"Corporate conduct standards focus on male typical misconduct and ignore female typical misconduct, almost as if it doesn’t exist."
I might be suffering from the blindspot you're pointing to here, but what would be an example of female-typical misconduct? Or, more specifically, female-typical misconduct that isn't punished.
"Corporate conduct standards focus on male typical misconduct and ignore female typical misconduct, almost as if it doesn’t exist."
I might be suffering from the blindspot you're pointing to here, but what would be an example of female-typical misconduct? Or, more specifically, female-typical misconduct that isn't punished.
I guess the stereotypical example would be "mean-girls" type behaviour, and yeah, it's true that a woman's verbal misconduct would probably be punished less harshly than a man making a sexualised comment.
But is there a solution other than tightening up acceptable speech codes in exactly the way that some on the extreme Left have already been trying to do?
Women choose their clothing and grooming primarily for their effects on other women. They signal affiliation and status, among other things. The effect on men can be distracting. Noticing is fraught. A civilized man can and will ignore it, but not without effort. It’s like playing music that your coworkers can hear. Few companies have dress codes these days.
This comment is radically under-appreciated by straight men IMHO. Much has been written on it since the 70’s and 80’s, dissecting the specifics.
Notes on clothes:
Somewhere in the late 70’s and early 80’s, it became acceptable for adult women to wear underwear as outerwear, as the expression goes, in professional situations, as well as wearing nothing under outerwear. Men, not so much.
Men cannot wear a racer-back tank top and shorts with a 3” inseam to the office. Men cannot wear sleeveless skintight jersey-knit tops to the office. Men cannot wear a large shirt and tights to an office. Men cannot wear a buttoned jacket and no shirt to an office. There is no context where a man could wear a sheer blouse over a tight muscle-contouring tank top and thigh-length shorts to an office. Even with a jacket. There is no context in fact where a man can expose hairy legs from ankle to calf, knee, thigh, or lower buttocks. A man might be able to wear short-sleeves or rolled up sleeves, if they were not too hairy. but sleeves above the elbow, sleeves mid-bicep, upper bicep or exposing hair on deltoids is unacceptable. Men with extremely hairy chests, hairy collars, hairy necks is unacceptable to expose. Men with beards are acceptable to other men now, longer beards less so, ZZ-top beards are not, no matter how well-groomed.
In effect, men must always be covered from the tip of their toe to their neck, from wrist to neck with some exception of forearm. Skintight sweaters are not possible. Leather shirts and pants are not possible.
There was a 20-year period in my life when I maintained a competitive bodybuilding sized body, and I have always had a beard since I was 19. Wearing a polo shirt with 21” biceps was extraordinarily distracting to those around me. Wearing a form-fitting button-down shirt where my pectorals visibly bounce, every flex, was distracting. I had men and women in meetings wanting to touch my trapezius, my biceps, my deltoids, to the amazement of business colleagues. My wardrobe became either black sweaters or baggy shirts and trousers, and jackets.
—-
Being gay, I’m immune to female skin exposure distraction, for the most part, but it is amusing to watch straight men get flustered. It would have been an amusing exercise to come to a large meeting sometime, in a spaghetti-strap tank top and jacket, and matching expensive shorts, with my shaved head and blond beard, all 250lbs of me, and take the jacket off, my blond body hair a light carpet over chest, shoulders, back, arms, every muscle flexing and dancing under my skin and do an hour long presentation of a complex financial/technical matter: just to see the reaction. An exaggeration, perhaps, but that’s what the double-standard is.
—-
Women don’t dress for men, they dress for other reasons, a complex set of signals of dominance and submission, youth vs experience, and consciousness of sexual desirability to women only, which men don’t read unless interested in fashion.
—-
Men dress to indicate they are not a threat; they aren’t a 250lb muscular male, they don’t have secondary sex characteristics fully developed and arrayed to intimidate, they dress to seem unselfconscious, and to suppress any intimation of physical challenge. Men dress to seem like they would never ever attack, or even could do so, or ever be attacked. The modern western shirt and trousers and jacket is an evolution of the articulated medieval suit of armor.
—-
The one thing women do consistently is expose their neck, their throat to the collar bone, as far as they can around it to shoulders and back, as far down as possible to the pectorals. The apotheosis is the strapless gown, but that’s completely unacceptable for the office.
The one thing men cannot do is expose their neck to the collar bone, the back of their neck, along their shoulders, below the collar bone to the pectoral muscles.
In sociobiology, exposing the neck and belly maximally in animal groups is an appeasement gesture to group leadership. It exists in multiple classes of mammals, from Lions / cats, to Wolves / dogs, Primates / humans, even Dolphins, Meerkats, Rats, Otters and Giraffes.
When you’re aware of it, it simplifies a lot of discussion about office dress.
I have had to sit through many sexual harassment indoctrination, er, I mean "training" sessions. I always bring up that women wearing revealing clothing is sexual harassment of men. That pisses off the "trainers" every time.
"I always bring up that women wearing revealing clothing is sexual harassment of men."
I'm absolutely dying to hear your reasoning here. And how do we define what revealing clothing is? If a woman has big breasts, say, and can't really hide that fact no matter what she wears, what should she do?
The sexual harassment “trainers” weren’t interested in my definition of revealing clothing, as they never asked me for it. What I see is relevant is that they were pissed off that a man had the gumption to question the feminist narrative that only men are evil.
I don't think it's about your gumption, I think it's that defining women's clothing choices as "harassment" makes no sense.
Obviously some clothing is inappropriate for the workplace. But that's quite different to saying that a woman wearing whatever she wants is "evil." And as both you and Bob are demonstrating, defining what is "too revealing" is difficult and can easily slip into "hijab" territory.
I'm obviously not suggesting that men are all evil or that women never are. But unless you actually have a definition of revealing clothing, and it's one that most women would be happy to conform to, you're kind of stuck, no?
It is only right that women be able to enter the workforce. Furthermore, we need what they can do. A society which takes advantage of the capabilities of all its people will prosper more.
We do need to agree on some ground rules. The first rule is that the mission comes first. We should avoid doing anything to distract from that. That’s more difficult in a mixed environment.
OK, here are some definitions: low cut, tight-fitting tops that show lots of cleavage. Tight miniskirts that show lots of leg. I once had a large-breasted girlfriend. Not once did she show off her breasts in public, the entire time I knew her.
I think it may be more that they resent male interference with female intrasexual status games. Women can be deadly serious about those games. Never mind how disruptive they can be in the workplace.
Certain cues provoke an involuntary reaction. Civilized men can and will control themselves, but it’s distracting. It’s much easier to ignore a full figure with a high neckline than power cleavage on a trimmer figure.
Women shouldn’t inflict these cues on coworkers. Save it for face-to-face negotiation with an adversary, where your coworkers will be out of the line of fire.
"Women shouldn’t inflict these cues on coworkers."
Ah, okay, so you're thinking a dress code of some sort for women that prevents them from "distracting" the men? Maybe something in black? That covers them from the neck down?
Although, better cover the face too as some women's beauty is distracting. The hair too, of course.
I mean, I'm being ever so slightly flippant, but come on, you can't be serious here can you?
I say that clothing is communication. For most jobs you should be telling the world that you are competent; that you are dependable. You should not be telling people that you are young and fertile and hot to trot.
If a woman wears clothing a man can’t then it construes as a problem. Men showing hairy cleavage would cause a ruckus.
I posted a comprehensive list earlier.
The sole exception is a skirt, but it has the same hairy-leg problem as shorts. If a man can’t wear shorts exposing hairy legs by convention, why a woman?
Confession: I’ve been thrown out of a gym for wearing exactly the same structured clothing as a woman, “come back and wear something family friendly.” This means in practice that while women can wear bicycle shorts, men can’t.
In some states (Tennessee) gogo dancers of either sex cannot expose their nipples. While men in the audience can take their shirt off, women can’t. In a gay bar this means the male dancers can wear religion-exposing shorts but have to have pasties while the audience doesn’t.
LOL now say this again but with 'male parts', not breasts. Pretend it is normal for male adults to wear tight, stretchy pants and underwear that puts 'male parts' to levitate straight forward from the body with no sag. LOL. Big breasts do not naturally project straight out, levitating in thin air. They sag with gravity. Any clothing choice that removes the artificial shelf and contrast of the transition from stomach to the breasts would make even big breasted women look more barrel shaped (just like a man). I appreciate the female physique and the breast shelf, so I am not advocating this. It is, however, easy but unflattering to do.
You are right. Human Resources is filled with man-hating feminists, that openly discriminate against men, and in favor of women. At Rose Medical Center in Denver in 2007, they hired Kristin Diane Parker as a surgical scrub tech, despite KNOWING that she had Hepatitis C.
Have you seen the 1994 movie "Disclosure", starring Michael Douglas? I can't remember the female star. Bottom line is she accused Douglas' charcter of sexual harassment, when SHE was the one that sexually harassed HIM.
"Corporate conduct standards focus on male typical misconduct and ignore female typical misconduct, almost as if it doesn’t exist."
I might be suffering from the blindspot you're pointing to here, but what would be an example of female-typical misconduct? Or, more specifically, female-typical misconduct that isn't punished.
I guess the stereotypical example would be "mean-girls" type behaviour, and yeah, it's true that a woman's verbal misconduct would probably be punished less harshly than a man making a sexualised comment.
But is there a solution other than tightening up acceptable speech codes in exactly the way that some on the extreme Left have already been trying to do?
Women tend to organize on criteria other than competence.
Agreed. The feminists that fill human resources departments are a good example of that
Women choose their clothing and grooming primarily for their effects on other women. They signal affiliation and status, among other things. The effect on men can be distracting. Noticing is fraught. A civilized man can and will ignore it, but not without effort. It’s like playing music that your coworkers can hear. Few companies have dress codes these days.
This comment is radically under-appreciated by straight men IMHO. Much has been written on it since the 70’s and 80’s, dissecting the specifics.
Notes on clothes:
Somewhere in the late 70’s and early 80’s, it became acceptable for adult women to wear underwear as outerwear, as the expression goes, in professional situations, as well as wearing nothing under outerwear. Men, not so much.
Men cannot wear a racer-back tank top and shorts with a 3” inseam to the office. Men cannot wear sleeveless skintight jersey-knit tops to the office. Men cannot wear a large shirt and tights to an office. Men cannot wear a buttoned jacket and no shirt to an office. There is no context where a man could wear a sheer blouse over a tight muscle-contouring tank top and thigh-length shorts to an office. Even with a jacket. There is no context in fact where a man can expose hairy legs from ankle to calf, knee, thigh, or lower buttocks. A man might be able to wear short-sleeves or rolled up sleeves, if they were not too hairy. but sleeves above the elbow, sleeves mid-bicep, upper bicep or exposing hair on deltoids is unacceptable. Men with extremely hairy chests, hairy collars, hairy necks is unacceptable to expose. Men with beards are acceptable to other men now, longer beards less so, ZZ-top beards are not, no matter how well-groomed.
In effect, men must always be covered from the tip of their toe to their neck, from wrist to neck with some exception of forearm. Skintight sweaters are not possible. Leather shirts and pants are not possible.
There was a 20-year period in my life when I maintained a competitive bodybuilding sized body, and I have always had a beard since I was 19. Wearing a polo shirt with 21” biceps was extraordinarily distracting to those around me. Wearing a form-fitting button-down shirt where my pectorals visibly bounce, every flex, was distracting. I had men and women in meetings wanting to touch my trapezius, my biceps, my deltoids, to the amazement of business colleagues. My wardrobe became either black sweaters or baggy shirts and trousers, and jackets.
—-
Being gay, I’m immune to female skin exposure distraction, for the most part, but it is amusing to watch straight men get flustered. It would have been an amusing exercise to come to a large meeting sometime, in a spaghetti-strap tank top and jacket, and matching expensive shorts, with my shaved head and blond beard, all 250lbs of me, and take the jacket off, my blond body hair a light carpet over chest, shoulders, back, arms, every muscle flexing and dancing under my skin and do an hour long presentation of a complex financial/technical matter: just to see the reaction. An exaggeration, perhaps, but that’s what the double-standard is.
—-
Women don’t dress for men, they dress for other reasons, a complex set of signals of dominance and submission, youth vs experience, and consciousness of sexual desirability to women only, which men don’t read unless interested in fashion.
—-
Men dress to indicate they are not a threat; they aren’t a 250lb muscular male, they don’t have secondary sex characteristics fully developed and arrayed to intimidate, they dress to seem unselfconscious, and to suppress any intimation of physical challenge. Men dress to seem like they would never ever attack, or even could do so, or ever be attacked. The modern western shirt and trousers and jacket is an evolution of the articulated medieval suit of armor.
—-
The one thing women do consistently is expose their neck, their throat to the collar bone, as far as they can around it to shoulders and back, as far down as possible to the pectorals. The apotheosis is the strapless gown, but that’s completely unacceptable for the office.
The one thing men cannot do is expose their neck to the collar bone, the back of their neck, along their shoulders, below the collar bone to the pectoral muscles.
In sociobiology, exposing the neck and belly maximally in animal groups is an appeasement gesture to group leadership. It exists in multiple classes of mammals, from Lions / cats, to Wolves / dogs, Primates / humans, even Dolphins, Meerkats, Rats, Otters and Giraffes.
When you’re aware of it, it simplifies a lot of discussion about office dress.
I have had to sit through many sexual harassment indoctrination, er, I mean "training" sessions. I always bring up that women wearing revealing clothing is sexual harassment of men. That pisses off the "trainers" every time.
"I always bring up that women wearing revealing clothing is sexual harassment of men."
I'm absolutely dying to hear your reasoning here. And how do we define what revealing clothing is? If a woman has big breasts, say, and can't really hide that fact no matter what she wears, what should she do?
The sexual harassment “trainers” weren’t interested in my definition of revealing clothing, as they never asked me for it. What I see is relevant is that they were pissed off that a man had the gumption to question the feminist narrative that only men are evil.
I don't think it's about your gumption, I think it's that defining women's clothing choices as "harassment" makes no sense.
Obviously some clothing is inappropriate for the workplace. But that's quite different to saying that a woman wearing whatever she wants is "evil." And as both you and Bob are demonstrating, defining what is "too revealing" is difficult and can easily slip into "hijab" territory.
I'm obviously not suggesting that men are all evil or that women never are. But unless you actually have a definition of revealing clothing, and it's one that most women would be happy to conform to, you're kind of stuck, no?
It is only right that women be able to enter the workforce. Furthermore, we need what they can do. A society which takes advantage of the capabilities of all its people will prosper more.
We do need to agree on some ground rules. The first rule is that the mission comes first. We should avoid doing anything to distract from that. That’s more difficult in a mixed environment.
OK, here are some definitions: low cut, tight-fitting tops that show lots of cleavage. Tight miniskirts that show lots of leg. I once had a large-breasted girlfriend. Not once did she show off her breasts in public, the entire time I knew her.
I think it may be more that they resent male interference with female intrasexual status games. Women can be deadly serious about those games. Never mind how disruptive they can be in the workplace.
Agreed.
Certain cues provoke an involuntary reaction. Civilized men can and will control themselves, but it’s distracting. It’s much easier to ignore a full figure with a high neckline than power cleavage on a trimmer figure.
Women shouldn’t inflict these cues on coworkers. Save it for face-to-face negotiation with an adversary, where your coworkers will be out of the line of fire.
"Women shouldn’t inflict these cues on coworkers."
Ah, okay, so you're thinking a dress code of some sort for women that prevents them from "distracting" the men? Maybe something in black? That covers them from the neck down?
Although, better cover the face too as some women's beauty is distracting. The hair too, of course.
I mean, I'm being ever so slightly flippant, but come on, you can't be serious here can you?
Literally, not having breasts magically levitate would be a start.
I say that clothing is communication. For most jobs you should be telling the world that you are competent; that you are dependable. You should not be telling people that you are young and fertile and hot to trot.
Be free to be you. Just don't expect respect when your look says sex instead.
Power cleavage comes to mind.
If a woman wears clothing a man can’t then it construes as a problem. Men showing hairy cleavage would cause a ruckus.
I posted a comprehensive list earlier.
The sole exception is a skirt, but it has the same hairy-leg problem as shorts. If a man can’t wear shorts exposing hairy legs by convention, why a woman?
Confession: I’ve been thrown out of a gym for wearing exactly the same structured clothing as a woman, “come back and wear something family friendly.” This means in practice that while women can wear bicycle shorts, men can’t.
In some states (Tennessee) gogo dancers of either sex cannot expose their nipples. While men in the audience can take their shirt off, women can’t. In a gay bar this means the male dancers can wear religion-exposing shorts but have to have pasties while the audience doesn’t.
LOL now say this again but with 'male parts', not breasts. Pretend it is normal for male adults to wear tight, stretchy pants and underwear that puts 'male parts' to levitate straight forward from the body with no sag. LOL. Big breasts do not naturally project straight out, levitating in thin air. They sag with gravity. Any clothing choice that removes the artificial shelf and contrast of the transition from stomach to the breasts would make even big breasted women look more barrel shaped (just like a man). I appreciate the female physique and the breast shelf, so I am not advocating this. It is, however, easy but unflattering to do.
Silhouettes are easier to ignore than cleavage.
My imagination appreciates the unseen. I suspect most breast-loving men are in your camp, not mine.
You are right. Human Resources is filled with man-hating feminists, that openly discriminate against men, and in favor of women. At Rose Medical Center in Denver in 2007, they hired Kristin Diane Parker as a surgical scrub tech, despite KNOWING that she had Hepatitis C.
We need to identify feminine positive-sum games. We need to reward competent women.
Have you seen the 1994 movie "Disclosure", starring Michael Douglas? I can't remember the female star. Bottom line is she accused Douglas' charcter of sexual harassment, when SHE was the one that sexually harassed HIM.
The problem is not the clothes as such. It’s the interactions around it.