Woman says she was listening to an elderly woman complaining that women ‘barely wear anything’ these days. Then realized she was being ‘shamed’

A young woman shared that what seemed like a general complaint from an older stranger at a bank turned out to be directed at her own outfit. The incident was posted as a TikTok video by Martha Mae, who goes by the handle @marthamaeuk and describes herself as a Twitch streamer. In the video, Mae recounted how she only figured out mid-conversation that she was the subject of the older woman’s remarks.

“So I just got s–t shamed at the bank, which is such a wild sentence anyway,” Mae starts the video and reveals that she was waiting for her mother when an older woman sat down next to her and began speaking about how young people dress. 

According to Mae, the woman said, “All these younger people, like, I can’t believe what they wear nowadays.” Mae said she assumed the comment was just a general observation, so she nodded and smiled without thinking much of it.

Mae said she responded calmly and kept the conversation going rather than reacting with anger

The woman then continued, saying, “I can’t believe it, like they literally barely wear anything.” It was only when the woman looked directly at Mae and asked, “Are you not cold?” that Mae said she realized the remarks had been about her all along. “That’s when it clicked,” Mae said in the video. “She was talking about me.”

Instead of pushing back, Mae said she turned to the woman and asked, “Oh, are you cold?” The woman reportedly replied, “Yeah, I’m freezing.” Mae then said she responded, “Well, at least it’s not as hot as last week.” According to Mae, the woman agreed and then looked her “up and down,” and that was the end of the exchange.

Mae described feeling “a little bit taken aback” by the moment but said she chose to keep things polite rather than react with frustration. She did not indicate in the video that the two exchanged any further words after that point. The interaction, as Mae described it, ended without any argument or confrontation.

In the video, Mae also showed viewers the outfit she had been wearing during the encounter. She appeared in a full-body mirror shot dressed in a cropped, long-sleeved beige knitted cardigan with buttons down the front, paired with a light blue floral maxi skirt that reached down to her ankles and had a small slit near the shin. This kind of public scrutiny over a woman’s clothing choices is a common theme in social media discussions about shaming.

The video drew a wave of reactions in the comments, with many viewers expressing disbelief at the situation. One user wrote, “Ive always wondered at what age does the beige trousers and padded coat become our daily outfit,” while another commenter simply responded, “What it the world.” 

A viewer named EllieJoy appeared to mock the premise sarcastically, writing, “that’s wild Martha! how dare you wear something so skimpy,” accompanied by laughing emojis. Others weighed in on how Mae handled the moment. A commenter named Amina wrote, “You’re a lot nicer than me I tell that bc she’d picking her pieces off the floor for hours,” suggesting she would have responded far less calmly. 

Another wrote, “How dare you not dress like you’re in Downton Abbey… Seriously nothing wrong with that, what the heckins!” Another commenter offered a different approach, writing, “‘what an odd thing to say out loud’ I promise you it shuts people up straight away.” The incident Mae described is not an isolated type of experience. Another content creator shared a similar story of being approached by a stranger in a grocery store while pregnant.