It’s important to have empathy when dealing with people, especially people of a different sex. Because there are some things about being a woman that most men will just never, ever, ever, understand. It’s fundamentally impossible. And I’m not just talking about physical differences — there are cultural and emotional things, too. Workplace sexism and fear of sexual violence. On Reddit, women are sharing the one thing that men will never understand about their experiences — and it would be great if men could listen.
1. Period Stuff
“Sh*tting while on ur period.” — kvisha420
2. PMS
“Feeling sad and tired for no reason, because my body is starting to produce less serotonin before my period. I get so f*cking sad and I can’t do anything to feel happy for like 2-3 days a month.” — Organic_Ema
3. Fear
“They will probably never understand the things we do out of fear. Also, when a fart rolls up to the front of your vag lips…” — notanotherkrazychik
4. Bathroom Trips
“Why we go to the bathroom in groups. Tbh I also don’t know why we do that.” — bitchwidlongarms
5. Bras
“Bras hurt. Sometimes the wire breaks free and attempts to impale the boob.” — InWake
6. Toilet Paper Needs
“High quality toilet paper is deeply important to women because we use it every single time we pee or poop and extra when we’re on our period.” — MyVillainOriginStory
7. Male Assumptions
“Having guys assume that smiling, talking, or otherwise showing basic human decency to them means we’re flirting.” — White_Wolf_Dreamer
8. Safety Concerns
“How the safety of where we go is always there. Like, I would love to go camping alone somewhere… would I? Nope. Leaving a store at night, we have to be on guard. Walking the dog at night or through woods alone? Always on guard.” — heathers1
9. How Pregnancy Affects The Brain
“How your brain gets re-wired by pregnancy. And I don’t just mean the ‘I’ll kill anyone who tries to hurt my little bologna loaf.’ I mean how some foods you loved now taste like crap. And others you only tolerated taste like heaven. How some smells are now more intense or slightly off from before pregnancy. That you can’t remember how to drive a stick shift (true story, ground the gears for at least a month) but can put together some complicated as shit storage unit with no instructions and nothing but a pair of pliers and a nail file, while 8 1/2 mos pregnant.That you can spy a poisonous plant from 50 yards away but can’t find the orange behind your water glass. And that if/when you get pregnant again everything will get re/wired in a different way.” — meld68
10. Post-Partum Issues
“In my experience, post-partum depression takes the crown.” — singhritz12
11. Hysterics
“Just like men, we can have what are deemed ‘negative emotions’ (fear, anger, etc), that doesn’t mean we’re being hysterical, dramatic, annoying or whatever else invalidates feelings.” — Whole-Key
12. Turn-Ons
“That turning us on needs to happen waaaay before you even get our clothes off.” — macaronsforeveryone
13. Fear Of Getting Pregnant
“That many women live in constant fear of getting pregnant and having to give birth in the future. All the scenes in movies, all the info about death risk of pregnancy and diseases and stuff connected to it. That many women are scared of picking a wrong partner because we know that we’ll most times end up alone with children if anything goes wrong.” — Dependent_Actuary148
14. Smiling
“That even though we might be ‘prettier if we smiled,’ we literally can’t do that even if we want to, because smiling is interpreted by too many men as a sexual invitation. Men are drawn to smiling women like sharks to a bleeding baby seal.” — Haustvind
15. Rape Scenes In Media
“How exhausting/depressing it is seeing so many rape scenes on TV and Film. It’s like they are trying to inform us of how vulnerable we are to sexual assault, when we are fully aware and live with that knowledge on a daily basis.” — Hot_potatoos
16. Career Struggles
“How sometimes you can never feel successful in your career because you’ll always be accused of sleeping your way to the top, or being a difficult woman. Never on merit.” — Hour-Cow-4348
17. Pockets
“The excitement of pockets in our clothes. Actual, helpful pockets.” — pearls2626
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