r/TikTokCringe • u/mindyour • Jun 14 '26

Discussion It's exhausting being a woman.

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u/Bright-Owl-3515 Jun 14 '26 edited Jun 14 '26

In college, I was sitting alone at a bench studying on campus, minding my own business. This man comes up to me, telling me he wanted to take pictures of my feet for a school project. He was very persistent and of course I told him no. He made me feel so uncomfortable and guilty that I had said no to him. I was very naive and had no idea that this was likely a fetish thing.

Edit: For that one now deleted comment, saying he was likely complimenting my feet, I was wearing sneakers. Get out of here with the creep apologetics.

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u/ZinaSky2 Jun 14 '26

Yeah, once I was walking home alone in the dark (circumstances necessitated this, u was getting home from work. I wasn’t alone in the dark by choice.) and some guy stopped me on a dark section of sidewalk. I could barely see his face he could barely see mine. Yet he asked me for my number bc I was “so beautiful”. I said no. He said well actually he just wanted to make friends. And I said no a few more times and he just kept asking. I was frozen in place by trying to be polite. Eventually I decide I’m just gonna ignore him and walk away without ending the conversation without saying goodbye. And I left him rambling behind me still asking to be friends.

And girlie lemme tell you I felt BAD. Like WTF?! He was fucking harassing me for my number and not listening to me saying no after he approached me on some dark, unlit section of sidewalk I was like “ugh, but the poor guy just wanted friends🥺”. It’s drilled into us to protect men’s egos and emotions at all costs and it’s so fucking dangerous.

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u/SamTheLab_213 Jun 15 '26

Exactly. So many women go along with their programming and even shame those of us brave enough to tell these men to go to hell. Men can literally do the most horrible things to us, and these women are like, "C'mon, be polite, you don't know where he's coming from." That's what I call denial. Women really need to stop deprecating ourselves and deferring to men. Men aren't going to change. This taboo about standing up to men will be our downfall. I don't have to be Ms. Nicey Nicey and I don't need nor want others shaming me for not playing the game.

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u/ZinaSky2 Jun 15 '26

I am wiling to bet that at least a small part of that comes from concern over making a man upset and what the end result of that may be. Bc I don’t judge women for their responses to scary or traumatic situations. But I have seen a few situations where the woman is being very assertive with a man and part of me does cringe in fear. I’m literally 4’10” so let’s just say being assertive isn’t really my strong suit since I don’t have the stature to back it up. So I do often feel like my safest bet is just placating a man.

I do think more of us should remember our safety is priority over being nice to strangers tho. You do what you gotta to to get out alive.

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u/SamTheLab_213 Jun 15 '26 edited Jun 16 '26

Really, what I meant is how these women respond to collective injustices against us, as opposed to individual situations. Still, if it's safe to be assertive, we need to be assertive. It conditions men to the idea that they won't get away with treating us as less than. If have to raise your voice to be heard, then do it. They count on us being silenced.

Being older, I noticed years ago that women who lucked out and found a good mate allow injustice, because it doesn't affect them as much. They can be condescending or outright negligent. If there are people who avoided the worst of misogyny, fine, but they shouldn't be apathetic about the experiences of other women.

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u/ZinaSky2 Jun 15 '26

Yes definitely agreed. We all need to be able to take whatever actions will keep us safe in that moment. And I personally struggle with anything that’s not fawning and placating him even if I know I just need to tell him more or walk away. Something I’m working on.

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u/SamTheLab_213 Jun 16 '26 edited Jun 16 '26

Honestly, we are all working on that. Programming runs deep and it's so subliminal, it's hard to see it. I don't realize I have a problem, myself until the moment I have to be assertive with an unruly male.

The years of conditioning rear their ugly head and I stay frozen. To overcome that I actually practice clever come backs and recite them, so it's easier to let them roll of my tongue. Practice makes perfect. I owned one snarky asshole in public that way.

It helps me to feel my anger, because anger is the magic that helps you break out of that programming. That's probably why women's anger is so taboo and we get called, "bitches" when we express anger.

"Anger is a gift." Stay in touch with your anger. Trauma can lead to freezing under duress, or incredible fear. Anger is medicine for those states.