Callout and Response
Men are menning. I have receipts.
A little while back, I wrote a style guide called How to Dress Yourself More Better for Tango, My Man—and Also for Life. It wound up being controversial, especially (by which I mean entirely) among men.
In this authoritative guide, I called out everyone who thinks—and I paraphrase—that an outfit is suitable for special occasions if it was once launched out of a T-shirt cannon.
And I do mean everyone who thinks so. Even if the only people who do are men.
Many men, it turns out, do not want to hear that they present as the fashion equivalent of Great Value garbanzo beans. And that’s when they’re trying to dress nice.
You would think this helpful guide might have landed better coming from me, speaking with the authority that extends from being a man. And you might be right. Maybe the response I got was the best-case scenario. Imagine how badly these many men might have reacted if I had written that headline as literally any other type of human person.
But still, I didn’t expect any real backlash.
No matter how adamantly I suggested men might want to tuck in their shirts—shirts with buttons, even—if they wanted a chance at dancing with anyone at all. I am not used to being told I am wrong.
Neither, it seems, is any other dude bro man.
Did you know, for instance, that writing a set of “time to man up” tips means it’s open season on your chosen hairstyle?
Unless you are a woman, or possibly a member of a non-predominant culture, your answer is almost certainly “No, I did not know that.”
I felt it only appropriate to respond to this commenter (who, according to the profile picture, is a follicle-challenged man-presenting individual). I replied, “I almost wrote a section on waxing our bald spots and receding hairlines, but instead I decided not to kick my fellow men in the genes.”
I soon stopped responding to the trolls.
Especially when they’d already proven that they don’t read past the social preview image.
A demonstrated lack of reading comprehension does not generally stop these men from forming—and voicing—opinions. Did you know, for further instance, that trying to help your fellow man level up (both affordably and actionably) also opens you up for critique on your physique?
Even when your physique is literally out of sight under a suit jacket in the provided photographs?
Even when the function of a suit jacket is to make any man-shaped person instantly more man-shaped by hiding his actual body so no one can tell exactly how much he doesn’t work out?
Ah, and then we have those who just need to feel better about their manly selves by pointing out how other people are trying to feel better about their manly selves—because commenting on an internet post is simpler than dressing well and expressively:
Perhaps this next man-presenting person best utilized brevity to demonstrate that he is confident enough in his manhood not to take good care of it:
Now, I have been acculturated to think that I cannot ever be wrong about anything, ever. Same as all these other man-presenting folks. But their commentary was enough to make me start to doubt myself.
Was I … for the first time in my life … a man in the wrong?
Fortunately, no. Men are awful, but not me! At least not this one time. And how do I know? Because many of the people smarter than men are women, and not a single one of them saw fit to demean me in a public social media comment.
Their perspective is more valid than the man-type people’s, because a great many of them appear to have actually read the piece.
And some women-identifying readers offered my fellow men bonus ideas that I wish I’d thought of first.
However, just because every woman with eyes and a sense of smell agrees with me—that man-presenting people who shower and wear clean clothes are more appealing—doesn’t mean I’m 100% right. I have been wrong about a few things.
Such as presuming men will never change.
One man sent in a picture that he—possibly for the first time in his adult life—wore slacks instead of jeans to a formal event.
Another man shared advice for finding quality used suits.
Yet another conceded I was right, failed entirely to attack my physical attributes, and instead just shared his own stance in a healthy, non-confrontational way.
In this process of obsessively lurking on other people’s posts to see how else they might support my ideas or take cheap shots at my hair, I started to realize something: This behavior is what women and other not-men risk dealing with every single time they venture onto the internet, or into public, or exist at all.
I suspect that these oppositional men were less incensed by my headline, if they even read it, and more peeved that women were out there agreeing with me that men can do better.
Which we can. We, on the whole, really kinda suck.
I suggested originally that men could do better by wearing clothes that fit. But I need to amend that. Men: we need to do better ALL THE TIME, WITH EVERYTHING, EVER.
Yeah yeah, hashtag not all men. But all men. All of us, and often.
So I leave my fellow man-presenting people with one final thought for you all to get mad at me about:
We all know that universal problems don’t beget universal solutions until they happen to a man. Women have been dealing with this crap forever. But now it’s happened to me. So let’s cut it out.
Enough is enough. Not even a tailored suit can make us look better when we resort to tearing other people down.
[Note: all screenshotted responses were left on public posts, so the commenters are receiving greater anonymity here than they should reasonably expect.]
Do you need to revisit the original style guide for tango and for life? Here you go.
Thank you for liking, sharing, subscribing—and welcome aboard to our latest (anonymous) full subscriber. You’re the best.
Gosh, I wonder why I used to submit articles as B.J. Krauss, and, if they were accepted, changed it to Beatrice J. Krauss. Also wonder why screeds against hate are often hateful--don't want to promote stereotypes about who is overrepresented. Some jealousy about what menning-men are able to get away with. Ever been told: "Don't get angry; it is so 'ugly'"?
Zach, if I were still teaching rhetoric, this entire set of original piece / comments / response would be in my syllabus. A delight to read!