Of all the obnoxious responses to my post last night on #Brexit, the most puzzling one came from former Honey Badger Brigader Rachel Edwards:
https://twitter.com/naughty_nerdess/status/746215478138306560
My first reaction? DonDraperSaysWhat.gif.
I asked my Twitter followers if they had any idea what she was talking about. It turns out she was referring to a recent blog post by our dear old friend Scott “Yeah, the guy who does Dilbert” Adams in which Mr. Adams suggested that v-neck sweaters are “the uniform of a man who is owned by a woman.”
So Ms. Edwards was evidently trying to suggest that I’m so totally owned by women that I not only wear v-neck sweaters but … I really really like it. Which would be a rather weird insult even if I did own any v-neck sweaters. I mean, I’m not going to lie, I have owned v-neck sweaters before, but I’m pretty sure I got rid of them all in my last big clothes purge after realizing I hadn’t worn any of them in maybe 15 years.
But enough about my sweater preferences. The big question is: why on earth does Scott Adams think that v-neck sweaters are some kind of dire threat to American masculinity?
Let’s take a look at Adams’ blog post on the subject yesterday, titled (and I’m not making this up) “The Humiliation of the American Male in 2016.”
Perhaps the biggest unreported story of this presidential election is the humiliation of the American male. Unless I’m blinded by confirmation bias – which is entirely possible – it seems to me that the humiliation of American men is now institutionalized in the media.
His evidence? A TV commercial in which a henpecked husband gets sent back to the store after buying the wrong brand of dishwasher detergent.
[T]ake careful note of the American man’s v-neck sweater,” Adams writes. “That’s the uniform of a man who is owned by a woman.”
Adams continues:
You’re laughing because you know it’s true.
Wrong on both counts.
How many of the married men reading this blog have received those same sweaters as “gifts” from women? Personally, I’ve received about 25 over the years. None from men.
25 sweaters? Twenty. Five. Why … are women giving Scott Adams so many goddamn sweaters? Who are these women?
I received three of those sweaters so far this year. I throw them away. Nice try.
Note to self: Never buy anything for Scott Adams, ever.
Many of you can’t talk about this topic without being accused of sexism, losing your jobs, and being cast out of your social groups.
First they came for the sweater-talker-abouters …
But I can talk about it because I endorse Hillary Clinton for president. I did that for my personal safety, because I live in California, but still, I’m on the progressive side now. That gives me some extra freedom of speech.
This is a reference to Adams’ hi-larious fake endorsement for Hillary Clinton that was really an endorsement for Trump — who Adams thinks will win the election in a landslide by rallying a silent majority of men who are too afraid to talk about sweaters publicly.
The dishwasher soap commercial should give you a hint of how big that turnout might be. You might not notice the size of the coming tsunami because American men generally don’t voice their humiliation in public. …
But in the privacy of the polling booth, the men who don’t talk are free to act.
Take that, mean imaginary ladies who force men in v-neck sweaters to go back to the store to buy the correct soap!
You can criticize Donald Trump on many dimensions. You can say he’s not really a great businessman. You can say he’s offensive. You can say he lies. You can hate his position on issues. You can say he has insufficient policy details. And lots more. But I think we all agree that Melania never asks Donald to go back to the store because he’s too dumb to buy the right kind of soap on the first try.
I predict you will see the largest male turnout of any presidential election in American history.
I’m not so sure, Scott. I can think of one thing that might derail the Trump Train: Photographic evidence of Donald Trump wearing the V-Neck Sweater of Male Humiliation.
But surely there can’t be such … oh, wait a minute. Literally 30 seconds of Googling produces this:
Congratulations, Hillary, on your impending landslide victory!
@PI
My “”Favourite” version of that is “Why do poor people have phones?!”
Uhm. How exactly do these fuckwits expect us to get jobs without the ability to contact people? Haven’t they ever had – or even heard of – a job interview that wasn’t just a meet-‘n’-greet with daddy dearest’s old golfing buddies? They’re called “Callbacks” for a reason! o_O
Improperly stored food and lack of air conditioning in hot weather can and do kill people. Those are not luxuries. Microwaves allow you to heat up leftovers and a most shitty apartments have very little kitchen space to actually cook. So a microwave is pretty necessary and ultimately saves money.
On the latte rule thing, it’s a weird assumption that there are all these financially struggling people who buy expensive coffee shop items every day. I’m sure it happens, but I don’t think I’ve ever met one single person who gets a $5 dollar latte every day. I used to know a guy who got take out or delivery for literally every meal, but he wasn’t poor. He was living off of a trust fund. People see a poor person enjoying a luxury and they assume that’s what they spend all their money on.
The big one over here is poor people smoking; especially people on benefits. There isn’t even a pretence that it’s concern for health. It’s quite literally “If you can waste money on cigarettes then you don’t need benefits!”
At every budget the tax on cigarettes is raised; it’s a soft target. One year an MP dared to make the point that for some people the occasional cigarette was literally the only pleasure they had. He was treated like he’d proposed subsidised dog fighting.
(Having a TV comes a close second. How dare poor people and their children not just sit in a darkened room all evening?)
@Alan
Yeah, for a while in middle school that was my life…
Over here, the most common attack I see is on food stamps. It would seem that, if you’re not subsisting on tiny amounts of barely edible gruel, you’re cheating the system. Hope it’s high calorie gruel, cos you’ll need the energy for your 2 jobs that somehow still don’t add up to a living wage. In the words of economist Richard Wolff:
“I wish I had more time. If I did, we’d take a break and I’d play the national anthem”
Yeah, that was another inconsistency the article pointed out:
And you’ve also got a point that many of these people buying lattes aren’t even buying them every day, just every so often when they can afford it and/or have the time between working and other obligations.
Most people just make their own coffee at home with a coffee pot, and a latte is a once-in-awhile, I’m-in-a-rush, It’s-a-treat thing.
It’s extremely expensive to be poor. The system is set up to keep the poor in debt. Why don’t we address that instead of shaming poor people for how they spend their money? (Of course, the answer to that is that the system benefits from keeping the poor in debt.)
Banks especially benefit from keeping poor people in debt.
Overdraft fees are ridiculous, they plan for your bills to not go through until you don’t have enough money to pay for them, and then they won’t cash your checks until you’re already overdrawn so they can take that money away from you, ATM fees, “service” fees are way too high…I actually had to close down an account I used to have because I no longer had any reliable income, and they charged me a “service” fee every month even though I had no money in the account, so I was in the red.
They do have a minimum amount of money to have in the bank so they don’t charge service fees. However, it’s 1,500 dollars.
My husband bought himself a v-neck sweater once. Does this mean I am promoted to a higher level in the feminist overlord conspiracy organization?
Anyway, you all are cruelly forgetting how in the fall of 2008 men and women everywhere lost their jobs as a result of discussing v-neck sweaters. The stock market plummeted. Barack Obama was elected president based on his campaign promise “Yes we crew neck”. Yet in office he was unable to fulfill his promise and men remain plagued by v-neck sweaters 7 and a half years later.
How quickly we forget history.
Re: budget talk
Has anyone here ever read Pound Foolish by Helen Olen? The book is about personal finance and getting into some of the more unsavory aspects of the personal finance advice industry. She addresses the whole latte thing. One of the main things I remember was her doing the math between not buying $5 lattes vs getting a decent raise. She argued for the raise.
This. It’s not that “if you don’t buy that thing, you’ll have more money” is false, it’s that it’s usually just a smokescreen excuse to not do anything about poverty.
Well, obviously. Cutting expenses has a hard ceiling. The only way to actually earn more money is to increase your income.
I still wear cargo pants and I don’t care. I’ve never been “fashionable” anyway, and I’d rather be comfortable than anything else. Odd thing is, even with my pants with pockets, I rarely put anything in them for fear I’ll forget that it’s in there and wash, like, my phone or something. It’s damned durable, but I don’t think even it can handle being washed, nor my wallet. Plus, things fall out of the pockets, which is Not Good. I have a purse that’s stuffed to the gills that carries everything I want or need, although I’d really like to get a different one that also carries everything.
BTW, those “slipper-like shoes” are flats. I have a super-cheap pair that I love because they actually don’t give me blisters. (I have a genetic disorder that, among other things, makes me very susceptible to blistering. And dislocating, which is why I rarely wear heels, and never over 2 inches.)
Scott Adams is a doucheweasel. I’m frankly amazed that anyone listens to him.
Being poor is expensive, I agree. An indulgence from time to time is necessary to keep from being dragged down by it.
@Her Grace Phryne
Absolutely! I know that I certainly can’t afford being poor.
And yet I often find myself broke.
Note to self: Stop it!
The Sam Vimes theory of boots.
Absolutely true.
I live in California, more specifically the greater Los Angeles region – pretty expensive area. Want to know how much at most a disabled adult with no dependents living on their own or where they share an equal part of the household expenses as determined by the Social Security Administration formula(s) gets if they have no income or very little thus qualifying for SSI (you only get SSDI if you have a work history that meets the requirements)? $886.00 per month, which includes a supplemental amount that makes the individual unable to receive food stamps. My neighbor receives quite a bit less due to the fact that they live with their parents and don’t pay enough rent based on the formula – this is considered “in kind support and maintenance” by the SSA. This neighbor will never have enough money to live independently and cannot have resources or savings totaling more than $2000.00 in value, resources being property and/or items that can be converted into cash. The SSA excludes the home one lives in and one vehicle, unless you sell your home – if you do you will have to have bought another one within 30-60 days (I think…on the time length not the need to purchase, which is a certainty) or you will be disqualified for SSI benefits until you have spent the money down to the $2000 limit. If you inherit the home you live in there are taxes up the wazoo and the state will be collecting from your estate at your death any amount paid by Medicaid for your care since age 50. There are limited factors that prevent-delay- the state from this, like a spouse who resides in this home or disabled dependents having lived there since before age 21, but regardless this only puts things off and the state still eventually gets the property to recover the amount spent by Medicaid. But how can anyone live on $886.00/mo, without food stamps to leave more for the cost of shelter? Most rooms in a private residence here in this area cost more than $500, and this is a place that has little in the way of a public transportation system compared to many large metropolitan areas. Every time I hear or read about how people getting SSI or SSDI live high on the hog and therefore have no incentive to work, I think about my neighbor and their aging parents.
Scott Adams is a brilliant predictor of our presidential elections. Here’s one from 2008: President McCain and I’m still looking for an earlier one from before the nominations where he predicted that Biden would win.
Thus Spake Zarakatz:
True, but there’s also an ugly undercurrent of classism in the sentiment as well: “Happiness and leisure time are for they moneyed classes! How dare those poors enjoy a even a moment’s luxury or convenience?!” It has been a recurring sentiment since at least the beginning of the industrial revolution.
I have not heard of this “latte rule” thing before. Sound hideous. Even the poorest in society are entitled to little things which make their life more bearable. For some, unfortunately, this is drink. It was a big mistake of Gorbachev to try to ban vodka. People just need to kick back and relax sometimes.
If the elites had their way, we would not even have our iPads and computers, so there’s no way we could even chat on here. The Daily Maul, the Scum and the Daily Scar are very good at working the ‘honest working taxpayers’ into a frenzy by making huge articles about disabled layabouts on benefits spending their handouts of cigarettes, tattoos and holidays at Club Med. It’s a knee jerk reaction they want, and Teabaggerish support for cuts to unemployment benefits and disability. All a very nasty downward spiral.
There are plenty of reasons poor people would drink in Starbuck’s everyday. Meeting friends socially, free wifi, quiet place to read a book etc… At least it’s better than spending all day in Ladbroke’s – that certainly is a bad way to spend both your time and your money.
I used to wear nothing but sneakers due to a number of issues, including blisters, but one day I discovered Mary Janes with built-in arch support and I’ve never looked back.
@PI:
It amounts to predatory lending. It’s scandalous. Being poor really is expensive. Being not-that-poor is expensive, too.
About the air conditioning, fridge, and microwave: most rental properties include appliances, microwaves are like $10 at the thrift store, and just because one HAS an air conditioner doesn’t mean one can afford to USE it. Assholes.
Delurking again for the first time in a very long time (been here since the early days of ManBoobz! I just love you guys^.^)
@ msexceptiontotherule,
This is me!! I have been disabled since teh age of 23 (no work experience, so SSI only. Here in Wyoming, I only receive $733.xx a month, and previously used to get a sales tax rebate from the state every December of $800, but this year they’ve discontinued the program, sadly. I also receive a $25 from the state every month as well. I live with my 68 year old fathter (my mother is 69 and lives in Colorado) and I’m 31. I am terrified of losing them because my myriad of medical conditions prevents me from working (severe fibromyaglgia, trigeminal neuralgia, gastroparesis, dysautonomia, a mitochondrial DNA disorder, and meralgia paresthetica are just a few of my many medical issues).
My parents are incredibly supportive and are just plain awesome folks and every day I am grateful that they’re my parents. But I know I am completely unprepared for life in outside the middle-middle class (my father is a retired government archaeologist and my mother is a retired English professor). Hell, my incomplete college degree is in vocal music performance (I was training to be an opera singer. I still sing and study at my local community college when my health allows for it, but I will never be a professional musician…something that still hurts. I’ve had to give up so much since I got sick at the ripe old age of 17).
Here in Wyoming, the backlash against people on assistance is particularly virulent, so any time I’m around people speaking ill of the poor, I tell them my story and ask them to reconsider. I actually changed a couple people’s views, but it’s more misses than hits.
Anyway, I’ll stop rambling now (I pushed myself to hard yeasterday. I”m a certified EMR [Emergency Medical Responder] and my dad is an EMT and we volunteer with a disaster/medical team , we provide first aid and emergency care for events and we’re gearing up for the busy season. Yesterday was unpacking, cleaning/inventory/mending, and repacking, washing the truck and the ATV and making sure all the vehicles are in tip top shape. I overdid it and am very much paying the price. Meds are helping though, hence the rambling >.>), but I just wanted to chime in^.^
@AbominableSnowPickle – you sound incredible and you have the most adorable nym ever 🙂
I’m similar to you in that I’ve been reading this blog since the ManBoobz days but only de-lurked earlier this year. Great to meet you!
@AbominableSnowPickle
Disability doesn’t strike me as the kind of thing a person looking to live the easy life – despite the widespread belief that they’re getting all that ‘free stuff’ on other people’s dime – would choose. There are far more lucrative, if slightly ethically questionable, ways. But every person I’ve met who receives SSI or SSDI is living a daily struggle and the little they get to live on only adds to the stress. I hear people say that if they can’t afford to live where they are now, they should relocate – just how can they do that given the costs of securing new housing and moving from place A to location B?? I know working people who can’t afford to do that! People think that the government should stop supporting the disabled, letting churches and charities take over – I don’t think we can risk that gamble and it would certainly mean so many human beings would starve and be out on the streets, flat out forgotten.
Society has too many individuals who have utterly lost all compassion for others and don’t believe they could ever end up sick, disabled, and/or poor. It doesn’t help that our government, media, and corporations create policies and conduct their business operations in a manner that adds to the divide between haves and have nots while the news eagerly reports on it all…it’s more about getting a story that gets a reaction, fact checking by some media outlets is an afterthought…and they’re all making hay out of the complete chaos of this year’s political events. We haven’t even seen the worst yet.
Welcome to commenting? Sorry I’m just feeling a bit disheartened with the recent actions of my fellow humans towards each other.
Ah, thanks. I’ve heard them called that but had no idea how widespread the term was.
@PI et al,
My girlfriend’s mother -who’s an absolute alcohol hater and swears that the thing that would make her happier would be if every bar everywhere caught fire overnight- has a version of this. She says “look at those, always having beers and they don’t pay their owner’s community fees”. It usually goes hand in hand with “the bars are packed, where’s the crisis?”. Any attempt to point out that just because bars are full of people – which in a Southern Spain town in summer evenings is practically a given – it does not mean the same people are there every day every time is as futile as you’d expect.
I do not know in other countries, but in France, i think cis-men rarely make clothes as presents to other cis-men (i do not know for homo- and trans-). In fact, i am not even sure that cis-men often do presents to other cis-men (aside from alcool bottles). But why offer something when a pat in the back can do the trick, eh ? And after all, as cis-men, our very presence should be enough as a present, am i right ? An everyday present for you, women, so show more respect (and provide sexual attention) ! (/sarcasm, in case you do not doubt it)