Woman Taking Different Knees?

[ravenbait]

it's not who the official is that matters, but what they said and who they said it to.

In the case of an official, yes, but in some other circumstances I think a man telling a woman to cover up could come across as (or simply be) leering rather than disapproval. And in the handball case of course it wasn't either, it was just the official doing their job.

And don't forget internalised misogyny is a thing, and many women have been indoctrinated with the idea that men are uncontrollable beasts who cannot be held account for their actions upon seeing too much female skin, and it is somehow our fault for provoking them, and thus we are in the wrong if we wear clothes that are too revealing. It is still the fault of the patriarchy. Male bodies are generally sexualised in the underpants area. Women's bodies are sexualised from neck to knee.

Sam

[nikki]

The YouTube algorithm sucked me into watching US college artistic gymnastics after watching a few of the viral routines from Nia Dennis and Margzetta Frazier at the start of last year.

I've seen a few gymnasts now refer to having to use adhesive spray to ensure that what little is covered by the conventional leotards remains covered. Often in training videos they're wearing short shorts or boxer brief style shorts.

The official judging of artistic gymnastics relies heavily on being able to clearly see to what extent limbs are extended and separated. There are also horrific stories of body shaming coming from internet abusers and in-person interactions within the sport.

Following the revelation of the extent of systemic sexual abuse of female gymnasts by their coaches, doctors etc, young women involved in the sport have been doing some really impressive stuff to speak out against abuse, harassment, prejudice, sexualisation, racism and more. Much respect to them.

it's not who the official is that matters, but what they said and who they said it to.

In the case of an official, yes, but in some other circumstances I think a man telling a woman to cover up could come across as (or simply be) leering rather than disapproval. And in the handball case of course it wasn't either, it was just the official doing their job.

And don't forget internalised misogyny is a thing [...]

Also the dominant group sending in the token minority representative to be the messenger.

[ravenbait]

Following the revelation of the extent of systemic sexual abuse of female gymnasts by their coaches, doctors etc, young women involved in the sport have been doing some really impressive stuff to speak out against abuse, harassment, prejudice, sexualisation, racism and more. Much respect to them.

Agreed.

Also the dominant group sending in the token minority representative to be the messenger.

^^This. I wonder whose decision it was? Everyone assumes it was the official's, but that's not her job, so was it?

Sam

[Beardy]

it's not who the official is that matters, but what they said and who they said it to.

In the case of an official, yes, but in some other circumstances I think a man telling a woman to cover up could come across as (or simply be) leering rather than disapproval. And in the handball case of course it wasn't either, it was just the official doing their job.

And don't forget internalised misogyny is a thing, and many women have been indoctrinated with the idea that men are uncontrollable beasts who cannot be held account for their actions upon seeing too much female skin, and it is somehow our fault for provoking them, and thus we are in the wrong if we wear clothes that are too revealing. It is still the fault of the patriarchy. Male bodies are generally sexualised in the underpants area. Women's bodies are sexualised from neck to knee.

Sam

A much more worrying issue is that in many cultures men are indoctrinated with the idea that they are uncontrollable beasts who cannot be held,to account for their actions upon seeing too much female skin. Including our own culture. See victim blaming in court…

[Cudzoziemiec]

I'd taken it not being her job as part of the point. As in, the handball official was simply enforcing the rules, just like a UCI official measuring socks(!), (I don't know how much discretion they're allowed in this, but it sounds like very little if any given the comments about the men not being allowed to wear tighter shorts), but the athletics official was going beyond her role and expressing a personal opinion on an unregulated topic. If she was talked into it by someone else, well we don't know.

Also, I'd say your opinion on the sexualised areas of the body is very conservative both for men and women! (Idle thought: I wonder if shows like Love Island etc contribute to an increasing sexualised view of, well, most things? Also, whereas Victorians had sexualised ankles because everything else was covered up, we've gone the other way and sexualised everything by exposing it.)

[ravenbait]

Also, I'd say your opinion on the sexualised areas of the body is very conservative both for men and women! (Idle thought: I wonder if shows like Love Island etc contribute to an increasing sexualised view of, well, most things? Also, whereas Victorians had sexualised ankles because everything else was covered up, we've gone the other way and sexualised everything by exposing it.)

Meh. I don't think exposure equates to sexualisation. If that were the case, human tribes where people wear very little clothing would have issues with entitlement. Breasts, for instance, are not seen as sexual in many tribes. They are for feeding babies. If anything, exposure in contexts that are non-sexual do the opposite.

Skin exposure in media is generally aimed at the male gaze. So Hugh Jackman's ridiculous buffness as Wolverine has nothing to do with sexualising him for the women in the audience -- it's a power fantasy for men (Wolverine is actually 5'3 and hairy, and would be better played by Danny Devito). I'm sure you must have seen the compare and contrast of Jackman on the front of a men's magazine and him on the front of a women's magazine. If not, it's buff super soldier vs a nice young man in a cardigan. Women are depicted as fantasy objects for men; men are depicted as what other men think women want. But keep the pants on, because otherwise it's too "gay". You probably missed the furore over showing Jackman's bum in Days of Future Past.

I think the issue is more the old adage "sex sells", but the people in charge of making money haven't quite caught up with the fact that women have their own money now, and make their own choices about how to spend it. So advertising is still largely directed at men (unless it's for traditionally female activities, like child-rearing and housework).

There. I've depressed myself. I'm going for a walk.

Sam

[Cudzoziemiec]

Also, I'd say your opinion on the sexualised areas of the body is very conservative both for men and women! (Idle thought: I wonder if shows like Love Island etc contribute to an increasing sexualised view of, well, most things? Also, whereas Victorians had sexualised ankles because everything else was covered up, we've gone the other way and sexualised everything by exposing it.)

Meh. I don't think exposure equates to sexualisation. If that were the case, human tribes where people wear very little clothing would have issues with entitlement. Breasts, for instance, are not seen as sexual in many tribes. They are for feeding babies. If anything, exposure in contexts that are non-sexual do the opposite.

No, that's not what I meant at all. It's the expression of sexualisation that has gone from very limited and deliberate exposure (of pretty much any part other than face and hands) to an undirected (but still deliberate) exposure of almost everything. As in, the more you show, the "sexier" you are. At least in certain situations (which probably don't include sports).

Anyway, I must get on with editing a boring training video about stuff that's mostly written in CamelCase (no, I can't de-camel it, it's trade marks).

[fd3]

We does love a bit of victim blaming,

I agree that you have some very conservative views of sexualisation RB; I remember a French equivalent to mad magazine doing a comparison of male and female sexy parts.  There was one entry for men and for women it went on to fingernails, toes and internal organs.
As women now have the money, why do we not see more attempts at women selling stuff to women using the objectification of men?

[ravenbait]

We does love a bit of victim blaming,

I agree that you have some very conservative views of sexualisation RB; I remember a French equivalent to mad magazine doing a comparison of male and female sexy parts.  There was one entry for men and for women it went on to fingernails, toes and internal organs.
As women now have the money, why do we not see more attempts at women selling stuff to women using the objectification of men?

Because, for the most part, advertising sells to men on the basis of entitlement. Cars, watches, you name it. You, Man, deserve these things. You, Man, deserve the life that delivers these things. You deserve the luxury car and the elegant mansion and the beautiful woman who will look at you adoringly. Western culture inculcates men with this sense that they are the hero of their own life and the trappings of herodom belong to them by right. This is from where MGTOW ultimately derive the enormous, misogynistic chip on their collective shoulder.

The Old Spice advert takes all the tropes of advertising and turns them on their head and it's hilarious:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owGykVbfgUE

It's aimed at women, because women still do most of the household chores including shopping, and Old Spice is the kind of thing you grab from the supermarket shelf while you're doing your weekly shop.  It also very explicitly makes it obvious it's complete fantasy. "The man your man could smell like." That's the only promise it makes.

Women are not raised with that innate sense of entitlement. Women know this world is not built for them, designed for them, interested in their health or welfare or justice. Women know that everything from kitchen cupboard height to seatbelt design is configured by and for men. Women know that medicine and employment consider women of secondary importance. Aiming the kind of advertising at us that men get wouldn't sell anything. You show me a woman dressed in high finery with a man hanging adoringly off her arm and all I can think is that he probably still can't clean a kitchen without being asked, is incapable of organising stock takes and menus for the next month, and doesn't check to see if the enormous shit he did that morning flushed properly [1]. There is a reason Charlize Theron is attended by women in the J'Adore advert:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIbY_lxHBSE

Replace all those women with beautiful men and most women would think, "JFC, I bet they're a ton of work."

Indeed, in the follow-up advert, Ms Theron just basically states outright: jewellery, cars, luxury living -- it's all bollocks. Which, you know, ironic given the circumstances. But it's a clever advert.

The kind of male presence that would sell to women in adverts is humorous, caring, thoughtful, intelligent. They are men who are interested in you as a person, not you the means to satisfy their own desires and pleasures. They're like jeans with functional pockets -- a wonderful idea, surprisingly hard to find.

It's oddly depressing to think how much selling to women boils down to: we want to make your life easier. Also, how about you smell nice when you do it? Or here's an experience that's actually pleasurable.

Did you ever wonder why Herbal Essences used to have women making vaguely orgasmic noises in their adverts? Ever think about what that implies about the women using their shampoo in the advert?

To be fair, I have an odd fascination with adverts because they often don't work on me. I remember Andy Gates and my other half trying hard one afternoon years ago to explain to me why anyone would want to buy shoes that had scorpions in them (Nike something or the other). I find the weird connotations of the stories ads tell strangely interesting.

Sam
[1] This should not be taken as a comment on Mr Bait, who shares enough of the domestic workload that it astonishes RB senior.

[TimC]

Cars, watches, you name it. You, Man, deserve these things. You, Man, deserve the life that delivers these things. You deserve the luxury car and the elegant mansion and the beautiful woman who will look at you adoringly. Western culture inculcates men with this sense that they are the hero of their own life and the trappings of herodom belong to them by right.

Is that me? Blimey... Did I get the wrong memo?

[fd3]

I generally fail to understand ads, or they annoy me so much I vow not to buy it (easy in most cases).  But I is not normal.
I remember 20 years ago in Germany, advertising was like being back in the 70s, wanna sell cigarettes? Naked woman.  Want to sell cars? Naked woman. Want to sell pizza? Naked woman.  Comparatively the U.K. advertising world is much more work in that they just can’t take the naked woman route.

Tim, I have a hypothesis - at some point you stopped and thought about what is important to you in your life.  I suspect that having a sense of priorities and what is important makes you less able to relate to advertising.

[Cudzoziemiec]

This is from where MGTOW ultimately derive the enormous, misogynistic chip on their collective shoulder.

Having devized various possibilities (Misogynist gammon threatening our world?), I looked it up. Turns out it even has a Wikipedia page:

Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW /ˈmɪɡtaʊ/) is an anti-feminist, misogynistic, mostly online community advocating for men to separate themselves from women and from a society which they believe has been corrupted by feminism.[2] The community is a part of the manosphere, a collection of anti-feminist websites and online communities that also includes the men's rights movement, incels, and pickup artists.[3]

Like other manosphere communities, MGTOW overlaps with the alt-right and white supremacist movements,[4] and it has been implicated in online harassment of women.[5] The Southern Poverty Law Center categorizes MGTOW as a part of the male supremacist ideology.[6]

"Manosphere?" 
 

[ravenbait]

Is that me? Blimey... Did I get the wrong memo?

Unless you have actively and deliberately set out to divest yourself of media programming -- and you might! Television is the worst purveyor such nonsense, and I understand many YACFers have long since removed television from their lives -- then you might be surprised.

This stuff is insidious. A good way to tell if you have escaped it is to ask yourself if your response to a women explaining how men have it better than they do is: "Not me." If your first instinct is to refocus the discussion on you, then I'm afraid yes, you got the memo. You just didn't know you were getting the memo.

Sam

[Karla]

Cars, watches, you name it. You, Man, deserve these things. You, Man, deserve the life that delivers these things. You deserve the luxury car and the elegant mansion and the beautiful woman who will look at you adoringly. Western culture inculcates men with this sense that they are the hero of their own life and the trappings of herodom belong to them by right.

Is that me? Blimey... Did I get the wrong memo?

Remember Tim, you're an awful person, and you can't help being an awful person, because Ravenbait says you are.

She can probably help you overcome your demons with a personalised series of coaching sessions for very reasonable prices 

[ravenbait]

Remember Tim, you're an awful person, and you can't help being an awful person, because Ravenbait says you are.

She can probably help you overcome your demons with a personalised series of coaching sessions for very reasonable prices 

I never said Tim was an awful person. I think the exact opposite. Please feel free to take your projection elsewhere.

Sam

[TimC]

Is that me? Blimey... Did I get the wrong memo?

Unless you have actively and deliberately set out to divest yourself of media programming -- and you might! Television is the worst purveyor such nonsense, and I understand many YACFers have long since removed television from their lives -- then you might be surprised.

This stuff is insidious. A good way to tell if you have escaped it is to ask yourself if your response to a women explaining how men have it better than they do is: "Not me." If your first instinct is to refocus the discussion on you, then I'm afraid yes, you got the memo. You just didn't know you were getting the memo.

Sam

I haven't actually removed myself from TV, but I'm not normally a consumer of ads or their content. Indeed, I've led a somewhat charmed life and it's probably fair to say I can afford to be impervious to marketeers' needs and expectations. I'm also very aware that many women of my generation would never have had the opportunities I had - and though I've done a lot of work over the years to redress that professionally, I'm also well aware that there still isn't equality of opportunity, let alone equality of life experiences. I just don't see myself as the hero of my own life story - indeed, the idea makes me laugh! But it was a bit of a throwaway line, and not meant as any kind of ironic comment on the points at hand.

Cars, watches, you name it. You, Man, deserve these things. You, Man, deserve the life that delivers these things. You deserve the luxury car and the elegant mansion and the beautiful woman who will look at you adoringly. Western culture inculcates men with this sense that they are the hero of their own life and the trappings of herodom belong to them by right.

Is that me? Blimey... Did I get the wrong memo?

Remember Tim, you're an awful person, and you can't help being an awful person, because Ravenbait says you are.

She can probably help you overcome your demons with a personalised series of coaching sessions for very reasonable prices 

At no point have I inferred such a thing from anything Sam has said. Sam is someone I have admired greatly for many years, and thoroughly enjoyed some great forum (and - on at least one famous occasion - IRL) banter with, going back to the old Cakestop days. I'm quite certain she could - and indeed does - help me be a better person, and I am privileged to receive her wisdom.

[quixoticgeek]

I’ve fallen behind on this thread, so forgive me if I’m repeating anything.
In response to J’s comments about men wearing the same thing, where as women have to decide on what is appropriate and have they worn it before. I have, in the past, got quite annoyed at dress code rules because I’ve had to wear a dark grey suit with shirt and tie even on stupid hot days, when my female colleagues have been able to swan in wearing comfortable short skirts. That situation had changed a lot in IT by the time I left, and formal wear was only really required when visiting (new) customers ant techs could even then still get away with jeans and black T’s (regardless of gender). It certainly balanced the scales when in the base office as we all pretty much wore jeans/chinos and polo shirts/sweatshirts, although the ladies still had more flexibility in the hot weather if they chose.

The thing is, you could have worn the same dark grey suit every single day in that job, and while it is uncomfortable in the heat, if your female colleagues had worn the same short skirt every day, people would comment. Not to mention no doubt if the skirt was too short someone would comment.

There is a lot of inequality in work wear, whether it's the lack of properly fitting PPE, the requirement to wear harmful high heels, to the judgement levied upon women's choice. Fortunately many modern firms are starting to realise that dress codes are often utterly shite. My office based employers here, when asked if there was a dress code, have responded "Yes, please where clothes". Tho with WFH, as I never turn my camera on*, noone knows that I regularly turn up to team meetings with nothing on. Removing the suit+tie requirement in many offices in summer would mean the Aircon could be set to a slightly lower output, saving some energy. I don't want to devalue the discomfort you've experienced at having to wear a suit in hot weather. But at least noone will complain at you about the fact it's the same suit every day. And you can pair it with sensible(ish) shoes.

J

* Either that, or people have been too polite to point it out for the last 8 months.

[Kim]

Barakta went out and bought assorted brightly coloured tops to wear at $ork n-2 because people kept making comments about her wearing black all the time and it was the path or least resistance.

[Karla]

The thing is, you could have worn the same dark grey suit every single day in that job

Not really.  Wearing the same clothes every day to work?  Ewwwww 

[Cudzoziemiec]

I was at an actual physical, in person, face to face meeting a couple of weeks ago and I noticed that one of the women present was wearing high heels. There was no dress code and it wasn't a formal occasion (I was in shorts, another woman was in a very faded sleeveless vest, etc). It did make me wonder what high heels are for. I mean, yeah, they're office uniform, which wasn't applicable here, but weren't they originally (probably over a hundred years ago) to make people look taller? This woman is tall anyway. Not just tall for a woman, tall for a human of any sort. Anyway, the meeting was relatively unproductive but she was one of the most contributory persons.

[quixoticgeek]

I was at an actual physical, in person, face to face meeting a couple of weeks ago and I noticed that one of the women present was wearing high heels. There was no dress code and it wasn't a formal occasion (I was in shorts, another woman was in a very faded sleeveless vest, etc). It did make me wonder what high heels are for. I mean, yeah, they're office uniform, which wasn't applicable here, but weren't they originally (probably over a hundred years ago) to make people look taller? This woman is tall anyway. Not just tall for a woman, tall for a human of any sort. Anyway, the meeting was relatively unproductive but she was one of the most contributory persons.

History lesson time.

The original purpose of the heal on a shoe was to keep your feet on the stirrups on a horse. Healed shoes were a mark of horse ownership and status. Over time fashion resulted in the heal getting higher, and for several hundred years, high heels were a men's fashion. Just as Pink was considered manly. Over time things have shifted, and now high heels are solely seen as the preserve of women. It's very hard to buy smart women's shoes that aren't either ugly, high heeled, or both. Some women wear high heels (and otherwise painfully impractical looking footwear), because they like to, because that's what they feel most comfortable in. Which of course they are free to so choose. As long as they are not being forced.

The medical implications of wearing high heels are a different discussion...

J

[Cudzoziemiec]

High heels were worn by and marketed at men from at least the 17th century (Pepys wore them) to the 1930s, when they were known in USA as "elevator shoes". You've probably never seen The Waltons, it was on TV in the '70s, but one of the male characters in the 1930s was mocked for wearing them (in a kind of "man up and it's better to be an honest short man than look tall by cheating" sort of way). I guess they ceased to be a men's thing about the same time as it ceased to be common to ride a horse, but I think that's just coincidence (other than cowboy boots, which of course still have them).

[Peter]

Cuban heels were very popular with men in the 60s and were frequently seen in company with a recording contract.  They used to fail quite often - like the contracts.

[Wowbagger]

I was under the impression that the fashion for high heels amongst women persisted because it made their buttocks waggle.

[quixoticgeek]

I was under the impression that the fashion for high heels amongst women persisted because it made their buttocks waggle.

That is a common view. It raises the bum up and makes it move in a most enticing manner.

I have a pair of black leather shoes with approx 20mm of heal that I keep under my desk for when I wear a skirt to the office. I also have a pair of knee high CFM boots with a 100mm heal. They currently don't fit cos the combination of weight gain last year, and lots of cycle training means my calves are a bit too big. They look amazing. They feel amazing. and I can walk about 100m in them before they become absolute agony. Fortunately they aren't too bad to cycle in...

J