Why are so many men trolling beauty sites?

Note to mansplainers: Women should be able to write about politics and shoes

Anna Wintour
(Image credit: (Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images for IMG))

Guardian beauty writer Sali Hughes recently addressed a type of harassment she gets from certain male readers, the sort who show up to tell her they like "'the natural look.'" Hughes got at the essential: "The personal preferences of men I don't know, who lack even basic manners in their dealings with others, are of absolutely no consequence to me and my face." She rightly attributes "the aggression directed at women who love beauty" — as in, beauty products or articles — to "misogyny," pointing out that men who love wine or rugby are not similarly condemned.

Thanks to the magic of internet-commenting, discussions about luminizers, or the merits of the Peter Pan collar, are now open to all. Rather than occupying whatever the online equivalent is of the proverbial boyfriends' chair at the mall, men gravitate to these conversations. These are not men looking to find out how to apply eyeliner, after however many years living with a repressed desire to do so. No, they're just garden-variety straight guys (or women — or mountain goats — presenting themselves as such online) who think fashion's silly, and are, as they say, just saying.

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Phoebe Maltz Bovy is a writer living in Princeton, New Jersey. Her writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The New Inquiry, and The University of Chicago Magazine, among others. She has a doctorate in French and French Studies from New York University.