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.
Where I went to college, one of the fashion department’s (male) teachers was well-known for wearing a kilt to work. He worked there until that branch closed down.
@Emmy Rae
Yes!
@Emmy Rae
Yeeesh, that sucks. Fortunately in my workplace we don’t have that kind of environment, though a couple of male colleagues have made…eyebrow-raising comments about women once in a blue moon. But I digress. Most of the comments I have to deal with come from customers, like I said. Fellow staff members don’t make advances, thank God.
Would like to add, too late for the edit window, that I also didn’t call out my male colleagues when they made those comments. I didn’t want the fallout, since they’d inevitably argue with me. Sometimes I just gotta pick my battles.
Okay, so I’ve got a serious question for the commentariat here.
Most of the people I work with are women, and I’ve gotten in the habit of making the rounds of people’s offices on my way in (as many of my coworkers do as well; in fact, I started doing it because it seemed to be expected). Mostly it’s just sticking my head in and saying “hi,” but thanks to my wife getting me interested in Project Runway, I also started complimenting people on their clothes.
I want to emphasize that my focus is always on the clothing – along the lines of “that green blouse goes well with your shoes,” or “nice animal print!”…that sort of thing, usually followed up with a “you look great today” (if they do; I have no real gift for schmoozing, so I stick to compliments I believe in).
So my question is essentially whether this has a high or low probability of coming off as creepy and weird. I mean, as far as I know, everyone seems to like it, but as noted by a number of commenters above, that may not be reflective of their internal reality.
Thanks for y’all’s input.
@Gaebolga
If you’re commenting on their clothes I don’t see a problem, myself. There’s a difference between “complimenting” someone like they’re an object and complimenting an actual object they happen to possess and be wearing. You’re holding the person separate from what they look like by focusing on their outfit, instead of blending appearance with personhood by calling them “hot” or “beautiful views” or whatever. I hope that makes sense. I want to suggest that you don’t do it every day to the same people though*, and I also want to consider that due to the problem of female objectification in culture, there is a chance it would come off differently from a man like yourself instead of from another woman. Not your fault of course, but there is that.
All said and done, sounds to me like you’re doing fine.
*at best it would become repetitive and lose meaning, at worst you might leave a female employee wondering just why you’re complimenting a piece of her clothing every morning…
yea women shouldnt have to convince men that their behavior is icky for you to respect that they said fucking no, I dont like that, please stop.
I am not scenery. ?
Because what the menz? I also noticed that Eloli made a comment about MRA penis sizes. He did the same thing on the Jamie thread, it just got lost in the shuffle. Body shaming isn’t cool and it’s not going to solve anything.
Having a small penis doesn’t make one a misogynist. We don’t actually know any of their penis sizes, nor is it relevent. Unless you’re Walter, of course!
@Gaebolga – I can’t speak for others, of course, but in my experience it’s obvious when a man is complimenting my style rather than my body. I have several (straight) male coworkers who have expressed appreciation for a particular dress in a non-creepy, complimentary way that I enjoyed. It sounds like you’re going out of your way to make that distinction clear.
Equally obvious is when you do a full body check out of someone and stumble over a compliment about her, uh, shirt.
So personally, I appreciate those compliments, but totally understand those who don’t.
Basically everything about the way that eloli is commenting here puts me off. Referring to women as “the view”, insulting penis size, excessive smiley emotes when explaining things, and largely refusing to listen to what people are saying. I’m getting a distinct “bro in sheep’s clothing” vibe. Someone who has learned to mask their toxic masculinity by couching it in respectable language.
Also, “normal, well adjusted … men” feels like some dog-whistle-y ableism to me.
edit: Ninja’d by WWTH on catching the body shaming
Dlouwe,
Especially since he said “normal well-adjusted heterosexual men.” Maybe he wasn’t calling non-hetero men abnormal. Then again, maybe he was.
I gotta wonder if eloli is actually going to come back and say anything. I’m getting a “bro in sheep’s clothing” vibe too and you’d think he might challenge Emmy’s assertion that’s he’s committing sexual harassment at work. He already tried to play the “nothing wrong with appreciating female beauty!” card instead of admitting he was being creepy.
Or it’s possible he’s just AFK right now. Who knows.
EDIT:: he posts just seconds after I post this, lol. Never mind!
@sunnysombrera & Emmy Rae:
Rest assured that if my banter was anywhere near sexual harassment, I would get my ass fired, no questions asked. 😀
I don’t know what those eyebrow-raising comments about women are, but I can imagine… rest assured that at my workplace, that’s not tolerated, I actually reprimanded last week a new guy for making a pretty sexist joke at lunchtime, on a lunch room which was, at the time, being used by six guys. Had the guy been working here for more than three months, I assured he would’ve gotten a no pay suspension, at the least.
I only talk that way with colleagues who I consider close, friendly, or equal hierarchy wise, I would never have that exchange with a junior since it would be taken as harassment.
Seriously, the company I work in has a zero tolerance policy towards any form of sexism, bigotry or harassment.
Through 14 years working in this company, the only disciplinary complaint I had came from a disgruntled male underling who tried to get me in trouble with HR because I gave him two consecutive bad performance evaluations about eight years ago.
He accused of harassment him because I constantly called him on his bad work ethic.
I had a fifteen minute meeting with the HR head, which went something like this:
-So, (name redacted) says you’re constantly harassing him.
-Yes? What does he say?
-That you’re always pushing him too hard, telling him that he’s not pulling his weight, and that his work ethic leaves a lot to be desired.
-Well, everything he says is true, but his work ethic is really bad, just read his performance evaluations or ask around the office.
-I already did, and I wonder why hadn’t you fired him yet.
-He’s already sending CVs left and right, so let’s just wait for him to find another job.
-Cool.
Again, I apologize if you’re offended by my posts, but I think you’re making way too many incorrect assumptions about myself and my relationships with women.
But, I’m not offended in the least.
There’s a lot of ugly misogyny out there, and I can understand how you can assume the worst about things I consider pretty harmless, and I thank you for your responses, since they give me plenty to think about.
One of my greatest concerns regarding the way my wife and I raise our two daughters is how to prevent they give too much attention to their looks when they grow up and neglect other much more important things, since both their grandmothers and a lot of their aunts can be pretty shallow, any comment you might have is appreciated. 🙂
My motto has always been: “Do not comment on a person’s appearance/clothing.”
I do not inadvertently offend someone that way.
And I know eloli from another website. He is not an MRA. This is his posting style, and always has been. He is as derisive of MRA’s as…well…this site is.
Misandry! Why shouldn’t bros be allowed to wear sheep’s clothing? #BroRights
@ amused
Ah, the joys of court dress. Three piece suit topped off with a batman cape and a horse’s arse on your head. I wear a ‘tropical’ robe. They’re designed for use in hot countries. They look the same as regular robes but they’re a lot lighter and cooler. Also they scrunch up so you can stick them in a smaller bag and they have a bit more friction so they don’t slide off your shoulders leading to the clichéd barrister ‘thumb hitch’ thing.
I fully endorse your toga idea. I have previously pointed out to judges that the Romans used to hold court under a shady tree outside when it got too hot. They’ve expressed sympathy bit so far none has had the bottle to allow it.
@ scaly llama
Thanks for that. As for the plug socket thing, living in Australia where everything has evolved to kill you, that’s probably one of the safest activities you can undertake there.
@WWTH
I personally took it as him saying “As the men making these memes are heterosexual, if they were normal and well adjusted they’d also appreciate the beautiful women instead of being bitter” – so more of a “People with bad opinions aren’t normal, and objectification is normal” rather than any homophobia angle.
@Gaebolga – I’ll nth what others have said and say that complementing an outfit = a-ok.
They probably put time, money, and thought into it. Recognizing effort’s cool.
I mean, unless it’s, “That outfit makes you look hot!”
But that’s not what you’re doing.
@elioli – I’m not going to jump on you for what you’ve said at your office. It can be difficult to discern the difference between what Gae does and what you do.
There IS a difference, though, and you should listen to the commenters here who’re trying to fill you in on the matter.
Hint: It has to do with treating things like things vs treating people like things.
Edit: I started writing my response before a slew of other comments came through.
*shakes fist at distracting life*
To go more on topic; I wanted to note that the supposed wardrobe freedom of choice women have doesn’t apply to all women. It applies to thin white cishet women. Women with large breasts are often accused of dressing inappropriately when we wear the same thing as small breasted women. Fat women have their clothes and the way their bodies look in them policed far more than thin women. Black women are frequently called unprofessional for wearing their hair in a natural style or wearing clothing and accessories deemed too African. Lesbians aren’t always able to dress butch or androgynous at work. Trans women can’t always be out at work and are sometimes obligated to present as male while out trans women often feel pressured to be hyper feminine to be perceived as a real woman. Etc.
Of course MRAs only notice the privileges that conventionally attractive white women get though. The rest don’t exist.
@dlouwe & WeirwoodTreeHugger:
Rest assured I’m no bro in sheep’s clothing.
I might’ve acted somewhat bro-ish in my early twenties, like most guys do, but carrying on with the broisms being over forty, married and with two daughters would be kind of stupid, if not pathetic.
Regarding this:
“Especially since he said “normal well-adjusted heterosexual men.” Maybe he wasn’t calling non-hetero men abnormal. Then again, maybe he was.”
I was actually calling MRAs who have time to complain in the internet about how women’s clothing oppresses them abnormal and maladjusted.
Honestly, there’s no way I can see an MRA as a “normal, well adjusted heterosexual man”, any heterosexual guy who can’t see that we have it a lot easier than women is either crazy, stupid, an asshole, or a combination of all three.
For the record, I don’t consider homosexuality abnormal in any way, and since my country of origin legalized gay marriage before the US and a lot of European countries, I’m proud to say that one of my mum’s cousins and one of my cousins have state sanctioned non heterosexual marriages going on. 🙂
I personally love getting compliments on my clothing choices, but it is definitely something we do much more with women, for maybe not great reasons. It’s complicated I guess? But it seems like you’re probably okay, Gaebolga.
Edit:
As a member of the abnormal and malajusted, may I just say, thanks.
I find myself believing this. But…
We’ve already made the point that what your female colleagues say doesn’t necessarily reflect how they really feel. (You MIGHT also feel closer to them than they feel to you, because this is something that people are capable of. I’ve done it myself. But anyway). The fact that HR doesn’t tolerate harassment also doesn’t necessarily mean that someone who calls out harassment won’t suffer negative consequences for doing it. Myself and Emmy have already mentioned there’s such a thing as getting a reputation for Fun Allergic Feminist. Workplace relationships go deeper than company policy. There are more nuances to teamwork than just doing what HR says to do in order to get along. A female employee at your office could get someone fired for harassment, yes…but then she could find herself getting the cold shoulder from others in retaliation for getting their buddy into trouble. THIS IS A THING THAT EXISTS SOMETIMES. We’ve made it clear, but instead of listening to us when we say that what you think is harmless might not actually be harmless, you combat it with “My company has a zero tolerance policy so I can’t possibly be being creepy else I would have been fired by now! Also, I’m not sexist because I challenged another male colleague on a misogynistic statement!”
Dude. You COULD very well be the office creep but you just don’t want to see it. Your workplace environment could be less healthy than you think it is, company policy aside. Could you at least take these things into consideration instead of just fighting? And I’ve been using the most diplomatic language I can think of this evening.
@WTH Great point. Piggybacking off of the article @guest posted earlier, there may be more choices available to women, but they all mean something, and we have to deal with the fallout.
@ OoglyBoggles
I long for the days of painters jeans. *sigh*