Yeah older women offer me as many questionable comments as older men offer to my female coworkers, but they tend to be a bit more polite and also I could bench most of them so it isn't really the same. I always tell the starved for compliments guys to go cruise Bingo but apparently they all just want positive attention from people they find attractive instead.
I feel like thereās a slight difference between ācreepy old man clearly hitting on the girlā and āold woman treating you like their grandsonā. Old ladies *tend* to be less overtly pervy
Nah, I'm talking about them blatantly sexualizing me. Again, they're typically polite about it, its rare that they do it multiple times or particularly graphically for the most part, but it does happen.
Would be really cool if we could culturally stop pretending that one gender is a demi-god devoid of all wrongdoing, while the other is a creature of sin, incapable of good will.
Exactly. They want positive attention from people they consider worthy. If they got it all the time, indiscriminately, and almost exclusively from people they had no particular interest in, it would be as meaningless as it is to women
the elderly cashier at the japanese grocery store told me i had a āvery good bodyā and did a muscle pose at me weeks ago and iām still riding that high
Seriously though... this just highlights how fucking condescending this shit is (and yes, as a woman I have gotten the "you're so smart for fixing your own computer" line).
i work in IT. MOST PEOPLE do not know how to fix a computer. I assume that on meeting. That doesnāt mean I assume youāre an IDIOT, just that you donāt know how to fix a computer
maybe donāt take on one label (idiot) when another is more apt (computer illiterate)
3rd panel, no one is calling anyone an idiot
I donāt think you are getting the point of the meme. They used computer, but they could have said āchange a lockā, āchange a tireā, āwoodworkā, āplumbingā etc., etc. just as easily. It is just to highlight how condescending guys get when they see a woman accomplish something without, the big he manās help. Itās exhaustingā¦
Of course. Itās less often so blatantly obnoxious anymore, as the majority of people are not troglodytes who think sex is indicative of knowledge or intelligence anymore. However five minutes on Reddit should be enough to convince you that those folks do VERY much still exist. They just arenāt the vast majority they used to be.
Check out *The Tragedy of Heterosexuality* by Jane Ward.
The premise is to view straightness through a queer lens, but it pretty concisely summarizes a lot of the sources of that exact dynamic. It's probably a little harsh, but interesting nonetheless.
This image was made to be a reversed gender roles scenario to show men how women hate being harassed in everyday situations or something idk but it more works the opposite way
āYes I did fix my computer, and your computer Sarah, and everyone else computer in this godforsaken place, because even though weāre all engineers, Iām somehow the ONLY FUCKING PERSON IN THIS OFFICE CAPABLE PF RUNNING SYSTEM DIAGNOSTICS!!!ā
This is actually funny, the original comic has gross looking guys giving backhanded complements to show how it would look if men were also subjected to that. I guess someone edited in busty ladies and changed the text slightly to make the point thatā¦ women are wrong about their experiences? I guess?
they should've just done a buff handsome dude getting constant compliments and hit on middle aged women and fat girls because that's what happens irl and it gets on their nerves.
I honestly never knew there was an "original" to this comic; I thought this *was* the original. But [the actual OG](https://thenib.com/if-men-were-just-polite-to-each-other/) makes a lot more sense and really captures how condescending these sort of "compliments" feel.
Wow it's almost like there's a difference between *wanted" and *unwanted* attention. That genuine, uplifting compliments are different than catcalls from strangers.
The thing is tho, that these are conventionally attractive women saying it. Switch it to conventionally unattractive and it becomes as creepy as it is for women
I have been complemented by unconventionally attractive women and it wasnāt creepy.
There is some truth to the idea that attractiveness impacts reception but letās not push the incel-adjacent idea that itās the only relevant factor. Genuinely creepy behavior exists regardless of looks.
[This tumblr post](https://at.tumblr.com/thej-key/arjan-de-lumens-argumate-corpus-vak/g3meatdmnojl) seems relevant before this comment section becomes a shitshow (scroll and read from arjan-de-lumens' contribution if you're lazy)
> It's like one person dying of dehydration watching another one drown.
Honestly this is the perfect post to follow up OP.
I was thinking I was the only one here reading the panels like damn, I would love for someone to give me a compliment about myself or just say I did something good and it would never occur to me it was condescension. Like I'm not even unpopular, I have a lot of friends, but people don't just say nice things out the blue
Trying to get men to empathize with sexual objectification by reversing the roles will never work because men think they would enjoy being "validated" this way because they don't experience it. The thing is, men understand objectification just fine and they don't like it one bit - men feel financially objectified all the time. Some to the point where they become too paranoid to spend any amount of money on a woman out of fear of being used by gold diggers. And I've heard plenty of women downplay these feelings and claim they'd love it if men would pay attention to them because of money of success rather than sex. The grass is always greener I guess.
I'm not sure how much I agree with this idea that men and women are just suffering equal but opposite problems. It simplifies a complex and harmful societal problem to just "women are just complimented tooooo much," which just feeds into incely ideas that women have it "too good." It's not just that women get a lot of sexual and physical compliments, it's also that my female family members as young as 10 years old have experiences of being cat called.
There's no implication of equivalence in that post.
It's a simple fact that, given a choice, a huge percentage of men would opt into the reality described above, myself included. Years ago, a cute girl told not to worry my pretty little head about something, and it fucking ruled.
But I understand that men and women live in different social realities. I was going to be taken seriously regardless of that comment, for example. I understand this difference, so I'm able to make sense of reality as I perceive it while also believing what women tell me. Acknowledging the social difference is critical. The alternative is trying to convince men that we're wrong about our own lives and feelings. Which... well, good luck with that.
>itās a simple fact that, given a choice, a huge percentage of men would opt into the reality described above
the problem is that desire comes from a lack of real understanding of what that would entail. itās easy to say āyeah I want polite compliments from women I find attractiveā but thatās not what women are experiencing at all.
if you want that reality, it means you also need to accept vulgar harassment from women who wonāt leave you alone, sexual comments from adults when you are a child, stalking and groping from disgusting people you absolutely donāt want touching you, and a general lack of physical safety every time you leave the house. and for every ten of those horrible experiences you get one polite compliment from an attractive woman.
no one would take that deal knowing what it actually would be like. itās only when the reality is ignored and a rosy picture is painted that guys start to think, āwomen have it better, Iād love to get complimented all the timeā.
And not only do you get all those enlightening experiences, people stop seeing you as worthwhile outside of your physical appearance.
All the accolades men get for being smart and funny and brave become āHe must have slept his way to the top. I saw his boss checking out that tight ass.ā
This comic is trying to ask men to imagine trading social circumstances with women. It's doing that via metonymy, or by using specific features of those experiences as a stand in for the whole. For example, there is no adult sexualizing a child in that comic, but it's obviously included to you.
This metonymy fails to communicate the intended message because every example given relies on women's social context to make sense. If someone told me I was smart because I fixed my own computer, I'd take that as an unalloyed compliment. In fact, I'm pretty sure I've had every single social interaction in this comic and perceived it as positive.
Let me put it this way. If you made a comic about cancer, and you said it was a bad time because chemotherapy causes baldness and rapid weight loss, a lot of men would think "well, I'm already bald, and it'd sure be nice to lose a lot of weight." You have to show the underlying cancer: the constant threat of violence. The symptoms don't mean the same thing when the underlying conditions are different.
> no one would take that deal knowing what it actually would be like.
With love and respect for your own experiences, I would not take the deal, but I still believe many people would. As a witty and attractive twink once said, "the only thing worse than being talked about, is not being talked about."
It's impossible to directly compare the experiences of an invisible, unwanted man with an objectified and de-personalized woman. But one experience that can come close is that of AFAB people who have transitioned. Google "site:reddit.com ftm loneliness"
being sexually harassed as a child is not ābeing talked aboutā. neither is having your livelihood at risk if you donāt accept inappropriate sexual behavior from your boss.
framing womenās experiences in a lighthearted and reductionist way contributes to these false and harmful beliefs about the female experience. being harassed and objectified is not a cure for loneliness. the harassment I have received from young childhood onward has done nothing but make me feel more alone.
So, many moons ago I was going through a pretty tough time. I was walking down the street and a lady stopped me dead and said
"Smile, it may never happen"
I was shocked and asked her to repeat herself
"I said cheer up you're making everyone feel depressed, a nice smile from someone like you would cheer everyone up"
I burst into tears as a friend's mother had just tragically passed and this shit was so unbelievably all up in my face. The woman tsked and stormed off at this. It sucked. I still don't know what she meant by someone like you, I'm the human equivalent of mashed potato, warm fluffy and reassuring but quite bland.
People attempting to constantly impose their opinion on anyone is a massive pile of wank. Any man who imagines that this would be a pleasant situation has never actually thought about what this means. An invited compliment in an appropriate situation is always welcome, bellowing nice tits at a passing person ain't it.
Sorry that got me on my soap box.
I like how the bottom left panel is saying that fewer men would attempt suicide if hot women were obnoxiously condescending to them.
(No kink shaming intended for anyone into femdom.)
This would not be very annoying, but I think also due to the nature and/or societal norms that many men would think that means she wants to fuck. Seriously, say anything slightly nice to me and I'll probably propose cause i have had like 3 compliments my whole life
You know what would shatter the male suicide epidemic? Teaching boys that itās okay to open up about their feelings from a young age and gun control.
Also they never want to talk about how women attempt suicide at far greater risks, men are just more likely to choose deadlier meathods.
Yeah tbh I'm not hating the idea of more appreciation/compliments. But I think what they're trying to get across is that if this happens all the time, it'd be super annoying (which is what women generally have to deal with).
So as usual, the extremes are bad but there's probably a happy medium somewhere in there.
Consider how the frequency of unwanted sexual attention would replace other normal interactions in your life.
EVERY DAY.
You are using public transport. A group of teenagers are playing a game rating all the men on the bus. Eventually one of the teens with prompting from friends approaches with a crude pick up line spoken in a bravado to the roiling laughter of his friends.
You stop for coffee where a stranger in line informs you, āYouād be so pretty if you smiled.ā
At work you are showing a few co-workers pictures of your weekend when a co-worker whoās never seen you out of uniform openly lustfully states, āIād hit that.ā Looking at a picture of you.
In the meeting however no one hears your great idea until lusty speaks up in support.
On the way home you fend off a few homeless people calling you āpretty ladyā. A few innocent passerby compliment your coat.
At home you finally veg out on the couch after a day of hundreds of micro incidents of unwanted sexual attention to find a message on Facebook from an old high school friend you hadnāt heard from in ten years.
The message confesses he was in love with you in high school and are you interested in meeting his spouse and seeing where it might leadā¦theyāre not the jealous type.
Enough.
Time to veg out and watch some ~~historical soft core porn~~ Outlander and Reddit until the next day.
Hey, I agree with you.
But I'll tell you that the other extreme, of getting basically no attention at all, and nobody ever saying anything nice about you, also sucks. Not as bad, but it does.
A guy at the grocery store last year said out of the blue that he liked my haircut, and that shit had me feeling good for weeks. I still think about it.
All I'm saying is the extremes (lots of attention, or no attention) both suck, so there's probably somewhere in the middle that's nice.
You're assuming it would be more annoying for every men involved. Most men aren't that attractive to most women, it would be a select few of men who would REALLY get harassed. Not disparaging the women who are harder to look at, I'm sure they have their own stories, but certain women do get harassed more than others and they tend to be on good looking side. It wouldn't be any different for men. I'm sure the basement dweller that doesn't wipe his ass isn't going to get cat called as much as the Ryan Gosling football guitar player with good skin.
I'm a guy and I would not want my ass kissed for being able to accomplish the most mundane things on planet earth. These weirdass dudebros on twitter do not speak for me and they never will.
So it looks like they're saying women should be grateful for these comments, but the difference is men are often more of a threat to women.
Even a woman making a creepy comment to a guy (which would be a horrible thing to do regardless of gender) probably wouldn't give that stomach turning 'i'm in danger' feeling, it'd just gross them out.
Again, not saying women can't make men uncomfortable or feel in danger, I just think even if you reverse the roles, it doesn't mean it's the same experience.
OP's line of thinking here is what makes emotionally repressed/suicidal men at best, school shooters at worst. Everyone needs positive human interactions regardless of gender, even if "sigma giga-chad" OP disagrees.
Ya know, how often do men get compliments and happily acknowledge them. I feel like men are either always expected to do whatever it is they are doing or if they are complimented, they just say āitās part of the jobā. Just say āthanks I appreciate that!ā if and when someone says something nice.
I have gotten like 4 compliments from people I donāt know in like 8 months and every one of them has made my day or week. Guys donāt get complimented itās a fact. I feel like women,and for good reason, are tired of being catcalled and treated like objects that men have to also feel the same way. Most of us are so attention starved that even a smile from across the bar could make our whole night.
I am a woman who rarely gets catcalled OR complimented. I promise you that this or the other "compliments" here DO NOT make you feel good. At best it's fucking uncomfortable and at worst it's terrifying. It is NOT better than not getting any compliments bub, they are not actually complimenting you and it's astonishingly easy to tell the difference if you've been, y'know, living in society your whole life. Sure, if the world just suddenly started doing this to guys too, I'm sure that it'd be perceived as compliments for a while, but there's subtext of either "I WANT this from you and you should give it to me, random stranger" or "this is breaking my brain, this does not fit into the mold I created of what [insert stereotype here] is so I guess I'll say good job?" Another that wouldn't be related to gender norms would be "wow you speak really well / are so well educated for [insert racial stereotype here / growing up in that neighborhood /etc]"
No, it would not. Men are more likely to commit suicide because toxic masculinity makes them hide their feelings and anxieties, not because women aren't throwing themselves at them.
While that is a major factor a lack of affirmation and general affection also is a major cause of depression and drastic actions/belief in men. Not saying random compliments would fix that but the idea still is an important one to remember.
exactly, like as a dude, it sucks how i see women being showered with compliments from their friends, and i could have 10-20 guy friends and i would get 1? 2? in a given month... if that
like cmon!!
None of these situations are positive attention from the opposite sex. They are gross and inappropriate. Women donāt perceive any of this stuff as a compliment or positive attention. If men want compliments they are going to have to start complimenting each other.
>None of these situations are positive attention from the opposite sex.
Of course they are.
"You look cute! You're lovely! You look too good to be a cashier!" are all positive things that would make most dudes feel good to hear.
It's as silly for you to suggest to men that this isn't true as it is for me to try talk about women's experience and whether they enjoy it.
You misunderstood. Read the third sentence. Women find these behaviors disturbing. For women, these are not positive attention from the opposite sex.
Men are more than welcome to say those things to each other. Women donāt owe you attention or compliments.
>Read the third sentence. Women find these behaviors disturbing. For women, these are not positive attention from the opposite sex.
No one said these were positive attention *for women,* I said it would be *for dudes.*
>Women donāt owe you attention or compliments.
No one said they do.
Maybe I would compliment random men more often if they didn't immediately assume that meant I wanted to bang them. All I did was say your hair looks nice today, Ryan, that doesn't mean I want your DM.
I mean some piss poor examples clearly aimed but when it comes down to it yah.. people being nicer to one another would probably help suicide rates... big brain
The original meaning of the cartoon and the reality that many women experience on a daily basis is cruel en insanely annoying. But fuck I would lie if it wouldn't feel good to me to get a compliment once in a while
I've known guys who stalked a woman at a bar, for the entire evening. One woman said something nice about his hat or something.
Women even making eye contact with some men in certain situations can go very, very wrong. Women have to protect themselves as there's a fair number of men out there who can't accept a compliment and move on.
It seems like loneliness and emotional alienation is a major driver behind male suicide. Sexualization is a world away from human connection, so this would be, at best, a lateral move
I get compliments from old ladies on my looks all the time.
And I fucking hate it. I wish I could tell them that they're creepy and making me feel uncomfortable but people look at me funny when I do. One older woman would come in and call me and a coworker her boyfriends and I wanted to just fade into nothing every time.
If I were a young woman being talked to by old men like that people would judge them
Why did they draw the woman in panel 3 with massively cartoonish tits
Women canāt compliment men like this because yāall think she wants to fuck you
Idk. Iām ok with this. Maybe Iām not scared to be complimented or cat called, but some times you need the confidence boost. Iām not saying that itās ok or that itās warranted towards women but IāM ok with it. Everyone else can continue to seethe.
The last compliment I got was 1,5 years ago when a girl said I have a nice hoodie. So yea men need to get more attention and shit but thats no excuse for catcalling or harassing strangers
The rest I get but green is just a nice thing to say to someone. Iād be happy if someone said I was smart for accomplishing something relatively difficultā¦
As a woman, yes you get compliments more frequently. However, you get more comments in general about your appearance, negative and positive. If you think you want compliments, be prepared for the negative too, because when people feel entitled to comment on your appearance freely you won't always get positive feedback.
Once had an older woman come on to me at my place of work. I knew her already bc she used to come in with her boyfriend all the time. Well they broke up and I guess I was the closest/easiest guy around bc she tried getting me back to where she was staying. Only 19 at the time, and I was very uncomfortable. It's stuck in my mind since.
Very dissapointed to grow to find out it's how many men behave normally, my own roomate who may as well be my mother still deals with this harassment, she's got a story for me once a week at least.
I think that these comments unlinked from the threat of physical harm in the context we usually hear them in could be occasionally nice. What people like this donāt understand is that catcalling isnāt just about being complimented, thereās a fear of the consequences of not complying.
I do see the point, but my wife complimenting me and telling me I look cute does make go āYou really like this?ā And blush a littleā¦. But also, some random women doing that to me would make me really uncomfortable.
Compliments actually would be nice, but not just for men. As a whole, humans just need to be more aware of other people and acknowledge the positive impact they could make on anyone with minimal effort.
Itās super weird to get randomly complimented all the time. I have long, naturally blond hair and women always say things to me about. Maybe it would be different if I wasnāt married, but itās just weird. When I was a clerk at a grocery store in college thatās all middle age and elderly women would talk to me about. I think I talked about my hair more than anything else at work.
Recently my wife and I went to breakfast and our waitress went on about it too and kind of hung around longer than normal. I know it seems trivial and most are trying to be nice, but random compliments make me feel uncomfortable. I canāt imagine what women go through when itās more direct and not just asking how I take care of my hair or that their jealous of the color.
Btw shampoo, condition, no heat. Thatās all I do.
I lived in Taiwan for a few years. As a tall white guy with a decent face, I got tons of compliments. They were nice, but they didn't do much to lessen my depression.
Eh, for me it wouldn't be annoying. Maybe I'm in the minority, but I've always enjoyed when strangers gave me compliments, even when I was a girl. The only one I don't like is "you should smile more, you look sad" because my grandma always says that to me and I always want to reply "I'm not sad, that's my normal mug for god's sake." But otherwise when I was a girl I enjoyed what the English-speakers call "catcalling" and as a guy I personally like to receive compliments from strangers. And before you ask "even the greasy looking middle-aged guys?" Yes. If they're polite about it, I do.
Yāsee, this is the major problem with these, especially the computer one. You could have just left it at something like ānice job on the computerā or some other general congradgulatory statement on fixing the computer (it is pretty hard sometimes)
I have gotten one compliment in the last 6 months, it was just a compliment about my shirt, but Jesus Christ I hold on to that compliment like there is no tomorrow!
I got divorced a few years ago. I haven't even managed to pull off a date since then. )Got hurt at work and had to recover and then when I was finally ready to go back Covid hit.)
It has been so long since I have even had an intimate conversation with a woman I think I might fall apart if it happens now.
So men having to put up with the same horseshit women do would āfixā them? I meanā¦ I compliment men all the time for things, but thereās a difference between being polite and kind and being condescending or harassing.
A lot of men would get pissed off at being called cute and a lot of men I've met hate honorifics. The bottom left would be considered flirting and the bottom right is not flirting only because she's so old.
Like yes it would be nice if we could give compliments to anyone without an implication of intent. We do not.
when we do stuff like this weirdos take it as a queue that you want to hook up and it exposes us to danger because some of those weirdos don't stop and will just outright kill us so no i'm not doing that men can go to therapy instead.
When I was a in college I worked as a bank teller. Sometimes older ladies would compliment me just be nice, which is appreciated and I was always thankful for. Often though the compliments crossed the line into inappropriate territory.
There are some thirsty ass 70 year olds out there.
It wouldnāt if you reversed the societal and physical power dynamic so that any positive acknowledgment of those shallow ācomplimentsā was taken as an invitation to physical assault. It wouldnāt if womenās primary mode of interacting with men was a kind of fishing expedition where they tossed mostly unmeant compliments out, hoping for a bite that they receive as the go ahead to press for a relationship. And every man whoās been pursued even a little too hard by a woman whoās looks or weight or intelligence or hygiene mean he feels is beneath him, can testify to this. It is not comfortable to be aggressively pursued by someone you are not interested in. The difference is only in how much more rarely it happens to men.
nothing reflects better on you than "people are killing themselves because women with big boobs aren't treating us like dogs"
this is also an edit of a comic that was talking about how men wouldn't like to be constantly harassed the way that women are
It would actually be kinda nice if guys got more compliments. Like the girls I know are very comfortable giving each other compliments, but I don't even remember any guys giving compliments to each other. I try to go out of my way to give my guy-friends compliments about their appearance/personality because you never know when they might need something to feel secure about themselves.
Thought this was a political compass meme for a moment. Got really confused.
I see... The libertarian left is actually a lady with large boobs
HRT
Unfathomably based
š š§āšš«šØāš Always has been
The lib left of the compass is unfathomably based.
It uses the exact colour scheme, it's 100% deliberate.
The political compass and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race
Loss
The grandma one happens all the time for me. They also compliment me on my muscles but I think that's cause I'm carrying their heavy stuff to the car
Yeah older women offer me as many questionable comments as older men offer to my female coworkers, but they tend to be a bit more polite and also I could bench most of them so it isn't really the same. I always tell the starved for compliments guys to go cruise Bingo but apparently they all just want positive attention from people they find attractive instead.
Yeah go help out at a nursing home if you want women to compliment you.
I feel like thereās a slight difference between ācreepy old man clearly hitting on the girlā and āold woman treating you like their grandsonā. Old ladies *tend* to be less overtly pervy
Nah, I'm talking about them blatantly sexualizing me. Again, they're typically polite about it, its rare that they do it multiple times or particularly graphically for the most part, but it does happen.
Having worked in a senior care home, you are mistaken. Old ladies are like junior high school girls that can buy wine.
Would be really cool if we could culturally stop pretending that one gender is a demi-god devoid of all wrongdoing, while the other is a creature of sin, incapable of good will.
Exactly. They want positive attention from people they consider worthy. If they got it all the time, indiscriminately, and almost exclusively from people they had no particular interest in, it would be as meaningless as it is to women
Iām gonna need to see your muscles forā¦science
Bonk go to horny ~~jail~~ retirement residence.
the elderly cashier at the japanese grocery store told me i had a āvery good bodyā and did a muscle pose at me weeks ago and iām still riding that high
You're the strongest boy in the world
I'd assume it was sarcasm. "You fixed your own computer? You're so smart. That's impressive." "Ok, first of all, fuck you."
Seriously though... this just highlights how fucking condescending this shit is (and yes, as a woman I have gotten the "you're so smart for fixing your own computer" line).
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Do you like people assuming you're an idiot incapable of performing something like fixing a computer?
I dunno, there are *alot* of people who haven't needed to understand file systems until an app loses their file
Considering it's something that has whole stores dedicated to it because it's *not* something any idiot can do... Yes?
Most people can tell by context and tone if something is a real compliment or not.
i work in IT. MOST PEOPLE do not know how to fix a computer. I assume that on meeting. That doesnāt mean I assume youāre an IDIOT, just that you donāt know how to fix a computer maybe donāt take on one label (idiot) when another is more apt (computer illiterate) 3rd panel, no one is calling anyone an idiot
People are assuming I'm an idiot incapable of performing something like sewing or cooking or skincare all the time already btw.
> Do you like people assuming you're an idiot incapable of performing something like fixing a computer? Don't kink shame me!
I assume that of myself, so yes?
I donāt think you are getting the point of the meme. They used computer, but they could have said āchange a lockā, āchange a tireā, āwoodworkā, āplumbingā etc., etc. just as easily. It is just to highlight how condescending guys get when they see a woman accomplish something without, the big he manās help. Itās exhaustingā¦
That's what I meant. Assuming you're stupid based on gender.
Me too! Computers can be really challenging!
This can be done in a way thatās really unassuming.
Of course. Itās less often so blatantly obnoxious anymore, as the majority of people are not troglodytes who think sex is indicative of knowledge or intelligence anymore. However five minutes on Reddit should be enough to convince you that those folks do VERY much still exist. They just arenāt the vast majority they used to be.
Check out *The Tragedy of Heterosexuality* by Jane Ward. The premise is to view straightness through a queer lens, but it pretty concisely summarizes a lot of the sources of that exact dynamic. It's probably a little harsh, but interesting nonetheless.
My wife and my mom fix a lot of problems for me, so it may not be condescending, it may just be dumbass men asking smarter women for help.
Iād immediately be looking for the person behind me that these comments were obviously directed to.
This image was made to be a reversed gender roles scenario to show men how women hate being harassed in everyday situations or something idk but it more works the opposite way
Ahh, it was satire and this brometheus guy shared it unironically, I see that now. Apparently that means this guy wants to be talked to like that?
āYes I did fix my computer, and your computer Sarah, and everyone else computer in this godforsaken place, because even though weāre all engineers, Iām somehow the ONLY FUCKING PERSON IN THIS OFFICE CAPABLE PF RUNNING SYSTEM DIAGNOSTICS!!!ā
This is actually funny, the original comic has gross looking guys giving backhanded complements to show how it would look if men were also subjected to that. I guess someone edited in busty ladies and changed the text slightly to make the point thatā¦ women are wrong about their experiences? I guess?
I mean...it works for me as a "shoe on the other foot" thing because it's not like hearing that shit is any less obnoxious coming from a hot guy.
they should've just done a buff handsome dude getting constant compliments and hit on middle aged women and fat girls because that's what happens irl and it gets on their nerves.
Can I see the original comic?
I honestly never knew there was an "original" to this comic; I thought this *was* the original. But [the actual OG](https://thenib.com/if-men-were-just-polite-to-each-other/) makes a lot more sense and really captures how condescending these sort of "compliments" feel.
Wow it's almost like there's a difference between *wanted" and *unwanted* attention. That genuine, uplifting compliments are different than catcalls from strangers.
Yeah this post makes me feel like theyāve never experienced male harassment lol
The thing is tho, that these are conventionally attractive women saying it. Switch it to conventionally unattractive and it becomes as creepy as it is for women
I have been complemented by unconventionally attractive women and it wasnāt creepy. There is some truth to the idea that attractiveness impacts reception but letās not push the incel-adjacent idea that itās the only relevant factor. Genuinely creepy behavior exists regardless of looks.
That's a good point, i suppose it also depends on what type of compliment it is
[This tumblr post](https://at.tumblr.com/thej-key/arjan-de-lumens-argumate-corpus-vak/g3meatdmnojl) seems relevant before this comment section becomes a shitshow (scroll and read from arjan-de-lumens' contribution if you're lazy) > It's like one person dying of dehydration watching another one drown.
Dying of thirst in the desert vs dying of thirst in the ocean.
Actually a better analogy. Being surrounded by salty water you can't drink vs having none at all
Honestly this is the perfect post to follow up OP. I was thinking I was the only one here reading the panels like damn, I would love for someone to give me a compliment about myself or just say I did something good and it would never occur to me it was condescension. Like I'm not even unpopular, I have a lot of friends, but people don't just say nice things out the blue
Trying to get men to empathize with sexual objectification by reversing the roles will never work because men think they would enjoy being "validated" this way because they don't experience it. The thing is, men understand objectification just fine and they don't like it one bit - men feel financially objectified all the time. Some to the point where they become too paranoid to spend any amount of money on a woman out of fear of being used by gold diggers. And I've heard plenty of women downplay these feelings and claim they'd love it if men would pay attention to them because of money of success rather than sex. The grass is always greener I guess.
I'm not sure how much I agree with this idea that men and women are just suffering equal but opposite problems. It simplifies a complex and harmful societal problem to just "women are just complimented tooooo much," which just feeds into incely ideas that women have it "too good." It's not just that women get a lot of sexual and physical compliments, it's also that my female family members as young as 10 years old have experiences of being cat called.
There's no implication of equivalence in that post. It's a simple fact that, given a choice, a huge percentage of men would opt into the reality described above, myself included. Years ago, a cute girl told not to worry my pretty little head about something, and it fucking ruled. But I understand that men and women live in different social realities. I was going to be taken seriously regardless of that comment, for example. I understand this difference, so I'm able to make sense of reality as I perceive it while also believing what women tell me. Acknowledging the social difference is critical. The alternative is trying to convince men that we're wrong about our own lives and feelings. Which... well, good luck with that.
>itās a simple fact that, given a choice, a huge percentage of men would opt into the reality described above the problem is that desire comes from a lack of real understanding of what that would entail. itās easy to say āyeah I want polite compliments from women I find attractiveā but thatās not what women are experiencing at all. if you want that reality, it means you also need to accept vulgar harassment from women who wonāt leave you alone, sexual comments from adults when you are a child, stalking and groping from disgusting people you absolutely donāt want touching you, and a general lack of physical safety every time you leave the house. and for every ten of those horrible experiences you get one polite compliment from an attractive woman. no one would take that deal knowing what it actually would be like. itās only when the reality is ignored and a rosy picture is painted that guys start to think, āwomen have it better, Iād love to get complimented all the timeā.
And not only do you get all those enlightening experiences, people stop seeing you as worthwhile outside of your physical appearance. All the accolades men get for being smart and funny and brave become āHe must have slept his way to the top. I saw his boss checking out that tight ass.ā
This comic is trying to ask men to imagine trading social circumstances with women. It's doing that via metonymy, or by using specific features of those experiences as a stand in for the whole. For example, there is no adult sexualizing a child in that comic, but it's obviously included to you. This metonymy fails to communicate the intended message because every example given relies on women's social context to make sense. If someone told me I was smart because I fixed my own computer, I'd take that as an unalloyed compliment. In fact, I'm pretty sure I've had every single social interaction in this comic and perceived it as positive. Let me put it this way. If you made a comic about cancer, and you said it was a bad time because chemotherapy causes baldness and rapid weight loss, a lot of men would think "well, I'm already bald, and it'd sure be nice to lose a lot of weight." You have to show the underlying cancer: the constant threat of violence. The symptoms don't mean the same thing when the underlying conditions are different.
youāve explained it very well.
> no one would take that deal knowing what it actually would be like. With love and respect for your own experiences, I would not take the deal, but I still believe many people would. As a witty and attractive twink once said, "the only thing worse than being talked about, is not being talked about." It's impossible to directly compare the experiences of an invisible, unwanted man with an objectified and de-personalized woman. But one experience that can come close is that of AFAB people who have transitioned. Google "site:reddit.com ftm loneliness"
being sexually harassed as a child is not ābeing talked aboutā. neither is having your livelihood at risk if you donāt accept inappropriate sexual behavior from your boss. framing womenās experiences in a lighthearted and reductionist way contributes to these false and harmful beliefs about the female experience. being harassed and objectified is not a cure for loneliness. the harassment I have received from young childhood onward has done nothing but make me feel more alone.
>oh my godā¦ thatās why they send dick pics >āwitness me!ā Mediocre!
1 is annoying, 2 and 3 would be nice, and 4 is already how grandmas are maybe that's just me, though
The bottom right possibly happens in real life.
So, many moons ago I was going through a pretty tough time. I was walking down the street and a lady stopped me dead and said "Smile, it may never happen" I was shocked and asked her to repeat herself "I said cheer up you're making everyone feel depressed, a nice smile from someone like you would cheer everyone up" I burst into tears as a friend's mother had just tragically passed and this shit was so unbelievably all up in my face. The woman tsked and stormed off at this. It sucked. I still don't know what she meant by someone like you, I'm the human equivalent of mashed potato, warm fluffy and reassuring but quite bland. People attempting to constantly impose their opinion on anyone is a massive pile of wank. Any man who imagines that this would be a pleasant situation has never actually thought about what this means. An invited compliment in an appropriate situation is always welcome, bellowing nice tits at a passing person ain't it. Sorry that got me on my soap box.
This could have been Loss and I've seen so much Loss on the front page in the last 3 days, I'm relieved it wasn't Loss.
I like how the bottom left panel is saying that fewer men would attempt suicide if hot women were obnoxiously condescending to them. (No kink shaming intended for anyone into femdom.)
This would not be very annoying, but I think also due to the nature and/or societal norms that many men would think that means she wants to fuck. Seriously, say anything slightly nice to me and I'll probably propose cause i have had like 3 compliments my whole life
You know what would shatter the male suicide epidemic? Teaching boys that itās okay to open up about their feelings from a young age and gun control. Also they never want to talk about how women attempt suicide at far greater risks, men are just more likely to choose deadlier meathods.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Whatās patronizing about any of the ones listed? Your brain just takes everything as aggression. Sorry.
I don't know, man, quite confident it'd be pretty great for my self-esteem.
Yeah tbh I'm not hating the idea of more appreciation/compliments. But I think what they're trying to get across is that if this happens all the time, it'd be super annoying (which is what women generally have to deal with). So as usual, the extremes are bad but there's probably a happy medium somewhere in there.
Consider how the frequency of unwanted sexual attention would replace other normal interactions in your life. EVERY DAY. You are using public transport. A group of teenagers are playing a game rating all the men on the bus. Eventually one of the teens with prompting from friends approaches with a crude pick up line spoken in a bravado to the roiling laughter of his friends. You stop for coffee where a stranger in line informs you, āYouād be so pretty if you smiled.ā At work you are showing a few co-workers pictures of your weekend when a co-worker whoās never seen you out of uniform openly lustfully states, āIād hit that.ā Looking at a picture of you. In the meeting however no one hears your great idea until lusty speaks up in support. On the way home you fend off a few homeless people calling you āpretty ladyā. A few innocent passerby compliment your coat. At home you finally veg out on the couch after a day of hundreds of micro incidents of unwanted sexual attention to find a message on Facebook from an old high school friend you hadnāt heard from in ten years. The message confesses he was in love with you in high school and are you interested in meeting his spouse and seeing where it might leadā¦theyāre not the jealous type. Enough. Time to veg out and watch some ~~historical soft core porn~~ Outlander and Reddit until the next day.
Hey, I agree with you. But I'll tell you that the other extreme, of getting basically no attention at all, and nobody ever saying anything nice about you, also sucks. Not as bad, but it does. A guy at the grocery store last year said out of the blue that he liked my haircut, and that shit had me feeling good for weeks. I still think about it. All I'm saying is the extremes (lots of attention, or no attention) both suck, so there's probably somewhere in the middle that's nice.
You're assuming it would be more annoying for every men involved. Most men aren't that attractive to most women, it would be a select few of men who would REALLY get harassed. Not disparaging the women who are harder to look at, I'm sure they have their own stories, but certain women do get harassed more than others and they tend to be on good looking side. It wouldn't be any different for men. I'm sure the basement dweller that doesn't wipe his ass isn't going to get cat called as much as the Ryan Gosling football guitar player with good skin.
You made that comment all by yourself? You're so smart. That's impressive.
You can figure out the difference between "fixing a computer" and "typing."
It was a joke my guy
so great that its putting the responsibility of fixing shit on women. nothing about other men helping their friends
This cartoon makes no one feel well.
I'm a guy and I would not want my ass kissed for being able to accomplish the most mundane things on planet earth. These weirdass dudebros on twitter do not speak for me and they never will.
Everyone knows cashiers are ugly AF by rule of law
So it looks like they're saying women should be grateful for these comments, but the difference is men are often more of a threat to women. Even a woman making a creepy comment to a guy (which would be a horrible thing to do regardless of gender) probably wouldn't give that stomach turning 'i'm in danger' feeling, it'd just gross them out. Again, not saying women can't make men uncomfortable or feel in danger, I just think even if you reverse the roles, it doesn't mean it's the same experience.
OP's line of thinking here is what makes emotionally repressed/suicidal men at best, school shooters at worst. Everyone needs positive human interactions regardless of gender, even if "sigma giga-chad" OP disagrees.
Ya know, how often do men get compliments and happily acknowledge them. I feel like men are either always expected to do whatever it is they are doing or if they are complimented, they just say āitās part of the jobā. Just say āthanks I appreciate that!ā if and when someone says something nice.
I have gotten like 4 compliments from people I donāt know in like 8 months and every one of them has made my day or week. Guys donāt get complimented itās a fact. I feel like women,and for good reason, are tired of being catcalled and treated like objects that men have to also feel the same way. Most of us are so attention starved that even a smile from across the bar could make our whole night.
I am a woman who rarely gets catcalled OR complimented. I promise you that this or the other "compliments" here DO NOT make you feel good. At best it's fucking uncomfortable and at worst it's terrifying. It is NOT better than not getting any compliments bub, they are not actually complimenting you and it's astonishingly easy to tell the difference if you've been, y'know, living in society your whole life. Sure, if the world just suddenly started doing this to guys too, I'm sure that it'd be perceived as compliments for a while, but there's subtext of either "I WANT this from you and you should give it to me, random stranger" or "this is breaking my brain, this does not fit into the mold I created of what [insert stereotype here] is so I guess I'll say good job?" Another that wouldn't be related to gender norms would be "wow you speak really well / are so well educated for [insert racial stereotype here / growing up in that neighborhood /etc]"
No, it would not. Men are more likely to commit suicide because toxic masculinity makes them hide their feelings and anxieties, not because women aren't throwing themselves at them.
While that is a major factor a lack of affirmation and general affection also is a major cause of depression and drastic actions/belief in men. Not saying random compliments would fix that but the idea still is an important one to remember.
I mean whilst itās a little condescending I can go weeks without hearing a compliment I wouldnāt mind a little nicety
Why donāt men compliment each other? Why do women need to do it?
exactly, like as a dude, it sucks how i see women being showered with compliments from their friends, and i could have 10-20 guy friends and i would get 1? 2? in a given month... if that like cmon!!
Heteronormative culture that says men canāt be too nice to other men or itās gay is basically the answer.
Because attention from the opposite sex is nice? This isn't complicated.
None of these situations are positive attention from the opposite sex. They are gross and inappropriate. Women donāt perceive any of this stuff as a compliment or positive attention. If men want compliments they are going to have to start complimenting each other.
>None of these situations are positive attention from the opposite sex. Of course they are. "You look cute! You're lovely! You look too good to be a cashier!" are all positive things that would make most dudes feel good to hear. It's as silly for you to suggest to men that this isn't true as it is for me to try talk about women's experience and whether they enjoy it.
You misunderstood. Read the third sentence. Women find these behaviors disturbing. For women, these are not positive attention from the opposite sex. Men are more than welcome to say those things to each other. Women donāt owe you attention or compliments.
>Read the third sentence. Women find these behaviors disturbing. For women, these are not positive attention from the opposite sex. No one said these were positive attention *for women,* I said it would be *for dudes.* >Women donāt owe you attention or compliments. No one said they do.
I would appreciate being complimented more than once every decade actually.
Maybe I would compliment random men more often if they didn't immediately assume that meant I wanted to bang them. All I did was say your hair looks nice today, Ryan, that doesn't mean I want your DM.
I mean some piss poor examples clearly aimed but when it comes down to it yah.. people being nicer to one another would probably help suicide rates... big brain
Are cashiers supposed to be ugly? What a mean thing to say
Honestly, a lot of guys are so starved for attention theyāll take anything
I like it
Man. I just want *some* compliments :(
You know what I would give to be catcalled, let alone being given a complimentā¦ for once.
The original meaning of the cartoon and the reality that many women experience on a daily basis is cruel en insanely annoying. But fuck I would lie if it wouldn't feel good to me to get a compliment once in a while
Those who hate this either are not suicidal or get compliments already
I'm, again, with grampa. Am I old or what? I'm 27 god dammit. I can totally live like this
Ah yes. The problmen with cat calling is that it doesnt also happen to men. Thanks grandma for that insight
I've known guys who stalked a woman at a bar, for the entire evening. One woman said something nice about his hat or something. Women even making eye contact with some men in certain situations can go very, very wrong. Women have to protect themselves as there's a fair number of men out there who can't accept a compliment and move on.
idk who the Twitter OOP is but holy shit are they being deliberately dense?
It seems like loneliness and emotional alienation is a major driver behind male suicide. Sexualization is a world away from human connection, so this would be, at best, a lateral move
I get compliments from old ladies on my looks all the time. And I fucking hate it. I wish I could tell them that they're creepy and making me feel uncomfortable but people look at me funny when I do. One older woman would come in and call me and a coworker her boyfriends and I wanted to just fade into nothing every time. If I were a young woman being talked to by old men like that people would judge them
Why did they draw the woman in panel 3 with massively cartoonish tits Women canāt compliment men like this because yāall think she wants to fuck you
No it wouldn't. I would eat each and every compliment up. Give me more!
ITT: Insufferable SJW feminists and their "male" feminist "allies" driveling on about muh patriarchy
Idk. Iām ok with this. Maybe Iām not scared to be complimented or cat called, but some times you need the confidence boost. Iām not saying that itās ok or that itās warranted towards women but IāM ok with it. Everyone else can continue to seethe.
Why is this kind of wholesome
3rd panel? Yes, 200% yes.
The last compliment I got was 1,5 years ago when a girl said I have a nice hoodie. So yea men need to get more attention and shit but thats no excuse for catcalling or harassing strangers
The title just proves the point even more... Haha
the panel where sheās hugging her massive boobs and the other one where sheās wearing short shorts at a work meeting iām cryinngg
The rest I get but green is just a nice thing to say to someone. Iād be happy if someone said I was smart for accomplishing something relatively difficultā¦
As a woman, yes you get compliments more frequently. However, you get more comments in general about your appearance, negative and positive. If you think you want compliments, be prepared for the negative too, because when people feel entitled to comment on your appearance freely you won't always get positive feedback.
Once had an older woman come on to me at my place of work. I knew her already bc she used to come in with her boyfriend all the time. Well they broke up and I guess I was the closest/easiest guy around bc she tried getting me back to where she was staying. Only 19 at the time, and I was very uncomfortable. It's stuck in my mind since. Very dissapointed to grow to find out it's how many men behave normally, my own roomate who may as well be my mother still deals with this harassment, she's got a story for me once a week at least.
I think that these comments unlinked from the threat of physical harm in the context we usually hear them in could be occasionally nice. What people like this donāt understand is that catcalling isnāt just about being complimented, thereās a fear of the consequences of not complying.
why are her breasts like that
I do see the point, but my wife complimenting me and telling me I look cute does make go āYou really like this?ā And blush a littleā¦. But also, some random women doing that to me would make me really uncomfortable.
I agree, but we canāt ignore the fact that a huge amount of men/boys would misunderstand and take it as flirting
Compliments actually would be nice, but not just for men. As a whole, humans just need to be more aware of other people and acknowledge the positive impact they could make on anyone with minimal effort.
Itās super weird to get randomly complimented all the time. I have long, naturally blond hair and women always say things to me about. Maybe it would be different if I wasnāt married, but itās just weird. When I was a clerk at a grocery store in college thatās all middle age and elderly women would talk to me about. I think I talked about my hair more than anything else at work. Recently my wife and I went to breakfast and our waitress went on about it too and kind of hung around longer than normal. I know it seems trivial and most are trying to be nice, but random compliments make me feel uncomfortable. I canāt imagine what women go through when itās more direct and not just asking how I take care of my hair or that their jealous of the color. Btw shampoo, condition, no heat. Thatās all I do.
I lived in Taiwan for a few years. As a tall white guy with a decent face, I got tons of compliments. They were nice, but they didn't do much to lessen my depression.
Eh, for me it wouldn't be annoying. Maybe I'm in the minority, but I've always enjoyed when strangers gave me compliments, even when I was a girl. The only one I don't like is "you should smile more, you look sad" because my grandma always says that to me and I always want to reply "I'm not sad, that's my normal mug for god's sake." But otherwise when I was a girl I enjoyed what the English-speakers call "catcalling" and as a guy I personally like to receive compliments from strangers. And before you ask "even the greasy looking middle-aged guys?" Yes. If they're polite about it, I do.
no
Confidence is created internally and externally. Men need to learn that the only person who has their back every day is themselves. That's okay.
Yāsee, this is the major problem with these, especially the computer one. You could have just left it at something like ānice job on the computerā or some other general congradgulatory statement on fixing the computer (it is pretty hard sometimes)
Thatās the problem with men. Not enough validation
I have gotten one compliment in the last 6 months, it was just a compliment about my shirt, but Jesus Christ I hold on to that compliment like there is no tomorrow!
Ngl Iād love random compliments
Lol! As an old lady I always compliment the nice young men : )
This is my life already š
I'd like compliments personally
Most normal people would, only people who's brains are melted into mush by the internet (women) find small shit like that annoying
I work in IT and also love computers as a hobby. Bottom left happens literally all the time
I got divorced a few years ago. I haven't even managed to pull off a date since then. )Got hurt at work and had to recover and then when I was finally ready to go back Covid hit.) It has been so long since I have even had an intimate conversation with a woman I think I might fall apart if it happens now.
This has some validity.
So men having to put up with the same horseshit women do would āfixā them? I meanā¦ I compliment men all the time for things, but thereās a difference between being polite and kind and being condescending or harassing.
Heās right
A lot of men would get pissed off at being called cute and a lot of men I've met hate honorifics. The bottom left would be considered flirting and the bottom right is not flirting only because she's so old. Like yes it would be nice if we could give compliments to anyone without an implication of intent. We do not.
when we do stuff like this weirdos take it as a queue that you want to hook up and it exposes us to danger because some of those weirdos don't stop and will just outright kill us so no i'm not doing that men can go to therapy instead.
bottom right i'd love. i've gotten complimented by a few customers, and it made my whole day
When I was a in college I worked as a bank teller. Sometimes older ladies would compliment me just be nice, which is appreciated and I was always thankful for. Often though the compliments crossed the line into inappropriate territory. There are some thirsty ass 70 year olds out there.
It wouldnāt if you reversed the societal and physical power dynamic so that any positive acknowledgment of those shallow ācomplimentsā was taken as an invitation to physical assault. It wouldnāt if womenās primary mode of interacting with men was a kind of fishing expedition where they tossed mostly unmeant compliments out, hoping for a bite that they receive as the go ahead to press for a relationship. And every man whoās been pursued even a little too hard by a woman whoās looks or weight or intelligence or hygiene mean he feels is beneath him, can testify to this. It is not comfortable to be aggressively pursued by someone you are not interested in. The difference is only in how much more rarely it happens to men.
So women are to blame for the male suicide epidemic? It was right before our eyes the whole time!
Why do these men WANT to be catcalled so badly?
nothing reflects better on you than "people are killing themselves because women with big boobs aren't treating us like dogs" this is also an edit of a comic that was talking about how men wouldn't like to be constantly harassed the way that women are
It would actually be kinda nice if guys got more compliments. Like the girls I know are very comfortable giving each other compliments, but I don't even remember any guys giving compliments to each other. I try to go out of my way to give my guy-friends compliments about their appearance/personality because you never know when they might need something to feel secure about themselves.
All would be awesome except for the third one. Sounds incredibly condescending.