The Delivery Driver Is Still at the Door

A man used a woman’s name on DoorDash and was shocked by how he was treated. We weren’t.

A bloke on Reddit recently had the shocking revelation that being treated like a woman is… horrific. For science, he changed his DoorDash name to something girly—Stephanie, bless her—and within two weeks he was being called sweetie, told to come outside, and basically treated like a free trial of harassment. He was gobsmacked. Women weren’t. It’s always fun being a man because you can cosplay womanhood for content, get creeped on for a fortnight, and then log out. For the rest of us, it’s just called life.

The replies were a bloodbath but only if you’ve never been a woman. Women flooded the comments like, “Yeah babes, that’s why my DoorDash account says my name is Mike.” Another said she used to order with a knife hidden behind her back in case the driver got ideas. One ordered two meals just so it looked like she wasn’t alone. These aren’t quirks. They’re survival tactics. You know, just girly things. One comment summed it up best: “That’s just the average day being a female.” And it is. This isn’t a shocking exposé. This is the emotional equivalent of putting “Thursday” in bold.

And yet, there were still men in the replies going, “Well I’ve never seen that happen” or “Bit dramatic, isn’t it?” As if reality only becomes real when a man’s had a go at it first. This is the problem. Women’s stories don’t count unless they come with a spreadsheet and a PowerPoint. You could say a man followed you to your flat, and someone will ask what you were wearing, what time it was, whether Mercury was in retrograde, and whether you can back it up with timestamped CCTV. If women had to log every incident into Excel for it to count, we’d never get to sleep.

And when we do speak up, we get the usual hits:

• Maybe he was just being friendly

• You’re overthinking it

• Not all men

• Sounds like a one-off

• Are you sure you’re not reading into it

• I’ve used DoorDash loads and never had that happen

Of course you haven’t. Your name’s Dave and your presence doesn’t register as a potential assault. Funny how that works.

What really lit a fire under the thread wasn’t the story itself. It was the fact that a man said it. Suddenly it was a revelation. A plot twist. A thinkpiece in waiting. Because when a woman says she feels unsafe, she’s being emotional. When a man says it, it’s a warning sign. The fastest way to believe a woman is still for a man to pretend to be one. Female suffering only seems to register when it’s been run through a male filter first. He experiences a fraction of what women deal with daily, and the internet gasps like it's just witnessed a glitch in the matrix. Meanwhile, women have been screaming into the void since dial-up.

They call it a “microaggression” as if the word micro makes it cute. Like it’s just a tiny, passive-aggressive sprinkle of misogyny. But when a man lingers at your door, ignores your delivery instructions, or calls you sweetie while refusing to leave until you open up, that’s not a quirk. That’s a boundary check. That’s him seeing if you’ll flinch. Women know this. It’s why we fake names. It’s why we order two meals to look like there’s someone else home. It’s why one woman in the thread said she opened the door holding the biggest kitchen knife she had. And honestly? Fair. These aren’t overreactions. They’re risk assessments in lipstick.

Tech companies love to market “safety features,” but only after someone dies. Until then, it’s all pastel branding and soft promises. DoorDash, Uber Eats, all of them, sell convenience like it applies to everyone equally. But women know that convenience is a luxury you only get if your existence isn’t a liability. These platforms are built on the assumption that the user is male. That the home is safe. That following instructions is standard. But for us, the app doesn’t end at checkout. It ends when the food is inside, the door is locked, and you’ve stared through the peephole long enough to be sure he’s actually gone.

Women don’t need another round of beta testing to prove harassment exists. We don’t need another thread full of anecdotes to be met with “that’s weird, never happened to me.” We need to be believed the first time. Harassment is not a bug in the system. It’s baked into the interface. Men get dinner. Women get danger with a side of fries.