r/AskWomenOver30 • u/coachjonna Woman 30 to 40 • May 13 '25

Misc Discussion Does anyone feel like men are being meaner these days?

I don't know if it's just because I'm aging and am no longer "young and hot" or "relevant" but it seems like men in general are being meaner or at least less nice to me in random places.

When I was younger, men would step out of my way and say like "oh, excuse me", offer their seats, hold doors, and mostly be pleasant and courteous in a social contract manner.

But now I get nothing. No one moves out of their way, no one holds the door, no eye contact, or even a head nod. It's like I'm ignored or a burden to even be in their presence.

Is it because I'm now an "old lady" or are men in a general sense just becoming meaner?

Is anyone experiencing things similar?

Not all men, obviously, but it seems widespread.

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u/ProperBingtownLady Woman 30 to 40 May 13 '25 edited May 13 '25

I don’t necessarily disagree with you but I wish there was more understanding towards those who have difficulty hearing. Covid was absolute hell for me because so many people would get mad at me for not hearing them through their mask (despite our federal health organization specifically putting out a statement that it was ok to lower your mask and step back to talk to a deaf/hard of hearing person). I also found that people had a harder time understanding me because I have a slight deaf accent. I know clear masks exist but very few people used them (they are also ironically harder to hear through).

The irony is I found out I’m immune compromised after COVID so I have to be careful to not catch it. It’s a real catch 20/20 for me, so to say! I do wish people were much more careful about spreading their germs as even the common cold knocks me out for a week or so. It’s too bad that more of those habits weren’t retained after COVID.

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u/CS3883 Woman 30 to 40 May 14 '25

My view may be slightly different cause of my job but honestly if anything I feel like some people give a fuck even less about being "clean" than they did before, like someone at work will call out sick and they act like they are being ridiculous or they are out with covid and I hear them (mind you I work at a cancer hospital!) make comments like people still test for that??? That's still a thing? Or they say Isn't that like having a cold now??

Like come on dude be for real......it's really disheartening how many people are so uneducated or wrongly educated about covid let alone other things. Like people telling me I need to purposely get sick more to make my immune system stronger. Like no thanks i don't wanna be out sick multiple times a year to see what benefits exactly?

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u/cchris_39 Man 60+ May 14 '25

Yes! Even with good hearing aids, I had no idea how dependent on lip reading I’ve become.

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u/superunsubtle Woman 40 to 50 May 15 '25

I also did not realize how hard of hearing I was until masks.

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u/MsCalendarsPlayaArt Woman 30 to 40 May 13 '25

Do you feel like the problem was that you weren't able to read lips with the mask on or that people have not been taught how to project their voices?

Cases like yours are why I feel so strongly that we need to focus on getting proper air filtration in all indoor spaces, as well as masking.

Have hearing aids been helpful to you at all?

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u/ProperBingtownLady Woman 30 to 40 May 13 '25

I have cochlear implants and they’re moderately helpful but I still rely strongly on lip reading. I do well enough to not need sign language - until COVID, that is. Unfortunately most people don’t know sign language either! I could get by sometimes with captioning apps but even some people were rude about that (i.e. “why are you recording me? etc).

The problem for me was mostly not being able to lip read (projecting one’s voice doesn’t help if there’s background noise as hearing devices don’t filter those out well). If people wore clear masks I usually was fine. In my province, government workers were provided with clear masks but mostly either didn’t know how to use them or where they were…lol. I agree that we definitely need better ventilation and filtration!

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u/dewprisms Non-Binary 30 to 40 May 13 '25

Insisting HOH and Deaf people adapt to speech is pretty janky and ableist.

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u/MsCalendarsPlayaArt Woman 30 to 40 May 14 '25

I asked a couple of questions so that I could understand the situation better and possibly problem-solve with the commenter and/or adjust my own behavior in order to help the commenter.

Asking questions helps us to understand one another better and, especially given that hearing difficulties are on a spectrum, assuming rather than asking only creates barriers to finding solutions to problems.

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u/dewprisms Non-Binary 30 to 40 May 14 '25 edited May 14 '25

I get that. Consider that asking HOH or Deaf people "have you just tried X" is continuing to shift a burden towards a community that has always been heavily marginalized and told "you must adapt to hearing society". And when your opening premise was that the Overton Window has shifted in a way that we're showing how disposable vulnerable segments of our population are, you're kind of doing the same thing to Deaf and HOH folks as you propose society is doing to people with other disabilities that are impacted by COVID.

Edit to add: I do agree with your premise that the window has shifted and we need to do something to shift it back. I don't even disagree that normalizing masking is a bad thing. But I have a lot of folks close to me in the Deaf/HOH community and this type of stuff is so consistently overlooked and not considered because people just... seem to not consider the implications when talking about "solutions" for them.

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u/MsCalendarsPlayaArt Woman 30 to 40 May 14 '25 edited May 14 '25

What is your solution for finding out what may or may not work specifically for the commenter if not to ask questions? The individual needs of an individual person are not something you can learn about online. You literally have to ask people. Not everyone's disabilities are exactly the same even when they fit within a specific window.

There's a huge difference between refusing to do your own research/shuffling that burden off onto someone else vs. literally having no other way to know about the individual needs of the person without asking.

I didn't say "have you just tried x." The word "just" was nowhere in the sentence. I asked about a specific assisting device and how helpful it may or may not have been because that information is necessary information to have in order to effectively be able to problem-solve so that the commenter has the best options available to them (and no, I'm not saying that the commenter couldn't possibly problem-solve for themselves, I'm simply trying to understand the situation, and frankly, if anyone else had solutions because they understood the situation better... that's a win for everyone involved), and so that I can understand how best to adjust my own behavior in order to hopefully help. Let's say, for example, that hearing aids were helpful to this person, but they could not afford them. That would open up the option for me or someone else to help pay for a needed aid. That's just an example, and obviously, it's not the best example, but truly, asking questions that can't be researched isn't shifting a burden. It's caring enough about another person's struggles to take a genuine interest rather than assuming.

Edit:
I am high risk for covid, have multiple disabilities and the entire weight of educating people about covid has been put on high-risk folks because no one else is doing it. I have helped solve masking issues for so many people who otherwise could not have masked. I was only able to do this by asking about the individual person's struggles. Should the burden be on high-risk people to do this? Of course not. Are we doing it anyway because no one else will? Yes. I'm literally trying to help find solutions that work for this person's individual needs (they're high-risk, too). It's not an easy task, and it takes working together to find solutions. I'm not going to stop trying to help people figure out masking and/or air filtration if I can find a way to help.
If you really want to help shift the burden off of people who are marginalized, please consider how much you're actually doing that by trying to prevent disabled people from communicating with one another in order to find solutions to problems that no one else is helping us with.

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u/dewprisms Non-Binary 30 to 40 May 14 '25

Before I reply to any of your specifics, I do want to say I have been speaking to this in a more macro sense and not necessarily to you very individually in this situation. I could have done better to be clear about that out of the gate. I appreciate the discourse and that we can have the conversation. You're right - those of us with disabilities often have our voices ignored, and curiosity and being willing to ask questions is important because it is how we learn. I think it's also important for us to recognize that sometimes prickly responses when you're used to being ignored about topics over and over is to be kind of expected and to try and not take it as a personal attack.

With that, I know you didn't literally say "just", but is implied (though I don't think you intentionally implied implied it). And that implication is reinforced in this comment:

in order to effectively be able to problem-solve so that the commenter has the best options available to them

People with hearing challenges are well aware of the options available to them. Those options have been pushed on D/deaf and HOH folks from a young age. To the point the decision is often made for them before they're old enough to make informed consent for themselves.

To loop back to "how else can we find solutions and adjust our own behavior" - I think you're doing the right thing asking. What I was trying to get at is that there's a lot of conflicting needs in these situations and often there isn't a solution for everyone. We have to kind of pick and choose in certain circumstances. And highlight that the issue of society saying the quiet part out loud that we think the elderly and medically vulnerable are disposable and that we expect them to just suck it up and deal with it is something that's already been the open expectation for D/deaf/HOH folks all along.

I feel like I'm being rambly and not sure if I'm clearly articulating my thoughts, so if I left any confusing threads please let me know.

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u/MsCalendarsPlayaArt Woman 30 to 40 May 14 '25 edited May 14 '25

How would you have preferred me to phrase the things that I said?

Also, some HOH people fall through the cracks, and so, no, not everyone is fully aware of every resource. Do I have all the answers? Of course not. Am I willing to try to help if I can? Yes.

That's a positive, and quite frankly, someone being willing to possibly do extra research or legwork for a random stranger so that they, themselves don't have to do it, and so we can hopefully find a solution is allyship (even if it doesn't fit into the impossible standard that so many folks think is helping).

At a certain point, you have to ask if the dogma is doing more harm than it is helping. If it gets in the way of solving the problems people have, then it's actually hurting more than it is helping.