Not sure why this popped into my head on the way back to my hotel this evening — San Francisco residence being generally stylishly understated dressers and all — but…

While it’s mostly women who get judged by their appearance (sometimes literally judged!) the dominant complaint leveled against men is http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Toolbag”>looking like a toolbag. (Or, less politely, like “douchebags,” as in the website Hot Chicks with Douchebags.) Or, I think, more accurately, like losers!

The cocky men’s fashion site Magnificent Bastard lists the Top 10 Ways to Look Like a Total Toolbag, with the winners including backwards ball caps, bluetooth ear pieces, gold necklaces, Crocks shoes, and reading National Review magazine in public.

All well and good, I guess. But… surely it’s not only men who have no fashion sense to lack. But you really don’t see that many women singled out for looking like toolbags, douchebags, or losers. “Bimbos,” sluts, or “loose,” yes. So last year, yes. The closest I think you’re going to get (though of course please correct me) might be accusations of having a suburban PTA meeting look (a cell phone clipped to the belt would surely complete that ensemble, no?)

But for women the closer one gets to the equivalent of the male toolbag look the more half-hearted and ineffective criticism tends to get. Half-hearted, incidentally, in the same way criticism of men who try to dress sexily (see criticism of figure skater Johnny Weir, for intance) becomes attenuated and ineffective. Possibly because, maybe, I think, both the nerdy woman and the flamboyant man look fit the “that makes them look gay/lesbian” stereotypes.

A woman who “dresses like a hooker,” or a man dressed like Spanky from “Our Gang,” aren’t dressing to fit the stereotyped expectations and/or demands of heterosexuality. And inside heterosexuality if women look desiring of men instead of merely desirable to them, say, or men look wealthy or capable but not worthy they are doing it wrong.

Thoughts?