I posed a question at TRP, so here goes TBP.

Since there is no one TBP philosophy I'm not sure if y'all even have a problem with this. But I'm sure some of you do.

Whenever an article comes out about stuff men don't like (clothing, makeup, hairstyles that women choose) there's a huge backlash of "Who the FUCK cares what men think?" and the assumption that the article is some kind of government-mandated lawbook for women. In truth, it's just a guy's opinions about women's fashion, much the way a woman's opinions about men, say, wearing cargo shorts, would just be her opinions. See, for example, the teen boy blogger who said he liked girls who shaved their pits and legs, and got horrible backlash for expressing his personal preference. But I'm sure if a teen girl said she liked boys who shaved their face or had good hair, nobody would care.

The assumption is that these articles further the idea that women exist only to please men, but they don't: they are targeted to women who want to be more attractive to men, and they're giving her guidelines for how a large percentage of men feel. Nowhere in these articles does it say "You must never do this, even if you don't care about attracting men, because you only exist to decorate our world." A few articles (see: high waisted shortsgate) have been harsh like that, but most aren't.

I've actually read these articles before. An example was, when I was 18 and getting into college and I wanted to meet a guy but I was having trouble. So I wanted to appeal to more men so I'd have more options. I learned that the way I was doing my hair, and some of the clothing I was wearing, fell into the categories of "things men hate". Once I fixed them, I was attractive to more men. If I didn't care about men, I didn't have to look this stuff up, but I did care, so I sought it out. Nobody is forcing women to read this stuff.

So, at the end of the day, why is this even a big deal? And would you care if an article came out that was entitled "10 Male Facial Hair Trends Women Can't Stand?" Would that be unfair to men, or would that be OK? What's wrong with giving advice (that people don't even need to click on) about how to be more attractive to a larger amount of people?