Comments about physical appearance

[ergative]

So, here's an honest, related question.  Although I love trolling on some online media, it's not my intent here, and I guess you'll just have to take my word for it (or don't.)

The premise of this entire conversation lies in the idea that men are always coming around and seemingly looking for something.  The implication is that men are always flirting, always looking for sex, however you want to say it.  The response from the women about how inappropriate this is and the lamenting of this activity seems to advance the idea that "men always want it, women often don't."  So we have the stereotype, which is probably pretty accurate, that men are always on the hunt and always have it on their minds, while women largely do not, or at least only do in certain circumstances and otherwise want to be left alone.

I recently observed a funny posting on social media from a much younger, very liberal woman.  She said something to the effect that it's a patriarchal idea meant to keep women in their place that women don't love sex just as much.  No, she claimed, women love sex, think about sex, are into sex every bit as much as men and women in fact think the same as men about it.

I find this claim dubious because if her claims were true, and women were thinking about sex just like men, they likely wouldn't find the comments about appearance and the public come-on's to be wrong. 

Imagine if the role were reversed; what if women suddenly started acting uncivilized with men, going up to men on the street and saying "You're HOT" and going up to men at school and work and saying "Those pants look great on you, you've got a tight ass!"  I'd wager that most men would think "this is my lucky day" and immediately try to engage in conversation to go back to his place rather than be offended.

It seems to me that the people posting here AND the liberal young woman can't both be correct (generally speaking, of course.  In an individual case they could be.)  On the whole, either women are just like men (really into sex, always on the mind) or they're not (want men to leave them alone at school, work, and on the street.)

And ideas?

I don't see a contradiction there. It's quite possible to like sex while being reasonably choosy about which people you are willing to have sex with. And men are choosy too, it's just that men simply don't hit on the women they aren't attracted to, so they don't really notice they are choosy until and unless a woman they're not attracted to hits on THEM. If it suddenly became the cultural norm for all sorts of women -- of all ages and levels of attractiveness -- to start going up to men on the street and telling them how hot they are, without any particular regard for whether those men are single or showing any sign of interest, I would wager that quite a lot of men would discover that they didn't like it, however much they may like sex in general. And they would start liking it even less if women were usually larger and stronger than they were, and 5% or so of those random women refused to take no for an answer and instead became aggressive, and there was no way to tell in advance who those 5% were.

Yes. And don't forget, in this world you describe, these these women have been hitting on men since they were thirteen (or twelve, or eleven), and when the men get on a crowded subway they need to be aware that someone might start fondling their junk. And if they don't have a pleasant expression they'll be told to smile. And when they go to after school clubs in certain fields (e.g., math, robotics) they're the only guy there. And when they go to professional conferences in certain fields, they're assumed to be PAs for the actual experts in the field. And when they go to work, the women assume that they'll take on the administrative tasks of organizing meetings, catering, and so on. And their starting salaries are lower, and their requests for raises are granted at lower rates than women's requests for raises. And when they take time off to raise their kids, their careers are permanently damaged, if they are able to take the time off at all.

It's not just about personal compliments. It's not just about wanting or not wanting sex. It's about an entire range of behavior that affects these men differently from women and makes their lives harder and more dangerous than they need to be. Let's put all of those conditions in place, and then start complimenting men on how nice their tight ass looks, and see how lucky they feel, and how eager to engage in conversation.

[Ruralguy]

Oh....great post, ergative!

[marshwiggle]

And when they take time off to raise their kids, their careers are permanently damaged, if they are able to take the time off at all.

This is a choice faced by everyone. Traditionally, men have often been willing to forgo lots of day-to-day involvement in their kids' lives in order to advance in their careers, because they have usually had wives willing to take the lion's share of parenting. Now that careers are a higher priority for many women, they also face the choice about how much care for their children they are willing to give up in order to advance their careers. If they marry men willing to be stay-at-home husbands, that is an option. If they make enough to put their kids in daycare or hire nannies, that it another option. The fact is that many women don't want to give up that level of involvement in their childrens' lives, and so they choose to back off on their careers.

To the extent that women are willing to make the same sacrifices as men have traditionally made, (i.e. more peripheral to their childrens' lives in order to have bigger careers), they can make similar choices. Most women would not be happy with that level of detachment from their children, and so won't accept that traditional trade-off.

[revert79]

So, here's an honest, related question.  Although I love trolling on some online media, it's not my intent here, and I guess you'll just have to take my word for it (or don't.)

The premise of this entire conversation lies in the idea that men are always coming around and seemingly looking for something.  The implication is that men are always flirting, always looking for sex, however you want to say it.  The response from the women about how inappropriate this is and the lamenting of this activity seems to advance the idea that "men always want it, women often don't."  So we have the stereotype, which is probably pretty accurate, that men are always on the hunt and always have it on their minds, while women largely do not, or at least only do in certain circumstances and otherwise want to be left alone.

I recently observed a funny posting on social media from a much younger, very liberal woman.  She said something to the effect that it's a patriarchal idea meant to keep women in their place that women don't love sex just as much.  No, she claimed, women love sex, think about sex, are into sex every bit as much as men and women in fact think the same as men about it.

I find this claim dubious because if her claims were true, and women were thinking about sex just like men, they likely wouldn't find the comments about appearance and the public come-on's to be wrong. 

Imagine if the role were reversed; what if women suddenly started acting uncivilized with men, going up to men on the street and saying "You're HOT" and going up to men at school and work and saying "Those pants look great on you, you've got a tight ass!"  I'd wager that most men would think "this is my lucky day" and immediately try to engage in conversation to go back to his place rather than be offended.

It seems to me that the people posting here AND the liberal young woman can't both be correct (generally speaking, of course.  In an individual case they could be.)  On the whole, either women are just like men (really into sex, always on the mind) or they're not (want men to leave them alone at school, work, and on the street.)

And ideas?

I don't see a contradiction there. It's quite possible to like sex while being reasonably choosy about which people you are willing to have sex with. And men are choosy too, it's just that men simply don't hit on the women they aren't attracted to, so they don't really notice they are choosy until and unless a woman they're not attracted to hits on THEM. If it suddenly became the cultural norm for all sorts of women -- of all ages and levels of attractiveness -- to start going up to men on the street and telling them how hot they are, without any particular regard for whether those men are single or showing any sign of interest, I would wager that quite a lot of men would discover that they didn't like it, however much they may like sex in general. And they would start liking it even less if women were usually larger and stronger than they were, and 5% or so of those random women refused to take no for an answer and instead became aggressive, and there was no way to tell in advance who those 5% were.

Yes. And don't forget, in this world you describe, these these women have been hitting on men since they were thirteen (or twelve, or eleven), and when the men get on a crowded subway they need to be aware that someone might start fondling their junk. And if they don't have a pleasant expression they'll be told to smile. And when they go to after school clubs in certain fields (e.g., math, robotics) they're the only guy there. And when they go to professional conferences in certain fields, they're assumed to be PAs for the actual experts in the field. And when they go to work, the women assume that they'll take on the administrative tasks of organizing meetings, catering, and so on. And their starting salaries are lower, and their requests for raises are granted at lower rates than women's requests for raises. And when they take time off to raise their kids, their careers are permanently damaged, if they are able to take the time off at all.

It's not just about personal compliments. It's not just about wanting or not wanting sex. It's about an entire range of behavior that affects these men differently from women and makes their lives harder and more dangerous than they need to be. Let's put all of those conditions in place, and then start complimenting men on how nice their tight ass looks, and see how lucky they feel, and how eager to engage in conversation.

Well said, ergative!  Hopefully this dystopian vision will be eye-opening for some of our male co-posters.  As a woman, it rings sadly true on every level.  It's not a dystopian alternate-universe fantasy, guys...it's our daily reality.  It has nothing to do with the degree to which we like sex (which is private and selective).  Seriously.

[revert79]

Also, we seem to be hearing from a lot of men who are identifying themselves as straight, white boomers.  It would be interesting to hear from other men as well. 

[mahagonny]

I stay away from complimenting people on appearance at work.

So do I. I stated this upthread. But apparently you do compliment people on their appearance in some situations, or have a right to. What are the rules for this?

[Ruralguy]

Nah...I stay away from it general, really.

[mahagonny]

How about songs like 'You Are Too Beautiful' 'A Pretty Girl Is Like A Melody' 'The Lady in Red?' Bad taste?

[mahagonny]

My wife got a lot of this when she was younger. Now she's a Dean, so teaches less, so evals are less of an issue,
and of course, since she can determine a students fate, and to some extent, a faculty members, they are much less likely to throw out a random comment about hotness or whatever, though the young men can be clueless and tell a woman of authority "you look very nice today" and think that's totally fine. Young women are less likely to do that, but might say "oh, cool shoes, I have a pair like that"  everyone comments on accents...it can be ridiculous. And it's not like the young folk from here are particularLy intelligible on a good day.

Here you sound like you would dissuade people from making comments about appearance, generally, but the offense depends greatly on who makes the comment, and to whom. This is gonna get really tricky if it becomes that we don't a right to make assumptions about which gender a person self identifies as before they tell us, so we don't know yet how of an offender you would be, nor exactly how wrong you are in complementing them. I guarantee you, nobody knows what's going on, and it's a minefield.
We're not gonna have a society in which uno ones complements others on their appearance, so something needs to be settled.  I guarantee you, nobody knows what's going on, and it's a minefield.

[marshwiggle]

Here you sound like you would dissuade people from making comments about appearance, generally, but the offense depends greatly on who makes the comment, and to whom. This is gonna get really tricky if it becomes that we don't a right to make assumptions about which gender a person self identifies as before they tell us, so we don't know yet how of an offender you would be, nor exactly how wrong you are in complementing them.

Being noticed by a young hot person is flattering.
Being noticed by an old  ugly person is creepy.

Ideally, as people age they should become increasingly oblivious to the sexual attractiveness of others to avoid giving offense.

(Or, we could admit that attracting attention is indiscriminate, and the more a person tries to be noticed, the more different types of people will notice.)

[Caracal]

Here you sound like you would dissuade people from making comments about appearance, generally, but the offense depends greatly on who makes the comment, and to whom. This is gonna get really tricky if it becomes that we don't a right to make assumptions about which gender a person self identifies as before they tell us, so we don't know yet how of an offender you would be, nor exactly how wrong you are in complementing them.

Being noticed by a young hot person is flattering.
Being noticed by an old  ugly person is creepy.

Ideally, as people age they should become increasingly oblivious to the sexual attractiveness of others to avoid giving offense.

(Or, we could admit that attracting attention is indiscriminate, and the more a person tries to be noticed, the more different types of people will notice.)

It is much easier for men to not be noticed much. In fact, most men's clothing is sort of designed for that purpose. You can choose levels of formality, but the idea tends to be the same which is not to stand out in any particular way. It actually gets more like this the more formal you get. At the level of black tie, men are all actually wearing the same thing. Women's clothes really don't work that way. The result ends up being that while men generally can choose to dress so their clothes aren't noticed much, that is a lot harder for women.

I'm a guy so maybe I'm getting parts of this wrong. Basically, though, when I get dressed for work, I have a bunch of different options, but the basic look is going to be almost exactly the same. I'm going to be waring a pair of pants, a dress shirt, a tie and a jacket. I like dress clothes and do try to buy things I like and think look nice, but none of it is is real out there. A sky blue cotton tie is about as flashy as anything gets. Some of my pants are slim fit (not to brag) but there's not much risk of anyone thinking I'm trying to be too sexy. If its a million degrees in my classroom, I take off the jacket and roll up my sleeves, but that's all the skin I'll ever show.

The point is that men's clothes are designed so you can dress this way. My impression is that lots of academic women do try to find a sort of uniform that does the same thing mine does, but it is far more complicated because to look plain as a woman is its own sort of clear statement, that people notice and draw conclusions about. The point is that just because you notice something a woman is wearing, it doesn't really mean the same thing as when a man wears something noticeable. I have a lot of choices that will be seen as perfectly "nice," but unremarkable, so if I buy and wear a neon green sport coat, you can safely assume I'm ok with any attention it might relieve. That just isn't true for most things women are wearing.

[mahagonny]

Here you sound like you would dissuade people from making comments about appearance, generally, but the offense depends greatly on who makes the comment, and to whom. This is gonna get really tricky if it becomes that we don't a right to make assumptions about which gender a person self identifies as before they tell us, so we don't know yet how of an offender you would be, nor exactly how wrong you are in complementing them.

Being noticed by a young hot person is flattering.
Being noticed by an old  ugly person is creepy.

Ideally, as people age they should become increasingly oblivious to the sexual attractiveness of others to avoid giving offense.

(Or, we could admit that attracting attention is indiscriminate, and the more a person tries to be noticed, the more different types of people will notice.)

I usually agree with you but...when was this decided? I may have missed an important meeting. As a person ages, his testosterone level is much lower and he's much more likely to already have a mate. So a compliment, logically, is more likely to be simply a compliment with no intent to make advances.

[bento]

I never comment on anyone's appearance at work in any way or context.  I'm a woman, and a department chair.  I've once got the comment "Look at her all dressed up - isn't she cute?" from a junior colleague 20 years younger than myself and it felt demeaning.

However, I broke my own never-comment rule once.  A male student in the front row of one of my classes came in a t-shirt with a large caption:

I will
KICK YOUR ASS
with YOGA!
NAMASTE, BITCHES

And at some point in the discussion it became the perfect thing to quote.  I blurted out "Just like X's shirt" or some such, and read the caption.  He was a combat veteran and a body-builder.  He did not seem to mind, and the class was merry about it, but I wondered about myself later.  Did he really mind and just not want to let on?  I went back to my rule.

I want that shirt though.  Or at least Namaste Bitches!

[marshwiggle]

It is much easier for men to not be noticed much. In fact, most men's clothing is sort of designed for that purpose. You can choose levels of formality, but the idea tends to be the same which is not to stand out in any particular way. It actually gets more like this the more formal you get. At the level of black tie, men are all actually wearing the same thing. Women's clothes really don't work that way.

They could. As you note later:

The point is that men's clothes are designed so you can dress this way. My impression is that lots of academic women do try to find a sort of uniform that does the same thing mine does, but it is far more complicated because to look plain as a woman is its own sort of clear statement, that people notice and draw conclusions about.

Ever hear how embarrassing it is if two women happen to be wearing the SAME dress at an event??? Quelle horreur!!!
Women expect to stand out.

See how many discussions there are about how, as women age, they become "invisible"; i.e. they cease to be able to automatically get attention from men.

Attention is, like almost anything else, not inherently good or evil. Sometimes it's desireable, and sometimes it's not. (There's a reason one of the common superpowers is invisibility.)The choice everyone gets to make every day is whether, on balance, it's going to be more worthwhile to try to be noticed or to try to fly under the radar.


The one choice we don't have is who is allowed to notice us, and who isn't.

[mahagonny]

Here you sound like you would dissuade people from making comments about appearance, generally, but the offense depends greatly on who makes the comment, and to whom. This is gonna get really tricky if it becomes that we don't a right to make assumptions about which gender a person self identifies as before they tell us, so we don't know yet how of an offender you would be, nor exactly how wrong you are in complementing them.

Being noticed by a young hot person is flattering.
Being noticed by an old  ugly person is creepy.

Ideally, as people age they should become increasingly oblivious to the sexual attractiveness of others to avoid giving offense.

(Or, we could admit that attracting attention is indiscriminate, and the more a person tries to be noticed, the more different types of people will notice.)

It is much easier for men to not be noticed much. In fact, most men's clothing is sort of designed for that purpose. You can choose levels of formality, but the idea tends to be the same which is not to stand out in any particular way. It actually gets more like this the more formal you get. At the level of black tie, men are all actually wearing the same thing. Women's clothes really don't work that way. The result ends up being that while men generally can choose to dress so their clothes aren't noticed much, that is a lot harder for women.

I'm a guy so maybe I'm getting parts of this wrong. Basically, though, when I get dressed for work, I have a bunch of different options, but the basic look is going to be almost exactly the same. I'm going to be waring a pair of pants, a dress shirt, a tie and a jacket. I like dress clothes and do try to buy things I like and think look nice, but none of it is is real out there. A sky blue cotton tie is about as flashy as anything gets. Some of my pants are slim fit (not to brag) but there's not much risk of anyone thinking I'm trying to be too sexy. If its a million degrees in my classroom, I take off the jacket and roll up my sleeves, but that's all the skin I'll ever show.

The point is that men's clothes are designed so you can dress this way. My impression is that lots of academic women do try to find a sort of uniform that does the same thing mine does, but it is far more complicated because to look plain as a woman is its own sort of clear statement, that people notice and draw conclusions about. The point is that just because you notice something a woman is wearing, it doesn't really mean the same thing as when a man wears something noticeable. I have a lot of choices that will be seen as perfectly "nice," but unremarkable, so if I buy and wear a neon green sport coat, you can safely assume I'm ok with any attention it might relieve. That just isn't true for most things women are wearing.

Interesting, and rings true. But, given that, what are the rules? We are still not going to have a society in which commenting on someone's appearance is always wrong, Just one reason, our entertainment, popular culture and media culture are overtly sexualized. Can't get both games into the same ballpark. I asked Ruralguy, who's been cheerleading to the social justice champions on this thread, what his approach is to the right to compliment someone on their appearance, and he answered 'I just don't do it.' I can see why not. Err on the side of caution. But it's not an answer to the question. If you're not interested in the answer to the question...