toomanyfandomsforonetobemyurl:
i swear to god, men raising their voice is the most terrifying thing in the whole world. they dont understand, like its an immediate panic response, game over
I actually had no idea women found this so scary
my downstairs neighbors fight on a regular basis, and every time he starts yelling i’m a little afraid he’s going to kill her. i have no reason to think this except that he is a man and he is angry
My math teacher has a loud voice and a temper and he scares the living shit out of me almost everyday. He’s made me and other kids cry more than once and he and his teacher buddies make a joke out of terrifying students.
this was women in general? i knew my gf didn’t like it but I was unaware if this affected most women
Yes, it does
As a woman, I had no idea it effected other women like this. I was too afraid to even talk about it. I thought I was weak. Thanks for bringing attention to this.
My dad thinks it’s funny that I used to cry when he raised his voice. I freak out whenever some one does. Once my director did, and I started crying I couldn’t stop. I’m glad to see I’m not alone…
This is so important– seeing how common this is– and I also want you all to know that this is not normal. It isn’t something instinctively ingrained into women, to be afraid of men. There is no natural state of men being a threat that women constantly have to be afraid of. This is cultural. So many women and girls here have a mutual understanding of this feeling, and I think it really shows an unsettling truth about our society, particularly about how men are raised to act and how so many women have this defensive reaction gradually develop. It’s so important that these people have their voices heard, because it teaches us about problems that we just can’t deny the existence of any longer.
I’m glad I’m not the only one
My fellow men, pay attention. I didn’t realize how scary this could be until one of my exes explained it to me, and it’s heartbreaking.
Also, when we move too much during an argument, or lean forward, it’s scary, and I never knew. I was even a little insulted at first, because surely she didn’t think I would hurt her. But see, that doesn’t matter. It wasn’t a sign that she mistrusted me specifically; it’s a conditioned response. (Although if you keep doing it once you realize it scares her, she SHOULDN’T trust you.)
Not every woman has been physically harmed by a man she trusted, but every woman KNOWS a woman who has.
I used to be horrible about this, because I didn’t realize how intimidating it was. I didn’t understand why the woman I was with clammed up or tried to tell me what she thought I wanted to hear, and I only got angrier, and acted even more like an asshole. It was wrong. It was abusive. It didn’t matter if I INTENDED it that way; it was still emotionally abusive. And it was inexcusable.
I get that when passions are high, and when you’re frustrated, it’s a natural tendency to let your voice get louder, to shout and gesture and lean forward. But you can train yourself to do better. You can train yourself to keep more of an even tone, to refrain from large and fast gestures, to not lean into her personal space. I did. I’m not perfect at it yet, but goddamn it, I WILL be.
Don’t tell me it’s too hard, that you just can’t do it, or that you “shouldn’t have to.” I’m 53 years old and just now getting the hang of it, and if this old dog can learn something new, so can you.
Note to guys: It really, REALLY doesn’t matter if you’re thinking, “but I would never…”
History is littered with the bodies of women who believed a man “would never.” This includes women killed by men who honestly, deeply, truly believed they “would never”… right up until she said that one thing or moved in just that way and he just got so mad, just that once, and pushed her or punched her or slashed her or shot her… just once, y’know, to shut her up, or because she was flinching and didn’t she know that HE’S NOT LIKE THAT and I’LL TEACH HER TO BE AFRAID OF ME…
We are trained, from infancy, that Men With Loud Voices are a source of pain from which we cannot escape, and attempts to escape may result in more pain. And as soon as we’re old enough to comprehend a world broader than our immediate circle, a world that extends into the past and will run into the future, we realize that there is no way, no way at all, to tell which men “would never” and which men “would never… except if.”
We live or die on that “if.” And any man who doesn’t like facing that hyper-vigilance can work on fixing OTHER MEN, not women’s fear.
The reaction shouldn’t be “not all men are like that;” it should be “no woman should have to live in fear.”
It’s telling that so many people will hear a story of long-term abuse and say, “why did she stay with him?” and not “why did he treat her like that?”
This made me cry.
I didn’t realize I wasn’t the only one. Like even if I hear OTHER people fighting and the guy raises his voice I always KNOW that he’s gonna kill that other man or woman…..even if he’s not. It’s just what the raised voice does to me
To this day, all the men in my family do this to me when they want to shut me up or intimidate me to do what they want.
My ex, as gentle a man you could hope to meet, did this once, along with grabbing me by the neck and pinning me to the wall because I was doing something he didn’t want me to do.
It’s like Louis CK said once about the equivalent being a world were men could only date a half-bear half-lion and hope for the best.
Tbh I thought it was common knowledge. Like, I just assumed everyone knew that getting loud and/or moving aggressively towards women scared the fuck out of us.
I’m actually glad to see it’s not. Doesn’t make me any less scared but it tells me that when this happens it’s not always on purpose. So there’s that.
I had to explain to my partner that I’ve had exes try and kill me before and I can’t deal with his anger. at first he just tried to explain that he’s not mad at me or that he wouldn’t hurt me but he saw the kind of wreck it makes me and eventually he understood that that has never mattered before and now if he gets mad he usually goes outside or messes around downstairs with his fishtanks.
my partner used to be a head chef in a resort, used to build cars and he’s a manager in a factory, he’s used to yelling at everything and everyone when stuff isn’t working but once he realised how painful it was for me he controls himself when I’m there and comes and finds me to explain why he was mad when he’s calmer (so I stop freaking out that it’s my fault).
he’s a loud, explosive, confident man with a hair trigger temper and he can still pull himself together and control that anger for the most part around me now, so there’s no “but I’m just like that” or “I can’t help it” excuses to be had.
if you know you’re frightening people and using that ingrained fear of abuse against them to get what you want idk what to say to you except stop.
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