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Perhaps it’s because it resembles a facial merkin

zuzu

Didja know the goatee might very well be a backlash to feminism? ‘Strue! Time magazine says so!

Oh noes! Johnny Depp has been fooling us all along.

Oh, please. Goatees? They belong to men who don’t have the courage of their convictions, especially if their facial hair is going to indicate how very, very antifeminist they are (in the case of Depp, despite his rather obvious gender-bending). Let’s see a good Schnurrbart. Or the kind of waxed Rollie Fingers/Snidely Whiplash ‘stache I saw sported by a guy in Lowe’s on Sunday, or that my Uncle Bren wears from time to time.

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36 thoughts on Perhaps it’s because it resembles a facial merkin

  2. I need to tell my feminist, goatee-wearing husband that he is in fact part of the backlash. This may confuse him, since I, a feminist, persuaded him to grow it in the first place (I just like them, ‘k?).

  5. Well, you know our youngest brother sported one of those during that time. And he is the poster child for misogyny… so maybe there is a grain of truth 😉

  8. What cracks me up is that they use JOHNNY DEPP as an example. He’s not feminine, exactly, but even his pirate chracacter wasn’t macho! And has anyone seen Ed Wood? Such a weird person to use as an anti-feminist figure.

  9. Well, you know our youngest brother sported one of those during that time. And he is the poster child for misogyny… so maybe there is a grain of truth 😉

    Of course, he only grew a goatee because he couldn’t grow a full beard.

    Perhaps that’s it — men who can’t grow a full beard, who aren’t manly enough to do so, resent it and thus seek to show their contempt for women, since they do not compare favorably to the more luxuriantly hirsute. Or something.

  10. You know, I’ve been puzzling over this ad at Feministing and now here for the last couple of days, and I still have no frickin’ idea what they thought they were saying! It’s like a joke gone wrong.

  11. I recently grew my facial hair out from a goatee* to a full beard. I wonder what that means.

    * Just so we’re clear here- Johnny Depp’s “facial hair” in no way resembles anything more than a 12-year-old boy’s first crack at stubble. Call it a goatee if you must, but, really, no.

  12. Sigh. That’s exactly why I grew my goatee all those years ago, as a defiant rejection of the very feminism I publicly profess. I’m devastated that the cat is out of the bag now.

  14. This may confuse him, since I, a feminist, persuaded him to grow it in the first place (I just like them, ‘k?).

    Clearly…you are a self loathing feminist. 😉

  15. That’s just bizarre. As for Depp, in the interviews I’ve read, he comes off as fairly well-meaning and progressive politically (if not the most articulate guy on the planet). I’d be willing to bet that if you asked him, he’d probably say that “feminist backlash” stuff came out of left field. (Or right field.)

  16. walkingundine, I want to know, too! Is Johnny Depp a feminist? Antifeminist? Could he be persuaded to guest blog on the subject?

  17. I think Depp is more an iconoclast than anything else. He did say on Inside the Actor’s Studio that he would be interested in being a woman in a movie, and he described several of his male characters in female terms (my favorite was Icabod Crain as a teenage girl detective). He also mentioned that playing Ed Wood gave him new appreciation for how much women went through in terms of dress.

    He came off to me as very feminist, but I don’t know how he would self identify. Knowing Depp, he wouldn’t feel comfortable categorizing himself; he rather strongly attempts to avoid categorization.

  19. What’s with all the freaking hostility towards gotees? Has it occured to anyone that maybe people like me just can’t grow a full beard?

  20. *blinks*

    I… don’t get it. How does facial hair represent a backlash to feminism?

    Time… you disappoint me.

  21. BTW, is that actually Dizzy Gillespie? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a picture of him when he was so young.

  22. zuzu — yes, and that’s actually a soul patch, which makes playing trumpet-type instruments more comfortable. (See also Doc Severinsen.)

  23. I’m a little new at feminism, but I’ve never heard anyone comment on men’s facial hair from a feminist viewpoint. So I don’t know what “I’ll show you; I’ll grow a goatee!” would even mean. Odd.

  24. Well the facial hair article is a crock of horse hockey.
    Arm chair psychologist should shut up.

    I have a goatee because I am a 42 year old man and without the goatee I look like I am in my twenties. A full beard makes me look too old since the sides are white plus a beard makes my face itch.

    I know a lot of guys who have goatees because they think it makes them look tougher. Most of the guys I see with goatees would be better off clean shaven.

    Zuzu that is Dizzy. Search youtube for Dizzy and Louis Armstrong and you will be able to see a young Dizzy and hear a great version of “Umbrella Man”

  25. well, there is the goatee’s bastard kin, the chin shrub: as exhibited here http://www.ez-entertainment.net/carpet/matrix2/Dsc_0372a.JPG on the always charming (/snark) fred durst, and here on the guy from coal chamber http://artfiles.art.com/images/-/Coal-Chamber-Poster-C10007098.jpeg

    in my experience, the only guys who ever rock the chin shrub are nu metal devotees, and in my experience with nu metal and its devotees, yes, yes, yes, quite anti-feminist.

    in short, the backlash does not have a goatee, it has a chin shrub, and it wears massive pants and a chain wallet.

  26. Weird. Dinosaur comics do a t-shirt with ‘beards over babies’ on it (i.e. yeah, you can grow new people but we can grow beards). Maybe that would have been a better image?

    Cartoon here

  28. I’m worried about the progression from Dizzy to Steve Jobs. I can feel all the cool being sucked out of the room.

  32. well i get that he can look gender bending but since when was he anti-feminist?

    maybe he was in the other sequels to POTC. i only saw the first one.

  33. Ehh, full beards just look wrong on me. The cheeks come in too patchy, and for some reason the hair on one side of my body grows faster which leads to a bizzare curl. I do have the premature salt in pepper and the Jack Kerby Middle-Aged Man temples.

  34. any jackass excuse to re-air the “backlash to feminism” bullshit.

    honestly, i think the rise in goatees in the 90’s in undergound circles was in response to the adoration given Kurt Cobain, certainly not an anti-feminist. and then the mainstream society followed like lemmings. but thanks to Time for giving me an excuse i rarely need to reprint this great quote:

    i have a request for our fans
    if any of you, in any way
    hate women, gays, or people of a different color
    do us this one favor:
    LEAVE US THE FUCK ALONE!
    don’t come to our shows
    and don’t buy our records.
    ~Kurt Cobain (liner notes to Incesticide)

    that’s some “anti-feminism” i can get behind!

    i always have a goatee, unless i shave it for a funeral or something.

  36. HA! Eat it, feminists! The power of the goatee compels you to go back to the kitchen! MARVEL AT THE DEFIANCE!

    …

    On that note, I try to stay clean-shaven. Beards look icky on me.

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