Shirtgate and Common Decency

Wednesday, November 19th, 2014

What should have been the best week of Dr. Matt Taylor’s professional life ended with him weeping on TV as he apologized for his alleged crime — wearing a racy shirt:

Many of my friends and colleagues on the anti-PC right have responded with understandable outrage. And it’s true: Taylor’s confession of wrongdoing did feel forced — awfully North Korean.

Still, the feminists have a point. Although I like the shirt (which is now selling like hotcakes), I would never wear it to a nice restaurant, never mind on a globally broadcast TV interview. The reason I wouldn’t wear it has very little to do with my fear of offending feminists. It’s simply unsuitable professional attire. I’d ask critics of the feminist backlash, would you wear it on a job interview? How about to church or synagogue?

Where feminists seem remarkably self-absorbed is in their assumption that only their sensibilities matter. It is hardly as if feminist-friendly career women in STEM professions (science, technology, engineering, and math) are the only people who might reasonably dislike the shirt. But here’s astrophysicist Katie Mack tweeting: “I don’t care what scientists wear. But a shirt featuring women in lingerie isn’t appropriate for a broadcast if you care about women in STEM.”

Okay, maybe. But why are feminist motives so special? What if you’re a devout Christian, Muslim, or Jew working in the humanities? What if you like cartoonishly sexy ladies, but you hate guns? What if you’re simply the kind of person who thinks male professionals should wear a jacket and tie on TV?

In short, feminists want a monopoly on when everyone must be outraged or offended. A few weeks ago, feminist idiots rolled out a video of little girls dressed as princesses, cursing like foul-mouthed comedian Andrew Dice Clay. Unlike Taylor, they set out to offend. But that was in support of feminism, so it was okay. (I’d like to see the parents of those kids tearfully apologizing for exploiting their kids as cheap propaganda props.)

[...]

For millennia, good manners were understood as the means by which strangers showed each other respect. Now, too many people demand respect but have lost the ability, or desire, to show it in return.

(Hat tip to Charles Murray.)

Comments

  1. Marc Pisco says:

    Yeah, I noticed these loons are now claiming it’s not about feminism after all. They want to lynch the guy because they’re afraid his employer might be unhappy, but afraid to mention it to him.

    Bullshit.

  2. Space Nookie says:

    Yeah, I caught the end of a Nova special on this mission the other night, and there were a lot of shots with this guy in focus and in background, and he was always appropriately dressed with his tats covered. It just adds credence in my mind to the theory that he was encouraged to dress quirky to try and recreate the mohawk guy phenomenon from the mars lander mission.

    Looking at the Goldberg article, I would classify it as passive-aggressive bs about how Goldberg doesn’t like the shirt either, but nobody pays attention to him.

  3. Toddy Cat says:

    “Looking at the Goldberg article, I would classify it as passive-aggressive bs”

    I quit reading NR several years ago because of crap like this. Anyone with any talent, or who is interesting in the least has been run off — Steyn, Derbyshire, Weissberg. Victor Davis Hanson will be next — just watch.

  4. Isegoria says:

    I watched that same Nova, which was recorded before the recent brouhaha, and I immediately noticed that Dr. Matt Taylor was dressed professionally, with tattoos just peaking out of his shirt sleeves.

    I’d forgotten all about Mohawk Guy. I’d simply assumed that Taylor was trying to be edgy and cool and unlike the classic NASA engineer, but he was still a straight, white, male geek.

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