Never underestimate the ability of Men’s Rights Activists to get worked up over the most ridiculous nonsense.
I found the meme above on the Men’s Rights Australia Facebook page, accompanied by this explanation:
Women are allowed to wear whatever they like to work, including sleeveless tops, short skirts, and even thongs. Yet if a man were to wear sleeveless tops, shorts, or thongs you can be sure he’d be sent home from work or even fired. In summer men have to suffer in the heat wearing trousers, long sleeve shirts, and tie. Feminists claim they also care about inequalities facing men so why aren’t they fighting against this? -ms
YEAH FEMINISTS WHY AREN’T YOU FIGHTING AGAINST THIS TERRIBLE INJUSTICE, WOMEN NEVER HAVE TO WEAR ANYTHING UNCOMFORTABLE OR AWKWARD AT WORK 0h wait
Note: I should point out that the “thongs” being referenced aren’t the ones that ride up your butt, but rather are the ones you wear on your feet and that are also called flip flops, at least here in the US.
BONUS MEME: This isn’t a Men’s Rights meme, obviously, but it literally made me laugh out loud.
Apparently the best way to fight communism is to do nothing while the oceans rise. I guess the Communists have their secret bases on the Marshall Islands?
I’m reminded of this legendary toilet paper ad.
A spectre is haunting the bathroom — the spectre of really really scratchy toilet paper.
Don’t be silly! Just find a white man to have the idea after you had it, then it will quickly be heralded as the best option, adopted and finally made into company policy.
As HIS idea, obviously. Absolutely no one will remember it was actually yours, especially when it works, and don’t even think of trying to take any credit.
@ WWTH
I’m involved in a few businesses. We have a number of ‘philosophies’. One of those is “The person who has to do a task gets to decide how it’s done”
That’s partly based on our own previous experiences which mirror what you’ve been saying. Basically we just set out the goal and the person/people let us know what they need to do that, or just how much money they need to buy stuff. Obviously if they came back with a list like ‘three bottles of champagne, a team of Sherpas, contact details for a lion tamer, etc.’ then we might ask for a bit of an outline of their plan. But other than that we just leave them to it. Micro management is so unconstructive for all sort of reasons, and it’s a complete waste of resources.
Alan – you hiring? 😉
@ kale
Hey, if you know anything about the fitness industry or Housing Associations and you are happy to be based in the UK we could have a chat, seriously.
You know, yesterday I thought eloli’s initial boner note was probably just badly phrased, and that his underlying attitudes towards women were probably better than his words made them seem. I didn’t think it was worth the effort to point out why his word choices were dismissive.
I’m so glad that other people had better instincts and called him out, because he immediately proved that his behaviour and beliefs were even worse than his first comment suggested. So thank you, everyone who got into it with him, particularly those of you (like sunnysombrera) who took the brunt of his condescending responses.
That was why, even in my last salaried job, I worked from home half the time, and could therefore wear whatever the hell I wanted. We were a very small team, with very specific tasks and deadlines, and if anyone wasn’t pulling their weight it became very clear very quickly who it was and how much weight wasn’t being pulled.
And we quite liked having the freedom to work where we wanted (understatement), so of course we all pulled plenty. I’m still friends with most of that team on Facebook to this day, and have very fond memories of working with them.
I was joking but that is very nice of you! Im in school working towards a medial career. Unfortunately putting up with doctor’s egos will be my life. but itll be worth it for the money Ill make at least. Who knows, maybe ill find a nice one.
Maybe it was buried in the wall o’ defensive text?
People like eloli are the reason I’m suspicious as fuck of anyone claiming to be “progressive” when they’re part of a privileged group.
I have every right to be suspicious and weary of someone who claims to be on my side and claims to want to do right by me, but then trots out the same bullshit as people who actively hate me do, and who can’t take any criticism of their actions because I’m not considering their feelings when I call them out for bigotry, intentional or not.
Does that make life harder for people who are actually on my side and want to help? Yeah. But if they are actually on my side and want to help, then they’ll work extra hard to prove it. If not, then they end up like this conversation.
eloli, if you’re still reading: Get your shit together. Listen to people who are criticizing you. We’re not doing this for our benefit, we’re doing this for yours, and for your daughters’, who you obviously care about very much. You’re going to teach them. So, what you learn will be something they’ll learn down the line.
“Small dick” jokes are transphobic (no matter who they’re directed at) because not all men have penises, and commenting on that trying to “use the system against them” is still using the busted transphobic system, commenting on “the view” in relation to women is dehumanizing and reduces women to nothing more than decor. Insisting that MRAs or other hateful bigots are mentally ill is ableist as fuck, and those of us with mental illness around here manage to not be a bigoted shitheel just fine.
Maybe once you get that through your head, you can sit with us. Maybe.
Was it hard for me to accept the ways I am (and was) privileged and accept criticism when I didn’t mean to do something bigoted? Yeah. But I put on my Listening and Learning Pants and shut up for two seconds to actually listen so I could understand and not fuck up again, instead of listening just to double down with canned “But I didn’t mean to!/I had a good reason to!/It wasn’t my intention!” bullshit.
We all stick our foot in it sometimes, but what’s important is whether or not a person takes the time to wipe the shit off of their shoes, or if they ignore it and track it through the house.
@PI this is why as a white person I try not to talk too much when PoC are talking about racism, & def not to argue, & if a poc calls me out, EVEN IF I THINK ITS HARSH, even if in fact maybe they are incorrect, I just listen and try really hard to check my biases & privilege. For example, I still dont fully understand/agree on the dredlocks thing, but I recognize that Im probly wrong and even if Im not it doesnt matter, PoC have been through enough & if white dreds bug them it isnt my place to argue much leas defy them.
wtf does this mean?
I hope I’m not dragging this out too much, but I think it may be worth saying– eloli, if people (especially women) are saying that they’re getting squicked out by the way you’re talking to/about women, the chances that they will want to then contact you privately to discuss it further are very, very small.
Someone who is feeling creeped out does not want to get into a more isolated/private situation with the person who has (intentionally or not) given them the creeps.
Which, again, is an issue of accounting for the fact that other people’s comfort level may be entirely different than your own.
@PoM I’m pretty sure it means that once we solve economic inequality there will be no other problems. Lots of great stuff in there:
If. IF!!
Translation: The problem isn’t that you’re being harassed, it’s that someone is able to harass you. What a meaningful difference.
@Emmy Rae
I find myself fascinated by the use of a dumbed-down Foucault power-4 style conceptual structure to argue (apparently) that there’s no reason to try to stop sexual harassment.
@ Kat
An analogy that helped me get the whole cultural appropriation thing:
Imagine you’ve worked really hard on a presentation for school. You give your presentation and get an F. Another student later in the day presents what is clearly a direct copy of your work, gets an A and gets praised by the teacher for their originality. Do you feel you’ve been treated unfairly or are you flattered that the other student chose your work to copy?
Black people are rarely given credit for their contributions and are often actually mocked and derided for styles associated with blackness. White people find those things, use them, and accept credit and praise for thinking of them. The problem is white people adopting these styles within the context of that double standard.
@PoM I would spend more time thinking about it, but I am busy writing a romantic comedy based on the hilarious premise of a man finding a woman’s intelligence attractive.
@ Paradoxy
I’m sceptical about anyone who self identifies in a positive way. It’s like someone said on another thread about “rational” or “cool”. It’s not for you to judge. I’m the same with anyone who self describes as “compassionate”. That might be a label other people can apply to you based on your actions; but it’s for you to prove, you can’t just claim that title by self proclamation.
I think at best people can say something like “I support this particular (progressive) stance”, but ultimately the proof of the pudding is in the eating.
@sevenofmine I was reading an article the other day by a Chinese-American woman who said something like ‘when I wear Chinese clothes it looks like a tacky costume, when a white woman does she looks sophisticated and daring.’
@ kale
Good luck with the studies!
Based on my experience, if you want a good supply of snarky comments and jokes to put doctors in their place, just hang around with nurses 😉
@sevenofmine
That’s a really good analogy. I’ve never really thought about it that way before. Thanks!
wtf does this mean?
My feeling is that there are very few people who welcome (positive) comments about their appearance from strangers/acquaintances – if you think you are beautiful you don’t need to hear it, if you don’t think you are beautiful, you probably can’t hear it. But that isn’t what we’re talking about here – we’re talking about the fact that people can say things that are unwelcome, but because of the social structures/ power relationship we have to just stand there and take it.
I mean, why couldn’t someone be offended by a ‘complement’ from their boss about her ability to do her job well? Is that all she is? Another cog in the corporate machine?
Ultimately, the particulars of what is an unwelcome comment will depend upon individual circumstances – the universal ingredient to harassment is the power to (implicitly or explicitly) harass.
So deal with the power first.
Another analogy that I found on tumblr was someone saying to just watch The Nightmare Before Christmas.
Jack wants to understand and appreciate Christmas, and instead he steals it from the people who it belongs to (Santa and the elves) and ends up nearly ruining it because he tries to apply Halloween values to it instead, and tries to take credit for Christmas.
It’s only when he realizes why everything went wrong (that he has no damn clue what he’s doing and that he’s the Pumpkin King and not “Sandy Claws”) that he’s able to make things right.
Except there’s a vast difference between someone saying “I’m awesome and cool and funny” and “I support rights for LGBT people/feminism/BLM.”
One of which only applies to them, and if they’re wrong, then the only person they hurt (If any hurt is to be had) is themselves.
The other has grander implications because they can hurt others with their bullshit.
There’s so many examples in feminism alone of men weaseling their way into a feminist space and then attempting to co-opt feminist language in an attempt to be “Feminist to Fuck”, so they can get all the benefits of looking like they’re sympathetic to the cause without actually wanting to change anything about themselves.
In other words, they’re just using the movement to do the same shit that the movement is trying to call out and stop, which could lead to more than just one person being hurt. In the case of feminism, it could lead to someone being raped, assaulted, or otherwise taken advantage of.
And people outside of the movement could point to that person and say that’s the reason we shouldn’t trust feminism/LGBT rights supporters/BLM.
Far more damaging than someone just saying they’re funny or something.
IN OTHER NEWS: US Women’s soccer (football for those of you not from the US) team suing for equal pay, because they made 44% of what the men made, even though they won their tournaments while the men lost theirs and the women’s team made more money on their ad revenue.
And the sexual harassment never?
Yep, this hypothetical, theoretical situation that never actually occurred in which a woman was offended by being told she’s good at her job totally means that we should not care that actual, real, living women are viewed, today, as sexual objects first and people a distant second, if at all.
Depends; the IT defense contractors trend towards polos because programmers tend to really hate wearing suits and often only do so when forced. Most other places in the area do insist on suits, though, and contractors consulting at them may be instructed to wear suits.
@ Paradoxy
I think we’re probably saying the same thing. It’s that distinction between saying you support progressive causes (although I still think it’s ok to be sceptical until you see if people do more than merely ‘talk the talk’) and claiming to be ‘progressive’.
Your feminism example is a good one. It’s easy for men to say “I’m a feminist” and even wear the t-shirt, but do they actually do anything about it? Of course men shouldn’t come blundering into feminist spaces with a ‘step aside ladies, I’ve got this’ attitude, although that does seem to be common*. The key test is, do men put their money where their mouth is in areas they can have a role? Do they call out their mates when someone makes an inappropriate comment or do they make sure they’re still ‘one of the lads’, to give but one example?
It may be I’m creating a distinction without a difference, but I do think that claiming a label and actually doing something are separate things. That make sense?
(Personally I don’t think men should identify as feminists, or even allies, but I appreciate views may differ on that)