Double Standards on Unequal Ground

I follow social media star, TheSpeechProf (check out an interview with him by Kelly Reeves for Authority Magazine here). Professor Chesko, as he is also known, was born precisely 5 days before me, according to a bio I saw online, in San Francisco, while I was born in San Diego. His work caught my attention because of other feminist material that I follow on Instagram. Once I started watching, I thought his ideas and opinions were really on the mark. I started sending his posts to my partner, who, as an AMAB, is working on undoing the mind-control of patriarchy that is pressed into young boys from their social sphere. Professor Chesko is doing the work that is asked of all male-aligned/adjacent individuals: challenging one’s patriarchal privilege and, furthermore, helping other male-aligned/adjacent individuals to do the same. Most of his content consists of response videos, and the one that got me writing today was a post from March 8th, where another content creator starts with “Am I toxic for asking this?”

Before the question is revealed, TheSpeechProf reminds you that if you have to ask, it’s probably already too late. TheSpeechProf says “you need to trust your gut instincts more,” referring to the idea that if he’s asking if something is toxic, he already knows “somewhere deep down” that it is. The question posed is: “If a woman wants a man that’s six-foot tall, and makes $100,000 we’ll say — that’s a preference, right?” To which, TheSpeechProf says, “yeah those are just preferences.” The video continues: “but if that same man decides that he will only date women of a certain type of height or weight or appearance, that is considered body shaming. Isn’t that a double standard?” TheSpeechProf rightly points out that these are “still just preference.” There are so many avenues in which to investigate this exchange. So, let’s start from the top, toxic male behavior. I agree that if you’re asking, you probably should put an extra filter before posting such an inflammatory message. I know, from watching other social media personalities, that this man is probably not looking for confirmation that his question is “toxic,” referring to toxic masculine behavior. However, I will push back a tiny bit that him even asking that without air quotes on “toxic” suggests a little hope for this guy. He might not get the intricacies of body positivity or intersectional feminism, but he has a question in his mind that challenges the indoctrination. For that, and no other reason, I encourage him to grow that tiny spark of curiosity, because it can take you places you never thought you would go.

My partner and I met in an online forum and exchanged phone numbers. The first time I heard their voice, I thought: “WHOA! That voice is a lot higher than I expected — it’s kind of a turn-off.” I didn’t take him seriously (my partner uses he/they pronouns) as a potential mate, despite being bisexual. I understand that my gauge was also off at the time; in the 14 years we’ve been together, the world, our minds, and our self-expression have changed a lot. I had mostly discounted him as a possible mate based on one, single aspect of a complex person: his voice. I only met up to drum up attention from a couple of others I was seeing at the time. I am now flabbergasted that I nearly missed out on the love of my life for something as pointless as his phone voice. When we met, I realized he was in that “target range” the guy on the video was ascribing to women everywhere: he is 6'5". While he wasn’t pulling in $100,000 a year at that time, his education as a software developer was identified, by me, as having long-term potential for greater financial stability.

When TheSpeechProf states that he was, for the majority of his life, “very broke,” he supports his argument that making $100,000/year or more is a “preference” for women. I am going to agree and disagree. Agree, because I have dated people who lived below the poverty line, and had no real potential for income greater than that. It was, in that sense, a preference. Their income did not bother me because the value added was elsewhere. I was often pressed by antiquated social standards to accept all advances as a form of flattery “because of my size,” and told that I should “take what I could get.” Let me be clear: I have never had to “take what I could get.” I have engaged in relationship-style activities with male and female models, as well as many other kinds of people. Despite having what I was often told to be a body “no one would ever want,” I attracted many people of all sizes, appearances, and incomes because I’m not unattractive, despite what men on the internet or at a gas station often say. My “preferences” tend to be pretty lax, and my attraction comes from how a person is inside. Still, I must argue that the issue of partner income for a female-aligned/adjacent person is not a preference. There is more than enough evidence that women make less than men in the same jobs, so financial security is a form of self-preservation. In a capitalist society (most are), where money determines one’s safety and happiness, being disadvantaged on the systemic level means that financial security is not a preference for the female-aligned/adjacent. The problem in assuming that it is a preference comes from the aforementioned mind control of patriarchy.

Having preferences means that the playing field for advancement is level when it certainly is not. The OP’s original statement of having these “preferences” ascribes a lot of equality to women, where none exists. Coming from a working-poor family as a neurodiverse 5'6" person well over 200 lbs for all of my adult life, do you think the playing field has ever been level for me? When two men at the Costco gas station in Mission Valley can casually comment to each other on my perceived lack of “fuckability” with my kids in the backseat, am I on equal footing? No. A double standard requires that both possible actors come from a place of equal potential. The OP asks if a man “decides that he will only date women of a certain type of height or weight or appearance” is considered a double standard when women also place importance on aspects of a man for considering a potential mate. I am casually sexualized in my everyday life, which I have to accept quietly in fear for my safety. If I were to make the same comments about a guy being “too ugly to fuck” while out in the world without my partner, I could easily be dead. Security from a larger-bodied individual with a secured income is precisely the world I hate to be in, but is the one I am in. So, that makes this not at all an even playing field. That doesn’t make it a preference at all, it makes it a matter of life and death. Not fucking a 5'9" woman with a 26" waist and D-Cups is not a matter of life or death. However, I will end with that old maxim “don’t judge a book by its cover” in saying that had I used pointless physical attributes to determine a person’s worth, I wouldn’t have spent the past 14 years as happy as I have been. Maybe what you’re thinking about isn’t body-shaming, it is trying to justify being shallow, OP. Women everywhere aren’t hurt by that, only you are. Bodies can and do change.