No Right Answer: Is Sexy Bad?

[SAMAS]

Anyone else think that landing a rocket on a fucking comet should give you the right to wear whatever you damn well please the the press conference?

Short Answer: No.

Long Answer: If you're going out in front of the world as a representative of your team, your workplace, and arguably your profession, you need to show some goddamn pride in your appearance.

Is the shirt sexist? Well.... kinda, yeah. Maybe or maybe not in and of itself, but as it reflects on you to wear it? Ans especially to wear it on that occasion? It doesn't speak very well on how you view women if you think that shirt is appropriate.

 

[Pinky's Brain]

Humanity lands a satellite on a comet and all anyone could talk about was a tacky shirt.

No, you.

 

[Norithics]

It's irrelevant what you think about who is CORRECT, your original narrative that people just randomly "mobbed this poor guy far beyond anything a person could possibly deserve", is certainly incorrect. There was no NEED for this to become a big damn controversy, it could have easily stayed a single tweet of someone's opinion, if not for anti-feminists turning it into another gender war, that escalated until even the ESA heard about it, and then some more.

And here's the irony of the anti-feminist movement. Decrying the methods they use while using those methods and turning it up to 11. Like, I don't understand how someone can call people 'Social Justice Warriors' while they're obviously jockeying to advance their own social ideals.

Also man-splaining is absolutely a thing. I'm a dude and I witness it all the time. If you don't think it exists, well that's probably because you're a dude and of course you don't. Nobody wants to believe they can be condescending to others unintentionally. Does it work in the other direction? Absolutely. But the other existing doesn't make it all a wash.

 

[maninahat]

snip

Do you think perhaps that people crying that this guy is discouraging women by the clothes he wears are making much to do about nothing? That they've basically mobbed this poor guy far beyond anything a person could possibly deserve in some effort to combat an unrelated issue?

I don't think they are crying or mobbing him. What they are doing is writing articles or tweeting or blogging about how the guy's shirt was sexist. No individual article I've read comes across as a ravenous hackjob or a "demonisation" of the guy, but a statement of how, regardless of his achievements, he made a mistake with the shirt. It was the volume of articles and blog posts, rather than any viciousness of individuals that made it so hard for the guy. I feel bad for him, and no doubt he found all the negative attention really disheartening over what was a daft mistake...but I don't think I should blame bloggers or journalists for criticising what a person did, unless they genuinely harassed, threatened or abused the guy (which I haven't seen).

It is still an inappropriate thing to wear in most work places, and I could easily imagine how it could be an ugly reminder for women employees that they are in a boy's club, rather than a place of work that expects women and accommodates for them accordingly. It doesn't even have to be an arbitrary specified dress code; I think it is likely that if 50% of that guy's co-workers were women, it probably would have occurred to him to not wear that shirt to work.

Tattoos are also an inappropriate thing to have in most work places. The tech/IT/engineer industry is different. Girls and boys are allowed to express individuality. Him wearing that shirt and having those tattoos isn't a sign of the patriarchy. It's a sign that the company wants their employees to feel like they can be individuals...Take my tech office for example. People are wearing flip flops and hoodies with skulls on them and all sorts of different forms of self-expression. So what if someone wears a shirt with girls on it? He's incurring the risk of being seen as socially awkward or whatever and potentially isolating himself from his coworkers. That's his cost, not us demonizing him or demanding he dress more like us. Just like in social circles.

You are arguing that the kookie shirt is no different from a tattoo or a pair of flip flops or any other item of casual attire. I don't agree. It is specifically that shirt which is bothering people, not his tattoos (which the same critics even praised). People are normally fine with employees having relaxed rules about dress, but only to the point that they are still responsible about what they choose to wear, and show some consideration to their colleague's sensibilities. The fact that this didn't happen with the guy's shirt demonstrates the lack of women co-workers to have to consider in the first place. That's why his shirt that was socially acceptable within his comparatively homogeneous workforce, but unacceptable for a more diverse outside world. It's fine to talk about protecting people's freedoms for personal expression, but it is also fine to talk about their responsibility too.

 

[loa]

Short Answer: No.

Long Answer: If you're going out in front of the world as a representative of your team, your workplace, and arguably your profession, you need to show some goddamn pride in your appearance.

Is the shirt sexist? Well.... kinda, yeah. Maybe or maybe not in and of itself, but as it reflects on you to wear it? Ans especially to wear it on that occasion? It doesn't speak very well on how you view women if you think that shirt is appropriate.

He wore that shirt to give a shoutout to his female friend who made it.

 

[maninahat]

Similarly, the all male building sites I've worked on have a lack of women, and consequently, there are much more open displays of casual sexism (pornography, nude calenders, conversations about prostitutes etc) that won't exist in a better mixed work place.

Could you maybe explain how these things are sexist?
I don't agree that titillation or nudity is sexist, these models are self-sufficient people and their consumers appreciate their work.

Yes, some models consented to sell naked pictures of themselves, but no, the discussion doesn't begin and end there. I recommend you read around sexual objectification, specifically about how women's appearance or sexuality tend to be seen as a commodity in society, and the ultimate adverse effects of those stereotypes.

 

[Captain Capra]

In the end: the real looser here is fashion.

And everyone who´s not a fashion-person should calm their tits. On either side of the argument.

 

[Dollabillyall]

This shirt debate is not about sexism or gender issues.

It's about the anti sexuality movement.

Humans are sexual beings.

Humans are violent beings.

Sometimes those two collide.

When it does, another anti-sexual person is brought into existence.

Those are the people who make a fuss about this.

They are always heard on the issue of men+woman+sexuality, but never on actual discussions about the place of gender in society or the gender differences.

If you are going to spend time debating gender roles.. focus on real issues like the income gap or the housewife stereotype instead of some dude's shirt depicting women in a more-or-less sexual way.

Sexuality is a part of the human experience. If you can't deal with that you should be in therapy, not public debate.

I will retract this entire statement if anyone can point out any type of lesson from this entire shirt debate other than "when sex is involved, some people get pissed the fuck off".

Because I believe there isn't one. This entire debate is just butthurt and bullshit. No advancements in the field of gender and society have been made in this debate.

 

[SAMAS]

Short Answer: No.

Long Answer: If you're going out in front of the world as a representative of your team, your workplace, and arguably your profession, you need to show some goddamn pride in your appearance.

Is the shirt sexist? Well.... kinda, yeah. Maybe or maybe not in and of itself, but as it reflects on you to wear it? Ans especially to wear it on that occasion? It doesn't speak very well on how you view women if you think that shirt is appropriate.

He wore that shirt to give a shoutout to his female friend who made it.

Yep, good thing it had a label clearly pointing that out for all to see. Oh wait...

Which comes back to my previous point about tacky-ass clothes that can be taken the wrong way. If you gotta explain or justify the clothes you're wearing to the whole world, DON'T.

 

[Ariseishirou]

The problem here is not that he had a shirt with people with bikinis on it.

The problem is that YOU ARE A GODDAMN SCIENTIST WHO JUST LANDED A GODDAMN PROBE ON A GODDAMN COMET. AND YOU ARE GIVING A PRESS CONFERENCE. WEAR A GODDAMN SUIT.

Yeah, it's this kind of shit that makes everyone who works in science - myself included - look like socially impaired oblivious neckbeards. See all of those journalists interviewing you in business attire? Maybe you should wear a fucking suit too, genius.

 

[Johnny Impact]

Neither shirt offends me.

I personally wouldn't wear the one with women. I do wear nerd T-shirts but nothing in any way sexual. That's just my taste. I think the shirt looks tacky but I'm not ready to demonize the wearer any more than I would demonize a woman who wore the other shirt. The cowboy shirt (which I also wouldn't wear, just to be clear) simply made me chuckle. My first thought was, "Shirtless in the desert? Those guys are gonna get really sunburned." I recognize that pictures of pretty people do not actually indicate that people are objects.

I must admit I did have a brief pang of embarrassment that I do not and never will look anything like the idealized man. I could diet down until my abs were visible, then bulk up to the limits of genetics and nutrition, even get myself a nice tan, and I still wouldn't be attractive. My voice is high and nasal, my ears stick out, my hair is useless, I'm graceless, conversationally retarded, my teeth are crooked, and I can't live without my glasses. Some of that is partially correctable but I could never reach the mark no matter how hard I tried.

Here's the point though: That alone is not cause for offense. It's nothing more than I feel pretty much every moment of every day. I wish aggressive feminists (or, for that matter, all people everywhere) understood that it's normal, and arguably perfectly okay, to feel like you don't look good enough. Guys with muscles have them because they didn't look or feel how they wanted to. They felt inadequate and did something about it. They didn't whine about how society expected them to look, they simply built themselves up. Maybe they didn't hit the mark either but they came closer and are stronger and healthier for it. Self-image is a big motivator and I refuse to see that as a bad thing. People do make bad or unrealistic decisions about what path to follow, which leads to anorexia and all sorts of other complications. The fact remains the idea of achieving better self-image is not wrong. Women are NOT alone in feeling embarrassed or inadequate, it happens to millions of men all the time. But it's easier to whine about unattainable standards than it is to take positive steps.

 

[gridsleep]

How is this even a thing? What nincompoops worry about this? And what nincompoops consider those nincompoops to be an addressable issue? There are children dying of starvation. There is poison flowing into rivers and into the air. War is everywhere. People live in fear. Half of America goes to bed hungry, if indeed they even have a bed. How is this even a thing?

 

[Reasonable Atheist]

I would just like to put this out there

What if the scientist was female, and dressed like the women on the shirt? what would the reaction be then?

yeah...... i went there

Also, this is a man who is pelvic thrusting humanity into the future, if he wants an slave, i am available to serve his needs so that he may continue to be the best ever.

 

[endtherapture]

Does it bother you that this scientist didn't dress the same as all the other kids? Maybe you and people like you should respond by bullying him to tears because he didn't dress in a way you approve of. In fact, let's do this to everyone who behaves differently than what we expect. Let's just go ahead and plunge the world into a pseudo-high school environment where the superficial cheerleaders are the ones that win every time.

Basic standards of workplace attire giving you flashbacks to high school drama is your own issue; I'd advise some counseling if you've been out of high school for more than a summer and still obsessing over the time a cheerleader called you a weirdo. In the real world, professions have standards of what employees wear to work. This guy clearly violated those standards or A) it wouldn't have been an issue and B) he wouldn't have apologized. Appropriate workplace attire is not a vast conspiracy to create an Orwellian nightmare, it's a basic fact of working for a company pretty much since the creation of companies. Again, I'd invite you to list professions wherein this would be appropriate work clothing.

You don't get it. What does a man wearing a shirt have to do with feminism? He wasn't oppressing women with his shirt.

How do you know? Several people found it problematic. Your inability to see that problem doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

How does does people getting offended at people insulting a man who just played a major role in human history ...Look, this was a bunch of people just bullying a nerd. F-em.

Can we lay of the hyperbole? He was one of many research scientists and was brought on nine years into the project. Due to problems with the landing (not something he was responsible for- not blaming him), there won't really be any data collected to use in research. I'm not questioning that he is a good scientist, but these rebuttals about his "major role in human history" make him sound like he was Bruce Willis in Armageddon. And the idea that this was some sort of "nerd harassment" is absurd; I'd argue that everyone involved and almost everyone watching was a nerd.

It's frankly starting to sound more like you are personalizing this from being harassed as a nerd in high school by cheerleaders. That may just be the vibe coming off your responses, but it might be wise to take a deep breath and try to not link this to whatever memories this seems to be dredging up.

Just because some people who get offended too easily find it "problematic" does not mean that it is a problem.

I'm assuming you don't work in STEM since you find this a huge issue - but in STEM fields a lot of the time there isn't a corporate environment, people are allowed to wear what they want an express themselves - nerdy and zany t shirts etc. Just because suits and ties are workplace attire in some sectors of society does not mean they are in all sectors of work.

 

[Belaam]

I'm assuming you don't work in STEM since you find this a huge issue - but in STEM fields a lot of the time there isn't a corporate environment, people are allowed to wear what they want an express themselves - nerdy and zany t shirts etc. Just because suits and ties are workplace attire in some sectors of society does not mean they are in all sectors of work.

I spent many years working for CH2M HILL, an international engineering and construction firm. We built the 2012 Olympic site in England, de-salination plants in Dubai, and literally thousands of other engineering and construction jobs. I regularly worked on multi-million dollar projects (I generally worked on water treatment, transport, and geohydrology contracts) with huge numbers of scientists and engineers. And that shirt wouldn't have flown at any of our job sites.

I am now essentially retired from there and decided to get into education. I teach at a STEM high school that works primarily with Aerospace companies. Over the summer we visited Scaled Composites and toured one of the WhiteKnight and SpaceShipTwo build hangers. The staff were all in either Scaled Composites or Virgin Galactic polos and I assume that the pin-up shirt would have not been okay there either.

Enough resume?

Perhaps in smaller, less visible STEM jobs, it would pass by, but no place I have ever worked would let someone in that shirt anywhere near an international news interview where they would be representing the company.

Besides which, ignoring all of my personal experience actually strengthens the argument against the shirt. Though it doesn't agree with my experience, you seem to be saying, "In STEM fields, it is common for scantily dressed women to be used a decoration/fashion on clothing in the workplace." Which actually supports the idea that STEM fields are less welcoming towards women. But again, I have never seen anyone at any of the STEM workplaces I have worked at wear anything like that at work.

 

[endtherapture]

I'm assuming you don't work in STEM since you find this a huge issue - but in STEM fields a lot of the time there isn't a corporate environment, people are allowed to wear what they want an express themselves - nerdy and zany t shirts etc. Just because suits and ties are workplace attire in some sectors of society does not mean they are in all sectors of work.

I spent many years working for CH2M HILL, an international engineering and construction firm. We built the 2012 Olympic site in England, de-salination plants in Dubai, and literally thousands of other engineering and construction jobs. I regularly worked on multi-million dollar projects (I generally worked on water treatment, transport, and geohydrology contracts) with huge numbers of scientists and engineers. And that shirt wouldn't have flown at any of our job sites.

I am now essentially retired from there and decided to get into education. I teach at a STEM high school that works primarily with Aerospace companies. Over the summer we visited Scaled Composites and toured one of the WhiteKnight and SpaceShipTwo build hangers. The staff were all in either Scaled Composites or Virgin Galactic polos and I assume that the pin-up shirt would have not been okay there either.

Enough resume?

Perhaps in smaller, less visible STEM jobs, it would pass by, but no place I have ever worked would let someone in that shirt anywhere near an international news interview where they would be representing the company.

Besides which, ignoring all of my personal experience actually strengthens the argument against the shirt. Though it doesn't agree with my experience, you seem to be saying, "In STEM fields, it is common for scantily dressed women to be used a decoration/fashion on clothing in the workplace." Which actually supports the idea that STEM fields are less welcoming towards women. But again, I have never seen anyone at any of the STEM workplaces I have worked at wear anything like that at work.

You're representing a huge multi-billion pound company that's got to be professional and present its work as a huge business venture.

When you work in academia, such as research in a university, the attitudes are usually far different.

I'm not saying that, you're twisting my words. I'm saying that in a more research and less profit focused sector (education and the space industry, evidently) it's okay to go into work with a zany t-shirt with Boba Fett on, because the atmosphere is far more laid back, friendly and less corporate.