"He'd Literally Never Thought About It In His Life": 35 Basic Things About Being A Woman That Too Many Men Don't (Or Won't) Understand

Recently, u/astandre1 asked women on Reddit to share the most basic things about the female experience that they've had to explain to men, and the replies made my eye twitch so bad that I need to share them. Here are some of the top rated replies:

1."I was telling this guy about my friend who is lacking support in her marriage, and he said, 'How could he support her? He’s working.' I was like, 'She’s working, too?' And he just couldn’t compute."

2."I always talk about how I love the city at night and how I wish I could take midnight walks. A dear friend said, 'Why don't you?' And when I pointed out how dangerous it was, his reply was, 'Just don't take your phone, then you don't have to worry about being robbed!' :D."

—u/chemistfaust

3."Went on a date with a guy in the medical field. He told me that because mitosis (the process of cells separating) is an involuntary process, growing and birthing a baby really isn’t that much effort for women. He also believed that women and men put in the same amount of effort for the birthing of a child."

—u/westmelancholy

4."Coworker and I were at a Mexican restaurant during lunch midweek. Which made it mostly men and me and the waitresses. My coworker was having a 'not all men' moment while I listened patiently. When he finally took a breath, I said, 'OK, sure. Do me a favor. Look around and tell me which one I'm SUPPOSED to be scared of?' He looked surprised then looked around before answering, 'How should I know??' I just smiled and said 'Exactly.' I actually saw the light bulb click on in his head."

5."My 50-year-old male coworker invited me (a 31-year-old woman) to attend a salsa party with him. I told him that I generally don’t go to places with a lot of men under the influence of alcohol without my fiancée because I don’t want to be drugged or assaulted. He then asked me how I could be so arrogant to assume random men would be so interested in me that they’d go to these lengths to get with me. When I responded, ‘I’ve had that happen to me more than once, and I don’t want to go through that again,’ he started asking me invasive questions about the incidents to determine if HE’d consider the things that happened to me assault. I hit back with the most graphic trauma-dump of what happened to me and made him so uncomfortable that he had to step out for a bit. He did end up apologizing for his behavior, and we now just generally ignore each other."

—u/iloverainclouds

6."My brother legitimately thought women could walk into an OBGYN to get a hysterectomy whenever we want if we don't want kids. LMAO."

—u/fvck_videos

7."A lighthearted one, but I was pretty surprised when men in the office began claiming the women’s bathroom was very fancy strictly because we had a box of tampons."

8."Pants sizing. I was talking to a male coworker, and somehow, it came up that women's clothing sizes are whack. I think I was griping about inconsistent sizing. I mentioned how I wish I could buy pants by the waist and length (like how men's are sized). He asked, 'Well, why don't you?' 'Because women's pants aren't labeled like that.' 'Well, why don't you just get ones that are?' 'Because men's pants are sized like that, not women's.' 'Why don't you just buy men's?' 'They don't fit me right....' 'So why don't you buy women's?' 'I do, that's the whole point. I wish they were sized in a way that made sense, and not just some arbitrary numbers. I'm different sizes in different brands.' He just couldn't understand that women's pants are cut differently, and that just buying men's pants wouldn't work for me."

—u/leahs84

9."My ex-boyfriend was convinced that if a woman miscarried a child, it was because she didn't truly want it on some deep down level. I still get so mad thinking back to that moment."

—u/pondering_giraffe

10."A male friend genuinely asked if feminism was 'still a thing.'"

11."I got my period while hanging out with my then-boyfriend. He said, 'Why can’t you just use a Q-tip?'"

—u/gloriah098

12."One of my male doctors recently told me, 'You're 29, not 19 anymore,' to explain my symptoms of extreme pain and fatigue among other things. Spoke to a female doctor next. She suspects it's fibromyalgia."

—u/lozt_at_sea

13."I wanted to take Plan B after having unprotected sex, and he said, 'Why don't we discuss that in a few weeks?'"

14."Several male friends have asked me recently why I will only go running when it's light out. They are also very confused by why I don't have earphones in when I go hiking. It's not so much the confusion that bothers me, it's when I explain, but they really just don't get it. I am met with disbelief."

—u/redonreddit24

15."When I told my ex that I have my period for about seven days (the last two to three are very light bleeding). He told me to go to the doctor about that because seven days is just too long. He just didn't want to wait seven days until I was ready to have sex again."

—u/flyhigh_divedeep

16."An ex-boyfriend told me that women needed to wash the inside of their vaginas because 'that’s where pee comes from. There are only two holes, the vagina and the anus, right?' My jaw dropped. We were over 20 years old, both in university."

17."When I vented to a coworker about a terrible experience being cat-called while on a walk during COVID. His response was that I should take it as a compliment."

—u/nananana15

18."My dad somehow went almost 60 years completely unaware that public bathrooms often have lines because he's never had to wait in one."

—u/ewace246

19."My partner said looking after a baby all day was 'easy.'"

20."That my boobs 'weren’t that big' when I was talking about getting a reduction. Dude, you don’t get to decide what is 'too big.'"

—u/missingvertical

21."Toward the end of what had been up to that point a very positive job interview (he was actually offering me the job), he said, 'Well, I’m glad to hear you just got married so you don’t have to support yourself. I can offer you $X for the position.' I told him I wasn’t taking a pay cut to work for him."

—u/utisthata

22."My friend said that women don’t grow facial hair, so I had to explain how often I needed to wax my mustache."

23."Once a man said, 'Isn’t it hilarious when the Uber driver has to wake you up when they drop you off?' And I said, 'Yeah, I don’t know of any woman who thinks falling asleep in an Uber is ever an option.' He said, 'Oh wow, never thought about that.'"

—u/automatic-ad-2120

24."'Why did it suddenly have to be because of a man?' My boyfriend’s response to me being mad that a coworker dismissed the same idea from her entire team (all women), our boss (a woman), myself (a woman), yet accepted it as gospel from the first male who said the exact same thing directly after I said it. My response was telling him what happened and him saying, 'Maybe she just needed to hear it four or five times, or the way he said it, or maybe, just maybe, she needed it said in a less bitchy tone.' No, no sir, women everywhere get their ideas dismissed, then when men repeat those ideas, they are accepted. It happens ALL THE TIME!"

—u/waiting_4_nothing

25."My ex genuinely thought our kids were all boys because they were planned and wanted. Apparently, unwanted or unplanned pregnancies are always girls. Go figure."

26."While on vacation with my S.O., I commented on how fucked up it is that I automatically brace myself anytime a man walks behind me while we were drinking at a bar. He honestly didn't know what I meant, and so I told him about all the times someone had treated my body as a free-for-all when I was out. It kind of shocked me that he wasn't aware of this, as he had worked security for bars for years. A couple of years later, he came home from work one night and told me he'd spotted a guy grabbing a woman's ass in passing. He promptly took the guy outside, gave him a lecture, and refused to let him back in. Later on, he was relaying this to a bouncer at another bar. The same guy comes up with his friends, and my S.O. promptly refused him access to that bar as well."

—u/whupdidup

27."I told two friends (a husband and wife) about catching a plumber looking through my dresser drawer. They both looked aghast, and then the guy said, 'I hate it when people touch my stuff! Like, somebody at work moved my lunch, and I got super upset.' The look the wife and I shared said a thousand words."

—u/strugglebussince85

28."Oh, I have a doozy. The other day I was chatting with a male acquaintance, and he was talking about his female housemate and how she dressed. His words were, 'She's got a large chest, and she wears these low cut dresses. She's got to expect men to come up and say hello.' He went on to say a few more things that basically equated to 'if you dress a certain way, you get treated a certain way.' My jaw dropped. I had to explain to him how having cleavage doesn't give anyone the right to do or say anything and how men need to control themselves. Explaining to a fully grown man that a piece of clothing is not consent and them being surprised by that in this day and age is just freaking shocking."

29."When I was 19, I worked in a frozen yogurt shop, and a rush of young kids would come in every day after school, and it was absolute pandemonium. One of these afternoons, I was ringing up an older guy (maybe 70s), and he said, 'It's a good thing you're a woman. You're more equipped for this kind of thing than a man. Your natural instincts make it easy.' I just looked at him and said, 'That's not really how it works. Have a nice day.'"

—u/half_cactus

30."My dad said, in reference to the scene in Barbie where her ass is slapped at the beach, that no man does that, and no woman has that done to them, and that it was a major over-exaggeration. I had to leave the room I was so deeply angry. He has witnessed me being verbally sexually harassed since I was 12."

—u/sunshinecryptic

31."I asked to go to the bathroom at school, and the teacher said no. I told him I was on my period and 'no' was not an option. This DUDE told me to fucking hold it. 'You can hold it 'til class is over.' SIR, that’s not how that works. I just left, LMAO, but like??? Seriously?? Dude was married, too. His poor wife."

32."I was once on the phone with my husband as I visited a gas station, at night. I had to go into the convenience store, and I don’t remember why, but I said something about locking my car doors on the way in. He said, 'You lock the car doors just to run into the convenience store? Are you leaving your purse in the car or something?' I replied, 'No…I lock them so I don’t have to worry about some guy slipping into the backseat and hiding while I’m gone.' He was shocked that I do that. He said he’d literally never thought such a thing in his life. Sigh…"

—u/haybay727

33."My boss got real excited to share his discovery of a close parking spot to our workplace that is always available. The secret spot? In a dark alleyway. I unfortunately had to inform him that as a woman there is no way I could ever do that safely. He paused, and it was like a lightbulb went off in his head, like he got a true glimpse of how we live in two different worlds."

—u/herbea

34."I was in a crowded area near my family, holding a drink. I asked my mom to keep an eye on my drink for me. My dad blurts out, 'Do you really think someone is going to steal it?' SMH."

35.And finally, "My husband sees clearly edited photos (I am talking almost cartoonish) and thinks: Yup, that makes sense."

—u/disastrous_sum

Can you relate? Share your experiences in the comments!