I would think (hope) something like that is said out of sympathy, not as a putdown. Ideally followed by a “do you want some coffee or help with that tedious chore?” and maybe some commiseration and discussion of things to look forward to this weekend after catching up on sleep. Stuff like that can help get you through the day.
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I agree that the opinions of women in general are often underrated. It doesn’t follow that any man in particular, at any particular point in time, is overrated. I have identified occasions when I felt I was taken more seriously than my colleagues and gender seemed like the most obvious difference, but these specific and acute situation are thankfully reasonably unusual. There are times when any individual is wrong and others when they are right. If that individual’s supporters and allies adopt the position of ‘just shut up and listen’ then there’s a fair chance they’ll never work out which is which.
I guess it depends to some extent on who you’re talking to. Women in general, colleagues, acquaintances, friends? None of my business. Commenting about the way they present themselves implicitly assumes that they should take my feelings into account beyond looking basically appropriate to the situation. If my wife dresses up and puts on makeup for an event, her appearance is obviously designed to be more than functional - I’ll compliment her on how good she looks (as I do anyway), but I don’t expect her to do it for me or anything. It’s a good point about ‘looking tired’ though. A straw poll of one suggests that this is mostly something that women say and it probably comes from a good place, but I guess the important thing is to know the difference between natural appearance and being unwell, and between “Are you OK/can I help you?” and “You look tired - you should look less tired.”
Being ‘deceived’ by makeup though? Makeup changes your appearance in subtle or not so subtle ways. The idea is often to look more attractive, cover blemishes, look less tired/pale and so on. That’s what it does, so why would you expect someone to look the same underneath? If you think that someone looks unpresentable or unloveable without her makeup on, think about how that must feel for her.
I have some sympathy for people who say that makeup is unhealthy and promotes unhealthy ideas about what a woman should look like. I can’t see why putting pressure on individuals would help here though. Do what you can to make people feel comfortable and accepted as they are, and they will be more able to make genuine decisions for themselves about this and other issues.
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If you don’t know when to shut the fuck up and listen, you’re not a particularly sincere ally. If you tell women (or whatever group) what’s best for them, you’re not an ally, no matter how you want to see yourself.
Again, this is all contextual depending on the topic, but they’re only opinions. There’s no reason to get so enamored of your own. Don’t you just see a touch of patronizing in your idea that you have a unique and unexplored opinion that women in the course of their lives have not considered at some point in time?
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I’m reminded of the scene in NuWho, arguably one of the most sexist things I’ve seen the Doctor do in that series. Where he ruins a woman’s political career just by saying “Don’t you think she looks tired?”
Just imagine those words being enough to ruin a man’s career.
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“Don’t you think he looks creepy?”
But yes, generally men are much less vulnerable to this.
Yes, that was a very evil moment. And it highlights the systemic sexism that we are all experiencing right now. And she did just commit genocide. So as a story, even though the ‘real’ point hurts more, I can’t say I didn’t enjoy it.
I hope that some people ‘got’ how evil David tennent was in that scene.
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And mind you this was still The Doctor hurting from what he still thought was doing the same thing to his own species/planet. And yeah the whole we beat them, they are going home, lets kill them anyway was also pretty damn callous and evil. So his remark to make her look bad while not nice was not wholly undeserved either.
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Look, clearly you’re happy to go around in circles ad Mausium. If you don’t know when to speak up, you’re a shit friend. Anyone can nod along dumbly like a dog in a car.
Give me a few years.
Yup!
Luckily I will look naturally fantastic forever.
…
We all think Brian Blessed looks naturally fantastic, right? Right…?
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I went looking for a .gif and I found this… what?
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You have seriously made my week.
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Yeah, but he looks awesome in that picture.
This is the part that seems so bizarre to me. Women get to hear men’s opinions about things all day. If a member of a group of which you are not a part (women, black people, people with a specific mental illness, whatever) tells you that you display a patronizing attitude towards people in that group, odds are extremely good you do. So many men try to use some version of “reason” or “logic” to show that they know more about some issue affecting women than women do, and they can’t use extremely basic reason to understand that, actually, they probably don’t.
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I’m pretty sure he always does, at least.
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You’re right, I don’t tell women what they should do often enough. I’m such a bad person! They don’t know what they’re missing out on.
It’s like they don’t even know that their life and perspective is wrong without my helpful needling and patronizing disdain for their existence.
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You are attempting to reframe what I said as something I pretty clearly didn’t. I understand why you feel strongly about this, but I feel that you have consistently understood or represented my position completely differently to that which can be reasonably extrapolated from my words. But hey, at least we’ve demonstrated that you don’t need to be a Gamergater or MRA to argue in bad faith.
If something I’ve said has seemed specifically needling to you then I am sorry. I have attempted to remain within the bounds of the tone you appeared to find acceptable.
Anyway, I hope that there is more than we agree on than disagree. I agree that men who state that makeup is somehow an act of fraud perpetrated against them are oppressive jerks. I agree that men who tell women that they are ‘more beautiful natural’ are condescending and those who heap scorn on the made-up are at best paternalistic and often worse. I’d say similar about any woman who perpetuated any of the same ideas, too. I also agree that there are times when the best thing you can do is be a sympathetic ear, irrespective of gender.
