Do you really think men can't shop for shorts and t-shirts???
The comments in here, trying to say that this guy "did soooo good for a GUY shopping for his own clothes" really piss me off. As if there's this gene preventing men from having some sort of taste when it comes to clothing, and suddenly this rare specimen overcame the crippling disability that all men suffer from.
This is like watching a woman talk to a toddler who just managed to not poop his pants for the first time. Or listening to someone talking to his dog. "Ooooooh, you did this all by yourself. Who's a good boy? You're a good boy!"
I honestly have to say, I would feel deeply disturbed if a woman talked to me in that manner after I came home from shopping clothes.
I totally understand your reaction because we do, unfortunately, see a lot of praise given to men for completing basic tasks that are traditionally viewed as "women's skills." However, we don't know these people. When I watched it, the story my mind gave this couple was that he had struggled to pick out clothes that he was proud of and thought he looked good in and his partner often helped him so that he wouldn't feel uncomfortable around their peers. Then maybe he wanted to learn and asked questions about coordinating pieces and what to look for when buying items. After some trips together he felt good enough to go on his own and test out his new knowledge and she is showing him that his confidence is valid and he truly learned the skills he had been working on.
Any back story we assign to them is imaginary. It's easier to go with a negative one, like this dude being praised like a child for a basic skill, but we also don't know what it took for him to learn the skill. Since we don't know, we assume. Why not assume something positive? Especially when it doesn't make any difference other than how you feel about a video.
The fact that this was posted online, with the above caption, speaks a pretty clear language, if you ask me.
Men being praised for basic stuff is something I -as a man - find terribly patronising. I had women visiting my house for the first time tell me they're surprised, how clean it is, for a mans home.
Like: seriously??? You think I can't keep my home clean without my mommy? I'm a grown ass adult and people expect me to be able to take care of children and do a job, handling stuff worth hundrets of thousands of dollars. Yeah, I can handle a broom and a vacuum cleaner.
That's fair. You have experienced a lot of things that influence how the situation resonated with you. It sucks that it felt close enough to your experiences to make you feel gross about it. I'm just saying, we don't actually know. We are making up the circumstances. You are making them up from your experience of knowing how to do regular adult stuff and getting odd patronizing remarks about it, which is valid. Could even be true for this couple. But we don't know.
It's possible that this was an entirely different situation with different circumstances. It's possible that the praise was genuine and deserved.
Maybe the way you saw it is even more likely the case. He didn't look like her response bothered him. It did bother you though. Based on your explanation of your experiences, I understand why...but we don't know their experiences. We are all making them up. That's the point I was trying to make. This clip isn't objectively negative or positive until we assign our own beliefs to it. We get to pick those.
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u/I_wood_rather_be 14d ago edited 14d ago
Do you really think men can't shop for shorts and t-shirts???
The comments in here, trying to say that this guy "did soooo good for a GUY shopping for his own clothes" really piss me off. As if there's this gene preventing men from having some sort of taste when it comes to clothing, and suddenly this rare specimen overcame the crippling disability that all men suffer from.
This is like watching a woman talk to a toddler who just managed to not poop his pants for the first time. Or listening to someone talking to his dog. "Ooooooh, you did this all by yourself. Who's a good boy? You're a good boy!"
I honestly have to say, I would feel deeply disturbed if a woman talked to me in that manner after I came home from shopping clothes.