Reddit is circulating this comic that somehow made it past the many feminist firewalls and misandrist caution tape I have constructed around my online presence, to me. I hate it. It is bad, and maybe AI (edit: it’s NOT Ai. It’s part of a series called Sunny Street by Max Garcia, and it has been remixed and memed so much that the one that came to me had no speech in the bubbles, and no signature. But I had already written this and am lazy so enjoy my screed knowing I didn’t know the original had the bubbles filled in till paragraph five). The more I look at it the more it makes me mad and I started drafting a pages-long response to the person that sent it to me, then I realized I have a newsletter for these things so I am doing my thesis here instead of a long unreadable text to one friend.
First of all, let’s take it on its face. Assuming the empty speech bubble implies no matter what the man says, this is the reaction from the same woman. It is the same woman, right? It’s not her identical twin in the same exact cubicle? Women do be twinning. Ok, so both men are saying the same innocuous thing to the woman, and her reaction when he is trim and successful (I am not going to describe the guy as handsome, though he is meant to be, I assume) is a heart. When the second guy (who I have every right to describe as handsome because it’s America, and attraction is subjective), who we will call Sweater Vest, says the same thing, she calls HR. I suppose the corporate world is historically the most fertile ground for this type of dynamic, so this drama taking place among cubicles tracks. In corporate America, we are led to believe that guys like Suit Man are always winning. He’s fit, he’s tan, he’s well dressed and—note the body language—confident. Ok, Keep the confidence thing in mind as we examine the visual depiction of Sweater Vest. First of all, he’s not wearing a suit, but neither is she. An astute observer of sartorial choice, I am wondering who’s actually dressed appropriately for this workplace? Why are two of our players wearing sweaters and only one is in matching corporate superhero garb? Sweater Vest has a purple top over a white shirt and khaki, almost ochre pants with a coordinating belt. I’m sorry, but his drip is immaculate. Whoever illustrated this (Max Garcia. Sorry, Max.) has an affinity for color, and for some reason they chose bold colors that work extremely well together for Vest, but then no one in this universe has noses so maybe color works a little differently there.
What I’m getting at with the clothing is that Suit might be her fucking BOSS. I didn’t make the comic, some guy (This time I am not sorry, Max Garcia) did and he chose to put Suit guy in suit. This leads to two possible and very likely scenarios for the HR call: One, she wants to call HR on the first guy, but she is afraid of subtle retribution that still goes on because Me Too changed nothing. Two, she doesn’t want to call HR in the first panel because that happened before lunch, but for fucks sake, Sweater Vest is the second person to hit on her on the same day so maybe she needs to get some actual work done if she is ever going to break the glass ceiling at Corporate Business Offices. Get HR on the horn.
Now back to the body language of the two “suitors.” Suit is confident, he either has flirted with her before, is some kind of egomaniac, or a combination of the two. Either way, she knows what she is dealing with. Suit is a dime a dozen. Every bar in every finance district of every city has twenty million suit guys. Honestly, he shouldn’t be hitting on ladies at work, but he does it to everyone and it’s Friday and she doesn’t really want to take him to task just now. She’ll just continue pretending that he’s charming and he will move on, oblivious of his immeasurable cringe. Her safety isn’t threatened, though her sanity might be.
Or, there’s the other very likely possibility: Suit man is gay. That’s why he’s dressed better and that’s why she’s happy for the compliment. Thank you, Max Garcia, for illustrating this very obvious scenario of ‘don’t hit on people.’
But on to the second panel: what the fuck is Sweater Vest doing? As an experiment let’s insert text into the bubbles. Something tame but flirtatious, like “You look great today, Ronda!” (Can you believe how close I was to the actual script? I put the original below) Ok, put that in Suit’s bubble. Fine. Almost too innocuous to care! He probably said that to himself in the mirror before he left the gym. Now put it in Sweater Vest’s bubble. He’s not confident, his body language is all over the place and there’s a giant gap between his legs. He looks nervous, plus he has his big ol’ four fingered paw on her cubicle wall. This is worrisome, because his hand is very large and the cubicle seems flimsy and we hope he does not tear it from its bearings with anxiety. But also, emotional insecurity, in fact any kind of insecurity in men is more dangerous to women than confidence. Insecure men reading this: We know that does not mean all men who are insecure are dangerous. Nor are all men who are confident harmless, especially when they have podcasts. Insecurity is human and I of course want dudes to feel good about themselves just as much as I want that for non-dudes. I don’t care if you have a vagina or a penis or even a gigantic gap between your legs: self-assuredness for all! But when I can’t tell what you want from me, I am going to assume the worst, for my safety. It’s unfortunate, but until we get to gender parity on mass shootings and sexual assault (we can do this! Come on 2025!), we gotta have a policy in place.
The other day I was at the airport alone and I had to get the TSA to stand next to me until my shuttle arrived because there was a man who would not approach me and ask me for an autograph (????). He could have just been a fan, he could have been a professional autograph-getter, but because he maintained a twelve foot distance from me for so goddamn long, including following me while I walked with security to the curb, I could not determine what he wanted. He was just nervously grinning at me the whole time, muttering my name and some sort of plea which I couldn’t make out. I felt bad, I was worried I was making a scene for no reason, because that’s what all women feel when we make moves to protect ourselves. We make mistakes, and sometimes men feel bad because they were just trying to shoot their shot. But we take these precautions because we’d like to remain alive and unmolested.
Before we wrap this up, we should prolly address the most glaring logical fallacy of Max Garcias most infamous work: Sexual harassment happens when one party is not consenting to the attention. She’s interested in Suit guy’s attention (hopefully platonically since he is gay). Sweater Vest is bothering her, and he doesn’t get a pass just because he’s lumpy and has glasses. If I were in her seat, I would probably have already given Sweater Vest my number eight weeks ago because I clocked those hands immediately. And that’s the whole game. Women are not calling HR willy nilly because they are slightly annoyed. The cost of that phone call includes a fuck ton of uncomfortable meetings where you have to defend your misgivings and describe, in graphic detail, scenarios where you experienced shame and fear and helplessness. Also, it very rarely results in things getting any better. You go from that guy hitting on you to him hating you and everyone taking sides. You can be demonized in your workplace and sometimes it’s the victim that ends up getting let go. So yeah. Next time you see Max Garcia, tell him …actually do not tell him anything I don’t want him to know I know who he is. He’s probably already in my DMs from me pressing send on this article.