That seems to be Christina Hoff Sommers’s policy at least.
Christina H. Sommers @CHSommers
Wow! Some Brits organize an event to raise awareness on men’s health. PC feminist freaks out. Not a parody! http://www.newstatesman.com/2013/11/why-movember-isnt-all-its-cracked-be …
Yes but that’s not what happened. I posted about that article on Saturday, so you’ll all know that’s not what happened, because you read everything I post here and remember every word of it. No but seriously – here again is a sample of that absurd New Statesman article:
So what message does Movember convey to those whose moustaches are more-or-less permanent features? With large numbers of minority-ethnic men—for instance Kurds, Indians, Mexicans—sporting moustaches as a cultural or religious signifier, Movember reinforces the “othering” of “foreigners” by the generally clean-shaven, white majority. Imagine a charity event that required its participants to wear dreadlocks or a sari for one month to raise funds—it would rightly be seen as unforgivably racist. What is the difference here? We are not simply considering an arbitrary configuration of facial hair, but one that had particular, imperial connotation to British men of our grandfathers’ generation and currently has a separate cultural valence for men from certain ethnic groups. Moustaches, whether or not “mo-bros” mean theirs to be, are loaded with symbolism. We often wonder how our fathers (both life-long moustached men) must feel each November, when their colleagues’ faces temporarily resemble theirs, and are summarily met with giggles and sponsor-money. No doubt they draw the obvious conclusion, that dovetails with many other experiences of life as an immigrant: there are different rules for white faces.
Is that obviously just feminist and nothing else? Hardly. It’s a jumble of nonsense, but what’s most prominent is a confused attempt at anti-racism and post-colonialism. It’s much more that flavor of bullshit than it is any kind of feminist-flavored bullshit.
Sommers is scapegoating. That’s bad.
It’s much more that flavor of bullshit than it is any kind of feminist-flavored bullshit.
And to think I used to believe bullshit came in only one flavor.
Probably how my life-long moustached father feels– amused that other men are “trying on” a look that he’s always had, to the surprise and amusement of others who are familiar with them looking quite different from how they now look, for some temporary fun raising money for a good cause.
My gosh, how terrible.
And how nothing-to-do-with-feminism-at-all.
Feminists stole my ice cream!
Feminism put dirt in my cookies!
Marcus – really? I bet you’re just saying that! Anybody who knows there’s bullshit at all knows there are many flavors.
No.
You’re supposed to blame President Obama for everything.
🙂
Yeah, I guess I’m confused by the fact that I read about it first here–so I gathered that feminists were mocking this “concern,” and by implication supporting this exercise in “awareness on men’s health.” But I’m reading the wrong blogs, I guess.
One remark in the OP was helpful for me: “what’s most prominent is a confused attempt at anti-racism and post-colonialism.” When I read the original post, I was unsure whether there’s a valid concern about mustaches or not–since I’m completely unschooled in post-colonialism. I’m unaware of mustaches as a marker for social stigma, but open to the possibility that it’s a thing and I just don’t know about it. If there is indeed a society where mustaches are worn by an oppressed group, and where the privileged group sometimes wears them as a form of mockery, then of course I wouldn’t support that.
But, Abdul, Obama is a feminist…
Quick, somebody (with more talent than I) do a Southpark Parody song!
Of course, Christina Hoff Sommers has made a cottage industry out of blaming feminism and feminists for years. When vicious MRA’s of the sort that Paul Elam epitomizes regularly quote a person, as they do her, I take anything that she might say with a year’s worth of salt.
Obama-femi-fascism killllled my baaaaabiies. Now not even my mustache is safe! {requisite sobbing}
Summers may be scapegoating, but she’s scapegoating because of feminism!
(Enter infinite vortex of causal loop)
@A Masked Avenger: There are a lot of people (read: hipsters) with “ironic mustaches,” in the US at least. As in, “Haha, isn’t it hilarious that I have a mustache because why would anyone have a mustache? Isn’t it ridiculous looking?” A woman I met recently talked about how her Southeast Asian husband had a mustache and depending on the clothes he wore, he was either seen as hipster-ironic or very foreign.
That idea has been all over my facebook for the last 24 hours – at least half the people I know who linked the article mentioned feminism in the same status. Happily, all were taken to task for that in the ensuing comments, and recanted.
(Enter infinite vortex of causal loop)
Is that anything like the huge whirlpool in the “Pirates of the Carribbean” movie?