“He Was Shocked”: 72 Women Share The Everyday Realities Of Womanhood Men Rarely Even Notice

Apparently women run a background threat-assessment app 24/7… meanwhile men are out here wondering if milk expires today or tomorrow.

Being objectified from a young age.

I developed early, and men took that to mean it is okay to sexualise a 10 year old. I got asked as an 11 year old if I got breast implants, I was told that I could not wear normal shirts because they would draw attention to my chest, got told I look really mature for my age so it is okay if they make disgusting jokes.

A younger boy asked me if he could get nudes from me while I was also still a minor, and I was told by my own father it was normal for their age, especially towards someone with my physique.

These are just one of many examples. But the objectification starts early, and we are being blamed for the responses of others towards our body.

That is why I hate it when people say that if a women dresses a certain way, they must want the attention. Meanwhile, I would like to dress in a lot of ways that I think look cute or cool, but I don't to avoid the responses of men and other people then telling it was my fault because I must have wanted the attention. As if I cannot just wear something because I think it looks nice, without wanting to be catcalled, stared at for too long or groped.

I complained about not having time to go for a run now it was winter. My husband was confused and suggested I go in the evenings.

He likes to run on the moors or in the deserted tracks through the woods. In his words the solitude is great for mental health and it’s fun to run with only a head torch in the dark.

It hadn’t occurred to him that that same solitude is unsettling and scary for a woman on their own. Run through the woods in the dark? It’s FUN! Yeah, we don’t live in the same world. That’s the kind of fun that means you disappear without trace as a woman and your face lives on staring out of a ‘MISSING’ poster.

The fact that if anything goes wrong, the woman will be blamed / questioned before any kind of action is taken on the perpetrator.


Creepy guy molested you? *But what were you wearing?*

Someone followed you home? *Why were you out so late at night?*

Being stalked? *What did you do to give him the wrong idea?*


Now, if anything bad ever happens, I am mentally ready with my side of the story because I know the questions will come. *I was fully clothed, I was walking in broad daylight, I didn’t make eye contact with him, I swear…* Sure would be nice to not have to preface a horrific story with, “ I didn’t do anything to antagonise them…”.

Period poops.

They are god awful, as if cramps and bleeding weren't bad enough.

Basically, a hormone is sent to trigger cramping to help shed the uterine lining. But, the body doesn't always do a good job of localizing this hormone, so it can spread all around the lower torso, causing back pain and muscle spasms....also causing cramping in the stomach and colon.

The stress of needing to clean pristinely if you’ve got people coming over.

My partner didn’t really get it - we have young kids, our lives are busy. In his mind, he knew that people would extend him grace and understanding for a messy house. In his mind, his mom is chill and not that tidy herself, so why would she care if she’s coming for a visit and the floors aren’t vacuumed?

But there are studies that show that men get a pass on a messy living space, and women do not. People don’t just judge the cleanliness more harshly if a woman lives there (as in, they’ll rate the same images as messier if told a woman lives there vs a man living alone), they make harsh judgements about that woman’s personality and character (she’s disorganized, she’s lazy, she’s inconsiderate, etc.) and don’t make those same judgments about men.

So… when women are frantically cleaning because someone’s coming over, they’re not overreacting or being fussy and anxious for nothing, they’re responding to a very real social threat that men simply do not experience.

The constant 'safety GPS' running in the back of our minds. It’s not just walking with keys between our knuckles. It’s choosing a longer route because one street has better lighting, scanning a parking lot before getting out of the car, or pretending to be on the phone so we don't look like an 'easy target.' Men see a walk home; we see a tactical maneuver.

Being the default in the relationship. The one who deals with all of the logistics of how the house is run, how the kids get taken care of, the family’s schedule. It’s exhausting.

Dying more easily in cars because they’re literally not built for us. When car companies are using impact dummies to test the vehicles and all that, the dummies are usually Male. Male height, weight, frame etc so the parameters are completely different and that’s been the norm since cars were built. So when women are in the car, they bounce around it crazy in comparison to men.

Couple months back, there was a family in an accident where the father was driving, his wife next to him, his son behind him and his daughter next to his son. They were T boned on the driver side by a speeding car. Father and son walked away with some scratches. Wife and daughter had to spend a week in the hospital because one had a broken neck, one had a serious concussion etc etc.

I’ve heard that some states are lobbying for car companies to make female dummies and thus reduce injury and death for women but who knows how that’ll go.

Trucker here.

I’ve had some lady truckers tell me that they have to pay way more attention to what truck stops they go to and have to be extra vigilant when stopping at night. Some of them have dogs with them for protection as well. This next part might be more of a convenience thing but they also have to plan bathroom breaks with more detail than guys because it’s not as easy for them to pull to the side of the road and take a leak if they had to. They also deal with a lot more slick comments from dudes who think that they should be making a sandwich instead of parking a semi.

Being treated like property of my husband by other men. My ex-husband and I were in a grocery store but he was in another aisle and this creepy old man was staring and following me. My husband finally joins me and the old man looks at him and apologizes and walks away.

Apologizing unnecessarily. My mom used to apologize anytime she was in someone’s way, despite her being there first or not even being intrusive of the space. So many women apologize for existing in a space. I used to do it until I asked myself why the hell am I apologizing for existing in this space? It’s one thing if I’m mindlessly hogging the aisle but not if I’m just standing and someone is walking by.

I never hear men apologize unnecessarily.

I was on a train the other day, an overnight train, and I looked to the guy next to me (over the aisle) and I could have sworn I caught him filming me. I didn’t have enough certainty to say anything but it reminded me that as a women those are things (noticed or not) we have to worry about. I prayed for a woman to come and be seated next to me and thankfully she was but still. I’m sure a man would never have to ever consider sny of that.

When you are underage dealing with the attention of adult men and dealing with whistling and catcalling, etc., etc., and when you became attractive to the age where you can be intimately active, the same men are starting to ignore you and not understanding, like, why this is happening.

Someone introducing Professors to others: 

This is Dr Jones (male professor)
This is Jane (female professor) 

Also, having to frame everything as a question to avoid coming off as ‘confrontational’

‘I wonder if we should scrap the blah in favour of blah?’ 
Rather than
‘Let’s scrap that and do blah’.

If you’re walking anywhere where there’s other people, if you don’t move out of people’s way, men will literally run into you because they expect you to move out of the way.

Not just in crowd situations either.

Without hormonal birth control:

How having a period not only affected me physically (pain, lot of blood, dizzy bc low iron, bowel issues, low energy) but also mentally (hating myself, negative thoughts about myself, thinking it'd be easier if I didnt wake up one day, everything feeling like I am doing everything in life wrong, feeling like people hate me, feeling ugly and greasy).

And basically the cycle was:

- week 1: feeling mentally off, starting to hate myself

- week 2: my period, symtoms as described above

- week 3: recovering my energy and starting to slowly feel better about myself, seeing the light at the end of the tunnel

- week 4: having a good week, I am productive, feel confident- wait

- next week I start feeling off again

I now understand not all women lose as much blood as I did (had to use heavy flow overnight pads every few hours on my worst day) , and not everyone get as depressed, I honestly didn't even know I was stuck like this in a loop till I got my IUD and stopped feeling this way. really felt like I only had about 7 days a month where I felt ok mentally and physically and had a full battery. I just got iron supplements and multivitamins as the only recommendation of my doctor when I sought help and the only reason I thought about getting birth control, was because I started dating.

I’m a lawyer and frequently have to go into court, so I must wear dress shoes. With women’s dress shoes, socks are almost never appropriate. So in the winter my feet are f-ing freezing while my male colleagues are snuggly-footed in the colorful socks their kids got them for Christmas. I genuinely find this so frustrating.

Probably the constant safety math in your head. Like choosing where to park, pretending to be on the phone, checking reflections, deciding how friendly is too friendly. It’s not fear all the time, it’s just background noise that never shuts off. Most guys I know are shocked when they hear how automatic that stuff is, like we don’t even think of it as “being careful,” it’s just normal life.

I'm so tired of the constant shock and "wow you're actually intelligent!"

Yes, that'll be the PhD. Funny that.