This happened this year.

I had set up my optometrist appointment online, a week in advance. I had the option to choose between a female or a male optometrist. I chose the woman.

When I arrived for my appointment, I was told by the clerk at the front desk that the optometrist I had chosen (the woman) was running behind on appointments, but that the male optometrist would be able to "fit me in" to his schedule. I asked how long I would need to wait to see the female optometrist. She said it would be an hour wait. I said that I would wait.

The male optometrist was in the lobby, apparently, talking to a patient. As I was filling out forms, he approached me. Said that he couldn't help but overhear me at the front desk. Said he wanted to know why I wanted a female optometrist specifically. I told him it would simply be more comfortable for me. (I knew better than to tell him that I did not feel comfortable being alone with a man in a room, especially when - at some point during the exam - the lights would be turned off.)

He seemed agitated. "You do realize that I'm a professional, right? That I have absolutely no interest in doing anything untoward?" I gave an uncomfortable smile and said, "Sure. I guess I understand that." Then he got hostile. "So why be like this? What are you trying to accuse me of?"

Before I could answer, the front desk clerk had come out from behind her desk, put her arm around his, and began to pull him away. She apologized to me afterwards. I was able to see the female optometrist shortly after (it didn't take nearly as long as the hour that they said it would), and was able to get my new glasses a week after this appointment.

It's bizarre to me that men will become so hostile at the mere hint that they will not be given access to a woman's body. I hesitated to even write anything about this, but I just needed to get it off my chest, so to speak. I'm glad I stood my ground and made them let me see the female optometrist. Men are so unhinged, and it only seems to be getting worse with time.

My distrust of men has only grown since this incident, and I'm increasingly not wanting to be around men at all.

EDIT: This post is clearly marked with a WOMEN ONLY flair. I do not want opinions from males, so stop crossing this boundary with your comments.

I’ve been going on daily hikes with my kid. Today a woman approached me and let me know there was a man up the trail exposing himself. She pulled out her taser and scared him off.
I went ahead and called police. She didn’t speak English and was worried about being undocumented so she was afraid to call.
She then tells me the is the second time she’s seen him. She had taken a picture of his car the last time it happened to keep an eye out.
I hate that she was exposed to that.
I’m happy that she had protection.
I’m glad she warned us.
I’m sad that she never felt she could report it without getting in trouble.
I’m upset that now I have to be even more vigilant on our hikes.
Do I even want to go anymore?

And then I come home and see all these posts about how that “comedian” was right and women dress like whores.
When fitness bros wear just as little clothing as them. Can we start calling any person who doesn’t wear a shirt whores too? I see guys on my running trail without shirts all the time, are they whores?

I’m so tired.

What?????? I’ve been seeing this claim all over the place since the Shane Gillis comment. I’ve even been seeing WOMEN say this. WHAT?!

People say things like “if women don’t dress for men, then how would they dress in women’s only gyms? I’m sure they’d wear t shirts and baggy sweats”

This is just outrageously stupid and false, so obviously false and so easily proven wrong that I feel like these people must be living under a rock. Has anyone ever stepped foot in a Pilates, yoga, cycling studio etc? Or any exercise-club type of organization that’s predominantly women? (Not saying men can’t do these things just that they’re almost always full of just women)

Women literally wear the exact same things, if not LESS of it.

It makes me so mad that so many people are so convinced that women dress for men, and it makes me self conscious about what I’ve been wearing because NOW I’m thinking about how men are perceiving me when before I was straight up just wearing what I was comfortable in.

I usually wear a tank top and shorts to the gym. I recently started wearing biker shorts sometimes because they don’t ride up and most running shorts have “underwear” inserts that dig into my crotch and HURT after a while!!!! Biker shorts feel like nothing. Plus I don’t get why long leggings are okay, shorts are okay, but biker shorts (which are no tighter or shorter) are “whorish”????

I get that some tight shorts are particularly revealing. Is it sometimes jarring to see an outline of someone’s genitalia a little too clearly? Yes. But the automatic assumption that they’re trying to what, display their labia to whore themselves out for men ?? is just flat out ridiculous. Men are actually delusional.

Also, I do find it interesting that men only seem to notice this about women who meet a certain beauty standard. Two women could be wearing the exact same thing, one a fit 22 year old and the other a middle aged plus sized woman—the young woman would be called a whore and the older woman would be called disgusting. So which is it? Or is it just that instead of admitting that you can’t keep your eyes off of women at the gym who DONT WANT YOU, you’d rather call them whores hoping that the world will believe it’s YOU rejecting THEM?

GOD I used to try to defend men from the whole man-hater thing but recently they have just been on a new level.

I’m 33F, married to my husband (33M) for over 12 years, together 15 years, and we have two young children (9 and 2).

I’m at a point where I genuinely don’t know what to do anymore. I love my husband. I want to be married to him. I want to raise our kids together, travel together, enjoy our life, and grow old together. I don’t want someone else. I want him.

But I’m starting to believe he may not be capable of giving me the kind of partnership I need.

My husband struggles with anxiety, emotional regulation, and executive functioning, although he refuses to acknowledge it. I’ve spent years trying to understand and accommodate these challenges. I’ve also spent years working on my own mental health (mdd, cptsd, adhd) through therapy and other treatments (Spravat, TMS, countless med changes) and I’ve made a lot of progress.

The problem is that every time I start feeling healthier and more at peace, another incident happens that sends me spiraling emotionally.

He gets overwhelmed, becomes angry, yells, withdraws, or physically leaves. And afterward, there’s never an apology, acknowledgment, or attempt to repair things. We just eventually go back to normal.

A recent example: We’re on a family vacation in Mexico. I planned a day trip to an island, organized transportation, rented a golf cart, and built in extra time. When our taxi arrived, he wasn’t ready and spent another 20 minutes doing things he’d had all morning to do. He wakes up super early and spends his mornings doing god knows what around the resort, probably working on his laptop I would imagine.

When we arrived, there was some confusion about the golf cart pickup. I found a coffee shop for the kids and my sister-in-law to hang at while we figure things out, and I get them settled to find my husband walked off because I can only assume the stress of the plans not going smoothly upset him and he seemingly can’t stand to be around me when I’m stressed and trying to pick up the pieces and figure out a game plan with no help from him of course. Once I had a plan, I had to track him down in the streets of this small island so we could pick up the cart together.

He ended up screaming at me while we walked down the sidewalk and swearing at a street vendor. I was humiliated.

What struck me was that I could recognize he was overwhelmed and dysregulated, but I also felt like it was my responsibility to calm him down otherwise I would have had a miserable day.

I didn’t want to spend the day without him for some fucking reason. I wanted to enjoy it with him and our kids.

This is a recurring theme in our marriage. He’s left me at concerts, walked away while we’re shopping, and regularly disappears in the early mornings on family vacations while I’m left to wake up, get myself around while managing the kids and figuring out our plans. When I ask where he is or when he’ll help, he gets upset.

He tells me that I stress him out and that my needs and expectations are too much for him.

I don’t know what goes on in his head. Sometimes I wonder if being around me is genuinely so stressful that he needs to escape. And that thought is devastating.

I feel like I’ve spent years trying to understand him, accommodate his needs, and become a healthier partner. But I don’t feel like he has the same interest in understanding me.

What hurts most isn’t even the outbursts themselves. It’s the complete absence of repair afterward.

He doesn’t come back and say, “I’m sorry I yelled. I was overwhelmed, but you didn’t deserve that. I want to work on this.”

I would give almost anything to hear those words.

During our most recent argument, he told me to leave the relationship and said he wasn’t going to change. It was in the heat of the moment, but he hasn’t revisited the conversation or apologized since.

I’m starting to realize that I can’t make someone want to work on themselves or care about how their behavior affects me.

And that’s where I’m stuck.

I don’t want a divorce. I want a marriage where we both feel understood, supported, and emotionally safe. But I don’t know how to keep trying when it feels like I’m the only one trying to repair things.

Has anyone been in a marriage like this?

• Did your partner eventually recognize the pattern and genuinely work on it?
• If they did, what actually led to that change?
• How did you stop taking responsibility for your partner’s emotional regulation without becoming completely disconnected?
• If you eventually left someone you still loved, how did you come to terms with that decision?

I’m especially interested in hearing from people who genuinely wanted their marriage to work but reached a point where love alone didn’t seem to be enough.

I’m not looking for a perfect husband. I just want a partner who wants to meet me halfway.

Snippet:

• Nearly half of Cornell University students found responsible for sexual assault in recent years were punished with extra study programs and written reprimands – but avoided suspension or expulsion, a CNN review of school records found.
• That pattern of relatively lax response by Cornell officials now faces national scrutiny after a woman alleged she was gang raped at a fraternity house.

Just two Cornell students were expelled after being found responsible for sexual assault between mid-2020 and mid-2024, according to the most recent data released by the university. In all, Cornell reviewed 51 formal complaints about sexual assault in that time frame and found students responsible in 16 cases.

• Those statistics highlight a significant problem of Cornell officials minimizing accounts of abuse, five current and former students who filed sexual misconduct complaints at the university told CNN.
• Some of those students say the university found their attackers responsible for the assault – only to let them off the hook with light punishments.

I just turned 30 and I’ve never had sex. I went to a new Dr. recently and filled out all of the paperwork etc. I told her that I had never had sex at all. She still wanted me to make a plan with her to have a Pap smear since I am overdue and my last one couldn’t be completed because it hurt. After the visit I saw in the portal that they also used my urine sample to test for STD’s. I’m just so confused. Why do drs assume you are lying about being sexually active? It’s more embarrassing to tell the truth at my big age.

Ive been friends with this guy for a little over 7 years now. We met in college and I thought he was cute but ofc he turned out to be gay. Which is fine because im an ALLY and have always supported him even when he talks about men for literally 45 minutes straight and expects me to care.

But ever since this Cornell case happened hes been consuming all this redpill misogynistic content on youtube and I swear to god its like his entire personality has changed. Every single time I see him he HAS to bring it up. He knows all the text messages, all the details, all the names, meanwhile I have seen like 4 tiktoks and a headline but somehow I KNOW WHAT HAPPENED. I just do.

He keeps trying to explain to me that its a messy case and that we should wait for all the facts. WAIT FOR WHAT????? MORE FACTS????? How many facts do men need before they can admit other men are bad. Like seriously do we need a 400 page report, 3 documentaries and a powerpoint presentation for people to understand that "free pussy upstairs" is a weird thing to say about a woman???

And hes calling Jane Doe by her real name which he got from some incel forum, which is literally so gross. I dont even know if thats actually her name but the fact that hes saying it like he knows her personally is so weird. He keeps bringing up the texts she sent afterwards and apparently this is supposed to mean something but I dont care. I KNOW SHE WAS RAPED. I dont need to read every single text message to know what happened. I have intuition and honestly thats basically the same thing as evidence sometimes.

And the worst part is that this is my GAY FRIEND. I thought gay men were supposed to understand women. Now hes watching these videos and repeating talking points ffromdisgusting men. I honestly think youtube has destroyed his brain. One minute hes talking about a normal thing and the next minute hes explaining the legal definition of consent to me like sir I have literally been a woman my entire life I think I would know.

At this point I want to end the friendship. SEVEN YEARS down the drain because he decided to become a podcast bro. I dont even know how to have this conversation because what if he gets mad? I dont think he would actually hurt me but im thinking of meeting him in public just in case. Maybe at a Starbucks where there are witnesses and cameras. Or Target because I feel like women are safer at Target for some reason.

Our kickball season just ended so I feel like this is the perfect time to cut him off. I have never ended a friendship before and im genuinely freaking out about it. Do I text him? Call him? Meet him in person? Do I send a 12 page google doc explaining why hes a misogynist? I could include screenshots but then that would make me just as bad as him with the screenshots and honestly I dont need that kind of negativity in my life.

I just dont understand how someone can be gay AND still defend men. Like pick a struggle.

Has anyone else had to end a friendship because someone became politically insufferable? How do you even do this without making it a whole thing? I dont want to argue about the case anymore because every time he brings up another text message I can feel my brain cells dying and I need those for other things, like being a woman.

Please help because I am literally losing my mind over this and I know some people will say im being dramatic but honestly I dont think im being dramatic at all. I just think all men are suspicious now.

It feels like the person asked to give up their seat on a plane is almost always a woman.

and if i think about how the ask goes,its always a man, a couple or a family and wants to sit together and the person they approach is the lone woman in the aisle seat and if you say no, you get a sigh or a look or even a flight attendant sent over. Say yes and you go from the aisle you chose to a middle seat in row 31

I believe the reason is that women are the easiest to ask and idk about you guys but i think women are more likely to say yes and more likely to be punished socially if we don’t. It isn’t about being nice but about knowing how the next six hours go if you refuse.

What bugs me is that seat selection is a paid fee now and when i book through rift flights or skyscanner,I pick my seat on the same minute, because otherwise I end up in whatever’s left and I feel really bad asking someone to give up a seat they paid because its just asking them to eat a cost

And swapping is fine when it’s equal, aisle for aisle, and nobody should expect more. Airlines should seat families together without leaning on strangers and I’m less willing to swap into a seat beside a man I’ve never met than beside a kid and I don’t think I should have to explain that.

Sorry if i am over reacting but i am posting this while waiting for my cab at airport rn ,I had a really uneasy experience while flyin right now(Hate you bald guy i hope you read this)

A few years ago I had spoken extensively to a male friend about how difficult my calculus class was. Like half way through the semester he was shocked to discover I was taking actual calf and not business calc… even though we had discussed it multiple times. I just experienced the same thing with a different male friend, Ive been telling him for months about my nursing program, about how i‘m scared for clinical, I even told him about me taking the prereqs to get in. Yesterday he asking me if i was going to community college to be a nursing assistant, and when I said I would be an rn, he said “ like a real RN?”.

You see a lot of men, often the ones with muscles, but also those with less "aspirational" bodies, reveal a lot of their bodies. In the summer you see men bare chested in just shorts walking along the street. You see men in gyms in tight singlets and short shorts. It's not unusual to see men of all shapes and sizes in budgie smugglers on the beach. Or cycling shorts. Neither leave much to the imagination.

Yet they are not made to feel like their worth is inversely proportion to the square cms of the cloth that clothes them. Or if it's tight against their skin.

But a woman? She's a whore if she is wearing anything that reveals her body. Or dresses "sexily". She can be attacked and some people will say, "what did she expect? She was dressed like a whore".

The ongoing battle against these glaring double standards is far from over. It's so fucked-up, yet it's so normalised that people defend this mindset. The gaslighting is on a grand scale and it's exhausting.

SPOILERS, don't read ahead if you haven't seen the movie yet.

I just walked out of Other Mommy, and after sitting with the movie for a little bit, I'm quite stunned by the covertly misogynistic undertones. Little summary: Jessica Chastain's character is a captain of industry working mother, while Jay Duplass is an affable stay-at-home dad. Chastain's lack of maternal desire spawns a ghoulish alter-- the Other Mommy-- who tries to seduce her child away from her.

Chastain's character is definitely imperfect (implied to have been having an affair with Duplass's best friend), but the horror doesn't come from her character flaws. The horror seemed to be "wow, this mother is a workaholic! She cares more about business than being a mom!"  At the end of the movie, Chastain admits directly to her daughter's face that she never wanted to be a mother (adding that Duplass desperately wanted to be a father), and this admission banishes the demon from the home.

I feel like if the shoe was on the other foot, there really wouldn't be much of a horror movie; a reluctant father decides to become a hard-working provider for his family so that his wife can stay home and be the mother she always dreamed of being. This fictional father would be hailed as a hero, but in Other Mommy, Chastain's desire for an identity outside motherhood is considered her most cardinal sin.

There was also strong messaging that Chastain was an inadequate female role model for her daughter (the daughter does makeup and paints nails with her male babysitter instead of bonding with her mother). It just felt like the film was highlighting how much of a failure Chastain was as a mother (for doing nothing wrong except taking on the more traditionally masculine role in the family)  

I'm just curious if anyone else who saw this film picked up on this message.

EDIT: Damn, this same post in r/movies got me not one but two direct messages telling me to kill myself. Kindly sticking to this sub instead ♡

Mostly just vent but I feel like my friend, female and same age as me, has gotten way too dependent on my boyfriend. She’s living in a single this year so she’s pretty lonely and asks to come over a lot when I’m spending time at my boyfriend’s.

Me and him split groceries so I’m often at his place to cook and get fed so she often comes over and he ends up cooking for the both of us. He also is one of the only people we know that brought his car to college so he often drives the two of us back home as we live close to each other.

This resulted in her saying that she felt spoilt by him and his car and she doesn’t want to walk around anymore and I guess it just really rubbed me the wrong way. She also felt sick lately and felt unwell and asked me to walk her back home from school but my boyfriend just picked us up. She also had a bad fall and just called my boyfriend to take her to the hospital in the morning. After this she straight up asked me if she could stay at my boyfriend’s house for hours to be fed as she didn’t think she could cook for herself after the accident.

I feel bad feeling so terrible about this because she’s a really great friend to me and takes care of me a lot, not even mentioning how it isn’t even her fault she’s been sick or hurt so much, but I really can’t help just feeling jealous and spiteful that she relies on my boyfriend so much when I feel like that’s something that I should do, not her.

I don’t know, I just really wanted to vent I guess

When I’m cooking, when I’m happy, when I’m sad, when I’m driving, listening to music. Is this normal

There were days at primary school where nurses came to give girls the HPV vaccine, but I distinctly remember stupidly forgetting to get my form signed by my parents so I wasn't able to do it, and completely brushed it off at the time. No one bothered to followed up on it. I'm now in my 30s and reading scary things about people ending up with HPV-related cancers. I had absolutely no clue about the head and neck (aka throat) cancer that people get 10-40 years after exposure to the particular HPV strain. I'm happily in a monogamous marriage, with a child, and have been told that getting the vaccine now wouldn't prevent anything from any potential past exposures. I was quite sexually active in my teens and early 20s, mostly from being in peer pressured situations. I am so freaked out. My last few pap smears have come back normal, but the thought that these serious issues could arise decades later is insane. Why didn't anyone double check with my parents why my form wasn't signed?! Ridiculous. I was just a kid. I didn't know how important it was, no one educated me. I'm also concerned about having given anything to my husband. I want us to be around to see our daughter grow old. Any words of wisdom for this anxious mumma would be lovely.

The absolute state of women's safety measures is infuriating. Following recent safety incidents in New Delhi—including assaults in public parks—local authorities and colleges have responded by tightening curfews for female students, banning women from parks after dark, and moving classes online.

Instead of actually policing criminals and fixing broken law-and-order, the brilliant solution is to turn women's hostels into prisons.

Restricting a woman’s freedom under the guise of "protection" is just institutional laziness. If the administration cannot make public spaces safe at night, they should put a curfew on the perpetrators committing the crimes and let the women walk free. Stop punishing the victims.

I’m an amateur comedian, by that I mean people find me funny. Stand-up comedy is on my bucket list, which is not a joke.

I’ve spent years studying comedy. Again, not a joke.

You might not know, at least it seems that Shane Gillis doesn’t know, that jokes come with a punchline. If it has no punchline, it’s not a joke — it’s an observation.

Jokes are usually structured like: one, two, punchline.

For context, Shane Gillis hosted SNL on 10/10/2026. During his “monologue” (why did he sound like he was doing an impromptu set on open mic night?) he “joked” about women dressing like whores when they go to the gym. He then compared them to bait.

There was no punchline. He went on to talk about how he’s a creep in at least 10 TikTok videos. (My words, not his.) Shane made an (incorrect and misogynistic) observation, he didn’t tell a joke.

But he’s the one standing on the stage. What do I know?

Here’s the latest joke I’ve composed, in honor of Shane Gillis.

“I don’t go out much, anymore. I went out to a bar the other night. I didn’t know that men just dress like rapists now? They dress like that and then say ‘it’s not all men!’ Come on, guys, how do you expect us to tell the difference?”

🫢😂😭

Feedback welcome.

Please note the flair.

😂😂😂

(That’s the joke.)

So I had a horrifying situation at PE today. So I was changing in the bathrooms, and inserted a tampon because I was on my period. I thought nothing of it and met with my two friends as we went to gym. We hung out a little and my friend screams “oh my fucking god is that blood?” and I horrifying look to my shoe, and there was a freaking blood clot and blood on the very bottom side of my shoe. How the hell did it even get there? I don’t even know what I was doing, but without thinking I wiped it with my hand. I’m mortified rewriting this story. So my friend tells me to go wash my hand and my other friend goes with me and all the bathrooms are close so I have to walk halfway across the school with fucking blood clot on my hand. I’m left in the bathroom and I wash my hand and foot and went back to class. I joked around like usual with my close friend and we ignored what happened but I’m fucking mortifiedddd. I’ve been trying to distract myself from the thought but anytime I remember it I just want to curl up and dieee

it’s so annoying. just to today I’m waiting for the bus and this guy who was sitting down on a bench gets up. I assume it’s to see if the bus is coming, but instead he goes to stand less that 5 inches behind me, while there’s a whole sidewalk in front to the side of me for him to stand. He just stands there, I move, and he still stands there and I think he’s looking at his phone for the arrival time. Finally he goes back to sit down. I doubt he’d walk over and stand that close to a man.

Its happened at night not long ago, the guy was walking up to where I was standing while looking at his phone. When he looked up and saw me staring him down he acted as if I was the weird aggressor, but he was the one walking up on me at night when the other guys are spaced out in the sidewalk behind us. The behavior seems so off and suspicious.

Why do they need to stand that close to a stranger to do whatever it is they need to do? it’s bizarre and weird. It’s why I never turn my back to men when I am waiting outside. They will always be weirdos that will just roll right up on you and stand practically on top of you. Which they’d never do to another man, especially for fear of the closeness being read as sexual attraction and the getting their block knocked off.

Any other ladies have similar stories or any other tips?