Every family has that dad. The one who fancies himself the household’s last bastion of reason, a stoic know-it-all surrounded by hysterics, who spends his dinner time delivering a TED Talk on how women become functionally inoperable once a month.
He’s not sexist, you understand. He’s just observing nature. He’s dealing with facts without any emotions attached. The joke practically tells itself.
Recently, a user went on the popular r/AmITheAsshole aka AITA subreddit to lay out a particularly frustrating scene. Imagine this: family dinner, both sisters present, and dad’s buddy in attendance with his wife and son in tow.
Somewhere between the entrée and the indignity, her father pivoted into his greatest hits, riffing with his pal about how “lucky” the friend was to have a son, because cohabiting with women is apparently a Geneva Convention violation.
He went on for a bit, apparently, talking about how women get “moody and miserable” on their periods and how the entire household barometer plummets accordingly. The friend, ever the supportive hype man, declared he thanks the lord daily for his Y-chromosomal good fortune.
Which is extremely weird because as the OP suggests, the two sisters had already moved out. The estrogen-soaked dystopia he was lamenting was, in fact, mostly him and a pathological unwillingness to ever look in a mirror.
The OP, the younger sister, decided to meet him on his own register. Honestly, she said, if he’d had a son exactly like him, it would’ve been worse, because he’s moody and irritable all the time anyway, like he’s “permanently on his period.”
The comeback and a unanimous “not the a—hole” ruling
The friend laughed, and the friend’s wife laughed louder. She even swiveled to her own husband, and offered the assist of the century: “Oh, don’t laugh, you are like that too.” Two women, one table, telepathically high-fiving across the dinner rolls.
The daughter went on to reveal that she does sports on her period. Her sisters are perfectly chill, and in her recollection, the household’s true weather system wasn’t menstrual at all — it was Dad picking fights, then blaming the fallout on “women hormones” whenever anyone responded with the audacity of having a pulse.
After dinner, her father pulled her aside to file his formal complaint. She had embarrassed him. Insulted him. Disrespected him in front of his friend. Comparing a man to “having a period” was, in his view, simply beyond the pale. He added that his friend group “takes pride in being masculine,” and she had made him look weak.
Not sure about you, but I had second-hand embarrassment just reading that bit. A man who spent forty-five minutes monologuing about women being unbearable could not absorb thirty seconds of being the bit.
The verdict was unanimous. “Your dad is a misogynist, be sure to tell him ‘it was just a joke, jeez,’” added the top comment with more than 13k upvotes. “Geez dad, you sound hysterical. Maybe you should talk a walk and come back to this conversation when you can be less emotional,” another user joked.
Others piled on with variations on the same gag, throwing back every condescending like some reflexively reach for whenever a member of the opposite gender dares to have a thought or a feeling. You should read them for yourself. They’re pretty amusing, all told.
Published: May 10, 2026 04:50 pm