There's an article going around that people are dunking on, talking about Bernie at the inauguration, and I think folks are missing something.

You ever have a male professor who had a doctorate, but told you not to call him doctor? Maybe even went by his first name?

He may legitimately think, for instance, that credentialism isn't great, or that he's just being approachable.

That said... he's still taken seriously, by the staff and students. Nobody takes his identity as cause to question his competence.

Meanwhile, folks who /aren't/ men (in academia, as elsewhere) have barriers to that. They're spoken over, disrespected, by students and coworkers alike, at a much higher rate.

We know this from... fuck, literally every study I've seen on gender and the classroom.

(Caveat - only talking about the US here, with which I have direct experience)

You wind up seeing non-male professors work harder to get the same level of respect. You see stacked credentials, often.

And an insistence on using their earned titles, as a bulwark against the casual sexism that factors in.

Because they have to, to maintain that respect.

Whatever the reasoning the male teacher has, however valid it is, the reason that he has the option of dropping titles and still receiving the respect he's due is tied to gender.

Bernie went to the Inauguration in an expensive but functional coat. It's probably his only good coat for a DC January, I get that. He wore a pair of handmade mittens. I love them.

He, like me, is the kind of guy who's more concerned with function than style. Cool.

He's allowed to be frumpy. Hell, he's allowed to build a brand out of it. Allowed to use his wild hair as a logo.

It makes him approachable.

I don't think many of his colleagues who aren't men have those options.

The problem is not that Bernie wore a casual outfit to a formal event.

The problem is that Bernie was able to do so, while many other people could not.

Pointing that out is not an attack on Bernie.

Think about, however, how often you see AOC or Ayanna Pressley in anything other than a composed look. Or Hillary, or Pelosi, or... fuck, Loeffler.

Even when she tried to dress down to blend in with the locals, it was calculated and trying to be chic. Hair and makeup. Fitted.

When they do, too, they get attacked for that as well - it's a meme all on its own how furious the Right is about how Hot they find AOC.

Because women & folks who are read femme are as a rule under constant scrutiny about their appearance, in a way that men can just opt out of.

It's so common in cis/het relationships that it's the basis of the sitcom.

Shlubby guy. Unreasonably attractive wife.

Hell, it happens to me. My entire hair routine is shaving bald and trimming my beard, every other day, if I can remember.

I love overlarge hoodies, and jeans.

Me "making an effort" just means picking out slightly better clothes, which in extreme circumstances I might have ironed.

I tend to avoid circumstances that require it. Again, frumpy.

It's far less work than most non-dudes I know have to put in just to be taken seriously.

It's all a part of the same thing.

It's a cumulative problem too, the further you get from "straight white ablebodied cis dude." As someone else pointed out, Warnock needed to make sure he controlled his image /constantly/.

A woman seeing Bernie dressed down for an inauguration and having feelings about that, about how she (and anyone like her) wouldn't have been able to act the same way?

That's not a take worth dunking on. It feels super shitty to watch people do it.

That's all. /end

... you know what, that's not all. Here's another important point:

I'm responding to an article I just saw, but I otherwise haven't talked about this, because I haven't thought about it.

Folks have been attacked for saying the kinds of things I'm saying.

I probably won't be.

It's similarly part of the problem that I can just lay this out, and expect a baseline level of civility from folks. That I'm safe in saying all of this.

Because I'm pretty close to that standard Dude. Close enough that I don't catch much shit just for saying true things.

It's likewise part of the same soft sexism that I could say all of this safely, that I could wait as long as I did to consider or talk about it, and that it won't affect me much to have done so.

Just... seemed worth recognizing, too.

/actual end.

From @punkrockscience:

"[Some friends were] teasing me for dressing up for a meeting -heels, tailored suit, makeup, whole nine. I said “clothes are armor - would you fight the big boss with less than your best build?”

If your character is overleveled, you can. Everyone else..."

Also super valid. Even if everything I'm saying is true, if it's used as a cudgel against Bernie but not another candidate who's more attractive to power, then it's not great for its own reasons.

I'm comfortable with both things being true. https://twitter.com/safespaceghost/status/1356283901531066377?s=20

Update: Nope, not his only coat, not his nicest coat, definitely a choice he made. https://twitter.com/NomeDaBarbarian/status/1356309622580105216?s=20

There are folks who are making a comparison between Sanders and Yellen - I don't think that it's necessarily a fair one, especially given their public profile.

That said, someone pointed out Warren's look to me, and I think that's a far fairer critique of what I'm saying:

I'd argue they've got similar profiles, publicly, and have similarly done events in much more formal coats.

To compare, though, Warren's look at this inauguration, and a previous senatorial event.

The fact that Bernie gets centered in the conversation for this, and Warren doesn't, does speak (I think) to the way that Bernie's perceived as being much more hostile to power.

I don't know that that's a fair response to people responding to his look, though, but rather a /

criticsim of his coverage.

It's more nuance than I think this site is conducive to.

Whatever the motivations of the folks centering him and sidelining Warren in coverage (which, fuck, that's its own ball of wax), the folks' experiences I'm talking about here are real.

So responding to people who are noticing a reflection of their lived experiences, with the anger you have reserved for a media environment that you feel has treated him unfairly -

I dunno. It still feels super shitty to me.