entertain

Standing on the corner, waiting for the bus, I ducked my head under the little shade cover to check when the 71 was coming. I glimpsed an ad—a full rectangle filled up with shirtless man. But not the fun kind. His body is made of words that call, however “humorously” for a return to Manhood. The hipster and metrosexual guys are leaving women vulnerable! Chivalry is dead, children and old ladies get hit by cars! Um, ok.

Why is this written on the side of a bus shelter and not on some sexually frustrated conservative’s blog? Well, apparently, it’s actually an advertisement. For khakis. Yep, Dockers, makers of those nice reliable pants everyone’s dad has, now specializes in reactionary sexism.

I’m not entirely sure how this will effect the male population. Maybe some will believe that a nice conservative pair of khakis will put men “in charge” again? Right. Since we live in a world where women still make around 3/4 of what men do, and it’s rare to spot women at the head of Fortune 500 companies or even countries (cough, US).  Good call, Dockers, women have clearly usurped men’s rightful place.

Or is it the girly-men they oppose? Men who drink Starbucks, wear scarves and skinny jeans, and wash their hair? They haven’t become unmale, even if you’re going to be homophobic and claim that being a gay man makes you unmanly (ahem:untrue), there are still many guys that behave this way. The new generation of men wear skinny jeans, and whoever is thinking up the Docker campaign (probably in a futile attempt to get with the youth) needs to calm down and get their khakis out of a twist.

And if they’re reaching out towards youth, why aren’t they targeting girls? Dockers makes pants for women; somehow they expect to use old men’s clubs’ jokes from the ’50s to appeal to us? If Dockers wants to survive, and reach our generation, they’re going to need  a different approach. It’s true, boys today are not quite so macho, and girls have to fend for themselves. But where’s the problem?  The world’s problems are not going to be solved by patronizing half the population.

Guess where I’m not going to get debate clothes.