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.
@ johanna
If you annoy your secratary in the military do they send you somewhere nice instead?
(It’s notorious in the army that you get to travel in a freezing Hercules transport and then get overtaken by a DC-10 delivering filing cabinets)
@ EJ
Isn’t that a ‘vest top’ over here; or have we adopted the US terminology? (I’ve never had occasion to buy one so I may be out of date)
@Dalillama I’m confused now. I thought what you called a vest was what we called a waistcoat. Or does “vest” cover that as well as the sleeveless jumper?
@Neremanth
Yes. Hence why one might specify a sweatervest when referring to a sleeveless jumper rather than a waistcoat
Someone was looking for a lion in a suit?
http://i226.photobucket.com/albums/dd76/sugarandteeth/lion-suit.jpg
@Dalillama Ah, thanks – that makes sense!
Interesting. MRAs make a lot of noise about how women have the cushy office jobs while men toil in hard labor jobs. Yet, the default man to them is still a man in a suit. In other words, an upper class professional. This kind of confirms my suspicions that manospherians are mostly the products of affluent suburbia. It explains why they pretend to care about working class men but don’t ever seem to know jack shit about working class people.
I do think we should appease them this once though. All the women can start wearing menswear to work and the men can start wearing tight skirts and heels. In no time, we’ll get MRA memes whining about masculine looking women and feminine looking men.
Yes, women’s business garb in summer is fresher than men’s business garb and that inevitably starts countless fights about who should wield the AC remote on my workplace every year. 😀
Normal guys in suits just grin and bear it while enjoying the nice view provided by women’s summer fashion.
Bitter losers with microscopic penises and gigantic chips on their shoulders take this as oppression and waste their time making stupid memes like this one.
Stuff like this meme used to give me mixed feelings, even if it made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside for not being a pathetic loser, it also made me feel kind of sorry about these guys’ frustrating dating prospects and sex lives.
Now that I’m older, and wiser, I think this is all for the best.
Guys like these are probably evolutionary dead ends since they lack the skills and charm needed to find women willing to date them and eventually have kids with them, so society wins in the long run.
Personally, if one of my underlings showed up with that shirt to work I’d just tell him something along the lines “dude, you never told me you were a fashion blogger” or “bro, that shirt looks awful on you, didn’t you have any clean shirts on your closet?”
That said, the dress code for senior staffers and middle managers (junior and tech staffers can dress any way they want) is way stricter for women than it is for men, especially for pitch meetings or client presentations.
Depends on location, too.
As a professional in DC?
No, a polo or tee wouldn’t fly.
(The same can probably be said for many other US East Coast cities, though mileage varies considerably by industry.)
re: the subject of the post:
MRAs when a woman dresses stylishly for an office job: “Whaaa! Women ‘get’ to wear whatever they want! Whaaa!”
MRAs when a woman dresses “more professionally” (in something more equivalent to a suit and tie): “Whaaa! This woman’s not pleasing my boner! WHAAAA!”
Get a fucking grip, guys.
“All the women can start wearing menswear to work and the men can start wearing tight skirts and heels.”
That’s not such a bad idea, you know.
Because of my scottish ancestry, I don’t see the idea of of wearing tight skirts so far off, and heels would highlight my toned legs and make me look taller. 😀
In my office, there’s someone who identifies as male, but periodically wears skirts and usually has one earring. He receives no flak for this whatsoever. I’ve occasionally thought to myself that he would be more comfortable if he wore a more flowing skirt (he tends to go for long, narrow models that inhibit his stride), but otherwise, it’s just a non-issue.
The question I have is who do the MRAs think establish and enforce these dress codes? It’s men. Get your shit together men; fix your own damn dress codes. If you’re gonna take credit for every accomplishment made by a man throughout all of history, you also need to take responsibility for the bullshit too.
A local mayor did this recently – for 15 months. He wanted to wait until someone noticed, but nobody ever did. He called it “good enough” the first time someone commented at all about his suit, because he really didn’t want to wear the same suit for the rest of his career, and figured the point made.
https://www.facebook.com/notes/richard-stewart/what-if-the-mayor-wore-the-same-suit-for-a-year/1050234411663332
If being able to wear sleeveless shirts without comment is a real thing they care about and not a flimsy pretext for whining about women (call me cynical), then put a case together and negotiate. Challenge the fossilised dress code until it’s normalised. See the campaign for pants as acceptable corporate-wear for women and take it as your model.
Oh, you don’t give a crap about sleeves and just want to spit poison at women? Carry on then. See if I care if you have hot elbows.
@Alan
In Australia we call the underwear item either a thong or a G.*
Most workplaces here would rather let you stick a fork in the power socket than wear open footwear (WHS risk), so thongs/flip flops are generally unacceptable. That doesn’t mean some women (and probably some men too) don’t wear a thong of the intimate apparel variety to work. While my work dress code bans leggings, hoodies, and hair that’s not a ‘natural’ colour, so far Gs haven’t been mentioned. It may only be a matter of time though. They’re fairly conservative.
Bonus trivia: across the ditch in New Zealand, thongs/flip flops are called jandals. They will look at you very offended if you laugh at that ?
*(NB – in Australian English, everything has to be shortened if possible, or turned into two syllables if not – young males seem to be particularly adept at this linguistic ‘rule’, to the point in some cases that they are virtually unintelligible)
@WTH
If what I know of them is sufficient, they’ll bemoan the plight of the working man, but stop the presses if you want things like workers’ rights, sufficient wages and health plans. That’s just crazy leftist thinking that will make the workers lazy and less willing to be my slave- I mean as productive employees.
There’s also this, which appeared a few days after a piece very much along the lines you describe.
Gauze and hope.
I’ve never seen a better description of women’s office wear.
My eldest is getting to the age at which she needs women’s size 0/1 pants (because of the length).
A recent conversation regarding a pair of pants that her grandmother recently bought for her:
She asked, “Why are there no pockets? There are the pocket tops but no pockets.”
“Well…it’s because the person who designed it thought that women shouldn’t have anything in their pockets to disrupt their silhouette.”
“That’s dumb.”
“Yep.”
@British people: Leather pants.
What are those to you?
‘Jandals’ is entirely sensible and a portmanteau of ‘Japanese sandals’. Hey, it doesn’t get confused with pants, so points up for that.
Tank tops!
@Scaly Llama –
But it’s not OK to say that it sounds like baby talk when they do that, right?
😉
Re: Male politicians wearing the same suit
Australian tv host Karl Stefanovic wore the same suit on air on a VERY popular breakfast tv program for a year, and no one noticed.
http://www.businessinsider.com.au/19-photos-of-karl-stefanovic-wearing-the-same-suit-every-day-to-make-a-point-about-sexism-2014-11
@mockingbird
Pants that can’t hold anything in their pockets are worthless and zippers that don’t do anything on boots are evil. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a conspiracy with purse companies and pants industry that makes a compromise where pants are just for looks so women would have to buy handbags to hold their things.
mockingbird:
Impossible.
My first proper job, in 1979, at the UK central office of a multinational, I had several colleagues who were young Australian men working their way around the world.
In the summer, at least two of them wore three piece business suits with short trousers.
Tremendously hairy legs!