51 Of The Most Ridiculous Ways Fragile Masculinity Manifested In Men

He took the joking like a champ, but I used to have a customer (as a barista) who literally would not say the word “latte” because it wasn’t a manly drink. He would order “a large vanilla” and wouldn’t say the word latte.

There are more odious examples but that one always cracked me up/blew my mind.

I work in a skincare store. All of our products are gender natural. Men and woman have the same kind of skin, literally no difference.

We have a very small "men" section for those men who insist on men only products with those intense men scents. I had this one guy who came in, told me his concerns and what he wanted and in our men section, we just didn't have the products he needed so I gave him some options and he refused to look at any of the products because they weren't labeled "for men" even though they would immensely help him. I kept trying to explain to him the products weren't only for women. Both genders can use them and he made a big scene about going somewhere else for men products and left.

I can understand if I was showing him something with very fruity or floral scents (but even so those scents wear off after 30 minutes) but I was showing him things that pretty much had no smell to them. None of the packaging were even girly looking.

I was in high school and went to lunch with a guy that I liked, however it was definitively NOT a date. I had $20 cash and was going to pay, but he felt weird about it. So he asked me to give him the $20 in the car so he could pay at he register. Sooooo stupid.

One guy wanted to date me and I said "ok, let's get dinner, call me this weekend!". This was WAY to pushy and emasculating for him. Needless to say: we didn't date.

One of my co-workers dresses exclusively in military-styled attire, has an odd barking military-like manner of speaking and browses knifes and military gear when the work is slow. Whenever his competence is questioned (or whenever he just feels threatened) he will immediately jump to arguments like "I'm a MAN, not someone's boy", "I have DIGNITY" and will basically explain in a very dramatic way how it's beneath him to admit his mistakes.

He's not a bad guy at all, actually, but he is very, very over-the-top in defending his masculinity. He's also never been in the army from what I've heard.

I had a guy get upset on a date when I beat him at bowling.

I used to work in a jail as a civilian worker. When I was hired, I was told I would not ever have to work directly with inmates without a deputy present. 4 years later, I get a recently promoted sergeant who was out to prove himself. We were short staff and he tried to force me to working in a housing unit alone with male inmates with nothing to protect myself with (deputies who normally work those areas get a taser). I was the best trained booking specialist, who was also trained in other easential areas so there was no reason besides him being on a power trip to have me doing that job that day. I flat out refused due to what I was told at hiring. If I had to work directly with inmates I would have not taken the job. He tried to get me written up for insubordination to prove a point, but my Lieutenant actually took my side. I was I think 1 of 4 females on that team that has 20 people on it including the deputies and specialists. I even had to have a meeting with him about my insubordination, where I stood my ground and said that even though he was the sergeant, I was not working that specific job. He did make my life a living hell though until I quit half a year later to move in with my boyfriend now husband.

There was this guy - just one year older than me who hired my husband and I on different positions in his small business (I left in less than 2 months). While he seemed to worship my husband, he micromanaged and second guessed everything I did, even questioning my ability to work remotely (I was part time there and he knew I did remote work for several other clients) because "who's there to check up on you?"... He was positively shocked one day to discover that I have a PhD (aparently skipped actually reading my resume) and would almost not believe it, kept going: "YOU have a PhD?!", which I found quite offensive. And after I quit, for very good reasons, he tried to pull one of those "women, eh?" kind of rethoric on my husband, implying that women weren't cut for that 100% office job. Needless to say, it didn't go over well. And I found out he had been a jerk to other women in the workplace before on that account, his own wife included (hence she stopped working there but is sadly still married to him).

Worked at a daycare. Dad of one of the babies wouldn’t put her jacket on her and had a staff member do it.

My x and I lived together.

We needed some wood-work done, and since both of us are not at all handy, nor had the tools, I suggested we start looking for someone cheap to hire. I also suggested we get his grandfather to look for us, because he owns a residential building and knows all the good maintenance people etc.

My boyfriend looked *stricken*, and asked “*You don’t think I could do it*”, and I had to reasonably explain why I didn’t think so, while coddling his feelings.

My older male boss consistently gets threatened when I come up with a good idea and pretends that it would never work when I present it to him one on one.

Next thing I know, I see on the agenda for leadership meetings "Discuss [insert my great idea] here". Everyone praises him for how innovative and creative he is. Cool.

Or the amount of times I have put together a presentation for him which he then puts his own name on.

The constant taking credit of MY work is exhausting. God forbid our CEO ever think a good idea came from a millennial woman instead of my fragile white baby boomer boss who enjoys spending his lunch break on the phone shouting at customer service reps at the cable company.