In the subway the other day, I was walking behind two women, each pushing a stroller. They had some parcels and a child walking beside them. We got to the stairs. One woman put the child's hand on the railing and told her to walk down slowly. Then the two women each adjusted their bags, picked up their strollers, and made their way down the stairs. Because there were two of them, they took up the whole stairwell.
Another woman came up beside me. We walked behind the women with strollers quietly, each of us braced to catch them if they stumble.
Then a man came rushing up from behind. He pushed his way past us and saw the holdup was the women with strollers. As he pushed his way pass them, the two women stopped, waited for him to pass before continuing. Then the man realized what he had just done, so he turned around, put his hand on one of the stroller and said, "Do you need any help?"
The woman said, "No, no thanks. I can manage."
The man refused to let go of the stroller and tried to drag it and the woman down the stairs, no doubt trying to atone for his sin. The woman was too polite to protest, so she adjusted her balance to accommodate the man's "help".
But I couldn't stand it. I said to the man, "You've never carried a stroller down the stairs, have you? You make her lose her balance by pulling on the stroller like that."
By this time, everyone made it to the bottom of the stairs. The man turned and went away. He looked back at us, smirking, either to cover up his embarrassment or he really thought he had helped despite what I said.
I walked away too and glared at him. I wanted to tell him to carry a few strollers down the subway staris before budding in to ease his own conscience. Women who bring their strollers into the subway have got it figured out. They have their parcels, kids and balance all fine tuned. You lay a hand on them during the descent and you could tip the delicate balance cause some real damage. I wanted to tell that to the man.
But as we all walked further away from each other, the urge to lecture dissipated, and I left us all to stew some more in the befuddlement of subway etiquette.
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I had been the woman in the subway, with the stroller, on the stairs, too many times to mention and the most helpfull were other women. Sometimes I accepted the helpfull hand and other times (as you said the balance would have been disrupted)and sometimes I didn't. Men seemed to appear chivolrous but akward. My gut response is take the help when needed and get over the women's lib thing. We can't always do everything by ourselves! Just as men should perhaps get over the testosterone thing and in turn allow women to help them out.
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