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Being a woman IS NOT "about as low, ridiculous and debased as a person can get". To me this is the same as if he would wear that silly body builder costume with muscles poking out or the sumo wrestler suit.And by wearing those suits I don't think it is derogatory to body builders or sumo wrestlers. It is about the person doing it making a joke of themselves because they just look ridiculous and funny when they do not appear as themselves. Walking in heels, wearing makeup, having lots of muscles on you or just lots of body mass (not to say fat) will make you walk awkward because you are not used to it.
There is a difference when you put on a muscle suit for a day and if you build up and have muscles every day (I wish) so it is not also about mocking the way how body builders walk (btw. the walk think is the only thing that comes to my mind if I was wearing one of those what would I think is funny on me about that, maybe there are also some other aspects why that would be funny).
So no, it is not degrading to dress up as any person, it is just for a laugh, at least in my case and how I perceive that. That said, if someone is making a joke not out of themselves but out of people they are dressing up as, that is not nice and not ok.
The real question is will you stop mean people being mean by banning and/or criticizing any dressing up or you will just kill off some harmless fun, while mean people still stay mean and find other ways to "practice" their meanness?
1. Misogyny. Why? Flight attendants are women. Rich CEO's are men. A CEO that loses a bet and has to work as a flight attendant, also has to wear a skirt, stockings and lipstick. To clarify: It's a stereotype, and stereotypes can be found offensive. Imagine if he had painted his face black instead.
2. Transphobia. Why? Men dressing up as women are supposed to be silly. However, "body image distress" is real and it even drives people to suicide [1]. Violence against transgender people is very common as well. Homosexuality used to be listed as mental disorders in DSM I and II, but was removed in 1974. "Gender identity disorder" was finally removed in DSM V last year [2]. In august, a 21 year-old transgendered woman was beaten to death in New York, to just mention one of the many victims of hate crimes against these people [3].
Or maybe it's just a funny thing. Maybe he's proud to dress as a woman? I can't tell. What's interesting is that we in this community consisting mostly of straight, white men feel that we have the interpretative prerogative when it comes to these kinds of things ("'Am I being hypersensitive?' Yes, you are.").
Why is it so hard to try to understand someone when they feel offended, instead of telling them they are being hypersensitive?
Disclaimer: I'm comparing misogyny to racism and transphobia to homophobia. Apples and oranges. This is a bit offensive, too. My intention is not to say that they are the same, but to try to draw parallels between attitudes that most people find wrong, and attitudes that are generally accepted. Why is it okay to make fun of asians?
1. http://www.lauras-playground.com/transgender_suicide_report....
2. http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2012/12/03/1271431/apa-revises...
3. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/23/nyc-transgender-ass...
As in, get over it. People will find ways to take offense at anything. Most people realize where their effort is better used.
It's as if everyone here understands that they're supposed to be supportive of the LGBT community, but don't actually know anyone in it themselves and so completely misfire with their attempts at being PC
Basically, apply your statement but as a general case and it still holds, in my opinion.
I lived with someone who tried to commit suicide and suffered from deep depression. Laughter was the one thing that helped.
It's pretty clear that RB is having a laugh and inviting others to join in at his own expense and not at the expense of any of the examples you give.
We must rigorously defend humor from the humorless, less they try to make sense of complex humor as in "What does it mean?" or "I don't get it therefore I must try to sound intelligent in the wake of my ignorance."
Now that is offensive. He even provided a linked reference FFS.
Being alienated from your own physical body is not "playing dress up."
Transgender people don't put on the clothes of the other gender for fun. You're thinking of transvestites, who are (sort of) doing it for kicks. Very different thing.
The question does not appear to confuse "transgender" and "transvestite", nor does it use "playing dress up" to refer to either.
That's not what I wrote at all.^ I even provided a link for you.
I didn't state my opinion, as it's not very interesting (I really don't care about how RB dresses).
What I tried to do was to try to answer the people that asked why anyone would be offended by this ("This bet was attacked by feminists (rightly? or too sensitive?)"). I'm not offended, personally, so I tried to take a look at it from a birds-eye view to get the discussion going.
So far it's quite disappointing. I'm not sure if people are actively trying to misunderstand me or if I'm just not expressing myself very well. (Is there a name for this?) The general consensus seems to be that I'm a humorless, anti-intellectual, silly PC police that should just get over myself^^. Which I actually find quite funny. :D
Lastly, I wonder why this make people so emotional. I wanted to avoid labeling anyone as "sexist" or things like that. I don't think RB had these intentions, and he's probably a great guy...
^ This is misrepresenting what I wrote to the point where it just sounds absurd. A kind of straw man fallacy, I think. I am actually surprised to see this kind of argumentation techniques used at HN.
^^ Ad hominem, anyone? Sure, I might be any/all of these things... but it doesn't prove your point.
But here's an interesting fact about being offended: it's a choice, just like most emotional responses.
You can choose not to be offended. That doesn't mean you always should choose that path but most of the time it is the better choice.
If someone cuts you off in traffic on the way to work, you can A) be mad at the person, try to retaliate, and go to work in a bad mood or you can B) forget about it and not waste your emotional energy on a bad driver you will probably never meet.
Choosing to be or not be offended is similar.
Consider two things:
1. You're saying that someone doesn't have to be offended when that person's entire identity is being lampooned. Sure, I don't have to be offended if someone makes lazy Mexican jokes... but that doesn't mean that their behavior isn't reprehensible, not funny, and contributes to a culture of hatred and violence.
2. Considering that a culture that treats cross-dressing and transgendered people as "humorous" leads pretty quickly to making those people targets of scorn and violence leaves some of the choice out of it, don't you think? A transgendered person might "choose" not to be offended, but then a potential attacker might "choose" to think of someone as less of a person... and images and words like this contribute to that.
It sure seems like you're comparing a culture of derision and violence against transgendered people to getting cut off in traffic.
An individual's specific, isolated behaviour is distinct from an individual's general, systematic behaviour. Somebody cutting me off in traffic (because they're stressed, or late, or sad, or angry, or for whatever other reason) is massively different from somebody cutting me off in traffic because I'm transgender, E.g.
I accept that this is an awful particular example, but I'm working with the framework you've offered, and I trust it gets the point across.
It reads like a rebuttal, but has no parent comment. It makes me feel like you're speaking to a comment no one made. Derail complete.
Edit: Reading timje's edit, I think I should have chosen that comment as parent.
I really don't see what the parent can take as offensive.
Men have been dressing up as over-exaggerated caricatures of women for years (going back to Shakespeare and beyond), it's called pantomime. Women do the same and men don't get upset. Maybe it's a UK thing that doesn't translate well to other cultures.
This is being "offended" for the sake of being offended.
The fact that you feel offended is the itself the result of misogyny. If the world were misogyny-free, there would be no offense implied. It is not, but we should fake until we make it.
It's 'funny' because a man wearing makeup and a skirt is something you're supposed to find ridiculous. Meanwhile, a woman wearing masculine attire isn't funny.
I'm a trans woman. People I've never met before make it their business to come up to me in public and make dehumanizing statements. Or threaten my life. My friends have been beaten up for not satisfying gender roles. I lost one friend to suicide, and my lover was hospitalized after his attempt. All because this society is so fixated on making their lives unlivable because of their gender presentation.
This 404 page is part of the culture that feeds into this. The double standard between women dressing masculine, and men dressing feminine, speaks to a greater underlying prejudice.
The 404 page is a picture of a guy with makeup on and wearing a dress. This could be a picture of a transwoman, or a gay man in drag; would it still be feeding into a culture of transphobia? How could you tell without knowing the context of the picture?
If you know Richard Branson, you know he is a straight cisman. So him dressing in drag becomes confusing. Why could he be doing this? Is it wrong for him to dress in drag for any reason at all? Are there some acceptable reasons why a straight cisman can dress in drag? If so, what are those reasons, and who gets to decide?
You might say that people who would get offended by him would be the ones to make this decision. For example, black people get to decide that white people can't say the N word and that they can't dress in blackface, because it's offensive to them. And we all accept that.
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But why would someone dress up in blackface, or say the N word? Would it be to make fun of black people? Perhaps someone wants to appropriate a culture different than theirs, or re-enact some historical figure. Or perhaps they're just racist.
And why would a straight cisman dress up as a woman? Is it to make some point about gender inequality, or to show solidarity with transwomen, or to re-enact some popular historical figure/singer? Maybe they found it thrilling to challenge their own and others' expectations of their own gender expression? Or are they just sexist/misogynist or transphobic?
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You have experienced discrimination because people don't like who you are. It's not your gender presentation they hate, because these men (i'm betting it's all men) like females that present female. What they hate is the confusing and uncomfortable feeling of something they can't understand. It challenges their idea of what a woman is.
They are attracted to ciswomen, and everything in their head tells them they should never be attracted to males. So when a male dresses as a woman, it creates a conflict they can't resolve. So they lash out in order to resolve their internal conflict; it proves to themselves that they don't actually find a male attractive. This is of course part of the basis for transphobia/cissexism.
And so what should we do to fix this? Should we make solid lines where cisfolk can not deviate from their expected gender norms, and transfolk can not deviate from their expected norms, and force everyone to accept people in only their preferred gender presentation? Should we prevent anyone from ridiculing anyone else, or perhaps just prevent the majority from ridiculing the minority? What's fair, and what's acceptable, and who gets to decide?
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Perhaps there's a better way. Perhaps we can educate people to understand their fellow human being. Perhaps we can educate people to understand themselves. And where does this education happen? In the schools? At work? In the streets? At home?
Really, we need it all. We all need to help each other learn. We need to help people understand that how someone dresses or who they like doesn't affect anyone but them; that they're doing no harm, and should be allowed to live their lives however they want, regardless of what you think of it or them.
The gay community is really starting to get there now that gay marriage is becoming more popular. Hopefully in my generation, politicians will no longer be ashamed to be gay, and will come out and proudly support their country as gay elected representatives. And then hopefully transpeople, queer, neutrois, etc will do the same.
It's a long, difficult, uphill slog through our cultural and emotional baggage until we get there. I don't think shaming someone for dressing in drag is going to push us up that hill. But continuing to tell your story, and continuing to educate people, will inch us closer. I say we should all become more educated, and educate each other, and be compassionate and empathetic even to those that would rather hate than appreciate. Because I think the only thing that's going to create positive change is positive action.
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Thank you for being yourself, and being courageous, and getting through our shitshow of a culture. Thank you for making a small difference towards helping other people like yourself - one day - no longer be victims of this kind of abuse.
It might be hard for you to imagine, but some people are, in fact, hypersensitive. Some people make a hobby out of finding things offensive; society should generally laugh at these people and ignore them.
That being said, there are also plenty of situations where someone can be legitimately offended by something.
>1. Misogyny. Why? Flight attendants are women. Rich CEO's are men. A CEO that loses a bet and has to work as a flight attendant, also has to wear a skirt, stockings and lipstick. To clarify: It's a stereotype, and stereotypes can be found offensive. Imagine if he had painted his face black instead.
This is just plain silly. Textbook hypersensitivity. Anyone who would be offended for this reason is an idiot.
>2. Transphobia. Why? Men dressing up as women are supposed to be silly. However, "body image distress" is real and it even drives people to suicide [1]. Violence against transgender people is very common as well. Homosexuality used to be listed as mental disorders in DSM I and II, but was removed in 1974. "Gender identity disorder" was finally removed in DSM V last year [2]. In august, a 21 year-old transgendered woman was beaten to death in New York, to just mention one of the many victims of hate crimes against these people.
This one, on the other hand, makes a little more sense. That being said, people still shouldn't care when other people make fun of the things they like doing in a generalized way.
Bollocks, I know more male cabin crew than I do women cabin crew. You're the one typecasting flight attendants as being women. In fact many most of the recent flights in the UK I've flown on have an equal number of male/female cabin crew and...shock horror....cockpit crew.
This being top post on HN is truly fucking shameful. A bunch of made up offence about a CEO who painted his face when he lost a bet. Please, go get a life and a sense of humour.
>Disclaimer: I'm comparing misogyny to racism and transphobia to homophobia. Apples and oranges. This is a bit offensive, too. My intention is not to say that they are the same, but to try to draw parallels between attitudes that most people find wrong, and attitudes that are generally accepted. Why is it okay to make fun of asians?
Who is making fun of asians? Where the fuck did that come from?
Sorry my friend, you are way off the pathway with these assumptions and veiled accusations.
It's a joke. Get a fucking sense of humour.
ps: ever heard of pantomime? Women dress as men, men dress as women.
Richard demanded that they go and put pressure on the boat guy. They went. There was a storm. Richard and his wife decided to swim to safety.
Everyone else died.
Now that I think about it, in the book, Richard also forces other people to do things they don't want, and mentions breaking someone else emotionally.
The terms were such that the loser had to serve as a flight attendant on the winner's airline. The photo is of Branson fulfilling the terms of the bet.
http://news.yahoo.com/richard-branson-swaps-suit-skirt-honor...
Apparently some people are taking offense or something? I'll just leave this here: for whatever reason, the Brits (and Richard Branson is one) think dressing up as a woman is funny (in a harmless way) in and of itself and they have thought that ever since I've watched Benny Hill and Monty Python TV shows (ie, since the 1970s anyway). No big deal here.
Like you say, no big deal here.
So it was my understanding that Virgin backed away from this bet and tried to downplay it.
I'm a bit surprised by this picture cropping up on the website. Am I being hypersensitive? No-one else seems to have picked up on this aspect in the comments yet.
edit: to clarify, here's the comment threads on a jezebel, a website with a significantly more active female membership http://jezebel.com/richard-branson-serves-juice-on-the-airli...
Some examples - It's so disrespectful to their cabin crew (particularly female cabin crew, and also women in general) that they're dressing up as them for a laugh.
But being a woman is a punchline, right? Because being female is about as low, ridiculous and debased as a person can get, riiiiight? I'm glad I'm not the only one who had that reaction; I was too afraid to say anything lest I be accused of having no sense of humour
So I don't think that I'm making this up, or alone in thinking this. There's definitely a discussion to be had.
Yes, you are.
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayoralty_of_Rudy_Giuliani#Dra...
That being said, you have every right to be offended.
However, It seems a bit rich tho that you need to justify your offense by quoting some 3rd party "explanation" and then trying to sell other people on it. You're not selling your own view, in that case IMHO.
Then I come to this thread on HN and absolutely no-one had commented on the controversy (at the time of my original comment) - I figured this was down to the skewed demographics of the site. So I raised it as a point of discussion, to see what the community thought, and to try to provoke a bit of discussion of the apparently overlooked aspects of this piece.
I agree that he pulled it off with great humour, but I can't help but wince at the insensitivity of a rich straight guy losing a bet and having to dress up as a parody of his own female flight staff (who earn 1000x less than him) ...
Shall we all go through a committee to get pre-approval before taking any action to ensure that it offends no one? At what point does the lone last misogynist become our Harrison Bergeron?
All the logical prepositions you need to show that there is at least one interpretation for the events that does not involve misogyny.
Why bend over backwards to smear a man who has made so many women rich and powerful?
The fact that many men find it humiliating to dress like a woman is exactly what I find distasteful. With my apologies for escalating the rhetoric : many men find the idea of sex with another man humiliating - does this justify making fun of homosexuals?
And there's a difference between making fun of homosexuals to hurt them, and to make fun of them to be merry with them.
Thirdly, your opinion on the feelings of men in general is rather inconsequential. What do you want to do, flog every man who finds it humiliating to dress in drag?
Unfortunately that's an almost impossible discussion to have, because some people always divert the community into a pointless meta-discussion about whether it's legitimate to have the first discussion or not.
I've almost never seen HN discuss gender. I've seen it discuss discussing gender for pages and pages and pages...
Everything you do gets attacked by someone. If you ate meat for dinner; if you drove a car; if you use Microsoft Windows; if you didn't pray to Zeus, you offended someone's sensitivities. So if feminists attacked this bet, just ignore them.
Given his appearance, the bet may have been explicit in saying that they would need to to dress in drag (and not "dress as a women"). Some might argue they are different, and in that, he's not saying "it is humiliating to be a women" but rather "it is funny to contrast how I normally look with something so different."
Give me a picture that involves sex, gender, skin color, religion, country, or any other thing that can make a person feel offended, and I will find you someone more than willing to yell about it without knowing any context whatsoever.
Torn 7 minutes ago | link
Gotta love mods changing the title, and rendering most of the comments confusing
Original title was 'how not to do a 404 page'
Classic. Love their old animated sealt-belt videos, too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtyfiPIHsIg is the new one.
As JoeAcchino said: "The guy pictured in the photo is Richard Branson, aka the boss at Virgin. Just search his name on Google Images to get the humor.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Branson"
I wish that more companies were this open, personal and humorous.
And to add further ridicule, the current advice is that these kinds of popups are superfluous, and just have a cookie info page on the site.
See http://blog.silktide.com/2013/01/the-stupid-cookie-law-is-de...
I personally think the idea is a great one and it shows Sir Richard Branson has both faith in his team and is also a good sport. I believe the picture was taken as a result of this bet to Tony Fernandes where by the looser had to dress up (or down). http://www.uproxx.com/webculture/2013/05/richard-branson-dre....
Stop with the 'offensive this' and 'offensive that'. We just need more sense of humor.
A video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCqb8pGWTAg
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6716812
EDIT: For context, this was originally submitted as "How not to make a 404 page."
It's not really a service site, just a general informational site about the Virgin group. The individual services ( airline, banking, etc ) have their own standalone sites with different designs and mobile subdomains.