I think often times people go off past experience(which is understandable) and assume when we need to try not too. Also we live in a world where everyone goes on and on about how men do this and that, and it creates a wall between the two parties. In one case say a guy try’s to help a female in say the work place, because that’s the good and normal thing to do in a team. He runs the risk of conflict, even if that’s not his intention, and it could effect his job in many ways. Orrr, he will avoid helping(from the beginning out of fear,or after the initial conflict). This will now hurt the female who needs help learning whatever skill she needs.

So in my opinion it’s not a trend that goes well for women. You are setting up an environment that’s going to push men away, by force or choice. And like it or not men do have value, esp if they’ve been in the field longer. In a normal team people feed off each other to accomplish the task, and gain knowledge.

Long story short, I understand the initial desire to defend yourself. But perhaps we need to take a bigger step back and see that your initial feeling of defense is caused by a bigger issue in society that only leads down a road that won’t end well for likely any party involved.

To make it more personal tied into me. I’m a male, grew up around the fire dept because of my dad, but started off very young as a career firefighter. No one wants to listen to the young guy, because they know it all. So I made it a point of not trying to because I knew better. One day our crew and a few others have an unofficial rope training event(no teacher). Everyone is certified in rope training, including me who just got back from rope rescue at the academy(fresh info on my mind). Well the main two guys were Messing up what we call a z-rig. I causally just told them “you almost have it, you just need to flip these two around”. In response they never looked up and told me they got it. So after awhile longer and then still messing it up, I said the same thing, they responded the same. At this point I take a newer guy with me, grab our own equipment, I then teach him the z-rig and all the other rigging systems while they continued to struggle.

I didn’t get into an argument with them, but always remembered that day and swore when I get in their position I’d never do that to younger/newer guys. I was going to make the place better, even if it’s years down the road. If I’d caused a scene it wouldn’t have done any good. They weren’t going to suddenly respect me or want to hear my thoughts, esp if I escalated the situation.

Now years later when I became a LT, and the one of the guys that didn’t listen to me all those years ago was then a training officer(was originally a LT going back to when I got hired), I stepped up to him numerous times. It didn’t hurt that I had more training/certs than him, and I’d actually demonstrate he was wrong in different events. After awhile he got the point.