Amanda Marcotte’s irrepressible weirdness:
Before I take off for the rest of the week, I want to flag this amazing post at Feministing written by Katherine Cross that articulates better than anything I’ve ever read why it is so irritating to women to have men constantly sharing how our appearance makes their dicks feel, even if the determination is that we adorn ourselves in a dick-pleasing manner. Often, women react to this constant judgment by saying, “It’s not about you,” but the counterpoint is always that, in some cases, women are clearly trying to look sexy, and thus it must be because it is a performance solely for the benefit of men. . . .
Really? I mean . . . really?
Who are these “men constantly sharing” their phallic responses with women? Whence this sense of “constant judgment”?
Decades ago, I gave up attempting to explain why women decorate themselves the way they do. It’s utterly irrational.
Yes, feminists have a theory of how the “patriarchy” is to blame for women’s fashion habits, but in all my years of being a male supremacist oppressor, I’ve never understood this.
Consider, for example, the designer handbag. One encounters women who complain constantly about their economic plight but who nevertheless simply must have a $200 designer-label purse.
Likewise, shoes — stand-up comedians have endlessly mined the female obsession with shoes. I’m convinced that every woman, no matter her socioeconomic status or cultural background, secretly yearns to be Imelda Marcos. Even the wealthiest man is probably content with owning two or three pairs of shoes (dress shoes in black and brown for business, plus a pair of sneakers for the weekend) while his female office assistant owns a closet full of shoes in every color and style imaginable.
As I say, feminists have tried to blame women’s fashion obsessions on the patriarchy (Naomi Wolf’s The Beauty Myth was the most famous attempt), but having spent my entire life as a male supremacist oppressor, I’m certain it’s not my fault that women are the way they are. Perhaps I wasn’t important enough to be invited to the secret meetings of the Omnipotent Male Cabal where it was decided that women must be brainwashed into spending all their money on handbags and shoes. Still, I think most men probably share my view that women’s fashion appetites are (a) insane and (b) not our fault. Certainly, no sane man has ever felt an urge to discuss fashion with Amanda Marcotte — telling her how her “appearance makes their dicks feel”? really? — and even less would any sane man wish to discuss such a subject with Katherine Cross:
We can even see this in GamerGater propaganda . . . That movement’s ongoing obsession with dyed hair is premised on a similar belief that all women who disagree with them and color their hair brightly — green, or blue, or pink, for instance — are doing so because they wish to thumb their nose at men specifically, or that they are doing it as an entirely self-conscious, petulant political statement; again, for men’s benefit. One male Gater even described this phenomenon as “having political statements shoved at me just by taking a cursory glance at a person.” To them, women with dyed hair are doing it just to irritate them.
It is interesting to note that many of the “Social Justice Warrior” feminist types assailing the videogame industry as a bastion of misogyny have strange-colored hair. It is also interesting to note that some of these women were born male, for example “Brianna Wu” a/k/a John Walker Flynt, whose Encyclopedia Dramatica file is quite interesting.
You may not be aware that Katherine Cross is accused of unethical journalism, having allegedly failed to disclose her professional association with Anita Sarkeesian’s Feminist Frequency while covering Sarkeesian’s feminist videogame crusade. And you might also be unaware that Katherine Cross was born male and has written at some length about her own transgender status, “the difficult lives we have to live before we can truly be ourselves . . . perpetually battling with a world that despises us,” et cetera. Transgenderism has frequently been a subject of Katherine Cross’s writing at Feministing and, in light of that, let us read more of her column that Amanda Marcotte so highly recommended:
Thus, our appearances are always a complex dance between our own desires and what we think the desires of others are; this is true of all of us. Even when women are performing for others, we do so no more frequently than men do, and often as not are performing for other women . . . We are adrift on the same silken sea of fashion and taste as men are.
To believe that we as women solely adorn ourselves for the specifically sexual gaze of men is, looked at in this way, a denial of humanity.
Yeah. Whatever you say. Dye your hair green and sail away on the “silken sea of fashion.” We don’t care. Really. We’re just so grateful that you gave Amanda Marcotte another excuse to make an utter fool of herself, endorsing a transgender feminist’s critique of how men allegedly judge women by “how our appearance makes their dicks feel.”
How do Amanda Marcotte and Catherine Cross make you feel, guys?
Now that’s what I meant.
I don’t usually do the language police thing, but you are lumping radical feminists in with people whose brains work a little differently. The majority of those people do not have anything to do with radical feminism movement and might actually agree with you until you threw them out.
Speaking of gifts, is one of these on your Christmas list?
Too soon perhaps.
It’s 2014: dyed hair, and punk rock are completely defanged and mainstream at this point, and no longer make you Johnny Rotten. The idea that only “misfits”, and “losers” dress this way(a jocks on one side, and outcasts on the other mentality)died out over 20 plus years ago.
You’re using it as a pejorative, and saying these people with medical problems are undesirables and need to be socially marginalized. It makes you sound Hitler. ????
You shouldn’t have! Thank you!
[…] Robert Stacy McCain, still amused by feminists, tossed out this line: […]
Ice… Ice… baby…
“The idea that only “misfits”, and “losers” dress this way(a jocks on one side, and outcasts on the other mentality)is no longer true.”
Highlighter-pen-coloured hair dye is part of the SJW girl uniform. Usually goes with ugly tattoos, piercings, hipster glasses, useless college degrees, and snark.
Not all girls with short, neon pink hair, a tramp stamp and a nose stud are mentally challenged progressivist oddballs with a Tumblr account bewailing heteropatriarchal microaggressions, but according to my scientific research 99.67% of them are.
It’s the parents I feel sorry for. Unless dowries make a comeback, there’s no way they’ll be able to marry off those special snowflakes.
Pro tip: Invest your pension in cat food companies and cat-related products. Spinsters love kitties.
Megan McArdle offered a number of years ago that “I really do own thirty pairs of shoes”. She did not blame Peter Suderman, either. She said it was just an aspect of her ‘girly girl’ nature.
I used to read Pandagon when it was (primarily) Miss Marcotte’s blog, and I remember her online angst about feeling that she was somehow betraying feminism every time she shaved her legs, but she also told her loyal readers that she appreciates men who are “well shaven.” Apparently it is perfectly OK for Marc Faletti to keep clean-shaven, even in this day of lumbersexuals, but there’s some trauma for his POSSLQ in scraping her pits bare.
But, let’s be honest here: the seeming requirement for women to shave their legs and underarms dates from only the early 20th century, yet somehow, some way, the species managed to propagate itself prior to that date. Men are interested in how women look, but we’ll happily accept women regardless of how they look.
One pair of work boots, one pair of sneakers, and two pair of dress shoes. I also have my previous pair of work boots store away, just in case something happens to my regular pair. My last pair of flips got destroyed last August.
Gosh, that’s five pairs of shoes, and at one point was six. I hope that my Man Card is not in jeopardy!
In circa 1800 accounts from Hyderabad, India, Hindus and Muslims thought English women excessively hairy.
In the SF community you see a lot of 40 and 50-something SJW women with pink and blue hair. I guess they think that’s their freak flag. It would’ve been… in 1970.
In the same way everyone now has tattoos, that ship sailed decades ago and it’s usually a pretty good sign you’re looking at some flaming conformist redneck.
It makes you sound like IngSoc 2.0 with its daffy proscriptions against “ableisms.” There’s no difference between what you’re selling and gendered insults and misogyny embedded in English. Go make a hashtag.
Where are your riding boots, your deck shoes, golf shoes and house shoes 🙂
Our esteemed host wrote:
While in one, limited aspect, it does make sense, that being that women can wrap themselves up in a short piece of gauze on a 97º F day and be perfectly well dressed, while we have to wear pants, a long sleeved shirt, a tie and suit jacket. But once you get beyond that, you’re absolutely right: it makes no sense.
And that’s why the lovely Miss Marcotte’s position makes no sense at all. When she tells me that women are dressing not for men, but for themselves, to make themselves feel better, the most obvious question is: and just how does walking in stilettos make them feel better? While a case could be made that a skirt might be more comfortable than pants, the skirts that women wear today, tight everywhere, and so short that they are a wardrobe malfunction waiting to happen, would seem to erase any comfort advantage that a skirt could theoretically provide.
Miss Marcotte like to play dress-up herself, at least on occasion, and she has now attempted to justify it’ it’s very reminiscent of Jessica Valenti, another über-feminist, feeling the need to get married, to a man! in what passed for a society wedding, covered by The New York Times. At least Mrs Golis was explaining why she was doing something that actually makes sense; Miss Marcotte is attempting to justify things which make no sense unless being done to attract men as being done just to make women feel better. If her logic seems bizarre, it’s because she’s trying to justify something which makes no sense in away that excludes the only reason that it’s really done.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0_hQMvxAhY
Still in the store.
You can replace ‘men’ with ‘anything’ in that statement and it remains equally true.
It’s the taxpayers, myself amongst them, for whom I feel sorry, because “girls with short, neon pink hair, a tramp stamp and a nose stud are” not just “mentally challenged progressivist oddballs with a Tumblr account bewailing heteropatriarchal microaggressions,” but they are also pretty much unemployable above the minimum wage level. Unless they do find more normal husbands, husbands who can support them, they are prime candidates for welfare dependency.
It isn’t terribly surprising that women who lived in a hot, humid climate would have less body hair than women who came from a much colder area.
In my experience 99.67% of people who make your claims are either old, out of touch, or prejudiced. This is mainstream fashion now. Any allegiance to some ideology or subculture by girls or boys that look that way is over.
No they’re just between the age of 16 and 25, grandpa. Don’t speak on matters you’re completely clueless about. Merry Christmas!
You sure don’t have a lot of experience then. Come back to us after you have a passel of kids and grandkids and go through all that that entails…then you can try and lecture the adults in the room.
Exactly. The idea that tats and body piercing is some indication that you’re into progressive politics or some kind of weird subculture went out decades ago. You see major league ball players with tats, beards, and hipster glasses. It’s just part of the culture now.
Tattoos are forever, and cute young things who got them at 16 to 25 will still have them at 36 to 45, and 56 to 65. Piercings can be removed, but it’s strange how the hole in your lip or the side of your nose stays visible.
In the meantime, they got passed over for the best jobs, and are automatically behind in the competition to get ahead.
Anita Sarkeesian is always in heavy make-up. In larger principle, there’s no difference between that and the depiction of women in tank tops she criticizes. That’s why her message rings so false.
The early ’70s-’80s country band Alabama in long hair. Just a few years earlier that same ditzy culture would try and run over long-haired hitchhikers. That last scene in Easy Rider personally rings true for me. That vibe is the basis for “Almost Cut My Hair” by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.
“This post was originally titled Old Men Yelling At Clouds: SFWA Lunacy. I then changed that last word to idiocy, as it was pointed out to me that the use of lunacy was ableist; but as idiocy is also abelist, I’ve changed it to sexism.”
That’s the ending of a racist anti-racist post reviling “old white guys” in the name of justice by one of SF’s most moronic PC warriors. Read it here and don’t forget the dumbfuck comments, particularly about ableisms:
https://fozmeadows.wordpress.com/2013/06/02/old-men-yelling-at-clouds-sfwa-lunacy/
Then realize I have no use for you or this semantic nonsense.
What I think is more true than penises dictating fashion, is how many women bow to and search out the fashion dictates of homosexual men.
What I’d like an explanation for, is the toddlers I see, sitting in strollers, sporting neon pink forelocks.
Make the stupid stop! It hurts!
Anyway, it isn’t men who put the pressure on women about clothes and looks: it’s other women. We don’t publish Cosmo and all those other women’s fashion mags.
One should have two pairs of work shoe/boots particularly if working outside and/or they get wet alot. Wearing them on alternate days two pair will last more than twice as long as wearing one pair everyday.
Anita Sarkeesian and Marcotte are the Sayyd Qutb’s of their world when it comes to constructing meticulous fantasies and demonizing scapegoating to reconcile failure and reality. Instead of the Muslim Brotherhood slogan of “Islam is the solution,” their slogan is “Feminism is the solution, Audre Lorde is our Prophet.”
A lot of people who make hiring decisions are in that demographic.
It’s not their politics or their culture except as that applies to attitude. I hired a couple thousand people (almost all men) from 1998 to 2009 when I was a Supt. and probably terminated almost as many during that time. I hired equipment and crane operators, form carpenters. and laborers. It was hard work, concrete const. mostly mid-rise buildings. One of the smartest guys I ever worked for told me there’s nothing wrong with hiring ten men one day, firing nine the next and hiring ten more. You’re either a human resource or you ain’t.
I just googled up some photos of Ms Marcotte. I am sure she would be pleased to know that they elicited no reaction whatever from my d***.
[…] PRETTY SURE THIS MEANS AMANDA MARCOTTE IS TRANSPHOBIC OR SOMETHING. Actually, I guess it would be […]
Women don’t dress for men; they dress for other women.
And thus it has always been so.
So when shall we end this matriarchal obsess–er, I mean patriarchal oppression?
I have a black and brown pair of dress shoes, plus an older black pair for when I’m out pounding the pavement. I have some new sneakers, and an old pair for light work. I have a pair of work boots for heavy work. I have a pair of comfy slippers, and I believe a pair of leather sandals somewhere that I rarely wear. Oh, and some cowbow boots. That’s nine. I must be the Imelda Marcos of men.
Yet another example of panimosity as practiced by the Left.
“Decades ago, I gave up attempting to explain why women decorate themselves the way they do. It’s utterly irrational.”
Really? Seriously? You never heard of evolution? Biology? The desire to mate? It’s why guys wear musk and Axe and buy Corvettes and make billions and dump their wives for younger models.
Great find.
Why, it’s almost as though the people who take those hiring decisions are responsible adults, people who stared out in business before tattoo and piercing silliness.
No, Mr Berg, you don’t understand! It isn’t that responsible adults think that tattoos and piercings are some indication of progressive politics or weird subculture; it’s that we see them as indications of stupidity!
“Even the wealthiest man is probably content with owning two or three pairs of shoes (dress shoes in black and brown for business, plus a pair of sneakers for the weekend) while his female office assistant owns a closet full of shoes in every color and style imaginable.”
It’s like you are ignoring–along with the feminists–millions of years of evolutionary psychology. The woman has to be attractive enough to A) keep other women from attempting to move in on her man and B) attractive enough to keep her man around when she necessarily has far more invested in reproduction at the time of birth than the male does.
The ornamentation of the peacock is for the female, among humans/primates…or there is harem keeping as the next most stable/productive default social organization.
If your man card is in trouble mine is revoked as I have 8 pair:
work boots, cowboy boots (haven’t worn them in 20 years but cannot throw them out as they are an inheritance), work sneakers, sneakers which don’t leave black smudges everywhere, brown dress shoes, black dress shoes, old pair of brown dress shoes (too beat up for dress but still have good wear in them and will replace the good sneakers when those wear out), and a pair of moccasins (I got those when I broke some toes and keep in case I break some more).
I’ve seen photos of Ms. Marcotte, and somehow I’ve been able to contain myself.
She’d really have something to complain about if men hated women as much as she hates men.
The Male hierarchy is one of achievement the female hierarchy is one of status. Where achievement must be experienced ( best warrior, best scientist, best athlete, best ___), status is demonstrated (designer stuff – money/success, credentials – intelligence, marriage to best man – desirability).
So when women say its not for men, they are telling the truth. Men care a lot less about status. Demonstrations of status are not for men. However, when the demonstrated status is attractiveness/desirability, men necessarily become pawns.
No: the parts they had of the patriarchy have been removed.
Miss Marcotte is not offended by the (fake) honorific “Ms.” She is very offended by the honorific “Miss,” something she has told me directly, which is why I use it in reference to her.
The use of “Ms.” is an abomination unto the Lord.
Like any immature and pouty children, these women want to blame someone else for not only everything that goes wrong, but for everything they have done wrong.