Saw a post on AskMen about rules men have to follow, which is funny because most of them were imposed by other men. But do they ever stop to think about the countless rules women have had to live by for centuries—also created by men?
This guy is upset because, during a date, his date mentioned the old-school “rule” that men should walk on the side closest to the street to protect their partner. He sees it as yet another arbitrary expectation women impose on men and complains about how exhausting it is to keep up with all these so-called rules. He even goes as far as calling it “controlling narcissistic behavior.”
But when women are constantly told what to wear, how to act, how to age, how to exist—when the list of rules for us never seems to end—how do you deal with it?
Comments
The rules only exist in your head.
I always think about how long it took me to like myself and how much work I put in so I’m only gonna do what I want and what makes me happy. And it helps to find people who want the same things and feel the same way.
AskMen is also a scary scary place
I deal with it by ignoring the rules. Ain’t nobody got time for that.
I don’t follow rules like that.
You get what you get with me.
LOL
He doesn’t even know.
From when we are school-aged, girls are policed on what they wear. In my hometown, girls couldn’t even wear sleeveless anything. Can’t show any skin!!! It might incite lust in the boys who just can’t control themselves!!!!
There was a post earlier today in the Adulting sub from a guy who says its just not fair that women’s standards are so high and that’s why he can’t get a date at the age of damn-near 40 Honestly, it’s so funny how they don’t understand why so many women don’t even want to bother with dating anymore. Life is so much more peaceful without them.
I no longer seek men’s approval. There are no rules.
Only heed anything that brings you joy. Contextualize where the rules came from. Rid yourself of shame and pay tongue-clucking no mind.
I’ve never heard these rules. Just so what you want, don’t worry about others
I just… continue living my life however the fuck I want to live my life.
The only “rule” I care about is treating others the way I want to be treated.
Ignoring it. It’s not like it gets you a prize anyway.
FU Money!
We have rules? Good thing nobody told me
I deal with it by engaging with men as little as possible… and gosh, is it peaceful.
the rules he mentions and the rules you mention both do not matter when you stop caring about other people’s perception of you. you’ll find it freeing and in fact give off a easy vibe by doing so. you didn’t ask to be here, life is hard, do what you want.
if there were rules, they stop after your twenties imo😂 i’m absolutely not doing shit for a man unless he’s paying me
I ignore them and live by my own rules.
I’m out of the competition, so these rules don’t affect me. I feel for the ones who are still trying to play this rigged game.
Fuck the patriarchy and all the toxic rules they created to try and control us.
What rules? Performing femininity is a choice. I simply rejected it, and I live my life for me.
I don’t wear women’s clothes, I don’t act in any way that isn’t natural to me, I’m ageing in whatever natural way I happen to age, I groom in a ✨ masculine ✨ way, et cetera. And you know what? It’s great.
I don’t pay them any mind.
Ngl being bisexual in an extremely conservative home environment knocked respect for the rules out of me during puberty. I am just as good and worthwhile as any other human and I deserve to be treated like it.
What rules? I ignore them all. lol
I’m an adult. I do what I want and live the life I want. I don’t follow made up list of rules.
Anybody have access to this alleged rulebook? Cause I’d like to see what it says we’re ‘supposed’ to do 🤔
The only rule I follow is to provide, when any woman asks for a tampon in the bathroom.
Omg I saw that post, that guy was so annoying. Just a dude who hates women, on a crusade for relevance. I will say, about 90% of the men that commented on the post told him that he was stupid (for various reasons). So that’s good.
To answer your question in the post, I just do whatever I want (which, ironically, was the answer from most of the men in the other post).
I wasn’t raised with the rules and don’t know the rules. I assume I’m not obeying them, whatever they are, so I don’t have to deal with them. I just go about my life oblivious of what I am or am not supposed to do as a woman.
I laugh…. They look at me weird..I laugh…they tell me to be quiet …I laugh a little louder…so on and so forth…
The advantage of never being conventionally attractive is that you learn pretty quickly that the rules are bull shit. You don’t get a ton of positive attention, and if you’re lucky, you don’t get a ton of negative attention either. For the most part, you go through life under the radar, so you can just do what you want. Is it frustrating when you WANT some male attention and can’t get it? Yeah. But the older I get, the more convinced I am that "ugly privilage" is where it’s at.
The only "rules" I care about any more are at work, because my job pays for my lifestyle. Other than that….I care even less than I used to, which wasn’t all that much anyway after college.
I just ignore them all.
The same way you deal with any of the other "rules" you live by. Conform or not and get on with your life.
Society imposes all sorts of rules on you that have nothing to do with gender, as well as all the ones that do. You deal just fine with those, I’d guess. You’re not wrong to consider many of the gendered expectations unfair, but the way you deal with it is by not casting yourself in the role of oppressed victim. Suck it up, in one form or another, and move on.
I feel like the whole rules conversation is just more culture war BS. Who cares? Do what you want.
America Ferrera had a speech in the Barbie movie about this
I try my best to say fuck it to those rules.
It helps that I have a husband who does the same. But even with that…sometimes they make me feel like complete shit about myself.
Then I try to remember that I have some very awesome people who love me for who I am and I should be proud to be my weird, gender rule-breaking self.
I’m way too neurodivergent to actually be aware of those rules, let alone remember them
I absolutely do not live by or even consider any rules aside from my own personal values. So I guess this is a non issue for me? lol
I worship at the altar of no thing or one. Miss me with the rulessss.
Okay, first of all, I don’t believe in unwritten rules. People play that shit at work, “isn’t it an unwritten rule that managers don’t get to wear jeans on Fridays?”
I don’t know. If it’s not written, it’s not a rule. Tweets/posts on X are not rules.
You write it down and present it as a rule and then I’ll take a look and decide if it makes any sense and if I’ll be complying.
Rules have only the power you give them.
Note. I am not advocating anarchy and lawlessness. Many rules make good sense. Like, you have to stop at a stop light so someone doesn’t slam into you and kill everyone in the intersection. I’m a big fan of that rule. Other rules, meh, maybe not so much. They’re trying to make contrails illegal in certain states. lol, okay. I’ll be sure to comply with that one and not drop any contrails over my states.
Rules like that are dumb. I quit dating in part because I hated the gender norms and couldn’t find a guy who didn’t buy into them to some degree. I want a truly equal partner, and I’m not interested in performing outdated gender roles.
I ignore the ones I disagree with and found a husband who agrees with ignoring those rules too.
I just go "fuck it" and do things my way.
If other people are gonna be upset about it, that’s a them issue, not a me issue.
I deal with it by going "lol" and getting on with my life.
I couldn’t give less of a fuck about people’s made up, so-called "rules" if I tried.
There’s no way to win, so I accept losing. I’m just a bad lady, living my life as I see fit.
I choose not to care about them.
>his date mentioned the old-school "rule" that men should walk on the side closest to the street to protect their partner.
I think that is a bad rule and it’s perfectly valid to push back on it. Nobody’s life is less valuable just because of their gender. That’s actually a really fucked up thing to imply, if you think about it: "you can get hit by a car if need be, your life is disposable."
>But when women are constantly told what to wear, how to act, how to age, how to exist
Why is that a "but"? It should be an "and." Rules for how you should behave just because of your gender are bad, regardless of what your gender is. In fact, the rules for what is socially acceptable to wear are stricter for men than for women: it’s much more socially acceptable for women to wear pants than for men to wear dresses.
>how do you deal with it?
The same way I think most people deal with it: some mixture of following the rules and ignoring the rules. For example, sometimes I shave my legs (following the rules), and sometimes I don’t (ignoring the rules).
No bras. No body hair removal. Never giving a fuck. Ever.
i’m not reading a list made by an incel
I deal with it but not adhering to rules … plus hard pass …
What rules?
In addition to doing what I want, I find disingenuously but whole heartfelt arguing the same bullshit flipped towards the men.
Men should be 100% responsible for all pregnancy bills, including housing and food, and if anything happens to the fetus he should be imprisoned. If he can’t be responsible for his sperm, he should get a vasectomy. There should be a DNA database for all men so they can automatically get paternity tests and be 100% responsible for their offspring. Women are impregnated, they don’t get pregnant.
I can’t think of anything else off the top of my head, but I do love schadenfreude style how indignant and argumentative they get. Then you ask why it’s different when you flip genders and they sputter and I laugh and carry on.
Listen, as someone with deep ties to the punk & hardcore subculture and anarchism, I don’t care about these so called "rules".
I didn’t sign up for them and I don’t follow them.
That’s honestly really funny because I’d imagine that’s a holdout from the times when a woman of any means wasn’t allowed out in public at all without a chaperone. Which was most of the time in Western civilization and completely radical in the 1920s when women started breaking free of this
Don’t much care about man rules. As a neurodivergent the ones I struggle with come from women. A lot are unspoken, appear arbitrary (not all, but many and please remember this is to a ND) and when you break them no one tells you, they just push you out
I don’t. Fuck the rules
I don’t. The cool thing about getting older as a woman is that the laundry list of rules we’re expected to follow when we’re "young and hot" seems to get shorter.
There are no rules. Fuck the rules.
What rules? They don’t exist ! I’d love for someone to approach me with this rule approach. I promise I’d have a whole 300+ page book with MY rules. We will see how it will go 🙄
Can someone tag the post I wanna laugh a little 🤣
Both genders rules are imposed by the same thing, the patriarchy. Men misdirect their frustration towards women as if we are the system that enforces it.
It’s easier to be angry at the oppressed than the oppresser. They’d have to in effort for change. And that’s just too much work