Blog by Sumana Harihareswara, Changeset founder

02 Aug 2005, 16:05 p.m.

Feminism

Hi, reader. I wrote this in 2005 and it's now more than five years old. So it may be very out of date; the world, and I, have changed a lot since I wrote it! I'm keeping this up for historical archive purposes, but the me of today may 100% disagree with what I said then. I rarely edit posts after publishing them, but if I do, I usually leave a note in italics to mark the edit and the reason. If this post is particularly offensive or breaches someone's privacy, please contact me.

Heather Havrilesky wrote a light trend piece on guys who care about their appearance that I mildly enjoyed until she started using the second person and the plural first person to castigate these men. I don't know who "we" is here. Heather and her friends? Salon writers?

Havrilesky implies that it's okay for gay and bi men and heterosexual women to pay attention to their appearance, but heterosexual men shouldn't try too hard because that would unnerve her. Even I'm not that prescriptive.