Comic Strip of the Day

CSotD: In which I admit to being “That Guy”

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Mike Peterson Published: February 17, 2014 1 minute 0 comments

Liza Donnelly, via a cartoon at the Nib, raises an issue that I've been scratching my head over for about 30 years, but which now has taken on a new dimension under the relatively new term "slutshaming."

That is, back when Madonna appeared on the scene in the 80s, she was more of a puzzler than Cyndi Lauper, because Lauper had a kind of playfulness to her punky hair and funky clothes.

Even the production values of "She's So Unusual" were playful, and it all suggested that, if you sat with her in a booth with two cups of coffee, you'd have an interesting conversation, even if you didn't come away with a clear sense of where the game stopped and the girl began.

Which is okay. I wouldn't expect to get that kind of clarity from Dee Snider, either, but I'd expect him to at least crack a smile.

Madonna seemed, by contrast, to take it all seriously, or, at least, to be operating within a shell through which she wasn't going to emerge.

And, however parents may have shaken their heads over middle-school daughters dying their hair with Jell-O and skipping around the house in mismatched Chuck Taylors, they were more challenged and dismayed by middle-school daughters wanting to go off to school in Victorian underwear.

But the defense was fast: Madonna is in charge of her own decisions, she runs the show, she represents a new feminism that …

… at which point I became That Guy, because I didn't get it.

I hate being That Guy. 

Now, here's something I strongly believe: There's a very limited equality at play in admitting women to the corporate world only if they behave like the folks who are already there.

To start with, the navy-suit-string-tie uniform is just not the equivalent of the storied "gray flannel suit."

The gray flannel suit was a symbol of conformity, but there is a difference between being coerced into acting like "all the other guys" when you are, to start with, a guy, and being forced to act like a guy when you're not a guy.

It is fundamentally unfair to only respect and promote women whose personal style apes the existing model in ways that are not mission-critical.

I've worked for a lot of women executives, and, while some have been built on the existing template, the best of them have taken a more humane, nuanced, holistic approach to management. 

That doesn't mean they baked cookies for staff meetings.

What it really means is that they behaved like the best male bosses I've had: They listened, they responded and, while they never relinquished their authority, well, there is a reason we call some people "dicks," and it is not a term of admiration and respect.

So let me start blundering into the trip wires here …

African-American would-be executives should not feel compelled to imitate a 1960s Sidney Poitier character, in which the only black thing about them is their skin. But that doesn't mean showing up in the office looking like Flavor Flav either.

Similarly, there is no reason for women to dress at work as if they were men in skirts. But neither is it a cocktail party.

In the office, in the supermarket, on the street, if a guy is so impenetrably clueless that he thinks every woman wants to be considered "available," or that every woman will be flattered by romantic overtures, we have no problem in condemning him as a jerk.

So why is it unacceptable to suggest that a woman is inappropriately over-dressed, for the office, for the supermarket, for the sidelines of a youth soccer game? 

If a guy is supposed to know that hitting on a woman uninvited is uncool, why is it okay to not recognize that, if you put on a scoop neckline and push-up bra, someone is going to look at your breasts? 

This is a serious question, though, granted, it's coming from "That Guy."

I understand the concept of "slutshaming" this far: It is certainly hypocritical to admire a man for having a string of conquests, and to condemn a woman who is equally superficial in her sexual choices.

But why would the solution, then, be to admire them both?

And here's a secret: We may praise James Bond, the fictional character, but only fools and 14-year-olds admire those guys in real life. The locker-room braggart is generally dismissed as a liar by any guy with any sexual experience, and is held in even lower esteem should his claimed conquests seem authentic.

The word "tom cat" carries too much of a sporty nuance, and I'll grant you we don't have a term that carries the same tone of utter condemnation as "slut."

So I listen to the guy yapping away, and I don't think to myself, "What a tom cat!"  

I think, "What an asshole."

It's not specific enough, okay. But it's the best I've got. (Though we might all work on getting "creep" into conversation more often.)

Anyway, getting back to those two little girls:  Donnelly does a lot of New Yorker cartoons, and that form of cartooning tends to pose situations without necessarily offering solutions or even points of view.

But she poses the situation quite well. Little girls do face that choice.

As "That Guy," I would point out that, when I was a kid, little girls and little boys all wore loose-fitting clothes until we became teenagers and rebelled against being dressed like little kids.

So I don't know why little girls' pants have to hug their bums, much less why anyone would buy their nine-year-old tight-fitting sweats with a double-entendre stenciled across her ass.

Or why the fascination of Sarah Silverman talking dirty doesn't lose its novelty after about 10 minutes.

But, look: I admit I'm "That Guy" and I don't get it.

So here's your chance. 

What's the deal with "slut shaming"?

Mike Peterson has posted his "Comic Strip of the Day" column every day since 2010. His opinions are his own, but we welcome comments either agreeing or in opposition.