Ten Ways Men Oppress Women with Their Everyday Behavior

My cousin showed me Katherine Timpf’s satirical article about men’s behavior. She riffs on the recent feminist campaign to ban men from sitting with their legs apart on public transportation, which they call “manspreading.” Timpf offers other examples of how men oppress women with their everyday behavior. She gives such gems as:

1. Broplimenting

This is when a guy says something nice to you without asking for your consent first. Men should always ask. “Do you consent to me complimenting you?” before saying anything nice or else it’s assault. No, nonverbal cues don’t count – he still has to ask for explicit consent before offering that kind of affection.

and:

4. Mentoring

You’ve heard this word before, but unless you’re as educated and culturally aware as I am, you have probably never thought about how sexist it is. Why isn’t it “women-toring,” huh? I’ll tell you why. It’s because we live in a society where people think men are the only ones who can give advice. Seriously, I hate when like my boss or my dad tries to help me out or give me feedback and acts like it’s because he has more experience when really we all know it’s just because he thinks that he is better than me because he is a man and I am a woman. I fight against this by refusing to take advice or direction from men and smearing anyone who tries to offer it in a Jezebel post. I just did this with my boss, actually, and guess what? He fired me! Just more proof of sexism in the workplace.

Timpf also gives some examples no one would think was oppression of women yet are:

5. Sleep Manpnea

Men snore because they have to keep imposing their existence on us even while they are asleep. It is of course different from women’s snoring. When a woman snores, it’s because she has been manterrupted all day and needs some way for her voice to be heard. By the way, if a man ever tells you that your snoring bothers him, what he really means is that he is uncomfortable with the idea of women being heard.

and:

7. Manspiration

This is when a man tries to inspire you with a story from his own life as if he has any idea what your life is like as a woman. Now, while that’s unacceptable, it’s also past time to recognize that men and women are equal and exactly the same. Sometimes guys say this makes no sense and is contradictory and ask me to explain, but that’s an example of . . .

Yet by far my favorite is:

3. Bropen-mouth chewing

When people see man chewing with his mouth open, most think that it’s just him being rude — but that’s just because most people aren’t educated on women’s issues. Social-justice scholars realize that feeling the need to display the crushing and grinding of food is actually a sign of dominance over the lesser being that you are consuming. Especially if it’s meat because eating meat is sexist because women need to show solidarity with animals because that’s how the world sees us anyway (like animals) and we have to be their friends. (I am only interested in dating vegan men who make sure they have chewed and swallowed all of their food before we return to talking about how many microaggressions there are in the restaurant. It’s so rowomantic!)

Oh the oppression…