Some men still deny that mansplaining is a real thing or that even if it does exist, that it's a problem, but those men obviously have never had someone assume they were completely ignorant on a subject based solely on their gender.
@NicoleFroio A male ob/gyn told me that if I focussed harder on my work or picked up an interesting hobby my menstrual cramps wouldn't bother me so much.
— Kimberly Willardson (@kimberrry) May 18, 2017
For those still unconvinced that mansplaining is real, Twitter user @NicholeFroio asked other women to post the most obvious thing that was ever mansplained to them and the results are beyond depressing.
A man (a paramedic) told me not to worry about giving birth because it was no different or painful than pooping. https://t.co/31kKGohAdM
— Belinda McBride (@Belinda_McBride) May 17, 2017
There's a great round up of the responses on Buzzfeed and things men felt they had to explain to women include a man telling a woman her name was spelled wrong, multiple men telling women they didn't know the basics of the thing the woman had an advanced degree in, and men telling women how female bodies work.
So check out more of the responses here
I'm trying to give a benefit of doubt here. It's possible he was full of it as well.
Or maybe he didn't want to have to clean out a bunch of after-birth from the back of his vehicle.
Anyway... meh.
Your defending the guy in the motorcycle story shows that you really don't get it. Yeah, guys BS with each other, but they don't tend to go up to a random male stranger and act like he literally knows nothing. Try doing the exact same thing the guy in the story did to a male biker and you're likely to get punched in the face. And whether that bullshit comes from a place of flirting or the assumption that the woman really doesn't know anything doesn't make it better. Also, I don't know anyone who was impressed with the "I know everything/you know nothing" pick up technique in grade school, so anyone trying it as an adult really needs to grow the hell up.
I'm sorry that you think having emotions screwed you up for two decades. It's pretty hard to imagine how or why though when you literally have no examples and just complain that she "had me handle emotions like a woman would," which doesn't really seem like a problem. And sorry, but I didn't think we were having a contest over who had a worse experience, you talked about how I was being a hypocrite by criticizing medical professionals and I explained that many medical professionals still do stupid stuff.
Finally, I ignored the epidural question because the way you phrased it before didn't make it seem relevant to the conversation, but I get what you're saying so here goes. Yes, plenty of women get epidurals, but that just reduces the amount of pain you're going through and that drastically varies from woman to woman. I have heard of women who haven't had epidurals going through labor in five minutes and saying it was no worse than pooping. I've also heard of women with epidurals going through labor for 36+ hours and saying it was the most painful and awful experience of their lives.
You're right, the medic could have been talking from the point of reference of his wife's labor or the woman who delivered on the way to the hospital and had super easy deliveries. It was still an ignorant thing to say because no, you can't simply all women's labor experiences as being no worse than pooping, but hey, maybe he was the one guy on the list who wasn't actually mansplaining.
On the bike: Guys do stupid things around women, and even more-so if there's romantic interest. That may include pretending to know something they don't. Men actually do similar things around other fellas: We out-BS each other. If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bull. Alpha/beta stuff.
The cramps woman is well past menopause, so yeah the doc had outdated info. Sounds like he was treating her like a man (e.g., "walk it off") or maybe muscle cramps in general. As a young troubled teen child of the then-rare early '80s broken family, a female therapist had me handle emotions like a woman would. The emotional habits learned in those formative years screwed up my life for two decades--but sure, what either of your male OB/GYNs said was far worse.
Can you at least give me the answer to the epidural question, since that may be what the paramedic was talking about?
And PlaysWithWolves, yeah doctors and paramedics have experience with the medical side of things, but in these cases, neither of their pieces of advice are based on medical facts and these men have never and will never experience what they're trying to give advice on so yes, they would be better off staying silent rather than passing along incorrect information. I guarantee you any woman who has ever experienced bad cramps isn't going to tell you that getting a hobby will help.
Male OB/GYNs like this one are usually relics from a time before woman started taking over the field and unfortunately, they don't bother to read up on current medical science or even talk to their female colleagues about their personal experiences as people who actually have vaginas. I had a similar one who saw that I was thirty and hadn't had any children so he just assumed I never wanted to have kids. When I said I still did, he laughed and said "oh, so you're just a late bloomer." Maybe that was the case fifty years ago when he started in the field, but there are plenty of women these days who wait until their thirties to have kids. A quick look at his reviews online showed that he constantly made these types of outdated and offensive comments to his clients. Needless to say, I never went back.