I just read this extremely irritating article by some git named “Tad” who spends way too many paragraphs whining about how British women are inferior to American women because they don’t put enough effort into making themselves sexually attractive to men such as himself. I want to slap this guy’s snotty face clear off his body. In case we get the wrong idea and think he actually likes or respects American women, though, he also spends the second part of the article smugly sniping at how American women, while much better looking and well-groomed, can be TOO obsessed with their looks and therefore shallow. Also they take themselves too seriously (silly bitches!), are gold-digging sluts because they want to know what kind of job a man has, and think they are equal to men in the bedroom! Oh, and they think a guy cares what they do for a living! Haha! Women working and female equality: What a funny joke!
A telling quote about the author’s prescription for women’s behaviour:
Another part of the problem is that women in Britain do not help each other. American women have no qualms about telling their friends, in no uncertain terms, when they look like crap, or have put on weight, or are dressed like a bag-lady. They talk of the top aestheticians with a reverence usually reserved for Nobel laureates and trade cosmetic surgeon business cards the way that boys in playgrounds trade football cards. In Britain, women are too polite to set their friends straight.
Oh yes. I agree. There must simply be more petty, appearance-based insults between British chicks. Female solidarity and support is so déclassé.
The one saving grace of British chicks is that at least they care about their shoes. Unfortunately, “ladies, the only time a man will notice your shoes is if your feet are wedged on top of his shoulders bouncing either side of his head.” CLASSY.
So, what should women do? Should they Botox their faces in an attempt to appeal to men? Or does that make them stupid and shallow? Should they spend money on clothes to make themselves look nice, or is that totally pointless unless they’re actually putting out? Should they get a personal trainer and work out so they don’t become obese objects of ridicule who have to wear “control-top granny pants”? Or would it be self-important and arrogant to have a personal trainer, as he later suggests? Should they sit home alone with the television, teased for being “old maids”, or should they go out on dates and have sex–the whores!? Which is it? Oh please enlighten me, for my tiny American lady-brain is SO CONFUSED!
ARTICLE: “American Beauty?” – Tad Safron, Times Online
(n.b. ladies, he is shockingly single!)
December 13th, 2007 - 8:54 am
Wow. He sure sounds like someone whose advice all British women, nay, all women everywhere! should take. I particularly like how he talks about the thousands of dollars women spend on grooming as a wonderful thing. So not only do women earn less, they spend more so that sad, lonely losers don’t call them pigs and make horrible jokes about them in internet articles. Sounds like women’s lib to me!
December 13th, 2007 - 9:15 am
I recently had a discussion with a woman about a similar topic, about what a woman “should” look like. Basically, my opinion on the matter is that dressing to the nines can be great, and wearing fabulous make-up can also be great, but when I get the impression that a woman is trying to create the impression that she is a sex goddess through clothing and makeup, I get the same impression that I get when I see a dude in a flashy sportscar — the impression that someone is trying to overcompensate for a perceived inadequacy through outward appearance.
Looking good is one thing. Looking sexy often creates the opposite impression.
December 13th, 2007 - 9:21 am
Jeremy, that’s one way to look at it. I get pretty tired of “how women should behave” being a staple of public discussion among men. I feel the answer is simple: Women “should” behave how they want to behave, just like men. People are people. Why should we continue to accept constant criticism of women in particular in public media?
December 13th, 2007 - 9:57 am
I’m trying hard to find a picture of this Tad guy. I have the impression he’s a slob.
December 13th, 2007 - 10:15 am
The only good thing I see about the article is how many people in the comments are criticizing the writer’s stereotypes on how women “should” look and act.
December 13th, 2007 - 10:27 am
Men are hardly free from expectations about how to look. It’s just that expectations of men are so normalized and learned at an early age, we don’t question them anymore.
I think there’s so much discussion of how women should behave because the idea of women participating in all aspects of public life is still a pretty new idea. Culturally we’re still adjusting to it. Can a woman be a hard-assed back-stabbing business person? That used to be only for men. But women are in business now too, so is this a gender issue or not? These are the kinds of questions we’re trying to answer collectively.
Traditionally, powerfully people look a particular way. Now we have powerful women. How should we readjust our expectations of what power looks like? Power used to have a fat gut, not a fat ass and tits. Seeing power with a fat ass and tits and no gut throws us for a loop. The semiotics of power are all messed up right now.
Can a woman fuck her way to the top? Is that OK? Men in business traditionally use every dirty trick in the book to get ahead. This is unquestioned. But now there are new players in the game with new dirty tricks, and people are freaking out about it. They’ll bring up complaints of propriety or morality to disdain and revile the new players in the game, but those complaints usually never work.
December 13th, 2007 - 11:16 am
Oh my god, that was one of the most offensive articles I have ever read.
I especially like the part where the woman is sabotaging her chances with him by eating carbohydrates in his presence. UGH!
December 13th, 2007 - 12:10 pm
True story, 21 year old me is punching in the timeclock for the night-shift at a telemarketing company. I’m passed by an attractive, young woman who is swiping out from day shift. I turn the corner, go to my work pod and look to my male buddy who had followed me in and say, “I’d really like to see those calves on my shoulders.”
CLASSY!
When she transferred to night shift a week later, my pickup line was an inquiry about what hair dye she used as I also wanted to use just that color.
She and I are now on year twelve together.
December 13th, 2007 - 12:29 pm
Now a more serious comment, according to Tad’s calculations…
US women spend $700/month on “standard obligatory beauty maintenance.”
As well as $1000/month on “physical conditioning.”
Total $1700/month.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, median usual four week earnings for full-time wage and salary women workers in 2006 was $2609 (or 87.8% as a percentage of Men’s).
This would leave U.S. women on average with $909 month.
Somehow, I think Tad’s “female friends” aren’t in the median income earning group.
http://www.bls.gov/cps/wlf-table16-2007.pdf
December 13th, 2007 - 11:52 pm
I hate to reply to a stereotype with a stereotype but this sounds to me of typical behavior when a man not only hasnt been laid in years, but also has not been laid often , ever and , has had bisexual feelings he is deeply ashamed of and doesnt want to come to terms with.
ISSUES
ISSUES
ISSUES!
December 14th, 2007 - 6:58 am
Flint, that struck me as well. Clearly his prescriptions for how to behave apply only to those upper class specimens of LA and NYC and London who have access to every desire and have the money to spend on “upkeep.” Poor women (need it even be said?) must be out of the question for a catch like him.
December 31st, 2007 - 12:27 am
Wow, I just read this article and it made me want to vomit. I want to personally apologize to Tad that I am in a relationship and unable to date him. Then again, I am probably not his type, as I spend less than $30 a month for beauty supplies because I have the audacity to believe that, with a little eyeliner and watermelon-Jolly-Rancher-scented hair serum, I am pretty damn sexy the way I am.
Also, my ass might be too fat for him. Because I’m kind of too busy singing, writing, reading, studying, dancing, loving, and living to get to the gym.