Curious to hear examples of what men have assumed about the opposite sex, Redditor Top_Run4841 asked:
"What is one thing, that a man would never understand about women?"
Period pain was a heavily discussed topic.
Here Comes The Flood
"For me it’s when I’m peacefully sleeping in bed and I wake up and feel the gush when I’m laying down. It means I have to get up real fast and run to the bathroom to try to not ruin my sheets and clothes."
– whorgans
Bodily Response
"Laughing, coughing or sneezing - and promptly giving birth to a red jellyfish."
– groats219
"That and clots are the worst about periods aside from cramps."
– Pinecone55
Nothing Pleasant About It
"What an absolute annoyance having your period is. Everything about it is horrible."
– Kayakityak
Women discuss the emotional aspects of menstruation.
Uncontrollable Emotions
"Feeling sad and tired for no reason, because my body is starting to produce less serotonin before my period. I get so sad and I can’t do anything to feel happy for like 2-3 days a month."
– Organic_Ema
Deeper Than Depression
"The hormonal depression is the absolute worst. Somehow it's deeper than average depression. Just a horrible, lonely sinkhole. Even knowing why it's happening doesn't help."
"I face it by driving around, feeling somehow more than empty, trying to fight the urge to run away from my life and vanish into the dark like a dying cat."
– fifteenlostkeys
The Mood Swings
"The worst part for me isn’t the physical aspect. It does suck, but I have a harder time with the hormone cycles/mood swings every month. I get incredibly depressed, insecure, and have a hard time being around others."
– greenwitchery
Redditors mentioned the vulnerability felt by women.
Always Being Vigilant
"How the safety of where we go is always there. Like, I would love to go camping alone somewhere… would I? Nope. Leaving a store at night, we have to be on guard. Walking the dog at night or through woods alone? Always on guard."
– heathers1
These Low Effort Jobs Have Surprisingly High Salaries | George Takei’s Oh Myyy
Have you ever worked one of those jobs that paid you to kinda sit there? If you have, you know the joy that comes with watching the entirety of Breaking Bad ...Staying Alert
"The constant checking and awareness of your surroundings because you just don’t know when you could find yourself in a bad situation. I’m constantly figuring out my exit strategy when I’m in a new or unfamiliar place."
– peanutbutterismybf
Safety Precaution
"Also being mocked by men for taking reasonable safety precautions, like locking the doors when you are home alone, locking the car doors as soon as you get in the car, and looking around you to see who is nearby when you are walking from car to store, etc. Not all men do it, but some act as though you're paranoid and unreasonable."
– gracesw
Interpreting A Smile
"That even though we might be 'prettier if we smiled', we literally can't do that even if we want to, because smiling is interpreted by too many men as a sexual invitation. Men are drawn to smiling women like sharks to a bleeding baby seal."
– Haustvind
Sojourns
"My male friends are always like 'everyone should travel solo across Europe at least once in their life'… like no thank you I don’t want to disappear."
– chewypotato21
The Habit
"It's been drilled into me since I was a kid. 'Never go anywhere alone.' My mother would always tell me to take a friend with me even if just to go for the bathroom if we were "somewhere" (swimming pool, park, the mall, etc)."
"I think it's the case for most girls. We're told to do that since such a young age, we never really question it because it became a habit."
– mykingdomforawaffle
The Effect Of Strangers
"Why we are f'king terrified of y’all as strangers whenever we go out alone. I’ve tried to explain it to some and always get 'well all guys aren’t the same' THATS NOT THE POINT."
– cantbesohelpmenotbe
Other discomforts were discussed.
When The Wire Snaps
"Bras hurt. Sometimes the wire breaks free and attempts to impale the boob."
– InWake
Fancy TP
"High quality toilet paper is deeply important to women because we use it every single time we pee or poop and extra when we’re on our period."
– MyVillainOriginStory
Being Comfortable
"Holding my b00b means nothing s*xual. Sometimes I do it instinctively. It's comfortable and warm."
– Puzzleheaded_Net9759
What Guys See
"Having guys assume that smiling, talking, or otherwise showing basic human decency to them means we're flirting."
– White_Wolf_Dreamer
Pregnancy Aftermath
"How your brain gets re-wired by pregnancy. And I don’t just mean the 'I’ll kill anyone who tries to hurt my little bologna loaf.'”
"I mean how some foods you loved now taste like crap. And others you only tolerated taste like heaven. How some smells are now more intense or slightly off from before pregnancy. That you can’t remember how to drive a stick shift (true story, ground the gears for at least a month) but can put together some complicated as sh*t storage unit with no instructions and nothing but a pair of pliers and a nail file, while 8 1/2 mos pregnant."
"That you can spy a poisonous plant from 50 yards away but can’t find the orange behind your water glass. And that if/when you get pregnant again everything will get re/wired in a different way."
– meld68
For men who claimed to know a lot about women, it turns out they have much to learn, and the women of Reddit had no problems spelling things out for them about their gender-specific issues.
So gentlemen, think twice before you start mansplaining how the fairer sex might feel in any given situation. You may be gravely mistaken.
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Upon seeing the shirt, one student said to Leland:
"Mr. Schipper, I thought you were straight."
When he confirmed that he was, the student was confused why he would be wearing a rainbow shirt. What if someone thought he was gay?
Schipper's response is pure gold, and an excellent example of good allyship:
"They might...so what?"
A straight man being thought to be gay wasn't a bad thing—not something to be immediately or violently denied. He made the point that what others think of your sexuality is ultimately unimportant.
Leland went on to discuss his thoughts on the link between homophobia and unhealthy masculinity.
"I'm convinced the root of unhealthy masculinity is homophobia, and that becomes entrenched in middle and early high school years."
"Homophobia only ends if straight allies model to young kids, boys in particular, that being called gay isn't an inherently negative thing and doesn't require a defensive response."
"It's difficult to do, but if we take the homophobia out of schools, we not only improve the lives of LGTBQ+ youth, but all kids who fear being labeled as gay by their peers."
You can read Schipper's whole post below:
Schipper has focused on homophobia and toxic masculinity in his lessons in the past, too.
He wrote about one such lesson on Facebook (content warning: linked post contains a picture that includes anti-LGBT slurs in a teaching context).
"I am running another seminar this week addressing masculinity with a group of twenty 15-year-old young men. Yesterday we created this man box which represents what they think society expects men to be."
"These are their uncensored ideas, and the words around the outside are the words they hear their peers most frequently use if a male is 'stepping outside the man box' (i.e. showing emotions, asking for help, getting good grades, not wanting to have sex)."
"It becomes immediately clear through talking to boys and young men, the single most powerful thing that keeps boys inside the man box is homophobia."
The kids Schipper works with realize that a lot of their drive to avoid being seen showing emotion or doing other things considered un-manly is the desire to avoid being called gay.
They just don't always know what to do about it.
"They are all keenly aware that the fear of being labeled gay is one of the biggest road blocks preventing them from feeling comfortable stepping outside of the man box."
The boys in Schipper's lesson were ready to make a change.
They were:
"able to be deeply empathetic and reflective on how they accidentally perpetuate homophobia through their words and actions."
"We discussed how homophobia effects their openly gay peers, their questioning peers, and even straight males who feel pressure to prescribe to the strict rules of the man box."
Most importantly, after talking about the problem, the students were ready to commit to change.
"We ended with an agreement that they would all take a tiny step towards being LGBTQ+ Allies by focusing 100% on not using a single one of the man-box hate words for the rest of the day."
Change isn't easy, and mistakes will be made, but the boys' desire to be better was real.
"In my last block, one of the kids who had committed earlier that morning slipped up. He called another kid gay for not giving him his pencil back."
"He immediately made eye contact with me and said, 'It's hard Mr. Schipper, I know I said it, I'm sorry.' All I said was, 'At least you heard it, so now try again tomorrow.'"
The best part of this encounter was the student going on to explain the interaction to his classmates. He told them why his comment was wrong, about Schipper's lesson and why he was trying to be better.
The response to Leland's posts was overwhelmingly positive.
Amanda Moreno/Facebook
Dana Emmons Hutchins/Facebook
Many appreciated his efforts to make the world a better place.
David Peters/Facebook
David Thayne Martin/Facebook
Jessica Emerson Bingham/Facebook
This is all anyone can do—try to be better.
Mistakes will happen, but it is through efforts like this to de-stigmatize the LGBTQ+ community that everyone benefits.
Find your own rainbow state flag t-shirt here, and wear it proudly!
