Feminists Declare Images of Armed Women Offensive

So there’s this space scientist heading up the comet landing Rosetta/Philae mission.

And he wears a joke Hawaiian shirt that has science fiction secret agent women, laserguns in hand, wearing swimsuits, evening gowns, and a spylady catsuit, as well as hanging out with some female-form robots. It’s a riff on the more traditional hula girls. (And heck, hula dancers are women dance artists spreading indigenous culture, so there’s nothing wrong with them.) But yeah, basically women who look ready to defend their planet from the scum of the universe and have a good time doing it.

And feminists declare it offensive, and a sign that women are unwelcome. They drive the mild-mannered, friendly scientist to a press conference. A man of brain and fun is made full of tears and shame on what should have been his day of triumph.

Feminists want to erase an image of a female with power, because…reasons. Alleged feminist icon Emma Peel need not apply. She isn’t wanted by a generation of feminist whiners.

The media do not interview any of this man’s many female colleagues, because they know perfectly well that the ladies of the space agencies are a tough-minded bunch, and because they don’t want to see the ladies’ pinups of real and bishonen anime men.

I think it’s pretty clear that this is a continuation of anti-Gamergate activities, albeit under another name. I’ve been known to complain about images of scantily clad women, but this is getting ridiculous. A tastefully done joke shirt is going to make me think that my coworker or boss wants all of us (including women) to laugh, and we will. Nobody is going to feel threatened by it. If somebody in the office didn’t like it, they’d mention it or ask him to slip on a jacket… or they’d bring in the shirt with wiry, muscly bishonen guys in Speedos with long hair and sparkles and cherry blossoms floating in the air, and watch his head explode and then laugh. This is what normal people do.

They do not ask officious strangers, who are watching as guests, to be arbiters of their behavior in a stressful, full brain power environment that desperately needs leavening by humor.

They do not ask for drive-by sexual harassment in the guise of complaints. But deciding that somebody else is dressing provocatively, and then harassing them about it to the point that their job is endangered, is sexual harassment.

The job isn’t done. But a man has been destroyed. Yay! We feel safer!

UPDATE: There’s a similar shirt made out of the same fabric pattern, sold by a woman artist.  But this particular scientist’s shirt was given to him by tattoo artist Elly Prizeman, thanking him for being best man at her wedding. It’s the man’s lucky shirt. (Now cursed by Rose Eveleth’s bitchiness, I guess.) So yeah, women are making and selling and giving a shirt that’s sooooo offensive to women! We must all be gender traitors, oh no!

I’m sure you men out there are offended by Alohaland’s similar pin-up Hawaiian shirt showing a completely topless cowboy….

Of course, you realize that this means we will never get to watch this sort of live footage ever again. The space agencies have learned their lesson: hide from the public, because trolls and sexual harassers lurk out there.