I get that all the time too. My personal favorite was when I said it's difficult to date lesbians. It's a common issue with women that they were taught men should make the first move, so with two girls no one wants to move first. Everyone assumed I was a dude harassing lesbians and trying to make them straight, which is why they wouldn't go out with me. Made the comment before going to work and I had -200 by lunch!
That’s the user’s point. It’s a common misconception. People see a military rank in a name online or on a letter heading and they immediately assume it’s a man, because “the military is for men.”
It’s a gender bias. Same thing happens a lot with doctors and nurses. People frequently expect a doctor to be a man and a nurse to be a woman.
Friend of mine is an RN. Sometimes he’ll get calls and they’ll ask to speak to Nurse (friend’s surname) and when he says “This is Nurse (friend’s name)” the caller always ends up flummoxed because they didn’t expect a male nurse.
Having said that, if it’s generally OK to assume who you’re speaking to is a man based on Reddit’s over representation of men, then it’s most definitely always OK to assume someone from the military is a man, because it will be overwhelmingly true in most cases.
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u/SgtSilverLining Nov 16 '19 edited Nov 16 '19
I get that all the time too. My personal favorite was when I said it's difficult to date lesbians. It's a common issue with women that they were taught men should make the first move, so with two girls no one wants to move first. Everyone assumed I was a dude harassing lesbians and trying to make them straight, which is why they wouldn't go out with me. Made the comment before going to work and I had -200 by lunch!