Let’s talk about a phenomenon so ridiculous, so deeply ingrained in male entitlement, that it defies both logic and basic human decency: men commenting on a woman’s appearance—no matter how wildly more accomplished she is than them.
Case in point: A female astronaut. An astronaut. A literal space explorer. A woman who has spent nearly a year trapped in the vacuum of space, testing the limits of human endurance, pushing the boundaries of science, and probably rethinking every decision that led her to share a planet with men like this guy. And what does some random dude on the internet have to say? Not about her resilience, not about the groundbreaking research she’s contributing to, not even about the sheer mental strength it takes to survive in a tin can orbiting the Earth. No. He’s got an opinion on her looks.
And that right there is the problem. A woman could be walking on another celestial body, and some guy whose biggest personal achievement is winning a fantasy football league would still think his opinion on her attractiveness is relevant.
This isn’t new. This is the same reason teenage girls who win Nobel Prizes get mocked for their hair. The same reason female politicians get analyzed for their outfits while their male counterparts get judged on their policies. The same reason women in tech, medicine, and law get dismissed or underestimated if they don’t fit some arbitrary beauty standard.
Men have been conditioned to believe that their assessment of a woman’s desirability is the ultimate measure of her worth—even when that woman has achieved things they couldn’t even dream of. Even when she’s literally orbiting the planet, doing things that require intelligence, discipline, and courage they’ll never possess.
And let’s be real—these guys aren’t exactly the picture of perfection themselves. The audacity of a man with a Cheeto-dusted Xbox controller in his lap and a body shaped like a sack of wet laundry thinking he is the authority on what makes a woman attractive? Make it make sense.
This is why women’s achievements are constantly undermined. Because no matter what they do—no matter how high they rise, no matter how far they push the boundaries of human capability—some guy will always think his half-baked opinion about her looks is the main event.
And that’s not just annoying. It’s pathetic.
