Are you a writer or an academic feeling stuck? See here how I can help you as an editor or writing coach.
Today’s barely coherent rant comes courtesy of the Men’s Rights subreddit, on the topic of women wearing fancy outfits at work and oppressing all the men.
Under the riveting headline “Women have the burden of their appearance in the workplace myth,” an angry if somewhat confused Men’s Rights Redditor called Unhappy_Doubt_355 lets loose on all those women who complain about having to dress up fancy-like for the office while men can wear suits and no one cares. Because that gives women all the power or something.
I grew up listening to this theory, that women have to take care of their appearance all the time, which adds to the burden of their existence. It is only way more difficult, that they are forced to accept the constant flirting of men in the workplace, which is nothing less than harassment, as well as the “social expectations”, that are being forced on them.
Sounds plausible. Indeed, I need no make-up, my clothes are simpler to choose, my hair easier to take care of. I am not really being hit-upon in the office. My social expectations are not being reinforced on me verbally. But then I noticed how society functions.
It is that they need to do all these things to reap the benefits, that an avg. woman in society has, which an avg. man cannot even fathom.
And what benefits do women unlock by wearing the fancy work clothes? He doesn’t say. I guess he truly can’t fathom it.
Women don’t need to be so well-dressed in the office. They are allowed to wear simple clothes, every day the same if they want, crew-neck blouses and suits.
They don’t however.
Yeah, well, Elizabeth Holmes pretty much wore the same outfit every day when she was a CEO, and look what happened to her! 11 YEARS IN FEDERAL PRISON! Granted, there was also some massive fraud involved but still. Anyway, I’d be curious to see what happened to a woman not engaged in fraud who wore the same outfit to work every day. Somehow I’m guessing she’d hear about it.
Furthermore, they like their translucent clothes, form-fitting dresses, heels, make-up and all the other nice stuff. I kid you not, last time I was in the office, I saw the panties of both of my colleagues in 4K and one of them also had a visible bra.
Uh, what? I really need to hear the other side of this particular story because Unhappy_Doubt_355 kind of strikes me as an unreliable narrator.
They garner attention, that they claim later on that it is necessary. No it is not. It is just, that if you choose to dress like a man, you will be getting the attention of the avg. man. That is none.
I guarantee you that women dressing like men at work are going to get a lot more than “none” attention. I mean, the woman below wore a suit to work (albeit without pants), and look what happened! The whole place caught on fire.
Ok, that didn’t happen. It’s just that Midjourney doesn’t always understand prompts.
The societal expectations (which are being so incidiously differently defined, based on context) are another issue. A woman needs to be thin, beautiful, good mother, successful, rich or whatever else they claim that society enforces on them. Not really. Nobody enforces that on them. They want that, so that they enjoy the female attention. A woman might also be an adipose, she will just have the experience of a man with an average BMI and 20% fat, which is on the healthier side of the scale.
[citation needed]
It is also ignoring the fact, that a man is being born with those and opting out is kinda difficult.
Born with what? Opting out of what? What are you even talking about?
It is not easy to work in female-dominated professions (not only because of prejudice and scorn, but also because these professions seem to attack males)
Ok, he’s starting to make sense. I am constantly being attacked by nurses. Much like this.
He continues:
it is not easy to stay at home being a dad,
Well, it’s easier than being a single mom trying to raise kids while working
it is not easy “chickening out”, it is not easy having an average income.
Well, it’s not easy having an income that is, on average, less than men’s. Which is what women have, if you haven’t noticed.
But yes, apparently women are being brough at such an uncomfortable position if asked about a family plan (which I get, it can be difficult, but then again, it is not a sexist thing).
A family plan? Huh? I’m not going to get on his case for this because I have no idea what he’s talking about, and it’s probably an ESL problem.
Or women are being driven out of manly professions because they heard a dick joke, whereas men have to live in this brutal environment and not say a word.
There aren’t a lot of women who leave a profession because they heard a dick joke once. There are some women who leave a profession because of endless harassment and discrimination.
I hear your pain ladies, but all you are doing is claiming that it takes some work to gain the benefit of your advantage on men.
What “advantage on men?” You still haven’t said.
Naturally, this being the Men’s Rights subreddit, most commenters thought that Unhappy_Doubt_355 made a lot of sense.
According to a commenter called, er, WeEatBabies:
Women have zero burden, they have affirmative actions for school, work.
Grants to start enterprises.
Child support, alimony, unfair family court system …
If anything was a minor burden to a woman, it would instantly disappear by laws.
And nobody cares how they dress at work.
Also, you should see the price of suits and ties, it’s far from cheap!
Iamthebackupplan disagrees with the OP, but only because he hates fat women.
If women cared about their appearance more than men, there wouldn’t be more obese women than obese men.
I don’t know how many times I’ll have to repeat this on this blog, but the rates of obesity for men and women are pretty much THE SAME, according to the CDC. Obesity isn’t a crime–at least, I hope not, because I’m obese–but if it were one, the authorities would be rounding up the same numbers of men and women. Yet somehow MRAs have come to believe that women are much fatter than men. I think they’re convinced that the existence of fat women is a crime against their boners.
IceCorrect mumbles something:
Men have the same expectations as women, but men are expected to men up, while women have privilage to complain about social expectation (even if most of them are done by other women)
amey_wemy states:
When one is used to privilege, equality feels like oppression
Which is true, of course, if applied to men, not women. As more than a few people have pointed out, it’s kind of the whole driving force behind the Men’s Rights movement in the first place: men angry that certain privileges of theirs are being slowly eroded and hallucinating that women in “form-fitting dresses” (or whatever) are stealing all the rights for themselves.
Follow me on Mastodon.
Send tips to dfutrelle at gmail dot com.
We Hunted the Mammoth relies on support from you, its readers, to survive. So please donate here if you can, or at David-Futrelle-1 on Venmo.
I’m still mourning the loss of one of my favorite umbrellas, stolen from the front door of a restaurant on a very rainy day several years ago. It was a bright pink automatic with big white polka dots. I wish a similarly polka-dotted pox on whatever monster stole it, male or female. There’s a special place in hell for rainy-day umbrella thieves.
Ah, the classic self-refuting bullshit!
“Women have privilege to complain?” But you’re ignoring it right now. So… you prove that they frequently encounter unreceptive audiences.
And we all know that, if men had to work hard to maintain appearance in order to maintain an average income that was lower, they’d be complaining. But since it’s the other way around? Special pleading!