And I’m Marie of Romania

Do women actually act like this? I don’t mean aren’t all women naturally gentle and benevolent at all times, because of course we’re not, but do we act like this? In my experience no, we don’t, not ever, because we can’t. We just can’t. We wouldn’t get away with it, it wouldn’t work, no one would put up with it for a second, no one would be intimidated by it, no one would keep saying “I apologize, ma’am,” no one would just stand there while we kicked a display to the floor.

Men, though? Even some men who are not bad guys, but…they nevertheless let themselves lose their temper that way, and shout that way, and intimidate everyone in sight that way.

Shouty Guy in Store Tantrum is doing what too many guys do. It’s kind of a giveaway, “ma’am.”

Comments

19 responses to “And I’m Marie of Romania”

  1. mikeb Avatar

    That’s a dude. Who the fuck does he think he’s kidding? He’s a nasty dude at that. No, women wouldn’t act like that. Women aren’t that insane.

  2. Ophelia Benson Avatar

    Well, some women are. But they express the insanity in different ways.

    It’s very…well, patriarchal, frankly, to let oneself rage and shout like that in public. It’s one way they keep us in line.

  3. Skeletor Avatar

    I did have to laugh that the clerk did in fact say “sir” and denied it, then while denying it said “sir” again. Apparently the “ma’am” thing just wasn’t clicking with him.

  4. Dave Ricks Avatar

    Take it outside. If you wanna call me “Sir” again, I will show you a fucking “Sir”.

    Jerry Seinfeld explains

    No one could write that. Only Buddy Rich could think of threatening someone with physical violence in that kind of terminology: “Why don’t we step outside, and I’ll show you what it’s like.”

  5. Holms Avatar

    Those aren’t the words of a rational mind; rage is the captain of that ship.

  6. Ben Avatar

    “Quite clearly I am not (a man)!”

    How is it obvious that this isn’t a man?

  7. iknklast Avatar

    How is it obvious that this isn’t a man?

    Because…if you say you aren’t a man, you aren’t! Haven’t you read your woke handbook? That is on page 1! And 2! And 3! And 4! And in fact on every goddamn page of the handbook!

  8. Your Name's not Bruce? Avatar
    Your Name’s not Bruce?

    The pink shoes are the tip-off.

  9. Sorbus Avatar

    So every minor social transaction must have the correct pronoun or a tantrum will occur? Sucks even more to be lower down the oppression tree in an under-paid customer service role. He should have tried the “I’m sorry, I have a cold” ploy.

  10. Lady Mondegreen Avatar
    Lady Mondegreen

    I hear Facebook is taking this video down wherever it finds it.

    It’s amazing how Facebook, Twitter, and Google support transgenderism. They never gave much of a shit about the vicious harassment of women. Racist harassment? Sure, we wouldn’t want to imperil anyone’s freedom of speech!

    But you can get permanently banned from Twitter for misgendering the likes of Jonathan “Wax my balls and can I help a little girl with her tampon?” Yaniv. And don’t you dare share a video of a transWOMAN!!!11! behaving badly.

  11. Blood Knight in Sour Armor Avatar
    Blood Knight in Sour Armor

    We’re in full on “there are four lights” territory now.

  12. iknklast Avatar

    BKiSA – I am reminded of the scene from The Taming of the Shrew (Sorry, I know, bad play, but if the reference is there, use it) in which Petruchio tells Kate the sun is the moon and refuses to move until she agrees with him. Putting her own senses and intellect on hold, she finally agrees just so she can get to visit her family. Browbeat someone enough, and they will submit to you.

  13. KB Player Avatar

    Goodness. I’m mis-gendered all the time. I have a deep voice and I get called “Sir” on the phone. It never occurred to me to throw tantrums about it. Miranda Harte has a running gag of being called “Sir” by strangers as she is very tall. She ruefully sighs.

  14. Skeletor Avatar

    I don’t agree with the notion that no women act this way ever, unless we’re going to define “this way” so narrowly that we get into “no true Scotsman” territory.

    I’ve personally seen some bad behavior (at a college party I saw a woman getting mad at a man for something he said and slapping the holy hell out of him…conversely I’ve actually never seen a man hit a woman in person).

    A quick search on YouTube also finds lots of women behaving comparably to the person in this video. Here are a few:

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=S89ZSHubcjk

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xdaMjAwu19k

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PG4IZ9oManE

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFknm31Z4Rk

    Yes, on average men are more prone to acting this way. But I don’t think the claim that no women ever acts like this is true, and so I don’t think it follows that such bad behavior proves what gender someone really is. There are much better arguments to make.

  15. Ophelia Benson Avatar

    Oh blah blah blah, Skeletor. I didn’t say “it follows that such bad behavior proves what gender someone really is.” And I did say “I don’t mean aren’t all women naturally gentle and benevolent at all times, because of course we’re not, but do we act like this?” Your thing that you saw doesn’t happen to be this.

    It’s as if you’re a bot programmed to irritate me.

  16. Ophelia Benson Avatar

    To expand on my point a little…

    I don’t agree with the notion that no women act this way ever, unless we’re going to define “this way” so narrowly that we get into “no true Scotsman” territory.

    Who’s we? I wrote the post and I’m defining “this way” the way I define it – i.e. as exactly THIS WAY. I’m not talking about bad behavior in general, I’m talking about what this guy did in this video. You don’t get to reject that in order to correct me for saying something I DIDN’T SAY. I meant literally “this way” and not something else, not something broader. It’s not “no true Scotsman” territory, it’s what I am talking about in this post that I wrote.

    You are like fingernails on a blackboard sometimes.

  17. Nan Avatar

    I too get misgendered; I’m big, strong with practically a baritone voice. I don’t even correct people unless I think we will cross paths again. why waste effort on such a banal mistake?

  18. Acolyte of Sagan Avatar
    Acolyte of Sagan

    Nan, it couldn’t be because you’re not pretending to be something you aren’t, could it?* Unlike those such as the bloke in the video, I guess that because you are (I assume) a woman of the original variety, your knowledge or recognition of yourself as a woman is not so eggshell-thin as to require the constant validation of strangers to maintain a self-delusion, so the occasional mis-identification by a random other is not going to shatter the whole charade.

    As for that ‘Take it outside and I’ll show you a fucking sir’, I know that I would have answered that there was no need to go outside if he wanted to show me his penis, but that a visual confirmation really wasn’t necessary anyway. Honestly, I find it increasingly difficult, if not impossible, to take these men seriously. They’re fooling no-one except themselves. I mean, if a woman can’t wear a too-short skirt without underwear in case her penis is visible, well, that ain’t a woman.

    *Yup, a rhetorical question.

  19. Alan Cooper Avatar

    Although I instinctively identify the person in that ‘maam” video as male, I think that, for me at least, it’s a worthwhile exercise to try and identify which (if any) aspects of the *behaviour* per se are uniquely male. The highlighted offer to “take it outside” struck me as one such, but it is in fact reprised to some extent by an evident woman in Skeletor’s fourth video who says “lets get out here and have it out”. I haven’t yet been able to identify any particular behaviour of that trans person which I could say no woman would ever duplicate and am curious as to what you find to be in that category.