Sorry, sexist, not sexy, as the old Spinal Tap riff went. And speaking of an entirely different kind of Tap altogether (oh wait, I’m veering dangerously close into an Airplane gag), as Jonathan Last quips, in his newly redesigned Galley Slaves blog, “The American Prospect is a fun place to work!”
From an American Prospect piece on Mad Men:
I can cite a dozen examples in my corner of the professional world alone. Lecherous men in this business don’t tend to hit on or harass women directly. Instead, they bond with other men in the profession by talking about women behind their backs — wink-nudging male co-workers about the appearances, behavior, and perceived intentions of their female peers. (Women do this, too, although — in my experience — to a far lesser degree.)
AdvertisementA few thoughts:
(1) If “sexist” behavior is being partaken of by both sexes, then can it actually be “sexist”? Maybe it’s just “bad” behavior? The charge of “sexism” in the workplace often seems to be used like “hate crime” in the criminal world, to add a layer of moral disapprobation on top of what was already bad behavior.
(2) If the offices of the American Prospect (or, more generally, the world of liberal magazines) is full of depraved sexism, then really, feminists might as well give up.
(3) I’m sure Jon Hamm and Elizabeth Moss are wonderful people and very, very smart, but relying on them for descriptions about workplace sexism in the modern world is more than ridiculous. They’re actors. Acting is work, but the creative side of the film/TV industry resembles the typical American workplace about as much as chimps resemble homo sapiens. Ham and Moss have no idea what the world looks inside a typical workplace.
Given that Hollywood’s interoffice and extracurricular activities include everything from the Fatty Arbuckle and Roman Polanski scandals to Bombshell McGee, the hypocrisy of a puritanical Hollywood lecturing the rest of America (err, whoops, the one percent of America that actually watches the show) on sexual relations is pretty staggering. Though to be fair, with Mad Men, it does make for great TV.
Well, that and the Eero Saarinen furniture.
Related: Though it’s staggeringly tenuous connection: A GOP Bikini Scandal?
That a post titled “What’s Wrong With Being Sexy?” is accompanied by a Tea Party ad featuring Michelle Bachmann qualifies as sufficient evidence that online advertising algorithms are sexist.
Saarinen, Eames and Burke furniture – classics that will never go completely out of style.
On the ad, RSM is right on the money, pun intended.
It’s definitely no accident, either.
Although usually it’s Palin’s picture.
It’s both sexist and political.
You don’t see Obama’s moobs pop up, for example, or pics of Michelle running her tarsier-like grooming digit through her Wookie fur.
Something the Left will never understand is that “sexy,” is synonymous with “human” and is a universal good. “Sexist” means demeaning someone and underestimating their abilities based on their sex. That’s something that rarely happens anymore. Noticing that someone is good-looking and keeping it to yourself, or discussing it with close friends, in private, shouldn’t be considered a threat or a crime.
All that being said, Obama’s a mattress-backed bimbo and I hear he goes all the way on the first date.
As long as you’re union, that is.
(Women do this, too, although — in my experience — to a far lesser degree.)
How can he possibly know this, if his point is they do it behind the backs of the other sex? Is he a cross dressing spy in the ladies’ room, or merely expressing a tidy bit of liberal cant here? Or is he just such a reassuringly open, honest and nonthreatening fellow that the girls invite him to the hen parties?
(Women do this, too, although — in my experience — to a far lesser degree.)
Oh, please. Women do this all the time. I work in a all-female office. Just yesterday afternoon, a co-worker was loudly opining about the appearance and general desirability of a good-looking man who works in a different department when I walked over to her desk and gave her a nudge because two guys from IT had just walked in and she couldn’t see them from her cubicle. The funny thing is that this particular woman would yell “Sexist” if she walked into an all-male office and overheard men doing the same thing. Just like many women think it’s cute and fun if they have one Cosmopolitan too many and attempt to grope the male stripper who turns up at the hen party, but condemn the guys drooling over the pole dancer at the “gentlemen’s club” as depraved prevs.
Or is he just such a reassuringly open, honest and nonthreatening fellow that the girls invite him to the hen parties?
Oh, I know that fellow. The guy who attends the wedding shower with his fiance and actually seems to enjoy himself.
While I can hardly discount your experience’s, in mine, you would be hard pressed to hear women talking like this. Perhaps it’s due to an office environment-having never worked that kind of job, I can’t say.
I didn’t get the reference to “Bombshell McGee” so I Googled the term…
EEUUWW EEUUUWW! Eye bleach, stat!!
Really, I never knew what the name of that walking mass of ugly tattoos that was involved with Sandra Bullock’s husband was. Guess that’s what happens when you read mainly conservative and libertarian blogs, and your only exposure to Entertainment Tonight and its ilk is on the TVs in workplace breakrooms, with the volume off.