Ah, yes, forgot to add the
obligatory Gawker article to go with it. It also repeats the same narrative about how it's different to call a man good-looking than it is to call a woman good-looking. Power differentials and all that. Yeah, except when you're trying to achieve gender equality and view both genders in the same light. It can't happen unless you make it happen, guys! If I keep treating you like a princess, even though you tell me not to, but I still keep doing it because gosh darnit, I think you are and you can't teach old dogs new tricks, NOTHING IS EVER GOING TO CHANGE.
Do you think Martin Luther King, Jr. would have objected to being treated like an equal during the Civil Rights Era and say, "Hey! Not cool. I'm a disadvantaged minority here. You can't treat me like we're the same. You're white and I'm black, it doesn't work that way. Re-educate yourself, white boy!" Ridiculous. If you keep vying for gender equality, keep fighting for gender equality, only to piss yourself when you actually get the same treatment, then what's it all for?
Oh, and 'mansplaining'? Grow up. Once again, if you don't want to be stuck in the past, then stop using words that keep you in the past. 'Mansplaining' is one of those words. No, the irony of myself -- a man -- explaining this is not lost on me. In fact, it's compounded, like a ratchet gun powered by stupidity. The piece on Gawker is also written by a man. Go figure.
In short, if you're a woman and a man calls you good-looking in public, and you don't like it,
get over it. It's harmless. You're not being oppressed, it's not a fucking disease. You won't wake up the next day with leprosy. I've been called ugly in public, never did me any harm. Sure, I didn't like it, but it's not like I can go on the internet and claim how the world is sexist, can I? Rude, maybe, but sexist? Unfortunately for me, by chance I happened to be born with testicles and a dick and therefore -- to me -- that argument is perpetually unattainable. I can never make that argument. I would be laughed at. Ridiculed, and rightly so. However due to the power of chance, I have a privilege that women don't have: being a man. And I happened to win the other chance lottery as well: being white. A white man. Truly I lucked out. Except, wait, I haven't had any privilege in my entire life. No special treatment, no additional jobs offered, no higher pay; nothing. As a matter of fact, during my last job interview, the job I really wanted was given to a black man. The nerve! Surely he must've been treated differently being black and all, a minority in my country? Nope. He was just better qualified than I was and on top of it all, do you know what I said before he went in? Good luck. I know. I'm the worst.
No, I go on with my life and that's that. The person who called me ugly, I didn't even know her (yes, it was a woman -- misogynist: guilty), but it was a ten second encounter and off she went. Didn't see her again. Yeah, I'm so fucking privileged that if someone calls me names I don't even have to dwell on it. Ladies: I feel your pain. Seriously, though, this thing about how it's supposedly sexist that a man says to a woman in public she's 'good-looking' (heck, 'best-looking' even) is pathetic. Besides, it was to a good friend! And he compliments men on their looks too all the time! I don't get it. Not at all. Oh, yeah, and teal deer.
