Noah Brand responds to The Frisky’s criticism of a Good Men Project article.
Over at The Frisky, Amelia McDonell-Parry has some sharp criticism of Nathan Graziano’s piece here at the Good Men Project, “Yoga Pants Nation“. Ms. McDonnell-Parry writes:
Newsflash Nathan Graziano: Not everything women do is done with men in mind. Just because you find someone sexy, doesn’t mean she’s being sexy for you. Just because someone is wearing something you find sexy, doesn’t mean she is wearing that something for you. Your argument that women must be wearing yoga pants in part to appeal to man’s reptilian brains is based on one thing: “Sweats are comfortable too.” So a woman who chooses yoga pants over sweats is choosing the option that happens to be more appealing to men, so that must be her M.O. But maybe they’re more appealing to her because they fit better. Yoga pants are certainly more flattering, but women like to look good for themselves too, you know.
She’s not wrong. Mr. Graziano’s article was mainly about his efforts not to stare in a creepy and unwelcome way at people he’s attracted to, a problem a lot of us face, both men and women. That’s not the cause of the criticism, though; McDonell-Parry objects to Graziano leaping to the conclusion that yoga pants must be a deliberate form of performance for the male gaze. And she’s right to so object.
Graziano’s piece does fall into that trap, not out of malice—he’s clearly doing his best to avoid inappropriately sexualizing women he doesn’t know, despite his libido’s unhelpful suggestions—but because falling into traps like that is so damn easy in our culture.
I’m hardly the first to point out that the male gaze is everywhere in our culture, taken for granted as the default “normal” way of viewing the world. Feminists have been critiquing and unpacking it for decades, but it’s still the way half the images we see in the world are constructed. Nobody ever told Nathan Graziano “women do things just to be looked at” because nobody ever had to. It’s built right into the way we see things as a society. Most of us are guilty of falling into this kind of unexamined assumption at one time or another. I personally bristle when I’m dining out with a woman and the server automatically hands me the check, but I understand why it seems perfectly natural to them to do so.
That’s not to completely excuse the implication in Graziano’s article, of course. One of the things I try to do in my own work is dismantle and examine assumptions and stereotypes about men, so I understand how pervasive and persistent these things can be. It seems clear to me that Graziano’s intentions are good and his mistake understandable, but at the same time, the way we learn from our mistakes is by having them pointed out and criticized, so honestly: fair point, Ms. McDonell-Parry.
Photo—GoToVan/Flickr
I think most of this comes down to females lacking the ability to FEEL the male biological drive on a gut level. They should at least try to understand it on a scientific level to be less upset by the normal workings of nature, which they assume to be creepy, etc. (willful naivety enabled by modern etiquette). With yoga pants, they make themselves essentially naked from the waist down, and in many cases more shapely due to the tightening. It’s odd that the photo in this article shows sweat pants, not the ones actually under discussion (though they’re relatively tight… Read more »
Here’s a simple fact: Dressing to look nice and dressing to provoke are NOT the same thing. When we buy clothes, yes we want clothes that look good on us. I imagine men want to look, good, too. We are NOT thinking “What can I buy that will drive ALL the men around me into a sexual frenzy!!!” It’s simply NOT the case! BTW, Some of us wear underwire bras because we need to. After two kids, and now being in my 40’s, a regular bra ain’t gonna cut it. And yes, I wear yoga pants just about every day.… Read more »
ThomasM, I feel compelled to respond to this lovely little bit of sexism: “No compliments, not flirting, no free drinks and diners, no help with your college paper, no one who caries heavy stuff for you and fixes stuff for you, no shoulder to cry on, no sex. Then after four weeks we have this discussion again about men looking too long at women in yoga pants.” I don’t need men to make me happy, especially considering I’ve been seeing a wonderful lady for the last ten months. I would just like to put it out there that I buy… Read more »
High five! You and me are in the same boat with the rest of the male population, (it’s a big boat and very crowded.) We, men, fix our own stuff, buy our own drinks, etc, etc. And on top of that we don’t even expect a cookie for doing all these things.
Here’s a crazy thought. Men as a group should stop showing sexual interest in women for maybe four weeks. No compliments, not flirting, no free drinks and diners, no help with your college paper, no one who caries heavy stuff for you and fixes stuff for you, no shoulder to cry on, no sex. Then after four weeks we have this discussion again about men looking too long at women in yoga pants.
Lysistrata strategies don’t ever seem to work. Instead, maybe men and women should keep communicating and actually talk to each other.
Or look at sex as less of a fiscal exchange and more a fun playful thing people do when they like and are attracted to each other. Always worked for me.
Talking to each other is a good idea, but sometimes a reality check is in order to put things into perspective. I wonder what a teenage girl in some middle east country who gets forcefully married to a 50 year old guy has to say about the issue of men looking a little too long at women in yoga pants.
Essentially the whole topic is a joke. If anything discussions like this show how far we have come in the West regarding gender equality.
Regarding treating sex as a fiscal exchange. Trust me, no one would be happier than men when this stops. When women decided to stop treating sex as their commodity there would be a one week celebration all over the world, with fireworks, free booze and lots of sex. To be fair, in a strongly patriarchal societies it makes sense that women trade sex for protection, shelter, food, social advancement. But we don’t live in a strongly patriarchal society anymore. Nonetheless women still follow the same pattern to select their sexual partners. Seeing (heterosexual) sex as a shared, mutual experience is… Read more »
Thomas, I never had any of the things you mentioned above (help with the college papers, free drinks, etc.) When a man DID help me, he was a friend, and he got a non-sexual favor in return (maybe help with HIS college paper). Does this happen? Certainly. Are there women who take advantage? Yup. Here’s my advice to young men: Stop offering. Stop buying the drinks, stop being the shoulder, and start hanging out with women who don’t expect these things from you. They are out there. If we look at the young girl in the Middle East, chances are,… Read more »
To clear this up, NO ONE is saying it is wrong to look at a nice ass. What I specifically stated in my earlier comment is that there is a difference between looking and staring. Staring is always creepy, and it is very much controllable. I look at hotties all the time, considering I live on a college campus. I don’t however, stare at them until they feel uncomfortable, because that is going too far. I don’t believe it’s my place, nor is it anyone’s, to make people feel uncomfortable walking around outside. A friendly smile and a glance is… Read more »
No one here, maybe. The idea of “lust” being one of the worst things a person can do has had a central role in the central religion of the western world for hundreds of years. It’s hardly suprising that it will affect peoples’ expectations going into a discussion.
I’m sorry, but the standards for creepiness are very different for men and women. As a woman you get away with much more. A friendly smile and a glance can easily be perceived as creepy if they come from the wrong kind of guy.
It wouldn’t be “creepy and staring” if the attention was coming from a man you found attractive. You know this is true, and yelling wont change this. The amount of control you’re wishing to strangle out of life is an incredibly white, rich (and “priveleged” to use your impossible language) and female phenomenon. You want to dictate to men how, when, where and if they can even exist in your presence. I’m not saying sexism doesn’t exist. I’m saying much of this discussion amounts to nothing more than the dishonest machinations of control freaks attempting to gain hand. In EVERY… Read more »
Just not true.
OR….
We could get over the notion that the dreaded Male Gaze is a ‘problem’ that needs ‘fixing,’ and recognize that appreciating someone’s appearance in a noninstrusive way really ISN’T a crime.
If I see an attractive woman in tight clothes, I’m gonna look. I’m gonna enjoy it. Yes, you can call that ‘sexualizing’ and ‘objectifiction’ and a bunch of other shaming words… but they’re going to just roll off me, because I feel no guilt for a harmless act.
Dude, everyone looks. Everyone admires. That’s not the problem.
It isn’t? It seems the point of Nathan’s article was that he feels shame about looking at attractive women, and many commentators seem to agree that such interest is something shameful.
No, the commenters are upset with the assumption that Nathan makes that women are wearing yoga pants to tempt and tease men, rather than to just go about their day. At least, that’s what I reacted to. I have no idea what my clothes and body do to passers by. Perhaps I turn people on or off. I don’t really care. No one looking at my body and enjoying it should feel shame, likewise if I see a body I like, I shouldn’t feel shame for liking it. If I went around blaming men for having sexy butts in jeans… Read more »
Relevant. Women have given the whip to each other: http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2013/01/no_self-respecting_woman_would.html#more “Let me offer a contrary position, unpalatable but worth considering: the only appropriate time to wear make up is to look attractive to men. Or women, depending on which genitals you want to lick, hopefully it’s both. “Ugh, women are not objects.” Then why are you painting them? I’m not saying you have to look good for men, I’m saying that if wearing makeup not for men makes you feel better about yourself, you don’t have a strong self, and no, yelling won’t change this. Everyone knows you shouldn’t judge… Read more »
Interesting. How much would you say has to do with consumer culture in general or is it all a out gender for you? Can people have real preferences?
Perhaps Nathan’s big error, then was in asserting intended consequences where it would have been better to describe them as *expected* consequences. So, a woman wearing yoga pants (or a bikini, or tight jeans…) may not intend to cause men to look in appreciation, but it’s hardly an unexpected consequence. Nathan specifically said “taunt”, so he wasn’t very ambiguous, but some of the following discussion has been. I don’t think women are “doing it on purpose” in the sense of being sexy to men being the primary goal, but I also think it’s disingenuous to act like there’s no reasonable… Read more »
Marcus – well I, for one, did *not* expect yoga pants to be titillating. I was pleasantly surprised, actually, that what has been described by my friends as the “uniform of modern motherhood” (usually with a resigned sigh) is actually also considered sexy. Who knew? Men, apparently.
I believe you, but I would find it odd if a woman began wearing yoga pants without that awareness, started attracting an uncomfortable amount of male-gazing attention, and didn’t put two and two together. I’m also surprised (though not unbelieving) that women wouldn’t expect (note the intentional use of “expect” again, and not “intend”) that yoga pants on a fit body would be sexy to men. Because of the material and opacity of yoga pants, they function as pants, but in terms of how form-fitting they are and revealing shape even if skin itself is hidden, they’re not very different… Read more »
Marcus – you know, I wonder if maybe the fact that yoga pants are so darn comfortable and easy and durable, that’s why they seem like a compromise (to me) instead of an enhancement. Since so much of women’s clothing is or can be pretty uncomfortable (and disfiguring, in some cases) and/or difficult to care for, putting on something stretchy and washable almost seems like a cop-out (to me). Pantyhose, for example, aren’t comfortable (to me) or easily washed or durable so I don’t even think of them in the same way. Although I can totally see how the effect… Read more »
100 denier microfiber tights are 20$ a pair, very durable, washable and stretchy. Also pretty comfortable though blood circulation could be affected.
I never wear them alone, always with a skirt. I wear them when it’s too cold for bare legs, but not too warm that I’d sweat because of them. Can easily wear them below 0 C if you’re adamant about wearing skirts in winter.
Black and opaque, no way you see through them. But they’re the whole length, not just knee-length.
I can recall hearing many complaints about pantyhose (in my life, not in this thread) and no one singing the praises of how comfy they are, so I’m not surprised at all that you or others wouldn’t put them in the same category as yoga pants where comfort is concerned. But yeah, the aesthetic effect differs mainly in opacity, but not in how contours and shapes are accentuated (for both better and worse). The phrase “painted on” comes to mind.
Also amazing that anyone would be unaware of the possibility of male attention when you wear something so form fitting that the observer can make out the labia majora from ten yards away. If you’re cool with that, I applaud you, but how could you not know?
Many women just fail to understand the male biological imperative on a gut level. “Yoga pants non-ogling restraint” is the equivalent of asking a guy to have limited interest in a box of fine chocolates or a tray of 5-star pizza. Of course sexual urges and food-needs are not coming from the same brain center but it’s a decent analogy. Another analogy is the urge to scratch a persistent itch, but that sort of scratching has far lower rewards. I’d suggest reading some anthropological and behavioral books, like a certain Desmond Morris classic. He said that breasts mimic the female… Read more »
Here’s a random observation. Every time someone suggests women dress sexy to impress men some feminist will claim this is not true. Women don’t want to look pretty for men, they want to look pretty for themselves. So we, men, are certainly not allowed to look at a woman’s cleavage or rear, because it’s not for us it’s for herself. The interesting thing is, when it comes to the negative aspects of looking sexy or rather conforming to the beauty standard suddenly it is men’s fault. For example, I recently learned from a feminist website that the trend of labiaplasty… Read more »
It’s hard to respond to something addressed to “some feminist,” for starters. (And you’re deflecting from responding to the specific criticisms from myself and others on this thread by presenting this vague observation — much of which doesn’t come close to describing my own feminist beliefs or anything I’ve said or written.) And it’s a waste of time to respond to someone who refuses to see that these gendered behaviors — dressing “sexy,” getting labiaplasty, ogling cleavage — don’t happen in a vacuum. That you run a gender issues website and actually believe these issues are that simplistic is embarrassing.
Firstly, I suppose there’s a misunderstanding. I’m not Tom Matlack. My name is Thomas Müller (therefore ThomasM) and I’m just a random commenter from Germany. But I take it as a compliment that you mistake me for a native English speaker. Secondly, I think the generalization is warranted. I’ve seen plenty of discussion which follow the same pattern. Some dude: “Women wear xy, do xy to attract men”. Some Feminist: “No they don’t. Women wear xy, do xy because reasons. But certainly not to attract men”. Obviously gendered behaviors don’t happen in a vacuum, that’s a platitude. But you are… Read more »
What is so wrong with- Men look at women in yoga pants because that is how men are wired, just looking to pass.on some DNA, thank you, and yoga pants certainly allow for some selection of healthy looks. Women look at women in yoga pants to scope the competition, just looking to move that DNA to the front of the line. This isn’t entirely the case now- but it ts for 99.999% of the time our evolving genome has existed. People wear clothes they dig- it is just that simple. Me I love Lycra jogger’s tights, I’m wearing them right… Read more »
As a lady who does yoga on the daily, it’s infuriating to read comments from people stating that yoga pants are worn for attention. Yoga pants are tight because loose-fitting clothes get in the way during yoga. But I also wear them to lecture and work. It’s not because I want my ass to get attention, but it’s because I’m lazy and I love comfort. What people are mistaking here is that legs and ass are attractive, not yoga pants. A lady endowed with a nice pair up top is going to make a baggy tee look sexy, too. Which… Read more »
A couple thoughts on your novel: A. it’s condescending. Unless you’ve lived with 1000 ng/dl of testosterone in your bloodstream, you have NO IDEA what it’s like for men to experience our own sex drives. BUT, even thought it’s a wild, untamed stallion, most guys are still in control enough not to let things get out of control. Those that do are lacking in class and self-control. I take no responsibility for those guys. They are clowns. B. If you’re wearing something cute, I’m gonna look. I’m not gonna make it super obvious, but I’m definitely gonna check you out.… Read more »
I agree it’s wrong to jump to the conclusion that women wear something in order to get attention. The most common reasons for women to wear yoga pants are practical reasons more than the way that they look. However, the companies selling yoga pants in their catalogs do sometimes market these pants as clothing that’s flattering to women’s figures. For example, “Make your backside your best side!” Maybe the vast majority of the ads talk about comfort and convenience, but these pants are also marketed sometimes as visually flattering. People in these companies are under the impression that SOME women… Read more »
I don’t even look at women in public anymore and I haven’t given a women a compliment is years. “Hey, you look nice today” is seen as a pickup line or sexual harassment
I will just keep my head down and concentrate on making money, which seems to be the only thing as a male I am good for.
Furiouz, I think you’re missing the message here.
Have you ever been to a clothing store? Have ever walked down the women’s isle of clothes? You think we really have a choice to dress the way we do? I wear boy’s clothes because it seems in our society, “gender-neutral” clothes means we, men and women alike, need to dress manly as possible. Anything else is inferior, especially clothes that are more fitting to and on women.
Did you get the memo? Men’s clothing is practical, women’s clothing is usually decorative. Exceptions are few. Allowances even less for men (only special occasions and different subcultures). Men are the working class, women are the aristocrats, and their options to dress are set accordingly. Plain, boring stuff for men with no frills. And decorative cute or sexy stuff for women with tons of frills and possibly fragile fabrics that look better but have less durability. Since 100 years ago, the class barrier just barged into gender, and created the rugged/manual-labor ideal as something masculine and manly (while it was… Read more »
For the record, sweats aren’t necessarily more comfortable for yoga– they can hamper your range of motion in some poses, and gape and bunch in uncomfortable ways in others. I’ve practiced in both, and pants constructed for yoga are a lot more comfortable. Of course, they’re made to be attractive (which can be satisfying to the wearer, worn to impress yoga friends, or to attract sex partners), but they serve a very functional purpose that’s being overlooked here…and that feels insulting to those of us who wear what we wear so we can take our practice deeper!
Nathan gave voice to reality.
We can’t fix our shit until it’s out in the open. I’m glad it’s out in the open.
I am with you Josh. I understand what you are saying Noah and it is well written and well intentioned but the reality that women, and girls, are all running around half dressed in yoga pants is a real phenomenon that has a male response, like it or not. We might as well admit it and then work from there. Women can do whatever the hell they please. I read the article as talking about what we as men are to do when women’s choices have unwanted consequences for us as men as we try sincerely to do the right… Read more »
Exactly. It’s a crazy difficult thing, especially when conflicted between the lizard brain that just wants to sneak another look and the higher brain that knows what a problem that is.
I think we also have to admit that there are varying motivations. Just like there are women who wear the pants because of their utility in practicing yoga, there are also women who wear them for attention. It’s just true.
It’s a battle to get it right, and not deny very human parts of ourselves.
So what’s wrong with looking and admiring and then moving on with your day. Everyone does this. I do this and I don’t blame 25 year old men for wearing next to nothing on a hot Austin day because I have to see their fit hot bodies. I just feel lucky I have eyes. I don’t get what the issue is.
Dude, relax. Just look. And then, like Julie said, move on and go about your day. Don’t belittle your sexuality by assigning it to “your lizard brain.” We are all sexual beings, and we all notice people of our preferred sex whom we find attractive.
I agree with you both, Tom and Josh. Nate’s clear that men don’t get to tell women what to wear, and that our discomfort is ours to deal with: points I think we all agree with. So if women want to let us go ahead and do that, they can stop shaming us and telling us to “get over it.”
Where in all this are women, as a mass movement, telling men not to look at them in yoga pants. This is being blown out of proportion to a point that it’s ludicrous. People wear all kinds of clothes-those clothes have semiotic meaning. Yoga pants usually = working out/casual etc. If someone’s ass looks amazing in the pants, enjoy looking at it. She or he is aware that their ass looks good and is exposed to a certain extent. But to blame women for “tempting” men with their yoga butts is like…what? Should I blame all the men with beautiful… Read more »
Thank you, for putting it so well and being so articulate and thoughtful!
Half-dressed? THEY’RE PANTS. The pair I wear the most cover me from waist to ankle. Your description is dripping with judgment even as you say women can wear whatever they want. Also judgmental? Your previous assertion that women wearing yoga pants to, GASP, the movies is “alarming.” And what consequences do you speak of? That men have to find a way of dealing with seeing something they find attractive but can’t possess? How very difficult. I know it would be way easier for you if women just walked around in shapeless burlap sacks, but we’re selfish like that.
What? What are these unwanted consequences that we women are responsible for? If I go to the gym in my town, or to the lake, or to pretty much anywhere outside, I’m going to see lots LOTS of young, fit, hot men wearing no shirts, tank tops, shorts, and often yes yoga pants, and would it be fair for me to write an article about how all these hot men should really think about their actions…really consider my natural reactions and perhaps modest up a bit because their dress might have unwanted consequences in me? Or in all the other… Read more »
Exactly. Geez, you prudes & puritans, let people wear what they want, for any reason they want. And if you’re gonna wear the stuff that makes you look good, regardless of the reason, people are gonna look, and you might as well be OK with that. Or even be happy about it. As for myself, I am totally enamored of the women wearing yoga pants phenomenon, and I take time to appreciate a nice asset when it’s in my immediate vicinity, in yoga class or on the street, or in the bar (yep, lotsa ladies wear them as evening wear… Read more »
i dont have yoga pants, however i wear women’s clothing in public, so thumbs up from me man, over wearing yoga pants in public
Julie, don’t mind me, but I just fell in love with you a little bit. Thank you.
Tom Matlack – I’ve read your comment several times and I get what you’re saying that men need space to explore male responses and I think you’re saying it’s *men* who don’t want the “unwanted consequences” and I think I even agree with you (the “half-dressed” puritanism aside). But I still cringe every time I read your comment and I’m not entirely sure why except for this – several commenters have mentioned in various ways what’s taken me many years in therapy to understand: I am not responsible for any one else’s internal state and nobody else is responsible for… Read more »
While you’re trying to unpack stereotypes, Nathan heaps them on. “Men are pigs”, sniffs Nathan, as if everyone agrees with this and believes it to be true. Maybe it’s just Nathan that’s the pig and he shouldn’t transfer his affliction on to the entire gender. One sentence later he’s accusing all women of being complicit.
It’s easy to imagine that much of what women wear is for the male gaze, because that is exactly what it was designed for. The individual woman who chooses it and wears it might say she wears it for comfort or only for the gaze she specifies, but when we wear clothes in public, it’s for public consumption, and most of us dress with other people’s gazes in mind, because that’s what clothes are for, when they’re not protective. Fashion is for communicating messages about ourselves. When I wear a suit to an interview, it’s for the gazes of everyone… Read more »
Have you ever done yoga? I think the reason they are called yoga pants, is because there is literally nothing more suited for doing yoga than these. I would imagine any workout would actually be much easier and more comfortable in them. Besides that, men will stare no matter how grubby and or baggy your clothes are, so what does it matter what you wear?
I hardly think that what’s missing “in feminist circles” is an understanding of what messages people get from women’s clothing choices. If you want to talk about women’s clothing choices, let’s take the advice that women have been giving us for years and stop telling them to do things one way or another and start talking about what men (and society in general) are doing to make the choice of what to wear so fraught in the first place. If anything, the fact that women are comfortable in clothes that for many men provoke an overt sexual response even though… Read more »
Dean, if the clothes I was wearing were attracting such gazes, I would start wearing something else, because I don’t want to be stared at. The message young women get is that to be accepted they have to look sexually available. That’s not the message men get. I’m not telling women what to wear. The subject is men’s discomfort.
Okay, Justin, so by that logic, if you are being stared at for being affectionate with your hisband, that’s on you, yeah? Same principle would apply. Just don’t hold his hand if you don’t want the public reaction. And if you do hold his hand, then don’t complain when the straight people react to it.
That’s all a bit of snark, of course.
I’m taking you seriously, HeatherN. And yes, the same rules of civility apply. If I take my husband’s hand in public, I know people may see it and have their own emotional responses to it. I expect from other that they’ll behave with good manners, just as I would behave if I found myself walking behind a shapely yoga pants-clad individual. I’d look, not leer, and not be ashamed of my responses. That neither yoga pants nor two men holding hands were common on the street within many of our lifetimes means that we’re having to adjust to new social… Read more »
But see, no one’s saying that someone should be ashamed of their responses to an attractive woman (or to two men holding hands). And no one’s saying that looking is a problem. It’s the staring, leering…it’s when it stops being an involuntary reaction to stimuli and becomes a conscious choice to continue to look that there’s a problem. And it’s the obsession with that desire to stare that’s at issue. If someone wrote a whole article about how difficult it was not to leer at two men holding hands, I’m willing to bet you’d find that a bit offensive. Hell,… Read more »
I hear you, and the problem with the response to Nate’s article is that he’s not proposing that we leer, or that we should be allowed to stare until it makes someone uncomfortable. He’s saying that he’s just barely looking, glancing as these women pass him, not that he’s seeking them out to burn holes in with his eyes. I can’t talk about what’s actually going on with people who escalate it to something unacceptable and have that straw man argument with me. It’s not about an obsession or staring. It’s about the reactions to seeing these things in the… Read more »
So far as I can tell, the main negative reaction is that he’s claiming this is a game women are playing on purpose, to wear clothes to tease men and many women are saying, no that’s not what we are doing and that the issue of his arousal is his. Yes the pants are there, but they aren’t part of a burlesque act. Everyone looks and notices. As for not seeking it out, doesn’t he understand this happens to everyone in some way (and not just sexy stuff, as Heather pointed out)? I may see hot men or women that… Read more »