MASK STIGMA, OR JUST ANOTHER THING TO COMPLAIN ABOUT

When I hear the words ‘mask stigma’ I wonder what other stigmas are equally troublesome.

Wearing a mask is pretty simple. Loop a strap behind one ear, then the other, pinch the nose wire, and you’re good to go.

Good to go, that is, until the stigma surges like a sneaker wave.

As a kid I noticed a stigma against wearing pedal pushers, the calf high trouser/shorts with a nice notch on the outside leg. They looked swell with boat shoes, as least on girls.

They were the part of my wardrobe that didn’t make it outside, but was it the clothes, skinny legs, or my ghostly tan. It was a stigma salad of fashion.

Whenever I wore pedal pushers I read comic books, which was also a stigma.

“What are you doing in the house all day? Reading? What a loser,” I heard.

The solution to my reading problem, which apparently was reading too much, turned out to be PeeWee Baseball. I was barely a baseball player, but I turned out on the day teams were chosen and uniforms handed out.

My first team was the Yankees. The dad called the team forward, gave us uniforms, and on the way out of the Bangor gym the older guys playfully slapped our arms and yelled, “Damn Yankees.”

I went home with a red arm, which never happened from reading.

Worse Than Mask Stigma

A dirty mask is a good reason for mask stigma. You see one in this shape and wonder what the heck is going on in there.

If your mask looks nasty, change it.

High School Stigma

Teen years had quite a few stigmas. Bad complexion stigma was one.

I went to a formal dance in a tux and a huge pimple grew for the occasion. My mom touched it up with makeup that smudged onto my shirt.

“Are you wearing makeup?” my date asked. “Let’s fix it better.”

The three of us were a nice couple.

2

‘Big Dumb Jock’ was a title a few guys worked for; mostly football players. It was a badge for players in a sport where the coaches encouraged us to “Stick your head in there.”

We didn’t get concussions in the early 1970’s, we ‘got our bell rung,’ and kept playing.

The biggest stigma in high school football at North Bend was leaving the field. We never had a winning season in three years of varsity, and the more athletic players didn’t want to think anyone on a bad team was better than them.

The goal was to start on offense, defense, and special teams.

If being a dumb jock wasn’t enough, the wrestling team carried a special tag: Pit Smellers. Things didn’t get better when one wrestler would ‘cow tail’ another. If that happened once, the big goal was to never let it happen again. But cow tailing an opponent was a whole different thing.

3

Shop class carried a special stigma for college bound students. Who would want to learn woodworking or car repair? Please, we had planned on being rich Liberal Arts majors and hiring the work done. But it was a missed opportunity.

Name one homeowner who doesn’t regret skipping shop classes. For an extra slam, buy a table saw and attempt to make something. I did. I made a four poster bed with tapered poles. The whole thing collapsed the first time I sat on it, so I turned it into four footstools.

Ending Mask Stigma

Like you, I’ve heard the complaints, seen the Trader Joe’s video, the coughing lady video, the picture of the lady with the sign, “My Body My Choice” on mask wearing that she could have borrowed from a pro-choice protestor.

What I don’t see is the reasoning behind why men won’t wear a mask. We grow booger catching mustaches and snack storage beards, but wearing a mask is too much?

Ladies, help your men understand why it’s important to mask up.

If they complain, you know what to do.

“Oh, it’s so inconvenient,” he says.

“More or less convenient than my period?” you say.

“But I don’t like the way I look in a mask,” he says.

“Do you remember when I was pregnant with our children? Do you think I liked the way I looked? I mean, it was beautiful, the miracle of life, blah, blah, blah, but the swelling, the puffiness, and don’t get me started on what I looked like post-delivery,” you say.

Leave questions and observations in comments at the bottom of the post and I’ll respond in a positive and refreshing way.

From McSweeney’s:

8. As soon as he seems to grasp the concept that his reluctance to wear a mask is based on stereotypical gender ideas that are destructive to society, even when there’s not a pandemic health crisis going on and that worrying what other people think about you for wearing a mask is in fact a weakness and that more than 120,000 Americans have died because not enough people are taking precautions like wearing masks that could have saved so many of themand I can’t believe anyone even has to have this conversation what the fuck is wrong with people just be a man and put on the goddamn mask… Ask him to drive the car. Laugh at his jokes. Ask him to order your food. Say something flirty. Scream when you see a spider.