I’m glad you brought up the H word, hypocrisy, which is the word I’ve been biting my tongue on since I sort of began this side-thread. There are people out there who appear to either rationalize their own negative description of a particular person’s appearance (effectively, ‘When I do it, it’s right.’) and in spite of their own general protestations to the opposite, or they just bale out (in more sense than one) of directly and logically responding when there’s a risk of having to backtrack or appear to be… well… a hypocrite.
College days, and a group of us together went to a local dance bar. One in our group – let’s call him John – looked over at a young lady seated nearby and asked her if she’d like to dance with him. She looked straight at him and said, “Have you looked at yourself in the mirror lately?” Now John – not the most handsome guy in the world, and he was the first to admit it, the sweet bastard – was a pathologically laid back sort of fellow who took everything in stride; he just gave her a sad, weak smile and simply turned away. (Another guy standing off to the side – a complete stranger to us – saw and heard all this and exploded with rage. He appeared to be at least half-drunk. Got into a scuffle with the girl.) Anyway. The girl? Pure, hurtful, unnecessary malice. She didn’t just think it. Or just whisper it to a friend. She said it. Too his face.
To answer your question: For me… none.
Of course, according to society, (as rightly and as wrongly as it is): Calling women ‘ugly’ is wrong, and calling men ‘ugly’ is, well, not too much of a problem. Me? I prefer to modify my own particular reactions (as far as what’s ugly) in the light of context, (please see my true tale above), and assuming that guys can feel just as hurt about being called ugly by women. That svelte, blue-eyed blond girl who cruelly inferred that our friend was too ugly to dance with? She became as ugly as Limbaugh. And, if anyone could agree with that, then would they also agree that it would have been okay if that girl was physically ugly and we called her on that? Context!
IMO “ugly” is nearly always a cheap shot, because it is both superficial (when referring to appearance instead of attitude) and also it appeals to social conventions that aren’t healthy. Ideally, I think that beauty is completely subjective. So why does anybody even talk about it? To establish a consensus, to create a conventional standard of beauty, and thus tying a person to a metric of social worth. I think that arguably there is never a good reason to do so. Beauty speaks for itself, and people find it wherever they will.
I make an exception for hypocrites - chauvinists such as Trump and Limbaugh mentioned here - because it is they who start soapboxing about what people should and shouldn’t look like. They don’t do it because they are aesthetes, they do it because they are lecherous bullies. So as a retort it is a superficial jibe against a superficial person, to call attention to their shallowness and hypocrisy. As the saying goes, “beauty is skin deep, but ugly goes all the way to the bone”.
Rich old lecherous guys who talk like they are gawd’s gift to women are simply nasty children who need a steak tied around their neck to get the dog to play with them, but who’s frail egos prevent from reading the memo and understanding this. Their “power” is being desperate parasites who exploit the desperation they foster in others.
At least John talked to her first. Try having random guys shouting their opinions about your looks at you from cars from the time you’re an adolescent until your late 30s/early 40s. Try being mooed at as you’re crossing the street by a guy who doesn’t even break stride as he insults you. Try having shitheads call you fat and ugly when they disagree with you on Twitter, even though your avatar and photos don’t show you – or any pictures of anything human.
Getting insulted by some twit at a dance is a drop in the bucket.
So yes, calling a woman ugly IS different, because she gets way, way more crap about her looks than any dude who isn’t an actual actor or model.
Knock off the false equivalencies. Context matters.
Absolutely. You can pretty much guarantee that they’re going to suck for various reasons. Those reasons are exactly why they need to be at the table most out of everyone.
To be blunt, if your privileged group is the problem, but you’re willing to sit down and listen/possibly learn, then that’s the best possible situation. Yeah, you’re likely to get pretty much everything wrong. Yeah, you’re likely to derail and make it all about you. But… Just maybe you’ll learn not to do that. Maybe everyone will learn some empathy. Just maybe everyone will walk away from the table a bit wiser…
Or maybe it’ll just devolve into some crazy shit show, what do I know. But you can at least say you tried and made an honest effort!
(also, original totally long ranting post totally not directed at you Milliefink)
Mid 40’s, still happening. Wasn’t I supposed to be invisible to random shitheads on the street by now? Shouldn’t they be harassing the 20-somethings who wear tights as pants?
I was talking about other comments, but if you are concerned about eliciting exasperated sighs your concerns are justified.
The “this is wrong, men need to be listened to” the kind of comment that started this whole discussion off. Instead of being rightly put off by a guy calling Kellyanne Conway “ugly”, instead of pointing out that such comments are insulting to women generally (not just to the one he insulted), we are told to be concerned about attaching a defamatory label of “misogynist” to the guy who actually did the thing that was wrong.
But your comment came across as the standard defense of this: it’s “tactical” advice. We all know we want men to be on the side of feminism, so, the thinking goes, we need to use the right approach to get them on board. Then the person giving the advice finds it is falling on deaf ears and decides they need to reiterate over and over. It strikes me as desperately ironic - if they had any idea of how to get people to join them then they’d presumably be having some success convincing people in the forum, but instead the evidence of their lack of expertise is ignored are 100% convinced they have relevant advice on the subject of getting people on the side of feminism.
“You make a valid point but we need to think about how to sell that point to men” is an argument that accomplishes nothing other than focusing attention the person making the argument.
First off I think while tights as pants are an unsustainable trend that will be roundly mocked in the future, jeggings are the most evil incarnation.
Second, I am sorry you are still being harassed by jerks. This type of harassment genuinely makes the world a worse place for everyone. I wish you peace.
{Society has trained people into believing that there is no equivalence and therefore responses should be gender-tailored. Me? From personal experience, certain guys can feel hurt. And the affected guy should not feel better about being insulted because of the difference you stated. All I’m saying is that you don’t walk up to ANYONE (with the intent to hurt them) and call them ugly}
“Context matters.”
{Yes. Isn’t that what I said in so many words?]
