Why Can't a Man Ever Tell a Woman the 'Truth' About How She Looks?
LatestIn TV, magazine and etiquette lore, a man who dares to comment on a woman’s appearance in a negative or critical manner is on dangerous ground. “Honey, does this spandex see-thru jegging/tube dress make me look fat?” is trotted out in some sitcom or another by a validation-seeking female, then we cut to the awkward pause, the laugh track, the struggle in vain for the dude to find a way to answer truthfully, but tactfully, what we, the audience know to be too “cruel” for him to so much as imply. Wah-wah.
Because what? Because a woman has no idea if she’s gained weight? Because women haven’t spent nearly their entire lives considering their body from every angle? Because to be told the truth about how you look as a woman, if the answer is not “perfect,” would be devastating? Because women don’t really want to know the truth? Because this is one arena where men are persona non grata? Based on all the advice I could find, the answer to all of those questions is yes: Women are vain but insecure creatures who can’t handle the truth about how they look, so men have to lie to them. Does anyone else find this infantilizing?
In a Slate column for men called “The Gentleman Scholar,” Troy Patterson takes on a question from a reader who trudges petulantly down this very path.
Dear Scholar,
How do you tell your wife that her new short haircut that she so loves makes her look like a fat little boy?
Signed, ChosenSpeed
Taking the safest possible route here, Patterson frames the solution as a matter of good-mannered civility:
Under the influence of sodium pentothal.
Thanks for checking in before attempting this, but I’ve got to wonder about the nom de plume: Exactly how is the speed that you’ve chosen?
A gentleman does not offer a lady any unsolicited negative critique of any aspect of her physical presentation. A gentleman is allowed exceptions to this rule in precisely three instances.
1. You are making yourself helpful by drawing her attention to a clear problem easily fixed (such as when pointing out an undone button on your wife’s blouse or a glob of pigeon poo on a stranger’s shoulder).
2. You two share a professional relationship predicated upon her physical presentation. (Think of hairdressers and clients, models and modeling agents, dancers playing delicate White Swans and leering French ballet directors.)
3. You are trying to start a fight or something.
Maybe the ‘do will grow on you, but definitely it will grow. And if, 18 months from now, it flows lustrously down her back, run your fingers often through its tresses and compliment its length at every opportunity.
I really enjoy Patterson’s column and find it to be witty and engaging. I would not advise the man to drop the truth bomb the way he phrased it here on his unsuspecting wife, because that would be mean and insulting. But unsolicited or otherwise, the idea that telling a woman you’re married to what you think about her hair will start a fight seems to me to perpetuate the notion that women are so fragile that it just isn’t done, all under the guise of polite society approved tact. The only correct answer here he gives is to lavishly praise her hair when she grows it out, in the hopes she’ll get the hint and leave it that way. Isn’t there a middle ground? A more tactful, honest way to foster real communication here, or to even laugh it off?