headphone deafness

Riding home from work, I approached an intersection with a big pedestrian crossing. The light was green in my favour. There was a lull in the motorised traffic around me, so quite a few people began to cross the road. I slowed down and most people who were looking hesitated to let me go past before they started to cross. But one young woman with headphones on stepped out without even looking to her right - very typical headphone-wearer behaviour.

"Watch out!" I called in a friendly warning tone and then immediately, as I was almost on top of her, "Watch out!" in a more urgent tone.

She looked up in time to avoid a collision and then said as I rode past her, "F*ck you".

If I were her, I'd have been saying "Oh sorry". I had right of way and was in the right. I helped her avoid an accident. She was lucky I wasn't a bus. But she turned her surprise into abuse.

The fact that it came from a woman upset me. I've had similar from men plenty of times, because they hate being put in the wrong in public and they hate being made to feel stupid [which is how they apparently perceive it] by a woman on a bike. That a woman was so hostile in such an ordinary encounter which requires civility on all sides, I find depressing.

Comments

[lisa]

Not to put too fine a point on it, but I think you're bound to get depressed if you stake anything on one gender being mostly innocent of particular bad behaviours.

I think if I was a man I'd be offended. In general I find bad behaviour is equally distributed between men and women.

[susoz]

Lisa, I can see what you're saying and I certainly don't view all women as angels, but women do engage in less public abuse than men - well, what I can say after decades of riding a bike (and just walking about) in public is that it's no surprise to be verbally abused by men. It is relatively unusual to be abused like that by a woman, because women don't tend to be gratuitously aggressive.

[Jody]

You know, that sort of encounter would have depressed me all day.

And the fact is, I wouldn't have been expecting that sort of verbal hostility from a woman, so the being caught off guard would have compounded my feelings of shame, that I did something to cause someone to tell me "f*ck off."

I don't know if men should be offended by that or not. The fact is, no one expects to be verbally assaulted in public, but certain people catch me more by surprise than others.

My gut just twisted reading this story. This is the sort of encounter that distresses me for several days, I'm afraid.

I always wish that I could be so hardened and oblivious as the verbal attackers seem to be.

[Valerie]

One thing that has always puzzled me is the way that when people have a car accident, the two drivers so often go leaping out of their cars to scream at each other. I've never in any other part of life seen people yell at total strangers with that type of vehemence. My best guess about why they do that is that it's some kind of catharsis after the huge fright and adrenaline rush of a car accident.

I've never been in a big car accident, only little fender-benders. But my reaction each time has been to get out and talk quietly, in kind of a shocked and subdued tone. I can't imagine leaping out of my car and yelling at a stranger in any circumstances.

I do wonder what makes so many people wired to react that way. It sounds like the woman with the headphones in this incident was wired that way. You certainly didn't deserve the reaction you got from her.

*hug*

[Kate]

I find that sort of thing deeply depressing too. The other day I was walking the dog and in a bit of a daze, as I often am when dog-walking (it's a good time to think, yes?). Two men were doing some yard work as I passed and one of the man said something, which I thought was addressed to his friend, but I guess he was saying hello to me, because after I passed he said: "Don't say hello then, snobby bitch."

The whole thing made me feel very cranky and upset for the rest of the day.

[Laura]

Or "give us a smile" - I've never had a woman say that to me, tho numbers of men have.

Another blog friend wrote recently about having eggs thrown at her by men in a 4wd as she rode her bike home through the inner city one night.