, I was already well into adulthood by that time so had experience to compare. 100% agree with the post. It was night and day. (I’m not in Stem; just generally in life.)
The weirdest thing was some of the individual people who changed how they treat me over time, for the better. After I started transitioning. Its cool they are so trans positive and affirming I guess. But if you can turn that shit on like a tap why not do for everyone?
Now as a man I struggle to notice when I’m getting special treatment. Even with my prior experience. Sometimes I have been oblivious for years until I finally clocked it or it was pointed out by a woman.
It has made me much more respect cis men who manage to have a keen eye on sexism. Especially those who are masc presenting. It is so easy to not notice. It’s very comfortable. People are polite. You have good luck. To all the guys commenting here that it doesn’t go on around them: it sure as fuck does.
But if you can turn that shit on like a tap why not do for everyone?
I would think because they aren’t aware of it.
preach. it is for reasons such as what you stated that i fully give my blessing to women transitioning to men. level the playing field by any means necessary. this is survival.
i try to embrace my male archetype because i think the worlds needs strong men, but i have come to understand the feminist perspective and i don’t think there’s any conflict with masculine men being empathetic. as a matter of fact, i think a truly confident man doesn’t need to worry about being vulnerable and is in touch with their feelings. the macho american culture is not who we are. it is an aberration directly resulting from abrahamic religious values being hijacked by sociopaths to pave the way for authoritarianism and further subjugation of women.
and i think it’s up to all of us to break these insecure macho idiots down into kneeling before a new age of humanity. make them heel to understand that they were weaklings all along.
Just to be clear: women do not transition to men to level the playing field or materially benefit themselves.
Studies of post transition income show that trans women go down (sometimes drastically) whereas trans men tend to stay about where they would have been. You get benefits of being treated as male but then you have discrimination and other problems as a queer/trans person to balance it out. So while I can report on the moments when socially and structurally I am treated as a man, it isn’t the total experience if my life. I still am trans. There are significant problems associated. I wouldn’t reccomend it as a career enhancer. To say nothing of how unpleasant transitioning just in hopes of getting a raise would feel.
I agree with regards to masculinity.
Sometimes we should just, I dk, listen to what people that have different experiences to us say. I figure, I have no idea what it is like to question my gender, so maybe I should shut the fuck up and listen to what people who do tell me. The problem is, a lot of men do not listen.
Is there one gender friendlier to trans people? Just wondering. I feel like women may be, but that is my bias from my attitude towards men lol.
shut the fuck up and listen
But dont need to turn off your brain. There are plenty of dumb trans people out there and you can find a trans person to represent any position.
Is there one gender friendlier to trans people?
I doubt it. It depends. I mean, women are friendlier, in general. It depends. And trans men are more likely to be “passing” living stealth. So its a different thing. I hardly know what anyone thinks of trans people unless I ask, because 99% of interactions I have are as presumed cis.
One thing I know is that everyone loves men. Cis men, trans men, doesnt matter. People value men. This is why all kinds of anti trans horseshit specifically targets trans women. In the UK recently there was a ruling about the definition of “woman” as it relates to trans women. But no definition of “man”. Why! Why are only women subject to such shit. Trans men are implicitly pulled in and adversely affected but women are the ones who have the law about their bodies.
I think this is a huge problem even with people that would say about themselves that they respect women, or even that they are feminist. A lot of men on the left suffer from a total absence of introspection. They may not want to treat women differently, but then they just repeat patterns they have learned without any reflection, and end up doing just that - talk over women, mansplaining to them and so on. It’s the same with any privileged group of people.
Men/white people/other privileged groups: if you do not reflect your actions and question your own thought patterns and influences, you will likely discriminate against others. Because the wold that influences us is total dogshite. Strife to be better.
Transitioning to a point of passing in my understanding (mtf or ftm) comes with pros and cons.
I often think about this article as well when it comes to trans men’s negative experiences once accepted as men: https://www.newsweek.com/trans-man-broken-men-1817169
Of course there are good and bad aspects to any choice.
Trans man here to say that nobody needs to give any extra cred to MRA bullshit just because a trans person is saying it. I have also been through the full dude experience including profound loneliness. I likewise thought I was prepared but wasn’t. Its hard. I miss how things were before too.
I also know that in general, in 2025, all people are more isolated than 20 years ago. Furthermore, it is a known phenomena for a longtime that friendships are more difficult to cultivate as an adult. I doubt how different things would have turned out for me had I not transitioned.
I also know that the “distance” I now experience from women is a direct result of 20,000 years of patriarchal violence. Of course women relate to me as a potential threat; I am one. And without the presumed vulnerability I possessed as a woman, men relate accordingly. Of course.
At some point, as a trans guy, you need to stop leaning on your experience “as a former woman” to compare your life to, especially in the negative. Being 22 is not the same as 42 no matter what your gender presentation at any point. Many people experience nostalgia for their youth.
As a man, you get to feel safe, but you don’t get to be a nurturer or nurtured. You can speak up whenever you want, but not about your emotions, fears, or grief. You have the freedom to do whatever you want whenever you want, as long as that doesn’t involve anything feminine, which turns out to be many incredible things, like emotions, intentional parenting, grooming, baking, and so many other activities I’ve learned are too feminine.
Just as when cis guys make these complaints, I question this person’s definition of “you dont get to”. In fact the article describes him making a career out of doing so. Even specific instances of “going viral”, and the affirmative feedback he received. It seems that you do get to.
Which leads to pointing out that the whole thing is an advertisment for the author who is “a Professional Corporate Speaker and Stress Management Coach”.
And it has anti-trans hate material suggested items in the middle of it:
Trans man here to say that nobody needs to give any extra cred to MRA bullshit just because a trans person is saying it. I have also been through the full dude experience including profound loneliness. I likewise thought I was prepared but wasn’t. Its hard. I miss how things were before too.
I don’t think the author was giving credit to MRA bullshit. MRA’s seem to often hate women and I don’t think the article implies any hatred, if anything he still tries to essentially that men are the ones that need to put in the effort to push past toxic masculinity. Describing it as a problem to be fixed at the individual level rather than at systematic level. Saying "If I could advise men, it would be first to look inward. "
I also know that in general, in 2025, all people are more isolated than 20 years ago. Furthermore, it is a known phenomena for a longtime that friendships are more difficult to cultivate as an adult. I doubt how different things would have turned out for me had I not transitioned.
Suicide rates differ for a reason. It is far more painful to be a lonely man than a lonely woman. Men are very quick to self loathing.
I also know that the “distance” I now experience from women is a direct result of 20,000 years of patriarchal violence. Of course women relate to me as a potential threat; I am one. And without the presumed vulnerability I possessed as a woman, men relate accordingly. Of course.
We should have fewer male babies. It seems like it’d reduce the amount of fear and alienation in society. (I’m saying this in good faith, I’m serious.)
At some point, as a trans guy, you need to stop leaning on your experience “as a former woman” to compare your life to, especially in the negative. Being 22 is not the same as 42 no matter what your gender presentation at any point. Many people experience nostalgia for their youth.
Based on my own reading/discourse, trans women usually seem to feel very little youth nostalgia in comparison. They might complain that they’re older now, but that’s usually more of a melancholy over “what could have been” had they been AFAB.
Just as when cis guys make these complaints, I question this person’s definition of “you dont get to”. In fact the article describes him making a career out of doing so. Even specific instances of “going viral”, and the affirmative feedback he received. It seems that you do get to.
I’m pretty sure he was talking about social pressures. Sure, he got to because he was very motivated to push against that societal expectation, that doesn’t really mean that average men can get away with that unless they dedicate their whole career/life to it.
Which leads to pointing out that the whole thing is an advertisment for the author who is “a Professional Corporate Speaker and Stress Management Coach”.
I think calling it an advertisement is a stretch based only on that, but even if it was that doesn’t invalidate the point being made.
And it has anti-trans hate material suggested items in the middle of it:
I think that’s just because those are controversial yet related articles on Newsweek so their algorithm picked them. But yeah, those do seem to be especially trashy and obvious anti-trans articles. Its kind of gross that they ever ran on Newsweek to be honest…
And yet, the Supreme Court in the UK claims that trans people shouldn’t be afforded the same gender-based discrimination protections as their cis counterparts.
Discrimination is a social artifact, based on performed gender, not biological sex (whatever that means), as evidenced here.
Is it me or is this a uniquely American experience?
I loved in quite a few countries and I’ve never seen this kind of absurd behavior. Granted, in a man, but I’ve never seen a man cut off a woman like that just because she’s a woman, and I’ve never seen or heard comments even remotely about someone being “exotic”. I’ve heard questions like “ohh, and where are you from?” in genuine curiosity, which is fine, I’ve never noticed overt racism like that.
lol no, I have had problems in the UK and Europe. The old world is extremely hierarchical and the older generations have some weird lingering quasi-religous gender issues.
Sorry, but this sounds exactly like what male privilege is. Assuming that it doesn’t happen near you because you haven’t noticed it.
Ask your female friends what sorts of sexism they genuinely face regularly and I think you’ll learn a lot.
This is why I learned to stfu about experiences I don’t understand.
I say that as a person of color trying to explain my perspective and be given deer-in-headlights responses, or worse, dismissal and denial.
Granted, i’m a man
you haven’t noticed racism and sexism because you are a male who’s the “proper color” for the region in which you reside.
male privilege and white privilege are often misunderstood to mean like “special privileges” and poopoo’d because plenty of white men struggle to get by in this world, but that’s not what it means.
it means the privilege of ‘being taken seriously’, the privilege of ‘benefit is the doubt’, privilege of ‘basic respect and decency’.
it also has the benefit/drawback of ‘privilege to be blind of misogyny/racism’. I believe you wholeheartedly when you say you’ve never seen it, but that’s the “privilege”.
The responsibility you hold in return for this “privilege” is you must believe the words of peeps who don’t share this “privilege” when they tell you their experiences. after all, why would you see these things? How else would you experience them when you aren’t directly a part of them?
'course you wouldn’t! That’s fine! Normal! why would you see them? those things aren’t directed at you. that’s really all the “privilege” is!
back to responsibility, be careful not to dismiss the words of people who have direct experiences of racism and sexism just because they don’t match your own. remember, these things aren’t directed at you!
have a good one
I live in America and haven’t noticed this as a man, I assume the misogynists have enough self awareness to keep it somewhat out of sight. The last time I noticed something inappropriate, the person quietly left the company a few weeks later. I have no idea if it was related to what I saw, but I wouldn’t be surprised.
I 100% believe that it happens, it’s just not visible to me.
Lol not from what I’ve heard about Italy
I lived in Mexico, arguably worse macho-wise, and even there men didn’t behave that shittily
One observation I made is that when women get to comprise a significant part of workforce in science, those things seem to be flattened out.
Working in the place and field (Russia, food technology) where women are about 50% of the workforce, I’ve never witnessed anything talked about here. Women are taken just as seriously on the position, they are promoted on par with men, they are in charge of many high-profile projects, and actively taking male and female students under scientific supervision. Any sort of workplace harassment will not just contribute to your potential termination, but will earn you very bad reputation - you’ll be seen as a dangerous weirdo no one wants to deal with.
One other observation I made is that international scientists often come from the position of entitlement, which is also weird to me. Male scientists tend to flaunt their position any time they can, and many of the female scientists tend to sort of mimic this behavior, but it feels different, like if they try to claw the attention they were consistently denied.
For me, it is weird and unnatural. Where I live and work, some baseline respect towards your more experienced superiors, male or female, is to be expected, is taught since school, and doesn’t require such performances. Since most school teachers are female, the role of woman as a potential superior to be respected is clearly defined and doesn’t cause questions. Students are not afraid to contact their superiors, but do it respectfully and with full understanding they take valuable time of a high-profile scientist. Why do people have to constantly fight for attention and respect in many other cultures is beyond me.
I share what others have said about your likely difficulty in seeing what’s going on around you. However.
I have a couple of female friends who moved as adults to US from Russia in the 80s. Both said they were shocked when they found out the things that weren’t soviet propaganda, like how women were treated day to day, and the systemic discrimination against racialized people. Neither of them is immune to racist or sexist bevahior, and now having lived here for so long even moreso, but there is a difference in baseline expectations at the macro scale. Years later they still express surprise when even the pretense of attempting equality is absent or made a joke.
That said I’ve met women and men from elsewhere in the former USSR (both older and especially younger than the above) who are very heteronormative and accept their “place” in hierarchy. I understand there was post-soviet backlash culturally. How do you view that? In the past 2-4 decades is there progress, regression or what? My point of view could be tainted by selection bias in terms of who chooses to move countries, and where they land.
The fact that Russia underwent a revolutionary transformation in the 20th C, from serf to industrial, when it could benefit from an existing articulation of gender inequalities, must take some credit for present equality, no? To have such a big material shake up, and at least with the goal of addressing the patriarchy. I dont think in the anglosphere we ever had that.
As a man, it is insane to me that this is real.
I have a difficult time imagining malicious intent towards women by all these people. But given how common these stories are, there is something true about it. I just don’t understand why.
Is it really an unconscious cultural thing? Or am I naive about how my fellow men (I guess maybe women too) feel towards women?
Something in me refuses to believe that these people knowingly and intentionally harm women. But it sure as hell looks intentional.
I am not defending them. I am expressing my struggle with the reality of this shit.
Something in me refuses to believe that these people knowingly and intentionally harm women.
One thing I think that goes too far is people either think misogynists represent 0% of 100% of men. It’s neither. There are some men that are extremely prejudiced against women and will cross the street just to bother them, and then there’s a huge slice of men that support women as best they can.
I mean, if nothing else, incels definitely exist and they would treat the women in this situation wrongly. Do you think no one is an incel?
Something in me refuses to believe that these people knowingly and intentionally harm women. But it sure as hell looks intentional.
Most people don’t do any of this “intentionally” in the sense that they are aware of the harm they cause. It doesn’t even enter the realm of moral consideration.
To many, there is a genuine belief of superiority that is entirely subconscious. The easiest example is classic mysogyny in a relationship - the woman is “emotional” and therefore the man should be the one to handle “business”. That’s not just 1950s oppression. Some variation of that thought process is shockingly prevalent across generations.
That man doesn’t really think he’s harming his woman. He thinks he’s helping, by being the man of the house. That same logic applies outside of romance. “I am more rational than she is, therefore I should talk now and she shouldn’t.”
That’s not a thought. That’s just a foundational belief that spawns all the other thoughts.
Ever been in an argument with another adult, and a child joined in with some naive half-informed emotional take on society?
An adult usually placates the child - explains, briefly, why they’re wrong - and returns to arguing with the other adult.
That’s how a lot of men see women by default. As inferior, naive, ill-informed, emotional creatures. Not consciously. Not intentionally. Many mysogynists genuinely seem to have the same intentions as the adult to the child - to placate and educate.
But its fucked up, and it’s important to acknowledge that it simmers under he surface. The reason all of this is so complicated and messy is that it is so hard to see mysogyny for what it is.
You genuinely can’t know if a single interaction with a single male was an example of mysogyny, because sometimes humans just condescend to each other. Sometimes humans are just shitty to each other.
But women experience so many of these experiences in aggregate that they can’t give the benefit of the doubt to every man they meet, especially when the man himself might not understand his own implicit biases.
I understand all of that but it seems crazy that it would generate these results so systematically.
Idk. I certainly want a world where gender is a fun little thing and not an life defining element.
I understand now how people can believe sexism is not an issue. Do you not have any people who are women close to you who have faced this professionally?
Honestly, no. I am working in programming. There are no women. We both know why and the answer is sexism.
But even on the way into the job, I have only twice experience someone telling a woman to not do IT that was when I was a student. 1. A classmate, and everyone gave him a lot of shit for it. Seriously, I don’t think he had a friend in the class afterwards. 2. A father telling his daughter. And there I jumped in and challenged him on it.
It is difficult to spot sexism in a different department.
Edit: I misread the question. in my friend circle, I can’t recall any woman complain about sexism at their work, but a former female friend in china. The women in my life had issue with their work but I don’t recall specifically sexism. Tbf, a lot of them work in jobs that are “women jobs” like caretaker.
2.nd edit: I just recalled 1 case where someone complained about sexism to “me”, friend of a friend and I was present. But honestly in that case, it was really bs. Girl admitted that she didn’t know what she was doing and admitted that she didn’t want to learn and then complain why everyone else got real work in the internship… So not the ideal case to talk about the very real sexism in society.
If you don’t mind what do you mean that you understand now how people can believe sexism isn’t an issue?
I want to stress that it is an issue, I just have a difficult time believing some of the shit because it seems so comical to me. What kind of person is that way?
Personal experience from when I was newly an adult, and chatting with a female university classmate and somehow got on the topic of games and I started explaining what Steam was, because I just subconsciously assumed, her being a woman, didn’t know.
She politely pointed out I had mansplained to her.
I am very thankful to her for the experience as it’s stuck with me and saved me from making a fool of myself on more than one occasion since.
I’m sure there are possibly small things like this, that you may have been been “guilty” of in the past.
These men, are engaging in similar behaviour cranked up to 1000.
However, it’s even more malicious with them, because it’s not like the last 30 years or so haven’t had constant and increasing messaging (in the anglosphere, at least) about feminism and ways in which women have been treated unfairly.
So, it’s not like they haven’t had the opportunity to reflect, and change.
In summary, yeah, it is kind of baffling, but I will say society, while largely better than 30 years ago, still does have structural as well as conscious and unconcious bias towards women.
So I’m not surprised people like this exist.
I hear you but what cranked it up to 1000?
Like I always saw my mom as a extremely competent person, as a child she was flawless. Nowadays, I see her flaws but I am flawed, so if my father and any person I ever met. I am impressed by my sister and how I can be like the person that she is in many ways.
I am talking about my direct family because these women had a lot of influence on me. So I wonder, what was their experience like to think so poorly of women? Not blaming the women in their social circle for being “bad”, I just wonder wtf happened. Where does that belief come from? I don’t think they all had great experiences with their male role models but horrible ones with their female role models. So what is it?
I want to say that “unconscious cultural” doesn’t exist, but I don’t think I’m right on it. You can easily build consciousness on those topics and thus easily spot the cases with risk for any wrongdoing, and with how common and well-known they are, it just feels more like “willingly ignorant”.
Assuming that it is cultural, as it seems like your comment kinda assumes that. Like it seems you are saying, it was cultural but by now it is kinda intentional.
I would argue “willingly ignorant” is bad but also not making it less “unconscious cultural”.
If they were willingly ignorant but also no cultural sexist, they wouldn’t be an issue.
So well you have a point, but I would say that the unconscious cultural sexism could lead to willfully ignorant and you would kinda expect it.
I am not saying, you are fully wrong about the willingly ignorant part, I just don’t think it would remove the cultural part.
Edit: ups edited the wrong comment. Sorry
Selection bias, the people who don’t discriminate aren’t causing harm so you don’t notice them but since they don’t speak up they aren’t helping either, so the jerks are still setting the tone. The solution is to not just do the right thing but actively call people out the jerks.
I agree with you there. As someone in programming, I don’t quite have the opportunity to fight these things when they happen because… There are no women. (obviously linked to this) but I can’t call out behavior when it happens when I am not around. But I am happy to report that I have been vocal about my support of trans people and fought against transphobia, even at work. Obviously I am not happy it is needed.
So I am trying to see and support victims of discrimination.
You’re simply not paying attention, because you don’t have to. Not to be harsh. I went from male to female and how I’m treated is night and day. You’ve never tried to see how the other side lives, and when you heard stories that went against your experiences you dismissed them like your mind is trying to do right now.
Why does it happen? Nurture. History. Patriarchy. I could blame a lot of things. It’s mostly that men never get treated the way they treat women.
I think you’re naive but in fairness, it is shocking and hard to believe.
I’ve heard in my university that a lab manger/ head was trying to always get with the female students, and would ignore male ones, or would not allow male to volunteer in his labs. It’s very close to bordering SH. Most other labs with male PIs don’t really care about either gender
Yuuup. Woman in engineering here. I once had a supervisor whose behaviour I thought of as normal, but two guys I worked with separately reported him to HR for bullying after seeing how he treated me.
It’s funny, I had many years with almost no career progression, now my boss is a woman and I’m having to get used to the idea that bonuses and promotions are things that actually happen when I work hard.
I also am glad you got the support. I’m constantly reminded of a friend in college who was going through an electrical engineering undergrad with me. She got all the material so easily and literally dragged me through the classes. I wouldn’t have passed some key topics without her help. Fast forward a few years and I’m getting my PhD and I decide to see what she is up to: she ended up quitting her PhD program because of the insane abuse and misogyny she experienced in the department and instead changed to a masters in music. This was a woman who could easily have made field changing discoveries but was shut down because of close minded individuals. It still makes me rage and is the reason I work so much harder now to ensure my female colleagues and employees have an equal voice at the table.
Sad to say, but that’s a familiar story.
It’s great that you’re now making efforts to right that sort of wrong now!
My wife was marked down on her PhD because she “wasn’t nice enough” to her supervisor. All the assessors gave her top marks, but her supervisor vetoed them.
Please give her a hug from me. And if you happen to get a chance to stab her supervisor … well, I’ll not say do it, because that would be illegal. But sometimes accidents happen …
Glad to hear you at least had some decent colleagues!
Yeah, that’s the thing, the majority if guys are OK or better … it’s just there’s enough arseholes to hold women and minorities back when there’s no or unenforced DEI
Not in stem but the same thing happened to me. I used to be able to speak to a room and be heard. Now I need to raise my voice, sound a little whiney or bitchy or nobody hears me. Only my closest friend still asks me for advice or to share my knowledge. Used to happen all the time.
At least I pass. I got that going for me.
Is this unique to women? Do men experience anything similar in women-dominated fields? I’m not actually sure what these may be; teaching, childcare, hair stylists? I realise this may make me sound misogynist, but I’m really clueless.
Unfortunately I’ve seen men tend to dominate the conversation in women dominated fields as well, but only if they are misogynistic. I work a lot in the fiber arts industry and more often than not it is assumed I don’t know anything because I am a man and humble, but I quickly prove my worth with my 20 years experience and it’s wonderfully collaborative. Then I see so many men come in and say, “Look I knit a sweater! This is easy! Give me praise!” and weirdly enough there are enough people out there that just feed those egos. I completely blame the men in this case, but this problem wouldn’t be so prevalent if everyone was just willing to shut these idiots down.
Men in fem dominated fields get the glass escalator to promotion.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_Escalator
Propublica has some useful peices, but it might take an ebsco search or three to pry loose that dangerous and embarassing level of ignorance about what living is like.
Watching sociology videos can be a bit of a grind, but tastes better than foot-in-the-mouth.
This is anecdotal, but male teachers get a special treatment if the school staff is mostly women.
For my anecdotal story, I’ve never been treated worse than when I was doing IT for a hospital and working around nurses, who were almost exclusively women. God it felt like I was in a mean girls movie or some campy coming of age story about bullying.
I don’t think hospitals do count, being burned out could be an official requirement for the job and you wouldn’t notice a difference.
Being burned out doesn’t mean being catty, intentionally spreading false rumors, forming impenetrable cliques, and just being rude and talking behind each others backs.
I get it, nurses are over worked and under paid. But so are a ton of other professions and they dont have this same problem.
I know I’m gonna go on a hot take that looks like is deflecting the problem but I experienced bullying and seen it and it can be worse than how they treat women. I think is related to a play of power the alpha beta shit existed before it now just has a name. Is all a play of power over others an male social status in the eyes of other males may times is defined by the amount of vaginas they have, had and would have access to. I think is all related and women get the short end of the stick a lot more than men but some get get the stick that says “fuck your life haha”. Of couse some men take it entirely with women for some reason too so with them women get both sticks.
And (knowing the internet i say this beforehand) please with this I do not mean to do a whataboutism argument. Women do have a problem here as well as many other problems we all need go help with.
here’s a related video from Angela Collier, if you want to read more about how women are treated in STEM
I discovered her channel a few months ago and binged almost all of it. She’s great!
The experiences trans men and women have with misogyny will never not be fascinating to me. Like, for the first time ever we have this huge sample size of people who have experienced how their gender presentation affects how people interact with them, giving tangible proof of misogyny in action. And it can’t just be swept aside with ‘MaYbE tHe wOmEn JuSt miSuNDerStOoD’ or ‘mAYbe tHe mAN diDN’t MeAn iT LiKE tHaT’. I mean idiots will still make idiot arguments but at least it chips away at them a little bit.
I’m female presenting. I’ve known people who thought I was a cis woman for months, and I don’t keep being nonbinary or trans a secret.
When I read actual cis women’s accounts of misogyny, and also trans women’s accounts, I can’t relate. I don’t get shut down the same way. Somehow, despite others perceiving me as female, I kept the tiny part of gender presentation that tells people to sit down and shut up when I’m talking as if I were a man. I don’t understand what it is, but I still have it the same as before I transitioned.
I would love to know what it is so I can share it, but I can’t tell why people respect me as much as they would respect a man. It’s bewildering.
You could be lucky too or maybe you don’t notice the microaggressions.
Confidence goes a long way, but maybe that is simplifying the experience too much.
Hello it’s me a trans woman. I knew before transition about some of it but never really understood. When I was masc I didn’t realize how much of it was basically hidden in plain sight because of how I learned to socialize. After transitioning though omg it’s everywhere. I’m in Seattle right now where I don’t have to try too hard to pass and still get treated at least base line okay. Even then I still use my masc voice more than my femme voice because people take me more seriously when I do. Like there’s a cultural acceptance of trans people here but if I behave more masc I get the privilege of being “one of the boys” even if I’m visually in full femme mode. It’s all so weird
I told one of my friends that I’m being looked at differently in crowds now, and he just said “no you’re imagining it”.
Many people just do not believe what trans people tell them. At all.
Honestly people are probably just looking at you wondering if you are trans.
In that specific case it might’ve been an answer to “Do you look at me differently now”, brains like to short-circuit like that, and not everybody is comfortable speaking for the tribe. “Does the tribe like me?” – “Well I do” – “Does the tribe?” – “I’m not the tribe”.
Women aren’t believed, are you a trans woman? If so it could be either that you’re a woman or that you’re trans.
(I hope not to misgender either but) bro, she knows. No need to mansplain it, read it again:
Many people just do not believe what trans people tell them. At all.
I was adding to it, not explaining it.
But is it because of being trans in general, or because of the direction of transition?
Religon is probably what initially does this to people’s brains
Indoctrinating children into religious systems of arbitrary hierarchy gives little boys god complexes and makes little girls into property.
I feel bad for female-presenting people having experienced being treated worse than their male peers. I didn’t grow up religious or anything, but I can sense where I could be perpetuating that hidden misogyny myself.
For example: In work and social life, I’ll give my phone number away to people I meet. But I’m not interested in relationships, so I’m far less likely to give it to women, since I don’t want to give anyone the impression I’m making romantic advances by doing that.
I’m pretty sure for men that aren’t outright misogynist jerks or bullies, it’s stuff like that where they feel as if they might be viewed as awkward providing professional favours to women when they wouldn’t think twice about it for their male peers. That leads to those experiences that women find themselves unable to receive those opportunities to get ahead in their career, or aren’t listened to, or have to advocate their position more when career advancement seems to fall more naturally to men.
For example: In work and social life, I’ll give my phone number away to people I meet. But I’m not interested in relationships, so I’m far less likely to give it to women, since I don’t want to give anyone the impression I’m making romantic advances by doing that.
As someone who is relatively active in volunteering/local politics, I’ve been thinking about printing up some old-fashioned “calling cards” (like business cards, but not for a business). Maybe you could do the same, and seeing that giving out your contact info was such a routine habit of yours that you had a ready-made solution for it would stop women from getting the impression that you were leading them on?
…then again, maybe not. Hmm.
Depends on where you are from, but the sort of thinking that gets people into religion gets people into misogyny even without religion in my experience.
Misogyny is a religion. Religion isn’t just myths and worship, it’s also social orders and value systems.
Oh my goodness yes! Not to mention the whole if you don’t dress “modestly” it’s your fault if you get unwanted attention thing. It’s a grooming ground.
Stem is still heavily dominated by Men, biology might be different as more woman are in bio than men are, and becoming more common in other stems. engineer and programming sitll gear towards men.
I was actually joining the chat to write that things are not that different in biology. I have a PhD and 7 years of postdocs behind me. Over the years I have :
- been denied a management position because “the team was only men, who wouldn’t listen to me” (spoiler alert, they put an incompetent guy in charge who screwed up massively and I ended up taking over, successfully).
- had a boss who systematically doubted my opinion (while he was not a specialist of the topic) but listened to the very same argument from a male colleague
- had male Masters students who could speak uninterrupted during meetings when I couldn’t
- got denied a tenure position for a guy with the same profile (literally the same topic and same labs) but much less experience than mine (like 5 years younger) This last one broke me, I ended up quitting academia
Patriarchy is not only cruel towards women, it’s also dumb. It’s like corruption. We’re hurting ourselves, all of society, including men, by not giving the fitting positions and proper compensation and recognition to people who merit them.
When I was a freshman before transition, I had a guy save my number and call me like 2 years after we had an intro engineering class (we spoke maybe once?) to ask me out on a date.
I had that with a contractor who had had my number for work purposes. He kept trying for 5 years.
I’m a butch lesbian, my mistake was being polite and chatty with him.
My sister has a similar issue with a former classmate but for some reason she refuses to block/mark him as spam. it’s been years now and he’s persistent
It’s very hard to not be polite when that’s how you’re raised to be from day one :-/
Is that … a bad thing? I am missing something, did he take the number from somewhere or you gave it to him? But otherwise calling someone and asking out is a pretty harmless thing to do.
Not when it was a number used once to arrange a group project meeting and that we had not connected otherwise? Two years later - I had dropped out?
One thing I noticed as in my progress through as STEM major was the decline in number of female classmates. Calc 3 might have a reasonable number, but the drop off was exponential. The college run that got me through was done as a man, so I didn’t experience the stuff but I heard rumors. Worse than rumors from post docs in the lab I worked in.
Yep, if the number was not given specifically to connect that is what makes it inappropriate for me. But overall, an invite to a date besides being old fashioned is not necessarily creepy, even after long time. Of course, I don’t know if there were additional clues that made the whole thing creepy (tone of voice, phrasing etc.).
I studied computer engineering in Italy, and I can relate with the number of women being very low. I think there were maybe <10 women in the whole class on a ~60 people total after the first semester (starting with 250 people). Most of them were top of the class, which to me always suggested that while many men signed up and then “see how it goes”, only women who knew exactly what they wanted signed up.
It’s how women have to be excellent to make a male dominated thing a part of their life. It starts long before uni so you’re seeing it after other women have been knocked down and out of it.
Tbh, in Italy there is no much “before university” in terms of “being excellent”. The admission test was extremely easy, with a very high number of admitted students and on topics that are common to all high schools (we have a completely different school system in Italy). In fact, the vast majority of people in my class never studied those topics in high school. Also university costs were low (from 0 to ~2k/year depending on family income).
But I think that a mix of stereotypes (I.e. gender stereotypes), peer pressure (do you want to go study in a class 90% men) and other social issues definitely discourage all but the most motivated women to join, which is a shame.
The same exact thing applies to many other faculties of course. Psychology and “educational sciences” (literal translation) are basically just women (at least in Italy), which is exactly the same phenomenon.
Before university = the whole life lived as a girl before university is even in it. The whole time being held to a different standard, encouraged one way, discouraged another way, etc etc. Any interest or persuasion being dismantled and/or dismissed for decades before uni.
But what you are saying doesn’t match much the data (at least in Italy). In Italy females consistently get higher grades than miles, in all levels of school, and they do that from other women teachers (including STEM subjects).
How this matches “being held to a different standard”, for example?
They are the vast majority of schools in humanities (languages, classical studies, etc.) and all “licei” (=high schools created with the purpose of forming the ruling class back in 1920s) and they are the minority only in technical schools (which are generally lower quality schools more oriented toward professions than university) and in the scientific high school.
This also doesn’t seem to suggest any encouragement or discouragement in one direction or another, BUT it does match perfectly the culturally rigid gender stereotypes about women being more creative and fitting roles of care.
Also worth noting that women attend university in a higher % (56%) compared to men (also a result of gender stereotypes IMHO) and with higher grades on average. They are also the majority of PhD students (59%).
So my question I guess would be: why medicine and psychology are mostly and overwhelmingly women faculties, while engineering etc. are the opposite?
any interest or persuasion being dismantled and/or dismissed for decades before uni.
I wouldn’t say “any”, but I would absolutely say that interests in fields that are traditionally male-dominated are discouraged for women and viceversa (I have written in another comment, the imbalance in educational science is even higher than the one in engineering).
So I do see gender roles, I do see cultural influences about what is " for men" and “for women”, I don’t see the different standard women are held up to.
Dunja Mijatovic, commissioner for human rights at the Council of Europe, faulted Italy across multiple areas, lamenting that Italian courts and police sometimes revictimize the victims of gender-based violence and that women have increasingly less access to abortion services. She also noted Italy’s last-place in the EU ranking for gender equality in the workplace.
Absolutely…but how does that relate to the previous topic?
wow, that’s really out there for being bee movie erotica
Idk I’m pretty hard rn
Could be anaphylactic shock
