How Men Treat Women On American Roads
January 29, 2016 12:55 PM   Subscribe

When I Quit Cutting My Hair, I Learned How Men Treat Women On American Roads "The fifty-something man in the aging Lexus SUV was red-faced from screaming as he pulled up next to my motorcycle and lowered his passenger window. I caught fragments of every nasty word I'd ever heard my Catholic-school classmates whisper to each other during recess. Then he slowed the torrent of abuse long enough to enunciate the next sentence clearly: "Bitch, I am going to get out of this car and beat you until you can't stand up." From Road and Track.
posted by generichuman (98 comments total) 35 users marked this as a favorite
 
For the "we don't believe this is what happens when women tell us this, but if another man has experienced it too, then maybe it's actually legit" category.
posted by evilangela at 1:00 PM on January 29, 2016 [182 favorites]


literally all he had to do to learn this lesson was listen to a woman saying "this is what it's like for us".
posted by poffin boffin at 1:01 PM on January 29, 2016 [96 favorites]


For the "we don't believe this is what happens when women tell us this, but if another man has experienced it too, then maybe it's actually legit" category.

Absolutely - I just thought it was an interesting piece to find in Road and Track, of all places. Message penetration.
posted by generichuman at 1:01 PM on January 29, 2016 [59 favorites]


I won't be foolish enough to discount that a lot of men road rage on women at levels defying sanity. I am curious what the outcomes would have been if the author was a much smaller man — I suspect a lot of those incidents may not have de-escalated upon removing the helmet.

What I mean to say is that there are a lot of bullies out there; many with misogynist leanings, but that may not be their sole problem. People are assholes, doubly so behind the wheel.
posted by Dark Messiah at 1:02 PM on January 29, 2016 [5 favorites]


If you look at the comments on the story... no, it's not getting through. "But *I* have never been treated like that," the men are saying, "so *surely* it must be something that you are doing that I never do which is the sole cause of people raging at you."
posted by clawsoon at 1:04 PM on January 29, 2016 [12 favorites]


^amazing. I took a look myself, thinking surely you'd left out the part where they said "...and I also have long hair," but nope. Way to miss the point.
posted by sunset in snow country at 1:05 PM on January 29, 2016 [12 favorites]


My guess is that the offense is not that he has driven poorly, or that he looks like a woman, but that he has driven like a man while (looking like) a woman.

How many times, for example, have women been beaten simply for wearing pants?
posted by clawsoon at 1:07 PM on January 29, 2016 [42 favorites]


I was once witness to a road rage incident where the rager had tracked the driver to a residential neighborhood, drove on the left hand side of the road (the wrong way) to block and confront the object of his rage, and then got out and punched the door of her car hard enough to dent it.

It felt so good afterwards exchanging contact info, sending my video to her insurance company, and providing witness testimony.
posted by zippy at 1:07 PM on January 29, 2016 [131 favorites]


I really appreciated this article because I am generally a woman and look like a woman but it rarely occurs to me that I'm a woman (anyone else have this?) and I never realized that the sometimes quite terrifying road-rage incidents I've experienced could have been influenced by that.

Road rage events in Los Angeles have fallen into two categories: a) I'm aggressive in some [legally acceptable] way on the road or b) I make some stupid [but not necessarily dangerous] mistake like everyone eventually makes commuting a gazillion hours a year.

The worst incidents I could say were when I had longer hair, or when I was younger. Most of my adult life I've had short hair and don't typically get harassed in cars, on the street etc.

So while I'm a feminist and generally y'know hip to shit that goes on, this was rather eye-opening and valuable to read.
posted by Uncle Glendinning at 1:09 PM on January 29, 2016 [38 favorites]


That said, I do think this is a very nice and not annoying example of the "man realizes privilege" genre, and especially love that it's in Road and Track (which I don't know anything about, but I assume this is not their usual focus).

Not the same thing, but when I lived in Japan, my Chinese Australian (female) friend and I both experienced terrifying road rage incidents within a month or so of each other. Her guy beat on her windows and screamed at her; mine chased me down at high speed and blocked my car (on preview, exactly what zippy describes above) and screamed at me. We did not have an Asian male to include in our study for control purposes, but this never happened to any of our visibly white friends. In both cases, the guy didn't go away until we started yelling back at him in English. :\
posted by sunset in snow country at 1:10 PM on January 29, 2016 [12 favorites]


I really enjoyed this writer's voice. I'm not even interested in cars/motorcycles but I'm keeping an eye out for Jack Baruth going forward.

(One thing that distinguishes this from the usual "I didn't believe this until it happened to me, a man" thing is that women who encounter road rage may think it happens to everyone. I've had some angry male drivers act like jerks around me and just chalked it up to the kind of road rage that happens to everybody. Baruth's situation is a bit different because he sees the abrupt tone shift once the rageaholics realize he's a dude.)
posted by sallybrown at 1:11 PM on January 29, 2016 [39 favorites]


How many times, for example, have women been beaten simply for wearing pants?
Joan of Arc was burned at the stake for wearing pants.
posted by 0cm at 1:12 PM on January 29, 2016 [7 favorites]


I really hope he buys that pink motorcycle.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 1:16 PM on January 29, 2016 [11 favorites]


I do something to upset another driver, like squeezing in front of them on the freeway (in my car)

AKA cutting them off, which is kind of a dick move; and lane-splitting is illegal in a lot of states. But I found the article enlightening. In the past I was was someone pretty quick to flip off other drivers who pissed me off (with age and driving with a child in the car I have mellowed a good bit) and it always seemed to me that it was other men who were driving like assholes and pissing me off. It never occurred to me that women might disproportionately be the object of road rage. Although in retrospect I do seem to remember that a number of the fatal road rage incidents that have been in the news involved women. So this was an enlightening read, for me at least.
posted by TedW at 1:17 PM on January 29, 2016


One thing that distinguishes this from the usual "I didn't believe this until it happened to me, a man" thing is that women who encounter road rage may think it happens to everyone. I've had some angry male drivers act like jerks around me and just chalked it up to the kind of road rage that happens to everybody. Baruth's situation is a bit different because he sees the abrupt tone shift once the rageaholics realize he's a dude.

That's what I found interesting. As a relatively burly and not entirely un-intimidating dude, I really don't experience much road rage. It never occurred to me as something that could have a particularly gendered effect. I thought (when I think about it at all) that I never had road raged directed at me because I tend to be decent defensive driver, and also a little bit of an intimidation factor.

It turns out, a big reason might be because I'm male.
posted by generichuman at 1:20 PM on January 29, 2016 [26 favorites]


Well, I have long hair and a beard and look pretty much like that guy, but this hasn't ever happened to me. But I've listened to many women tell me these kinds of stories, and it makes me wonder... do the guys denying that this is a thing not listen to the women in their lives? But of course, no, they don't.

At my work a woman was threatened repeatedly by another woman, including on social media with pictures of guns, and the man in charge of dealing with it, I kid you not, told her she needed to take up yoga and learn to relax. A lot of people called him on it, but he's still in the same position, so...
posted by Huck500 at 1:21 PM on January 29, 2016 [5 favorites]


One thing that distinguishes this from the usual "I didn't believe this until it happened to me, a man" thing is that women who encounter road rage may think it happens to everyone. I've had some angry male drivers act like jerks around me and just chalked it up to the kind of road rage that happens to everybody.

That was exactly my thought. I've had some terrifying road rage directed at me and a few I thought were more. . . sexist in nature than they could have been (that the guy wouldn't have been so angry if I'd been a guy) but it's a little harder to "prove" that. I mean, I've also seen dude on dude road rage and thought, indeed, that assholes gonna asshole no matter the gender. So this was a little startling.

OTOH, rage type incidents that began with some sort of sexual harassment from guys in other vehicles have always been clearly gender based. Evidence that men hate women and think they're entitled to attention from us as well as to say whatever they want is never more clear than a guy essentially trying to use his car as a weapon when you don't respond how he wants you to when he pulls up next to you and says sexually suggestive things.
posted by barchan at 1:23 PM on January 29, 2016 [2 favorites]


Really. Really? I already have spent a very long amount of time learning how to drive because 1) I live in the second most congested area of California, and I'm blatantly disinterested in being like the other hundreds of shitty, aggressive drivers around me, and I want to be the best defensive driver ever 2) my mental health from dealing with a lot of shitty oppression required to be healed first before I could start driving, and I still have to do therapy while driving.

And now I have to be worried about misogyny, my life, and misogynists chasing me to my house, because I'm a person who presents female, with long hair, while driving? And this already has happened to so many other people? This world really continues to give people like me tons of bullshit. Feminist forever.

I sincerely hope this article gets a lot of people to start thinking and talking about this, instead of just burying it underneath the "well it doesn't happen to ME" stupidity. Oh, and to start checking themselves and to not use misogyny as a way to channel rage. wtf. WTF?
posted by yueliang at 1:24 PM on January 29, 2016 [6 favorites]


Honestly, I just thought that road rage was A Thing That Happens, but after reading this article I've thought back - and every single incident of road rage that I have witnessed has been directed at a female driver. I don't think that misogyny is at the root of all road rage, certainly, but I'd never even thought to analyse it in gender terms.
posted by Vortisaur at 1:30 PM on January 29, 2016 [1 favorite]


The sick sad truth is that as a 30 something woman in a 20 year old car, I get more road rage directed at me for driving cautiously than for any kind of recklessness or rudeness.

I really enjoyed the article. One of my cousins recently inherited a nice pink Harley from his wife's father. I do think pink really might be the ultimate badass color for a motorcycle.
posted by monopas at 1:36 PM on January 29, 2016 [12 favorites]


Men also sometimes treat women poorly in parking lots and alleys and streets. For example, more than once, I've been going down my alley or driving in a parking lot, where some guy driving a big rig decides to speed through illegally, without signals or anything, and then parks or just blocks me in. And then they expect me to somehow do a U-turn or back 50m down the alley or whatever else. They inevitably laugh at me, say, "Stupid lady driver" or whatever else they can to assert their power. I've had a rig turn off a quiet road and block me in the alley behind my doctor's office, where there's no way for me to back down safely - when they shouldn't have even been turning in that way. They do this all the time - but, from what I have experienced, seen and heard, it generally happens to women. They pull these power trips and then mock the "lady drivers". It's all the worse because I'm in a position of having to drive unsafely with kids in the car, too.
posted by Chaussette and the Pussy Cats at 1:38 PM on January 29, 2016 [12 favorites]


I'm not surprised that women are singled out for roadgoing abuse, but in a way I actually am surprised because there has been no difference in the way people react to me on the road between times when I have had short hair and the (more common for me) long hair. My hair has gotten me called ma'am by servers in restaurants many many times, though.

I'm left wondering if the pair of dudebros who first attempted to force me to stop by diving in front of me and slamming on their brakes, tried to run me off the road, and then chased me at over double the speed limit for a good many miles only felt so bold because they thought I was female. It was pretty nerve wracking as it was..enough so it didn't even occur to me to call 911 until well after the fact. That definitely would have been better than several last second exits, weaving through traffic, and finally running a few red lights before the pricks lost their nerve and let me be.

(It was less dangerous to innocent bystanders than it sounds, but not as much as I would like)

I guess you could count that as a difference, but that's literally the only time I've been the subject of anything more than being flipped the bird.
posted by wierdo at 1:45 PM on January 29, 2016


I haven't heard of this before. However, I do know that drivers are vastly more hostile to me when I road bike with my friend Stephanie. I always thought it was because we were going more slowly than I do alone, but this makes me wonder.
posted by Mitrovarr at 1:49 PM on January 29, 2016


At least once every time we gals haul horses on a road trip down the interstate, one of the passengers will jokingly, (bitterly) wave our hands in the air and yell, "OMG a woman pulling a horse trailer!"

This is in reference to the fact that there's something about a woman hauling a five horse trailer with a big engine 4WD that just drives some men to absolutely explode with testosterone. If they were putzing along at 20 mph under the speed limit, they'll have to speed up to 105 mph to keep you from passing. They'll blow past at warp speeds for fear that you might get ahead of them on the off ramp. They'll dive in front of you deliberately when they pass attempting to get you to throw the horses on the floor when you have to slow down. In town they cut you off. Run the light. Deliberately stop in the middle of a lane and peel out. At a four-way, they"ll make sure they proceed out of turn (or not stop.)

OMG! IT'S A WOMAN IN A HORSE TRAILER. SHE MUST BE PUT IN HER PLACE.
posted by BlueHorse at 1:55 PM on January 29, 2016 [31 favorites]


"I do something to upset another driver, like squeezing in front of them on the freeway (in my car)"

AKA cutting them off, which is kind of a dick move;


My observation is that a tremendous amount of road rage comes out of situations not where another driver has violated the unwritten or self-imposed rules of the road, not actul legal rules of the road or something to endanger/inconvenience another driver. "Cutting them off," for example, is how I'd describe it if someone did something forcing another person to brake suddenly lest they hit this person doing something in front of them.

But "squeezing in" can just mean merging into the remaining lane of traffic, a perfectly reasonable move. The anger that seems to set off in a big portion of drivers is probably an example of the most inane unwritten tendency I see on the road, a hostility to using the entirety of the merge lane. After all, presumably the traffic planners put some thought into where these lanes are. And if nothing else it's space for more cars to be. So when traffic is creeping at a glacial pace the smart move for everyone is clearly to use that whole bit of road. But instead you'll see them empty for dozens of car lengths; many people have taken the "move over as soon as you can" bit of advice which helps avoid sudden high-speed lane changes and they have interpreted it instead as don't you dare stay in that lane up till when it ends or else you're a huge asshole and I will creep along trying to stay as close to the bumper in front of me as I can to shut you out, lest you get ahead of me unjustly.

So I am completely unsurprised that these same set of people who think the world should go along with their internalized view of society, regardless of actual laws, would disproportionately get het up when women cross their little internal boundaries. Other men who refuse to conform are bad enough, but women who are inherently inferior? Putting themselves above me in even the tiniest of ways? They must be brought low, just like those inferior races when they 'put on airs.' My personal theory is that the folks who are more likely to feel like they have a right to personally and directly punish folks for perceived transgressions are also more likely to be racist/misogynist.
posted by phearlez at 2:03 PM on January 29, 2016 [12 favorites]


A lot of evolutionary psychologist talk about testosterone driving male-male competition - the drama of antlers butting, that sort of thing.

I wonder if any of them have explored this apparent urge to treat other men nicely but rage out on women.
posted by clawsoon at 2:03 PM on January 29, 2016 [3 favorites]


The sick sad truth is that as a 30 something woman in a 20 year old car, I get more road rage directed at me for driving cautiously than for any kind of recklessness or rudeness.

I've noticed this as well. My partner is an extremely defensive driver, and assholes on the interstate just can't handle it. Like, "You're ONLY going FIVE over the speed limit when it's raining out???? FUCK YOU, I'LL PASS ON THE RIGHT AND SHOUT AT YOU THEN CUT YOU OFF!!!!!!!"
posted by tobascodagama at 2:18 PM on January 29, 2016 [11 favorites]


I wish I could buy all the women a Grey Pendejo. I had that truck for 6 years, and never once had a single road rage incident. I toodled around like a grandpa -- drove it extra-politely in traffic because I knew it might seem intimidating to people, but I do the same thing in my Celica just because I got used to driving like that, & man, the grief I get these days. There's so much road rage in Austin though, that it's difficult for me to even tell what the hell is going on any more. As bad as it seems to me, if it's worse for women, then I can't even. What the hell is the matter with people, anyway?
posted by Devils Rancher at 2:19 PM on January 29, 2016 [7 favorites]


From what BlueHorse says, Devils Rancher, it sounds like the Grey Pendejo would only make things worse for a woman.
posted by clawsoon at 2:22 PM on January 29, 2016 [2 favorites]


(I am slightly disappointed that Grey Pendejo are not the actual make and model of that vehicle.)
posted by nebulawindphone at 2:25 PM on January 29, 2016 [27 favorites]


When I tell these stories to my friends and fellow motorcyclists, they always say, "Dude, just go get a helmet that isn't so, you know, girly."

Right, if someone else is being a jerk, the obvious solution is to change your behaviour to stop provoking them.
posted by GhostintheMachine at 2:27 PM on January 29, 2016 [5 favorites]


Oh, it earned its name over & over. That truck was an asshole.

it sounds like the Grey Pendejo would only make things worse for a woman.
Ugh, yes. I just read that comment. Again, what the hell is the matter with people? We will all get there. Just drive the fuck on.

Also, Baruth's helmet is kick ass.
posted by Devils Rancher at 2:29 PM on January 29, 2016 [2 favorites]


I've now run this by two female friends - both very switched on feminists.

This is really starting to remind me of the sit-down-no-stand-up to wipe thread a couple of years back, where both sides were shocked to learn that the other exist.

What I mean by that is that the reaction that I got wasn't a variation of "yeah, we've been trying to tell you men for years about this. You just haven't been listening." The reaction I got was surprise: "you mean you don't get road rage directed at you that way?"
posted by generichuman at 2:33 PM on January 29, 2016 [23 favorites]


Also, jesus. Don't read the comments.
posted by generichuman at 2:35 PM on January 29, 2016 [1 favorite]


Right, if someone else is being a jerk, the obvious solution is to change your behaviour to stop provoking them.

My training as a woman is such that it took me several seconds to recognize this as sarcasm.
posted by sunset in snow country at 2:38 PM on January 29, 2016 [31 favorites]


Also, jesus. Don't read the comments.

Actually, they reinforce the point quite well. The guys are all "I now hate this magazine full of SJW's and you drive like a moron!" and the women commenting are all saying "Wow, spot on. I totally have horrible road rage experiences like you describe." Very revealing.
posted by Devils Rancher at 2:40 PM on January 29, 2016 [21 favorites]


Side note: The Arai "Oriental" helmet. It is indeed gorgeous.
posted by generichuman at 2:40 PM on January 29, 2016 [9 favorites]


It's really funny reading all the comments by MRAs in the comment section of that story.
posted by Docrailgun at 2:48 PM on January 29, 2016 [2 favorites]


Strictly speaking, this shouldn't be enough to let anybody mistake me for a woman. I'm six-foot-two, 240 pounds, and have a full beard. Even if you walk up behind me, I'm pretty broad-shouldered, and I stand up straight, which is something none of the taller women I've ever dated can bring themselves to do.

Wow. He noticed. He noticed the societal thing that makes tall women hunch. Holy cow. So few men I've met have ever noticed this before meeting me (tall woman who stands up straight – it's being an exception that gets it noticed).
posted by fraula at 2:50 PM on January 29, 2016 [52 favorites]


Hmm. I'm a long-haired woman, and I've ridden motorcycles for 25 years. I've certainly encountered my share of road rage but it honestly had never occurred to me that road rage was a gendered behavior. I'm not sure how I would know, since I can't do the big "I'm a dude!" reveal to watch the attitude shift.

I've also spent the last fifteen years working in motorcycle shops. Buy me a beer and I'll regale you with horrifying stories of everyday sexism!

And yes, "Oriental" is an unfortunate name. Arai is the most respected motorcycle helmet maker in the world. I have the privilege of meeting several members of the Arai family, receiving Arai product training and am an Arai dealer. Arai is a privately-held, family-owned company based in Japan. It doesn't surprise me that Arai made a slight misstep naming one of their paint schemes; they are a small company with laser focus on building the best helmets in the world. Both my husband and I are wearing Arais in the linked photo.
posted by workerant at 2:59 PM on January 29, 2016 [11 favorites]


All the comments suggesting it's his driving... do they think he started driving differently once he let his hair grow long?
posted by GhostintheMachine at 2:59 PM on January 29, 2016 [19 favorites]


Yeah, having grown up in a house littered with Road & Track and EVO, these magazines are really like Playboy with cars instead of women. They're hyper-masculine. It's a very Road & Track editorial style to do a check on perspective and this is a very good place to do that. It's a well-placed, well-voiced opinion and a good voice in a forum often bereft of any feminism whatsoever.
posted by jimmythefish at 3:01 PM on January 29, 2016 [17 favorites]


My 4' 11", 60 year old mom who drives pretty aggressively on the streets and highways of Chicago in her zippy Audi tells me how she had no drivers yelling at her, ever since she put up her 'my son is a us marine' bumper sticker up.

Fascinating. I wonder how much that has to do with the "marine" part, and how much that has to do with (previously on Metafilter, I'm pretty sure) how much nicer men are if the woman is with a man.

I.e. the "Oh, shit, sorry man, I didn't realize she was with you" reaction.

(Also: I keep thinking "Saudi Arabia-lite". Rage at "driving like a man" - if my hypothesis above has any truth - isn't that far from rage at "driving, like a man".)
posted by clawsoon at 3:02 PM on January 29, 2016 [10 favorites]


until I became a mom, I built and drove stupid fast cars. There is nothing that will provoke idiots than a girl driving a big muscle car. I've seen multiple wrecks where some asshole has decided that he needs to go faster than me, or be in front of me,or tries to outdrive me. I'm a trained driver, I don't street race except where its a street race location, I don't even go ridiculous speed on public roads. But,I tell you what, I could fire up my Shelby, with her 350 Windsor and her dual hollys, and I could find an asshole who will be angry that I'm driving it in less than 10 minutes. Hell,I've been at mustang rallies where people...ok men...were furious that I owned it, refused to believe that I'd built the engine and transmission myself, and would ask if my boyfriend/dad/husband/brother actually owned it. My as camaro got the same reaction. There is a large subset of men who believe woman should be posed on top of cars, not winning quarter mile drag races.

I cried the day I sold that car, but I get way less shit from other drivers in my mom mobile,which, since it's usually filled with kids, is a good thing. But damn y'all, I miss the throaty growl of a giant v8, the vibration of a finely tuned beast under your control, and being able to fix the beast when she broke down, but none of that was worth risking the behavior of other drivers when I drove her.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 3:02 PM on January 29, 2016 [129 favorites]


But instead you'll see them empty for dozens of car lengths; many people have taken the "move over as soon as you can" bit of advice which helps avoid sudden high-speed lane changes and they have interpreted it instead as don't you dare stay in that lane up till when it ends or else you're a huge asshole and I will creep along trying to stay as close to the bumper in front of me as I can to shut you out, lest you get ahead of me unjustly.

The WORST part of this is that a zipper merge -- staying in your lane until the lanes come together, and then merging in in alternating fashion -- is by FAR the most efficient and least disruptive way to merge onto even a congested road. There's science on it and everything!

More relevant to the subject of the article, my husband is a long-haired bicycle commuter, and he has definitely noticed that some of the worst hostility he encounters comes from people who initially believe him to be female. It usually goes catcall --> driver catches up to the bike --> driver looks over and sees my extremely not-a-woman husband --> violent threats or occasional actual violence. People have tried to run him off the road with their cars, thrown full soda cans at him, etc. Like he deserves to be "punished" for tricking them or something.
posted by KathrynT at 3:03 PM on January 29, 2016 [14 favorites]


All the comments suggesting it's his driving... do they think he started driving differently once he let his hair grow long?

He's clearly Samson in reverse.
posted by clawsoon at 3:03 PM on January 29, 2016 [2 favorites]


This is really starting to remind me of the sit-down-no-stand-up to wipe thread a couple of years back, where both sides were shocked to learn that the other exist.

What I mean by that is that the reaction that I got wasn't a variation of "yeah, we've been trying to tell you men for years about this. You just haven't been listening." The reaction I got was surprise: "you mean you don't get road rage directed at you that way?"
posted by generichuman at 2:33 PM on January 29 [2 favorites +] [!]


I just texted my 50-year-old husband, a rather aggressive driver who has lived and driven aggressively in Washington DC, Chicago, and Seattle, both in cars and on a motorcycle, "Have you ever been the target of a road rage incident?"

Answer: "Not that I recall."

Holy shit.
posted by HotToddy at 3:10 PM on January 29, 2016 [23 favorites]


I would pay good money into a kickstarter campaign to get this guy equipped with a camera to record and permanently Internet shame the cowardly bullies who do this.
posted by BrotherCaine at 3:14 PM on January 29, 2016 [8 favorites]


I do a lot of driving, and see so much recklessness. I'm particularly cautious near home - twisty roads, often hugging lakes, often with no guardrails. Lawd help you if, on a wintry day or night you don't drive 15-20 MPH over the limit.

I used to have an awful control freak neighbor. (I once saw him publicly berating his young daughter for about 15 minutes.) He'd been a couple cars behind me one night, came up to me after we'd parked to inquire if something was wrong with my car (because I was driving "so slow"). I told him I was going about five miles under the limit, and added, "You know, you don't have to drive that speed on the sign. It's the maximum."

More recently, as I was turning off into our driveway I heard a guy from a truck behind me yelling, "Fuck you" at the top of his lungs. It was very cold out. So think of him going to the bother of opening his window to screech at the little car for causing Himself to have to slow down for a few seconds. It's both funny and disturbing.
posted by NorthernLite at 3:22 PM on January 29, 2016 [4 favorites]


It sounds like misogyny is a major component of this, but I wonder if it's also that road ragers perceive men as being too dangerous to rage at. Or the ones who did have already gotten beat senseless / shot / arrested from when they tried it on the wrong person.

I think societal politeness might be another reason. If a road ragers tried to get me to stop to yell at me or whatever, there is no way in hell I'm going to stop, short of being forced to. But the stories above sound like people stopped deliberately.
posted by Mitrovarr at 3:23 PM on January 29, 2016


All the comments suggesting it's his driving... do they think he started driving differently once he let his hair grow long?

They think the long luxurious hair made his driving ~*girly*~ probably.
posted by poffin boffin at 3:30 PM on January 29, 2016 [4 favorites]


> But the stories above sound like people stopped deliberately.

Maybe I missed them, but the ones here where people stopped they did because they did get forced to, or they had arrived home, or they had to because of traffic or something. Sometimes you do have to stop deliberately and it has nothing to do with confronting the scary asshole who's harassing you.
posted by rtha at 3:34 PM on January 29, 2016


but I wonder if it's also that road ragers perceive men as being too dangerous to rage at

I feel like this is definitely a component of the problem but I also think that sometimes men literally just do not notice identical actions taken by other men who are readily apparent as men. 10 minutes ago I was just crossing the street against the light with 3 other people, total strangers, all men, and the driver of the car that blasted up to the intersection to terrify us as we scampered across slammed on his brakes to take the time to yell YOU STUPID CUNT at me through his hastily lowered window. I was the only one guilty of jaywalking, you see. Those 3 other people, those MAN people, they probably had somewhere important to be and could thus not be held to the same standards as me.
posted by poffin boffin at 3:35 PM on January 29, 2016 [35 favorites]


poffin boffin: literally all he had to do to learn this lesson was listen to a woman saying "this is what it's like for us".

I disagree. Why? Because many women - like, say, HotToddy above - assume it happens to everyone and therefore never think to mention it to men.

And men assume that it rarely happens to anyone, so they never think to ask women about it.

Which is what makes this story valuable - it starts conversations.
posted by clawsoon at 3:36 PM on January 29, 2016 [22 favorites]


As a transwoman who recently noted and made comment to someone on the uptick in aggressive driving behavior that was going on around me, I never thought to chalk it up to how I was being perceived on the road. I am less of an aggressive driver now (which I think has nothing to do with gender as much as it is age), so I thought I was just being more observant of other driver's bad behavior. I've also not been in a road rage incident, thank goodness. So while enlightening, I am in no way surprised by this article.
posted by abigailKim at 3:36 PM on January 29, 2016 [3 favorites]


This is interesting to me, because I've also noticed an uptick in road rage and aggressive driving now that I have a car seat in my car. Previously I had some, but now that I'm a Obvious Mommy, OH MY GOD people get vocally gross.
posted by FritoKAL at 3:41 PM on January 29, 2016 [2 favorites]


Wow. He noticed. He noticed the societal thing that makes tall women hunch. Holy cow. So few men I've met have ever noticed this before meeting me (tall woman who stands up straight – it's being an exception that gets it noticed).

I dated someone who was younger and taller than me and told her not to hunch, and this was back in the 90s!
posted by marienbad at 3:55 PM on January 29, 2016


It's always interesting to see something from some other part of my own personal internet show up on the blue.

Some context: Jack Baruth is a long time writer at thetruthaboutcars.com. He's a car and IT guy, and has also been writing at Road and Track for a while. He's into cars (obviously), guitars, motorcycles, bmx bikes, and giving women nicknames like "Vodka McBigbra" (no, seriously - google it) He also likes (and has gotten very good at) trolling his fellow hobbyists, generally splitting the difference between their opinions of stuff involved in any of these hobbies and his own.

So given all that - what's interesting about his piece isn't so much what it's saying as who's saying it, and in what medium. As in, neither Baruth nor the R&T crowd are likely to show up at social justice events any time soon, but the fact that this was even written/published by this guy on that site is progress, at least of a sort.

Which is a long way of agreeing with generic human. "Well, duh" might be some people's immediate response, but this specific crowd is kind of exactly who could benefit from reading/thinking about this sort of thing.

Or would we rather they just stick to the horsepower in this year's corvette?
posted by NoRelationToLea at 4:07 PM on January 29, 2016 [14 favorites]


I totally get that this is something that it would be better to hear from a woman, and also something that it's frustrating to realize that many men will accept when told by another man but pooh pooh if they had been told the same story by a woman.

At the same time, despite being a car and motorcycle enthusiast who hangs out with other car and motorcycle enthusiasts, I have never really heard any women complain about increased threat of road rage (though I've certainly heard about plenty of other terrible behaviour that men direct at female motorcyclists). So I'm assuming that these women either have just filed this away as one of the infinite shitty things about misogyny that aren't even worth talking about because if you wanted to talk about them all you would never talk about anything else OR that they, having only ever had the experience of being recognizably women, just assumed that men had to put up with the same level of road rage.

Either way, whether it's that he's witnessing endemic misogyny for the first time or that he's in a somewhat uncommon position for having lived both experiences, I think him adding his voice is valuable despite it being in the man-shocked-to-discover-misogyny-exists genre.

Even more so, as a regular reader of Road and Track, I am thrilled that this is something they've decided it is within their mandate to publish.
posted by 256 at 4:12 PM on January 29, 2016 [7 favorites]


Like workerant I have been riding a motorcycle as a long haired woman for decades. I have encountered some road rage but not THAT much. I too am flabbergasted to think that there are people who never encounter any at all.

Even so, I think I get as much up-side as down-side, for being a woman. People really notice women motorcyclists, and as a result you often get people being extra nice. I meet about ten gushing, over-the-top nice people, for every road rage incident. Sometimes the gushing niceness gets a bit wearing. I'm not a unicorn, and the "you go girl" stuff betrays a sad lack of belief in women's ability to do stuff.
posted by elizilla at 4:20 PM on January 29, 2016 [2 favorites]


I (a man) had always assumed that "road rage" was a thing that happened in Other Places - you know, big cities like NYC or LA where traffic is even more horrible than it is elsewhere. I had no idea it was so widespread, because I've never experienced it myself - and as far as I know, the women I'm personally acquainted with have a driving style that that article (or some of the commenters here) would not refer to as "aggressive", so I guess they fly under the road-rage radar. So this article was news to me.
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:34 PM on January 29, 2016 [2 favorites]


Personally I find it weird that people even bother to notice the gender of other drivers on the road. In what way could it possibly be relevant? We are only going to be interacting for minutes at most, and that interaction will be conveyed through our cars (or motorcycles) which can't really communicate and which do exactly the same things regardless of who is controlling them. Why would I be interested in the person inside the car? Seriously—I'm not trying to pull some more-rational-than-thou act, I'm genuinely confused.

I'm also baffled that anybody would ever under any circumstances tell another person that they're going to beat them until they cannot stand, but I long ago gave up trying to wrap my head around that level of aggression. People who do that shit have serious problems and I wish I knew what to do about them. That the hyperaggressiveness has a misogynistic component is extra fucked up, but exhibiting that kind of behavior toward anyone ever is already so warped that I can't wrap my head around it.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 5:12 PM on January 29, 2016 [5 favorites]


A. Road rage can be terrifying. I had some guy try and drive me off of 35W because I cut into his lane, got embarrassed and then sped up. Don't mess around with cars people.

B. New K-pop/1980s funk band name or bedroom paint scheme: Funky Grey Pendejo.

C. As a motorcyclist, I tend to over notice all motorcyclists. If you're on a bike anywhere near me, I know exactly where you are.

D. I get to live in Minnesota where we do this weird hand wave/quasi Nazi salute whenever we cut someone off and magically all is well. I've tried it in other cities, but it doesn't work.*

*It works in Madison.
posted by Sphinx at 5:16 PM on January 29, 2016 [5 favorites]


I actually just assumed it was an LA thing, not a driving as a woman thing. I mean, I have noticed that most asshole drivers are dudes in luxury cars, but I've generally assumed the road rage/asshole driving I've been subject to has been because I'm a more defensive driver. Obviously I'm not surprised women are subject to more road rage or aggressive driving though.

I just haven't noticed a gender component to this, because it's not like I can tell who's driving at night. I am however especially used to getting tailgated and then passed for going too slow on the freeways, for the sin of only going 10 MPH over the speed limit instead of, idk, 20 mph over the speed limit as some would apparently prefer. I'm always in the middle or right lane too, so it's not like I'm fouling up the fast lane. Which, whatever, I got that $500 speeding ticket and have no desire to get it again.

But earlier this week, someone pulled that shit on me on a surface street that was backed up for blocks thanks to traffic. Like, no, I'm not pulling into the intersection when I'm obviously going to be sitting in the middle of the intersection by the time the light changes! I've gotten that ticket too and have no desire to get it again! But, after flashing their brights at me, some asshole in a giant SUV passed me on the right to drive into the lane half-blocked by parked cars, and proceeded to dip in and out of that lane to pass other cars for the next few blocks. I ended up passing that car at the next light, so buddy, it's not like you saved any time pulling that shit. Sure hope that asshole driving style was because you had to get to the hospital or something.
posted by yasaman at 5:26 PM on January 29, 2016 [6 favorites]


I actually just assumed it was an LA thing, not a driving as a woman thing

I just came back from a conference in Pasadena last week, and holy crap are LA drivers angry. Like, a constant stream of honking at people for slowing down to make an entirely predictable left turn into the parking structure on a one way road adjacent to the conference center. I assume the only reason the highways were less angry is that they were too congested for anyone to bother.
posted by pwnguin at 5:34 PM on January 29, 2016 [1 favorite]


Road rage happens because people have metal armour around them and they think they are awesome, and everyone owes them respect. And because the car's design is inherently self-centered and personal. Most drivers aren't consciously aware of the constant stress of being on the verge of homicide/suicide, but it's always there. And it only takes a tiny catalyst to set off that rage explosion.

Which is why I, for one, welcome our autonomous car overlords.
posted by fartknocker at 5:37 PM on January 29, 2016 [10 favorites]


I (a man) had always assumed that "road rage" was a thing that happened in Other Places - you know, big cities like NYC or LA where traffic is even more horrible than it is elsewhere. I had no idea it was so widespread, because I've never experienced it myself - and as far as I know, the women I'm personally acquainted with have a driving style that that article (or some of the commenters here) would not refer to as "aggressive", so I guess they fly under the road-rage radar. So this article was news to me.
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:34 PM on January 29 [+] [!]


No, but see, I'm a woman who does not drive aggressively--I don't cut people off, I don't lean on the horn, I signal my intent before turning or changing lanes, I don't go much over the speed limit, etc.--and I live in a small, rural town. I have also lived in big cities. Definitely the road rage incidents in big cities were way scarier and more dramatic, definitely ragey, but even here--where normally our only traffic jams are caused by a standoff of two overly polite drivers each insisting the other go first--even here, I have occasionally gotten men yelling at me, shaking a finger angrily at me, leaning on their horns, etc. I wouldn't call it road "rage" exactly, but it's never happened to my husband here either. Interesting.
posted by HotToddy at 5:38 PM on January 29, 2016 [7 favorites]


Seattle, early 1970s -- I had curly blonde hair down to my shoulderblades and a full beard and moustache, and rode my 10-speed a lot. On hot days, just wearing shorts.

The guys pulling up behind always had such goofball looks on their faces when they caught up whooping and whistling from behind and got next to me.

Seattle was a pretty nice place. My old high school friend going to college in Texas learned from his fellow cyclist, a faculty member, to always have a .22 in his shirt to pull out when guys in a truck would pull up next to them and start edging toward the shoulder intending to push the bicyclist into the ditch.

I moved back to Virginia from Seattle in the mid-70s. One night, as usual riding home on a country road, my bicycle pump fell off the bike frame unexpectedly -- dark, middle of the night, no traffic on the road, not even house lights nearby.

When I turned back and picked the pump up, it had a fair sized bullet hole through it.

Fun times.
posted by hank at 5:39 PM on January 29, 2016 [8 favorites]


Like, a constant stream of honking at people for slowing down to make an entirely predictable left turn into the parking structure on a one way road adjacent to the conference center.

I have been honked at for not turning while pedestrians were walking through the intersection, with the walk light in their favor. Charitably, maybe the honker didn't see the pedestrians, but come the fuck on, LA drivers.
posted by yasaman at 5:45 PM on January 29, 2016 [1 favorite]


> I ended up passing that car at the next light

I love when that happens. Even better was what happened to me last week, when I was tailgated by some asshole for no fucking reason (plenty of room to pass! Go already!) for several miles and he finally zoomed around me in a great show of FUCK YOU... and then a few miles after that, I saw him pulled over by the CHP. I went WOO HOO! as I went by.
posted by rtha at 5:51 PM on January 29, 2016 [29 favorites]


I actually just assumed it was an LA thing

Huh. I drive a daily commute between New Jersey and Long Island (I know), but we visit LA once a year to see grandma. I'm always looking forward to that trip, because driving in LA is so much more relaxing than driving around here. I don't think I've ever gotten honked at in LA.
posted by monospace at 6:19 PM on January 29, 2016 [3 favorites]


I was going to say that I must be the odd man who has gotten a modest number of road rage type incidents directed at him, but then I remembered I wore my hair long for years. It never occurred to me to connect the two before.
posted by pattern juggler at 6:25 PM on January 29, 2016 [2 favorites]


I have been honked at for not turning while pedestrians were walking through the intersection, with the walk light in their favor. Charitably, maybe the honker didn't see the pedestrians, but come the fuck on, LA drivers.

As a reluctant LA driver and frequent LA pedestrian, I assure you, they 100% see the pedestrians. I prefer the honking to "nudging one out of the way with the car" or "screams from the depths of hell" to be totally honest. The freeways have been road-rage free though? More like rivers of ennui and rogue spray paint.
posted by jetlagaddict at 6:28 PM on January 29, 2016


I take dubious pride in the fact that all of the moments in life when I've come close to discriminatory road rage it's been a class issue and not one of gender or race. For example, the Ferrari F50 that aggressively cut me off in San Francisco during the first dot-com boom -- I had to pull over and take some deep breaths in order to keep my youthful impetuous self from piling the virgin steel and pig-iron front end of my 1984 Volvo 245GLT into the delicate and expensive carbon-fiber spiderweb rear end of his Italian penis surrogate.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that there are people in this world who "punch down" and people who "punch up." And if you're going to choose punching as your path (as many of us do at some point in life) please make sure you're using it to tear down the unjustly privileged rather than perpetuating the violence inherent in the system.

Thankfully I never acted physically on these urges and they have largely passed into the memories of my youth -- although I would relish an opportunity to poke Donald Trump right in the nose. And if, god forbid, that human shitpile becomes president, I would like the secret service to note that I have made these remarks about candidate and "businessman" Trump and they therefore do not constitute treason in any way.
posted by turbowombat at 7:14 PM on January 29, 2016 [5 favorites]


For this guy to superimpose a title like "how men treat women" onto his very particular personal experiences is ridiculous, arrogant, and in fact male-entitled because he assumes his must be the prototypical experience and that he can speak for women as a class.

I am an actual woman, I've been a frequent driver in the USA for, hmmm, 27 or so years, and never has anyone, male or female, gotten out of their car to threaten me! There has to be more going on here than gender. Based on the author's own admission, he drives like an asshole, so I'm not surprised people get mad at him. He also frequently drives a motorcycle, and I'm guessing there's some anyi-cycle feelings on the part of some of these drivers.
posted by mysterious_stranger at 8:23 PM on January 29, 2016 [2 favorites]


Personally I find it weird that people even bother to notice the gender of other drivers on the road. In what way could it possibly be relevant? We are only going to be interacting for minutes at most, and that interaction will be conveyed through our cars (or motorcycles) which can't really communicate and which do exactly the same things regardless of who is controlling them. Why would I be interested in the person inside the car? Seriously—I'm not trying to pull some more-rational-than-thou act, I'm genuinely confused.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 5:12 PM on January 29


I notice the gender of other drivers because I am paying attention to what those drivers are doing behind the wheel. It's not that I'm looking to see if it's a man or a woman, I'm noticing if they are paying attention to the road, playing with their phones (in which case I'm getting as far away from them as possible), are lost and looking where they are going (ditto), etc. I try to have as much awareness of my surroundings when I'm behind the wheel as possible.

Beyond the general attention I pay to other drivers, I do take notice of males behind the wheel because believe me, they don't like it when a woman attempts to pass them. You'd be amazed at how many assholes take it as a personal affront when a girl with long hair want to move up in traffic. It's simply improper and cannot be tolerated! The fact that these dudes are sitting in the passing lane for mile after mile, not passing and not making any sort of progress whatsoever, has no bearing on the situation whatsoever. They are entitled to be where they want to be on the road, and I'm not. And if I do happen to make my way around them, then it's time to pull our every trick they learned from watching The Dukes of Hazard/Fast & Furious/etc., as they weave in and out of traffic and do everything in their power to beat me and get back in front.

Now I'm not saying this doesn't happen to males drivers too, but having racked up a lot of carpooling miles where I swap out driving days with a guy, it happens to me significantly more than it does to my male counterpart who has a very similar driving style. Admittedly the type of car is also a factor in how other people treat you when you're on the road, but it's a lesser one.
posted by sardonyx at 8:38 PM on January 29, 2016 [4 favorites]


Long-haired female here. I don't drive but I do walk a lot, crossing many roads (usually legally). It seems like every week I'm recounting to someone how I almost got hit by a car that came tearing out of nowhere. I thought it was just bad luck on my part, or me not being cautious/visible enough. But now I wonder if some of them see me just fine and intentionally charge at me to scare me.
posted by mantecol at 8:46 PM on January 29, 2016 [4 favorites]


No, but see, I'm a woman who does not drive aggressively ... I have occasionally gotten men yelling at me, shaking a finger angrily at me, leaning on their horns, etc.

Yes, but I'm not personally acquainted with you. :) I don't doubt you at all, and I'm not trying to undermine the point of the FPP and the commenters in this thread that all sorts of traffic-aggression incidents happen more to women than they do to men (or me). I believe it, now that it's been brought to my attention. It just hadn't come up in my experience or conversations, so this was new information to me, that's all I was trying to say.
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:24 PM on January 29, 2016 [1 favorite]


> I am an actual woman, I've been a frequent driver in the USA for, hmmm, 27 or so years, and never has anyone, male or female, gotten out of their car to threaten me!

Me neither, but that doesn't mean a damn thing about whether or not it actually happens, because it does (and those are just the incidents where someone was convicted and it was considered newsworthy; think about how many people don't even call the cops to report an incident). Given how gendered other aggressive actions can be, it would be surprising if gender had nothing to do with it. But just because gender isn't the sole reason that drivers treat each other badly doesn't mean it's not a reason at all.

> and in fact male-entitled because he assumes his must be the prototypical experience and that he can speak for women as a class.

I didn't read him as speaking for women at all, but as describing his experience as a man-who-other-men-might-think-is-a-woman-sometimes. That's not the same.

Also, way to go with the victim-blaming. No one ever deserves to be physically threatened or actually beaten for e.g. lane-splitting or doing a zipper merge on a freeway or even cutting someone off. My commute is ~60 miles daily and I regularly get mad at other drivers without somehow assuming it is also my job to teach them a lesson with my 2,000 pound vehicle.
posted by rtha at 9:27 PM on January 29, 2016 [23 favorites]


I am an actual woman, I've been a frequent driver in the USA for, hmmm, 27 or so years, and never has anyone, male or female, gotten out of their car to threaten me!

Dude. You really can't call out the author for generalizing his experience to all women and then generalize your experience to all women.

Also? Not only have men--always men--gotten out of their car to threaten me, they've followed me home, driven threateningly in my neighborhood, cut me off in dangerous ways, and raced through city streets to get in front of me. I'm a fairly aggressive and bold driver and it would appear that there are some men who really don't like that.

Road rage has happening to me for all of the 15 years I've been driving (barring the three I spent in North Dakota). It's a rage/adrenaline/fear cocktail that is incredibly potent and leaves me shaking for minutes, sometimes hours. The ones who follow me home--yes, multiple times men have followed me home from road rage--make me nervous that maybe I should watch myself the next time I leave my home.

People have joked that I should tone it down because I live in Texas and the next guy I provoke could have a gun. I will never deny that I'm an aggressive driver but holy hell. It's too similar to the internet manbabies who try to silence women through rape threats and SWATing but in this case it's men trying to prevent a woman from entering the masculine-identified public sphere in an equal way.

I had always assumed that men were more likely to be victims of road rage than women but I'm now wondering whether I should rethink that. A very interesting article all around.
posted by librarylis at 10:35 PM on January 29, 2016 [22 favorites]


As a non-car-owning female in Wisconsin who rents carshares a lot, I can totally tell if my rental has Illinois plates by how I'm treated on the road. My driving style does not change, but drivers will tailgate me when I'm going 5 over in the slow lane (75mph!) on a three-lane highway, and pass me in a huff, then pull right in front of me. Doesn't happen anywhere near as often when the car has in-state plates. (To try to explain outside my small world: Wisconsin residents have a stereotype about Illinois drivers being total jerks who deserve hatred. Google "FIB" and "Illinois" if you're interested.) Anyway, I've never ever even thought about how I might also have a higher experience with road rage because I'm a woman, but that bizarre comparison makes me believe it right away.
posted by quarterinmyshoe at 12:10 AM on January 30, 2016 [1 favorite]


I'm a (short-haired) woman in the Chicago area. There are plenty of angry drivers around here, and I've definitely had a few road rage incidents. The worst was many years ago, when I was driving home from work. A guy in a pickup truck in front of me did something to annoy me - probably cut me off, I don't remember - and I honked my horn at him. Immediately afterward, the truck stopped (this was on a side street near a residential area), a very large, angry, scary-looking guy got out, and proceeded to come right up to my window and scream at me. Needless to say, I kept my doors locked and my windows shut. Thank goodness he wasn't armed!
posted by SisterHavana at 12:23 AM on January 30, 2016 [1 favorite]


From an Australian study:
What this means is that adjusting for higher male exposure to the road still leaves females with a victimisation rate about half of the equivalent male rate.
And this Ontario study gives a slight edge to victims being women (52%).

And in a case where I wouldn't be surprised if there was some sort of selection bias or bin bias a study in the UK commissioned for a documentary found
Overall, 46 per cent of men reported being road rage victims compared to 39 per cent of women.
I didn't find any numbers for the states.
posted by Mitheral at 2:03 AM on January 30, 2016 [1 favorite]


Like he deserves to be "punished" for tricking them or something.

Now imagine being a badly-passing trans woman...

I don't drive, but I sure as hell get very close to being run over an awful lot. I have also had cars follow me and people get out and try and stay shit with me when I've been cat-called by drivers who then realise their 'mistake'. It's a double-whammy of misogyny and that 'deception' punishment. All. The. Time.
posted by Dysk at 2:35 AM on January 30, 2016 [2 favorites]


I live in Massholia. Nothing brings on road rage quicker in these parts than a single woman driving the speed limit or, god forbid, slightly below (pedestrians y'all), on a two-lane road.

Interestingly, the drivers on Cape Ann are much more polite than those slightly south, narrow windy streets and all. No one riding me, honking, or any such thing. What a difference 15 miles can make. (Living on Cape Ann is like a time machine to the late nineties in general, which for me is just fine.)

All in all, I walk, bike, or take the T whenever I can. Car culture needs to go the way of the dodo.
posted by Sheydem-tants at 4:08 AM on January 30, 2016 [3 favorites]


I have not been a victim of road rage, nor do I know anyone that has been a victim of road rage, but regardless of this Road and Track testimony of routinely de-escalating aggression at the sight of a Y chromosome, I'm sure if I listened to enough men and women I would find that men would tell me many more stories of being violently victimized by road ragers. Why? Because the demographic similarity of victims and victimizers is a mundane reality.

Deaths and injuries from road rage: cases in Canadian newspapers:

There were male perpetrators in 57 cases (96.6%) and female perpetrators in only 5 (8.5%). Men were victims of road rage in 57 cases (96.6%), as were women in 13 cases (22%) ... Among the cases reported, 72.9% involved nonfatal injuries to 59 individuals (43 cases) and 6.8% involved deaths (4 cases). All of the reported injuries were serious and required medical attention.
posted by dgaicun at 7:34 AM on January 30, 2016


That's only counting incidents that escalated to violence that required medical attention and which were reported and then reported in the paper, though. It doesn't at all address threatening with the vehicle (and perhaps would not address cases where injury is from collision not physical attack). Maybe that means man on woman violence is less likely to go beyond threat but I doubt that would be a comforting statistic in the moment.
posted by phearlez at 9:39 AM on January 30, 2016 [4 favorites]


A few years ago, I maneuvered my car into an awkward space left when some doofus in a full-size pickup truck backed into a space badly. I was parked within the stripes, but due to doofus' poor skills, doofus' driver side door was blocked. Consequences. I noted the license plate because, doofuses. Came out that evening to find that my car had been dented up; the campus night cop said it was likely done by a fist, and I was SOL. Gave him the license plate number. A detective called the truck owner, who turned out to be a woman who allowed her boyfriend to use her truck. They denied responsibility. I spoke to the (female) detective and noted that the bf seems to have a rage problem, having dented my car with his fist over parking, and maybe the young woman should think about that. The detective said, thoughtfully "I think I'll give her another call."

It's road rage, and it's another form of people being violent assholes to people they perceive as weaker. It's the same anger and entitled crap that drives domestic violence and bullying. As a woman, I sure would like to be able to live in the world relatively safely, and recognizing that I can't still pisses me off.

It's a good article; thanks for posting it.
posted by theora55 at 10:34 AM on January 30, 2016 [9 favorites]


I'm sure if I listened to enough men and women I would find that men would tell me many more stories of being violently victimized by road ragers. Why? Because the demographic similarity of victims and victimizers is a mundane reality.

There's another reason, which also applies to the studies equating the percentage of road rage incidents reported by men vs. women to the percentage of road rage incidents directed at men vs. women. Women don't report a lot of things because a) it happens so frequently it's almost not worthy of mention, like being catcalled or hit on at a bar; b) it's perceived, sadly, as part of the cost of being female, like the pink tax or unequal dry cleaning bills, which for mental health reasons they decide to ignore; c) they don't trust law enforcement to take them seriously, and; d) they don't want the risk of inspiring further ire/attack from the perpetrator if law enforcement does, in fact, take them seriously. See also: sexual assault.

Oh and there's also the phenomenon, as some others above noted, of not perceiving a relationship between being female and being on the receiving end of road rage. That translates into not taking it personally, vs. a guy who will take it personally.
posted by carmicha at 11:10 AM on January 30, 2016 [6 favorites]


he finally zoomed around me in a great show of FUCK YOU... and then a few miles after that, I saw him pulled over by the CHP

Which you know he's seethingly blaming you for, since you made him do that.

I hadn't ever thought about a gender component to road rage before this either. Oddly enough, now that I do think about it, all my memorable road rage incidents (except for one douchey entitled dude in a convertible) have been from women.
posted by ctmf at 11:21 AM on January 30, 2016 [1 favorite]


That's only counting incidents that escalated to violence that required medical attention and which were reported and then reported in the paper, though. It doesn't at all address threatening with the vehicle (and perhaps would not address cases where injury is from collision not physical attack). Maybe that means man on woman violence is less likely to go beyond threat but I doubt that would be a comforting statistic in the moment.

Exactly right, because there's at least three reasons the man-woman road rage incidents won't escalate to violence requiring professional intervention driven by social mores: women are less likely to instigate, especially not to a male driver; an instigating man will back off after yelling at a woman, as the author of the piece linked by the OP discovered, and; most women will just take the abuse, without mounting a chase, leaping out of the car with a weapon, or otherwise ratcheting up the encounter, just hoping the raging lunatic will go away having emerged "victorious."
posted by carmicha at 12:01 PM on January 30, 2016 [2 favorites]


Is it seemingly true that so many drivers (of any gender) have never been a passenger often enough to notice a different level of Road Rage compared to that experienced when driving alone?

Also reminds me of when I got road-raged at by a pickup truck driver for doing a quick merge/lane-change in a Honda Prelude...
posted by Sintram at 12:51 PM on January 30, 2016


I hadn't thought about how road rage might be directed more at women than men. Makes sense, though. You don't yell at somebody you think might kick your ass; these guys live in a world where a woman can't kick a man's ass. Their world is all hammers and nails, and they are the hammers. I second the complaint about motorcyclists and bicyclists. They are invisible to many auto drivers.

I'm thinking that misogyny is only one of the shortcomings by which these sorts may be identified.
posted by mule98J at 1:18 PM on January 30, 2016 [2 favorites]


I don't think the evidence (see above) is that road rage is directed more at women than men, it's that women are subjected to a horrible gendered form of road rage while men tend to get the more generalized "you're an asshole" kind of stuff. Not that being the target of violence isn't scary anyway, of course.
posted by Justinian at 2:23 PM on January 30, 2016


literally all he had to do to learn this lesson was listen to a woman saying "this is what it's like for us".

The obvious response to this is that if I were to *shudder* wander over to /r/Redpill, /r/Mensrights, or the like then I'd get a very different set of responses saying "This is what it's like for us" and get very different conclusions. I've heard plenty of stories from straight white men about being discriminated against for that. Plenty of stories from Christians about anti-Christian discrimination. In fact I don't believe that there's a single group I am aware of that doesn't claim that they are being discriminated against and have anecdotes to back it up.

Anyone can produce an anecdote and many people will. Before/after testing (as here) and statistics are massively more convincing if you want to convince me things are disproportionate. It's not about the narrative being delivered by a man - it's about someone with the direct ability to compare. (Trans narratives are therefore incredibly convincing no matter which way the transition happened)
posted by Francis at 3:39 AM on January 31, 2016 [5 favorites]


All the times I've been run off the road as a cyclist or fog horned* and all the ragey incidents directed at me since I started driving. It never occurred to me that despite being a more cautious driver than my 6ft+ hubby that it's significantly related to being female.

I just started cycling again, mostly on cycle approved side walks. My recent incident was me slowing down to walk my bicycle across a signal driven intersection. I slow down and dismount at least 20 yards from the light. A small sedan stops at the red and waits to turn right (onto a road rated 45 but since there's no traffic on it ever it's a two mile stretch people do 65+ on). The suv driven by a guy behind it starts laying on his horn for the sedan to turn. I wave the sedan on and the suv doesn't move ... He's busy texting.

*foghorn ... You're riding along, not shoulder checking, and a car comes up behind you super close and super fast and lays on the horn from right behind you and on past you and then slows down to see if you wreck.

I'd better get a bike cam.
posted by tilde at 4:54 AM on January 31, 2016 [2 favorites]


Seriously fuck Lexus drivers.
posted by turbid dahlia at 3:18 PM on January 31, 2016 [1 favorite]


I have a gnarly commute in LA, and I know the location of every single police and sheriff's station between my house and office for a reason: I've had to drive to every single one of them to deter men who're pissed off about something I've done while driving. Usually the great crime is ignoring their catcalls.

On the other hand, it's amazing how pulling into a police station's parking lot instantly makes these guys suddenly decide they need to go home and alphabetize their hot sauce collection.
posted by culfinglin at 2:05 PM on February 1, 2016 [5 favorites]


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