Nothing But A Bunch of Boobs

http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2014/02/nothing-but-bunch-of-boobs.html

by Mz • 12 years ago

50 38 12 years ago

micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com

andrewflnr4• 12 years ago

Much better than one would guess from the title.

Mz4• 12 years ago

The previous title was "Some women are nothing but boobs (of the intellectual variety)". Care to try to improve on the title? (I thought I did, but maybe not?)

Thanks.

andrewflnr4• 12 years ago

I can't think of anything simultaneously sober, mature, and attention-catching. I just wanted to help prevent anyone who looked at the comments first to dismiss the article on its title alone.

gavanwoolery2• 12 years ago

The word "creep" or "creepy" occurs 8 times in this article. Every time its aimed at men.

Its important to make a distinction. Not every guy that is attracted to you is a creep (even if his attempts at winning you over are awkward or creepy, that does not mean his intentions are - case in point when I first entered the world of dating all of my moves, were, in retrospect, very awkward or even accidentally creepy and I just did not know any better). Its not necessarily an age thing - I have seen cringe-worthy attempts at hitting by males in their mid-thirties.

emgeee• 12 years ago

I'm not really sure if you're agreeing or disagree with the post, but I think that this is one of the points the author was trying to convey.

gavanwoolery2• 12 years ago

Not disagreeing with the author, just trying to add some clarity as to why some men might be perceived as creepy. :)

__--__• 12 years ago

When women use the word "creepy" what they mean is they are not attracted to them and any attention received by them is unwanted. As a guy, there are two ways to avoid being labeled as creepy:

1) be attractive 2) don't be unattractive

Herald_MJ• 12 years ago

or 3) develop some social empathy and learn to infer when someone is not attracted to you, and then act accordingly by not showing them any interest beyond a cordial one that meets the demands of your profession.

fallinghawks• 12 years ago

Many years ago, we hired a gal in her mid-20s, slim, girl-next-door looks. It was a fairly casual office environment and she tended toward jeans and a spaghetti tank with an unbuttoned shirt over it. Not indecent, yet definitely skin, so on the borderline of acceptable. One day she was kind of upset because one of the few men who worked there had spent some time talking to her chest. He was in his early 50s, and generally annoying due to overwhelming halitosis and a tendency to talk way longer than necessary. Personally, I was on the fence about fault; I didn't like him at all, but also felt you put out bait, all fish will come, trout and mudsuckers alike. But he gave himself the creep label because he didn't keep his eyes on her face.

oinksoft• 12 years ago

This whole thing is nuts.

  > Maybe in the future I can figure out how to keep my big
  > mouth shut and let women continue to wear their Daisy
  > Dukes with ass cleavage hanging out the bottom etc.
  > while they loudly proclaim themselves helpless victims
  > and pawns in a world where only men have power and
  > while they equally loudly proclaim that all men are
  > unrestrained asshats who can't keep their eyes, words,
  > or hands to themselves.

Good thing it's light on the hyperbole.

The author seems to think herself the arbiter of sexual appropriateness. Cross the line, show an ankle, and you have what's coming to you. Men and women should have the same dress code.

  > One of the things I get strongly criticized for saying
  > is that if you are the target of unwanted male
  > attention, it is in your best interest to dress
  > conservatively and make sure no one can construe your
  > manner of dress or demeanor as provocative or inviting
  > such attention.

So, be powerless?

seanhandley2• 12 years ago

She's being pragmatic. And I respect her for that.

mwfunk2• 12 years ago

That's a pretty colossal misinterpretation of what was written, and the reason why she put so many caveats and explanations in there (which were conveniently ignored).

batiudrami3• 12 years ago

What she is saying, is that women should dress conservatively (presumably for their entire life, or at least for the entire time that they do not want to have sex with any man who feels like it) so that when the time comes that they get raped, people are more likely to look favourably upon them, rather than on the rapist. That is absolutely nuts.

Not to mention the fact that studies show that there is no correlation between what a woman is wearing and her likelihood of being sexually assaulted. So dressing conservatively won't even help avoid bring raped, but it means that people might side with you afterwards?

jotm• 12 years ago

You're totally right. Starting this summer, I'll get a strong tan and a tramp stamp, wear skinny jeans, a shirt with two, nay three popped collars, uggs and aviators and drive a Segway on the highway.

Let people stare at me, call me a douchebag and maybe occasionally punch me - because you know what, it's totally cool to completely disregard societal norms because of my gender.

DanBC2• 12 years ago

I'd be interested to hear her views about religious dress. "Look - if you're going to wear a turban you just have to expect people to judge you". Or names. "Hey - look at the Hollywood producers and stars who changed their names. If you're going to insist on keeping the Horowitz you're just inviting comments from anti-semites". "Black people - I understand that racism exists. But you're not doing yourselves any favours by being so uppity about it. Learn your place and life would be so much easier."

seanhandley2• 12 years ago

I like this. It's pragmatic, not idealistic.

mwfunk2• 12 years ago

This is a really thoughtful article with some practical advice. I hope people read it thoroughly and really think about it before commenting on it, because it would be very easy to skim it and have a knee jerk reaction against the very broad strokes of what she's talking about.

It's not a "blame the victim" article at all, just an analysis of how current social norms might be making things harder than they have to be for women in the tech world.

yojo• 12 years ago

Someone please dowvote this flame bait.

Failure to adhere to your clothing norms doesn't make it okay to sexually assault anyone, ever. The solution to sexism is not mandatory burkas; that much should be obvious.

robbrown451• 12 years ago

I didn't see anything in the article about being ok to assault someone.

Also, I think she is pointing out problems with clothing norms.

dsuth• 12 years ago

I hope you weren't seated at a desk when you wrote this out; it's a pretty horrific knee-jerk reaction.

Nowhere in the article does it suggest that sexual assault based on clothing is ok. It's actually a well-reasoned article which draws some good parallels between the way you act, and the way people react to you (not just sexually, but professionally and socially).

For my part, I think it's unfortunate that the advice given in the article is good, but at this point it's fairly true. I've worked in professional office environments for the better part of my life (in engineering), and dressing provocatively as a woman IS a sure way to make people treat you less seriously.

The author's points about women sending signals, and their typically passive role in engaging with the opposite sex is spot on. We just need men to come to the table and work on their social graces a bit more I think (and some women to stop playing the 'flaunting it but upset by attention' game).

glimmung• 12 years ago

Did you even read the article?

rdtsc• 12 years ago

This will invite a lot of controversy for sure.

And it seems a lot of people haven't even read the whole thing and turned away in disgust after the first couple of paragraphs.

A lot of people fail to realize how hidden assumptions, stereotypes and beliefs affect their judgement.

Let's discount those who are openly misogynistic and are consciously aware of it. She calls some of those people "creeps". Let's assume they formed their wrong opinions and positions and are unwilling to change.

I think the article references a very large group of people who will consciously never admit even to themselves at being discriminatory, not liking women, not respecting, holding them to a different standard. This is most people in general, in a jury room, most bosses, most families and so on. It is probably very very hard to not be in this category. These attitudes and modes of thinking are baked in early in the childhood, they are reinforced by media, society and so on. One would have to grow up in a country that actively discourages it and has been doing it for a long time. Our society is not like that yet.

She is saying how these people will mean well but because of their existing and unconscious stereotypes they will make decisions. That lower salary or jury verdict will probably not come from a creep but from well meaning people.

It could take decades more before that is eradicated completely. In the meantime she offers a practical advice -- what one can do today, working in a broken society so to speak.

Anyway that is who I understand her point.

However another way to look at it, could it be this hidden brainwashing also affected her and maybe she has been brought up to believe that women should dress modestly or society will judge them? Maybe she is unconsciously promoting these stereotypes without realizing it, too. Kind of like talking about suicides even with a message of hope and encouragement, or just publishing a news item about has an effect of triggering suicides.

pubby• 12 years ago

The reality is that since the social norm is that men are supposed to ask and women are supposed to say "yes" or "no", it is a social norm that willing women typically signal invitation to pursuit passively, primarily by dressing provocatively, getting all dolled up (in terms of hair and makeup), and being warm and friendly. Please don't pretend you didn't know this.

I think a bigger reason why people wear "attractive" clothes is because their peers judge them. e.g. women getting dolled-up even when they're not looking for a man.

cupcake-unicorn• 12 years ago

There's a healthy balance between "OMG, I was dressed like a prostitute at a trashy bar in the bad part of town, what happened?" and "Welp, better dress in a niqab the rest of my life lest I attract any male sexual attention and and be responsible for it".

I don't think this article achieves that balance.

andrewflnr4• 12 years ago

Some of the comments on this article are really pathetic. Look, people, there's a difference between condoning bad behavior and pointing out what victims can do to help themselves. If you're talking to a victim of sexual abuse, there's very little to be gained by telling them what the abuser should or shouldn't have done, but there is something to gain by telling the victim how to help themselves.

This article is about tactics for dealing with the current screwed-up situation, and the crappiness of humanity in general. If there's going to be debate, let's have it be about the effectiveness of those tactics, not attacking absurd caricatures of the article's arguments.

Somehow, when you warn people about thieves and try to help them avoid being targetted, no one gets confused and accuses you of justifying theft and blaming the victim. While the stakes are higher here, the logic is the same.

Nothing But A Bunch of Boobs

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