384

Broasis
Posted on July 13, 2017 by David M Willis

384 thoughts on “Broasis”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    YES, because she’s totally Matt Smith

    (also because reducing people to numbers AND CALLING THEM THAT is always respectful and not totally a terrible thing to do)

    1. Speedball

      Yeah, Joe totally still hasn’t learned his lesson. He’s in for some hard knocks.

      1. Durandal_1707

        Well, the Matt Smith Doctor is probably the one that’s least likely to trap him inside an exploding star just for the hell of it, so there’s that.

        1. Stephen Bierce

          Klein Bottle For Rent, Inquire Within

        2. Bickendan

          How much? I’m interested.
          (Is it bigger on the inside?)

        3. ima

          It’s bigger on the OUTside

        4. Scoutinthenight

          Klien Bottles only have one side. You’re looking for the tesseract down the street if you want bigger on the inside.

        5. thejeff

          I’m actually inside a Klein bottle right now.

        6. Schol-R-LEA

          You should publish that result. I’m sure breakthrough in Cosmological Topology like that would get a Nobel. Or at least an Ig Nobel.

    2. Andorxor

      Since she is probable the one who hacked his data and spread it,i say she deserves to be called eleven.

      1. Ana Chronistic

        I… can’t see a motive for her to do that??

        I mean WOW YOU ASKED FOR IT if she did tho

      2. takashid

        even if she WAS the one who hacked his shitty list, she does not deserve to be reduced to a damn number instead of her name. joe’s shitty ways really need to stop.

  2. miados

    careful can be a good way to speak at times

  3. AnvilPro

    I can’t help but respect Joe for just owning up to his shame and just call her by her number. Totally a douche move, but something about his honesty makes me love him

    1. miados

      I spent a lot of time in this hole you think I’m just going to abandon it right away. I’ll take my time trying to fill it in thank you.

      1. Proxiehunter

        If he keeps digging down he’ll come out of the top of the hole eventually right? Isn’t that how holes work?

        1. chris2315

          If he keeps digging straight down he’ll eventually fall through the ceiling of a giant cave and into a lake of burning hot lava. I’ve never tested it in real life, but I’m pretty sure that’s how it works.

        2. Halpful

          and that’s why you always carry a few buckets of water. 🙂 (I’ve been playing with the Bottomless Water Bucket today. is fun.)

        3. thejeff

          That’s only if you don’t mad from lack of alcohol first.

        4. 3oranges

          If you go straight down from Indiana, and somehow make it all the way through, you will come out in the Indian Ocean. Presumably you can find a dolphin to fight there, and so win love.

        5. fogel

          Indian Ocean rather close to Perth Australia, which is halfway around the world from Indiana!

        6. A Scientist

          “No, no, dig *up*, Stupid!”

        7. EvilMidnightLurker

          “Never dig up. Up is Hell.”

    2. Durandal_1707

      Is this sort of like Trump Jr. being “transparent” because he’s dumb enough to post his incriminating emails on Twitter?

      1. 3oranges

        A paradox: the administration has been awful for transparency, and yet in another sense, everyone in it has been completely transparent.

    3. Queen Anthai

      “Totally a douche move, but something about his honesty makes me love him”

      D’you want Trumps? Because this is how you get Trumps.

      1. Sunny

        Are you implying Trump is honest?

        1. thejeff

          No, but lots of people thought so. “At least he says what he means.”

          Usually, near as I could tell, because he said what they were thinking, but thought they’d get in trouble for not being “politically correct” if they came out and said it.

      2. Valerie

        It would be if the man had ever been honest about anything in his life.

    4. Emily

      There’s nothing respectable about being honest about being a piece of shit. Keep it to yourself and practice basic courtesy.

      1. thejeff

        Nah, if you’re a piece of shit, be open about it. At least it gives us warning.

        Better yet, stop being a piece of shit.

    5. neeks

      On the one hand it’s not like he knows her name. On the other hand, it’s not like he ASKED HER what her name was.

    6. thejeff

      Except he’s not “owning up to his shame”, he’s just going right back to standard behavior. This is exactly what he would have done before the list went public. He’d already told her she was an 11 when he hit on her earlier.

  4. Doctor_Who

    At first I didn’t realize she was rolling her eyes, I thought she was so mad her pupils disappeared as she was engulfed in demonic rage.

    1. Rocketboy1313

      I thought the same thing.

      1. MM

        Ditto. More specifically, a white screen of death (for Joe).

    2. zoelogical

      it can be both!

    3. StClair

      Ditto. “Wait, where are her… oh THERE they are!”

      alt: My irises are up here ^

    4. Tacos

      Maybe she’s getting ready to charge her DEATH BEAM EYES.

    5. calvsie

      I spent a few minutes thinking she could see Joe’s speech bubble.

      1. Dragon_Nataku

        That’s what I thought she was staring at too

  5. Cheesy1

    Is she powering up her white eye lasers in that last panel?

    1. DaveM

      Today I found out that Rachel is a Goa’uld. That’s one crossover I didn’t expect coming.

      1. Paige

        I live for this reference.

        1. PumpkinWhat

          Like Paige, I too live for this reference.

  6. Emperor Norton II

    One step forward, two steps back, and a whole bunch of steps down.

    1. Rambling Idiot

      Two steps back… then a quick tumble down the stairs as Joe loses his footing.

      1. Kernanator

        He was tripped! It’s totally not his fault, guys!

    2. Puckish Rogue

      Yup that’s what it is but on the other hand if he (and everyone else) sorted his shit out quickly it wouldn’t as interesting comic as it is now

      Theres something endearing about watching Joe now, like we can see hes trying to improve himself and it’ll take a while to iron out the kinks (panels 4 & 5) but we know theres no real malice in his actions

      Like panel 5 could be considered negging but in Joes case its more being blindly oblivious

    3. Savail

      I can’t hear that phrase anymore without hearing

      “Forward and back and then forward and back, and they go forward and back then one foot forward.”

      I haven’t even .

      1. Savail

        Derp failed that one.

        Should’ve been:

        I haven’t even DONE that raid yet.

    4. Falcon

      Such assessments I feel betray how heavily we’re judging Joe based on our day to day perceptions rather than his actual state. Joe is no better or worse now than he was 3 strips ago. The fact that somebody says something one finds offensive doesn’t make them a worse person than when they said something good 5 minutes ago. Lasting change is slow and organic.

  7. BBCC

    *sigh* I’ll get Joe’s spray bottle.

    1. Puckish Rogue

      Yup so much more effective long term than a smack with a rolled up newspaper

    2. Emperor Norton II

      What is that bottle filled up with anyway?

      1. Halpful

        Axe.

        1. Emperor Norton II

          …

          You really want Joe to suffer, don’t you?

      2. BBCC

        Water. When the DoA characters who haven’t hit Mary level awful are being jerks, they get sprayed. Kinda like a misbehaving cat.

        1. MM

          What does Mary get? Holy water?

        2. BBCC

          It’s too late for those who’ve hit Mary level awful*. You just gotta burn them and start over.

          * = I’m being facetious here, obviously. Anybody can change at any point. What matters is whether or not they DO. And obviously immolating people is bad.

        3. Time Sage

          So you want me to grab her arm and give her Indian burns? She deserves them but that would require touching her. How about I grab some carpet and give her a rug burn on her face instead.

        4. BBCC

          Pick your poison.

        5. John

          I missed “level awful” on the first pass and was all, “So what does Billie get?”

        6. BBCC

          A basket of croissants in a variety of flavours and a ‘job well done’ card?

        7. Emperor Norton II

          I realise it did not come across well, but I did understand the general concept of the spray bottle; it was more about seeing what things you’d fill it with other than water.

          But you probably can’t find anything much worse than Halpful’s suggestion.

        8. BBCC

          Nah, to fill it with axe, I would have to have the smell of axe near me and I refuse.

          Maybe lemon water or something. dd some sting.

  8. GoldStarz

    The fact that Rachel’s major has changed from Engineering to Comp. Sci in the Dumbiverse further convinces me that she’s the one who hacked Joe.

    1. Doctor_Who

      Nah, Roz is the only one we know had access to his ports.

      Wait, you mean hacked his list. I see.

    2. Needfuldoer

      It sounds like his list was hosted on a public website, only protected by a simple password that he was handing out unsolicited. At some point it was leaked or posted somewhere, and became public knowledge.

      1. Egg

        Actual invite-only stuff with legal NDAs gets leaked all the time, after all.

  9. butts

    i mean, as i recall, their first interactions in IW! weren’t all that different

  10. Mr. Random

    Joe could be a paralegal.

  11. Shiro

    DON’T RATE WOMEN JOE

    ESPECIALLY DON’T ADDRESS WOMEN BY THE RATING YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE GIVEN THEM JOE

    Jesus tapdancing christ, Joe

    1. zoelogical

      he has learned: nothing!

      1. Cerberus

        He’s learned other men are people (so long as they are his long-term best friend who does stuff for him without asking for much in return).

        Perhaps in a decade he’ll learn those strange organisms he wishes to fornicate with are also people.

        1. zoelogical

          well, i guess, as long as he learned One Thing

          …i’m looking at this, and i’m cackling, because i can only picture These Strange Organisms as a Form of Mold. or possibly yeast, which is kind of hilarious

        2. Reltzik

          He has learned that women can be comp sci majors!

          …..

          …. now how long will he actually remember that before his prejudices reassert themselves?

        3. Woobie

          He has learned that gorgeous women can be CS majors. He already knew about the others.

    2. RacingTurtle

      Jesus ukulele-playing christ, Joe

      (…I have no idea where I’m going with that.)

      1. Delicious Taffy

        Jesus Parallel-Parking Christ, Joe.

        1. N0083rp00F

          Huh? I always thought it was….

          Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick.

  12. C.T Phipps

    Rachel is a good candidate for releasing the list now.

    1. fillerusername

      She always was.

      1. C.T Phipps

        Not really. Joe and she had talked like, what, once in their entire lives and he mentioned the list? He didn’t give her the password to the list so she had to hack it.

        I was of the mind it was someone much closer to Joe than “random stranger he called a number” like Roz or Jacob.

        1. fillerusername

          I think you’re failing to take into consideration what we learned about the type of person Rachel is very shortly after that interaction with Joe. She is the type to lash out at people she sees as victimizers. Joe objectified her and as we learned from Danny the feed is not hard to hack. Before that we found out Joe hardly keeps the password secret and no one else has any motive. Why do you assume it could only be someone close to Joe? We already have seen that the people closest to him have been enabling this bad behavior for quite some time. Roz or Jacob were not shown to care about the rankings at all and have probably known about the feed for as long as they’ve known Joe. The information only got put out there immediately after he met Rachel and she has no reason to want to protect him and every reason to want to take him down a peg. It might not seem like the interaction was that big of a deal for you but from Rachel’s perspective she made the “mistake” of leaving her room for a paceful walk and got fucking sexually harassed for her trouble. She also had the floor meeting ahead of her and was clearly dealing with a lot of anger in regards to that. So the Joe thing happens. Maybe he lets the feed slip (likely) or maybe she just vents to someone near by who knows about it. Then she decides to expose Joe. She’s always been the most obvious first suspect to me.

        2. fillerusername

          Oh actually Roz was shown to care but not only enough to be mildly annoyed about it.

        3. fillerusername

          *peaceful walk (Why is there always a typo every time I post on here?)

        4. thejeff

          I can see Rachel, but she would have had to actually hack the password (or find someone else to get it from). Possible, especially since she was just set up in that confrontation the day before.

          I still lean towards Raidah. It wasn’t that far back she learned about the list and was disgusted by it and she was explicitly sent the password despite that.

        5. Prior Semblance

          With bad security you don’t have to hack the password you can just bypass it entirely. I’d guess his list is either some basic php website danny coded by himself or an extremely outdated version of something like wordpress that danny installed on a server. In either case, there would likely be a very easy way to hack into the server and do whatever you want. I know the websites I made in highschool were full of potential sql injection attacks.

        6. Temperaryobsessor

          It could be anyone. I don’t see why it has to be anyone we know or with a clear motive except for story telling perspective. He could have slept with Mr. X’s girlfriend and then handed out the password to Mr. X unsolicited. It could be no-one specific and by that I mean whatever he thinks someone did to him is what he did to himself.

  13. JessWitt

    See if she were actually an Eleven, she’d use her telekinetic powers and that would be the end of Joe.

    1. Reltzik

      Wow, he must have really tked her off.

  14. Danni

    rachel looks so annoyed her pupils rolled back into her head.

    1. JessWitt

      The Liz Lemon eyeroll.

    2. Roborat

      Her eye roll was so extreme I expected the pupils to come back around from the bottom.

  15. Passchendaele

    *gives Rachel pruning shears* that eyeroll isn’t going to do. :p

    1. Delicious Taffy

      Gardening is quite calming. I think she’s heading to a class, though, so it’s not really a good time for it.

    2. Remmington Steele

      Her boots could do a lot of damage if required.

  16. Loki

    As a (male) CS major, fudge you, Joe. People like you are part of why we have like 15% female students.

    1. Amazi-Stool

      Does not compute!

      As far as we know, Joe is not even enrolled in CS.
      “My curse now is to walk among them.” – he hasn’t done so far.

      Whenever we see him in classroom, it’s Leslie’s course.

      So why is Indiana’s most enthusiastic and faithful gender studies student the reason for so few women in CS?

      1. Delicious Taffy

        “People likeyou”, is not the same as “You”. The difference is that the first refers to similar individuals, while the second refers specifically to the person being addressed. Also, participating in a certain class does not automatically make one an expert in that field, or we’d only ever have one class for anything, and anybody could be an omnidisciplinary genius within a few days. Joe may be in a gender studies class, but he’s still a sexist asshole, and sexist assholes are the ones driving women away from computer science.

  17. C.T Phipps

    Joe is being a complete bingo but Rachel seems to be lashing out pretty harsh at people who offend her. Not even just anger but pure undiluted fury at first Ruth (who it seems she hasn’t interacted much with) and now Joe.

    Doubly so given threatening physical violence after three sentences exchanged with someone in their life.

    1. fillerusername

      I would not be surprised if we find out Rachel’s been through a lot of bullshit in her life. She seems very world weary.

      1. C.T Phipps

        Mind you, I’d be perpetually pissed off if someone told me “Why do science, you’re so pretty” 30 million times. I’m getting the impression her story is anti-intellectualism and probably a bad father or mother.

        1. Emperor Norton II

          “I’m getting the impression her story is anti-intellectualism”

          Or, you know, being female and majoring in computers and information.

        2. C.T Phipps

          “Or, you know, being female and majoring in computers and information.”

          I like to believe some parents like Carla’s can actually support this.

        3. MM

          I don’t think support from parents is the issue here. More like support from peers.

        4. C.T Phipps

          I don’t think Rachel would give the THERE IS NO REDEMPTION speech about lack of respect from her peers. This isn’t just about Joe but also Ruth.

        5. Dragonfire

          It doesn’t matter too much if your parents support it, but a large portion of the population of your peers and professors, even if they mean well, still keep making comments that make it clear that you’re an outsider.

          It’s never just one person. It’s a death by a thousand paper cuts, each airplane thrown at you by a different person.

        6. Jaime

          Yeah, this. (See my wall o’text below.) I really dislike labelling women (or any member of a marginalized group, for that matter) as hostile when they react aggressively and/or defensively in the face of repeated systematic harrassment.

        7. C.T Phipps

          To clarify in case this wasn’t clear but I am actually thinking Rachel’s plot is that she’s had to suffer through a large amount of anti-intellectualism and that will be her personal storyline. I suspect her parents will be among her critics but that it’s been one long uphill struggle.

        8. Gigafreak

          Come to think of it, wasn’t her other-universe self an engineer… who ended up working at a grocery store instead of in any kind of engineering field at first?

          The idea that this Rachel might be facing institutionalized resistance to her intellectual aspirations could fit within the same kind of narrative. She might’ve already seen some stuff…

        9. Cerberus

          Yup, microaggressions. Divorced from their context, seen only once it looks like a person being hypersensitive and blowing up for no reason.

          But in context, it’s not that one interaction, it’s having to have that same dehumanizing interaction over and over again until finally one is a drop too many and you snap back at it.

        10. Fart Captor

          Sure, but they’d still be basically everyone else to put up with. Her classmates, teachers, and anyone she tells about her major

        11. Emperor Norton II

          Yeah, what MM and Dragonfire said. There really isn’t anything to indicate bad parenting, but a really obvious indication that her surrounding environment treats her like shit on a daily basis. And like Joe, I’m sure most of them don’t even consider what they do as treating her like shit.

        12. CJ

          The people who intend to be jerks are, in a way, much easier to deal with. The people who are considering themselves to be nice to you are worse, because teaching them they are wrong might be a good investment of energy (as in they might really learn to do better and get off you ass for good), but energy is a limited resource and there are so many of them.
          And it sucks to be anyone’s learning experiences more than, well, say once every fortnight at most.

        13. Shiro

          I would guess that being addressed by her fuckability rating didn’t help much either

        14. LovelyMonsters

          Yeah, I think once your conversational partner has refused to acknowledge your individual identity and humanity and insisted on calling you a number representing your usefulness to him the social contract has been pretty well torn up and burned for roach. Which seems to be what’s happened to her patience as well.

          If I were in her position, nothing I said would be any more pleasant.

        15. Emily

          Heck she’s already displayed more patience than I would have in the same situation.

    2. Jaime

      There is still a LOT of sexism in scientific/engineering/technical fields. She says she’s heard what Joe was originally going to say “30 million times.” That is probably only *slight* hyperbole. Why do you think there are all these STEM initiatives aimed at women right now? STEM fields are not women-friendly. Sometimes it’s due to flat-out sexism and misogyny, sometimes to men in these fields with under-developed social skills, or a fun combination of all of the above. In any case, being a woman in these fields can be very much less than pleasant. While Rachel isn’t being polite, I can’t blame her for being defensive.

      I was one of about three or four female students in my physics grad. program. The male grad student who ran the student computer lab flat-out refused to talk to me. He would only “talk” through a male interpreter. For example:

      Me: That computer is on fire.
      Lab supervisor: *silence*
      Some random male student: Dude, Jaime said the computer is on fire.
      Lab supervisor to random male student: Tell her I’m taking care of it.

      (This same student, when I passed him in the hall, would flatten himself against the far wall until I had walked by.)

      I am not making this up. I didn’t have a single female professor the entire time I was in the program – there WERE no female professors. There was one male professor who tried to make female students cry when telling them they’d scored poorly on exams. He would make the most terrible, derogatory, and personal remarks. This was a thing. Everyone knew about it and no one did anything because he was one of the chairs or deputy chairs of the department or something (I honestly don’t remember anymore). And of course I’ve all kinds of fun stories about professors who would never call on female students who were waving their hands in the air to ask or answer questions.

      This is not to say that my entire experience was bad; I had loads of good professors and made friends with some students in the department, men and women both. And I graduated with a good education and a lot of practical experience. The department also finanically supported me (tuition remission + stipend) for as many years as they were allowed. Yet there definitely WAS an underlying hostility towards women amongst many of the faculty, staff, and students.

      From what I’ve heard from women in other STEM fields, my personal experience was actually GOOD compared to some. *rageface*

      1. C.T Phipps

        I was always fascinated by the Scully Effect. Which was the fact her character’s presence as a medical doctor and scientist caused many women to become interested in science fields who might not have normally been. Which is a big responsibility for artists like Willis.

        1. Jaime

          Google “The Octavia Project” – they are doing some incredible things to attract talented young women (particularly young women of colour) to STEM fields. 🙂

        2. LovelyMonsters

          You’ve mentioned “anti-intellectualism” and bad parenting twice as a reason for Rachel’s reactions in the face of a couple dozen commenters, an overwhelming body of research, and the comic itself being all “This is totally about sexism; sexism and misogyny are a huge problem for women in STEM education.” Your comment about the Scully effect doesn’t seem to relate to anything that’s come before (which, again, has been about how women are treated with hostility and actively kept out of STEM ed/work), and in the context of the conversation and conjunction with your other comments, I’m starting to get a whiff of minimalisation and misdirection.

          I apologise if that’s not an accurate assessment, but I want this to be clear: Women are not uninterested in STEM subjects. By the time we’re at the point of picking a university major, we have already spent 18 years in environments–usually all of them–that overtly, covertly, and constantly discourage girls’ and women’s interest in STEM, deny their abilities, and question the legitimacy of our interest within any of those disciplines. If we’ve managed to row ourselves through that unending river of effluvia and actually major in a STEM subject, we’re met with endless bullying and harassment from male students; hostility and obstruction from faculty; and lack of action or support, at best, from administration before heading into a job market full of more of the same.

          Again, for emphasis: women are not uninterested in STEM. It doesn’t just never occur to us that we could be scientists/engineers/techies. We don’t see characters like Scully and go “My gosh, I could be a forensic pathologist! No more needlework for me, mother!” We see characters like Scully and think that maybe it’s possible to be happy pursuing education and careers we’re passionate about despite a total lack of support and encouragement from any direction and the pressure of endless doubt and constant undermining from men at every level we encounter along the way.

          This is not a problem of anti-intellectualism: girls have far more social permission to be intellectual than boys (which is probably why they outperform boys in school until adolescence). It is not a problem of bad parenting. It is not a problem of lack of interest, or passion, or dedication. It is a problem specifically of misogyny and active sexism, of people–mostly but not wholly men–working consciously and deliberately to send the message that women are not welcome in STEM fields.

          Your comments rankle because part of that work is often 1) to deny the influence or minimise belief in the presence and effects of sexism surrounding the topic, 2) to imply that the lack of women in STEM is down to lack of interest on women’s part, and 3) to place the responsibility for that alleged dearth of interest on the lack of female role models in popular culture instead of squarely at the feet of every teacher, every parent of boys, every professor, every male student, every university, every male co-worker, and every employer who makes STEM education and work so unvaryingly miserable and unattractive for women that they are beaten back out of those fields despite years of effort on their part.

        3. butting

          STANDS UP AND CHEERS.

        4. sanine

          DITTO

        5. C.T Phipps

          I consider a discouraging of women to be in the scientific field to be a form of anti-intellectualism. It is a deliberate attempt to distort, destroy, and downgrade one half of the population to hold a monopoly on knowledge for men and outright evil. It is an attack on intellect itself. Why don’t you see it that way?

          As for bad parenting, I bring that up because of her “No redemption” speech as there’s clearly someone who has deeply and personally betrayed Rachel in a way that has left her with no good sense of such things.

          So far people keep bringing up hostility to women in the sciences and that continues my belief this is about anti-intellectualism. It is a systemic and widespread hatred of knowledge that needs to be stamped out.

        6. Dragonfire

          You say it yourself – it’s “[a] deliberate attempt to distort, destroy, and downgrade one half of the population to hold a monopoly on knowledge for men”.

          I will note that, largely, men in STEM (unless they are trans) do not experience being condescended to in the ways that women do. Nobody questions a male student’s place in a program, or thinks that he’s there only to find a husband, or asks in that oh-so-concerned way about ‘oh, isn’t that too hard, isn’t there a lot of math?’ or what-have you.

          The anti-intellectualism, as it presents itself here, is a symptom, not the cause. What I experienced – what a lot of other commenters experienced – happened because of our gender/sex. This is, over top of anything else, sexism. Why don’t /you/ see it that way?

        7. thejeff

          Exactly. Pushing women away from intellectual fields is simply sexism, nothing else.

          Actual anti-intellectualism is also a big problem, in political discourse especially, but it’s a different problem.

        8. C.T Phipps

          i don’t dispute the sexism. Just state the form it’s taking.

        9. Dragonfire

          Thank you. This is a good comment.

      2. Jess

        My mom is an engineer. She can vouch for that. It got bad enough that she was teased for having a miscarriage. When she got pregnant with me she just ended up quitting and taking care of me.
        She works in a library now.

        1. Halpful

          holy shit. that just… wow. that’s pretty epic levels of fucked up.

        2. Valerie

          WTF Who would tease someone for having a miscarriage??? What the actual fuck is wrong with people?

      3. Dragonfire

        I hear you, yes. I always hear comments to the effect that ‘it can’t possibly have been that bad’, but, yes, it was. It wasn’t every day, it wasn’t anything as bad as getting actually attacked, or anything, but goddamn, it just wears on you.

        I was in computing science, a decade ago. I did have female professors, and a lot of them were fantastic and loved what they did and were an inspiration. (Some of them were just middle-of-the-ground, and some were bad professors but pretty decent scientists. It’s academia, it takes all sorts.)

        But I also had one of /those/ professors – the sexist, demeaning, sarcastic, fucking jerk type who, yes, was someone important in the department, who called female students out or ignored them depending on how much vitriol he was feeling towards his ex-wife that day (and we heard a lot about her, let me tell you). If we stood up for ourselves, or for another student getting the brunt of it, we got a target painted on our backs. I don’t remember any of the male students (class of 100-125 or so, mind, and probably about ten of us) saying a damn thing at any point – not even my friends – other than laughter at the goddamn ‘jokes’.
        He was the worst, but there were others that were not great in lesser ways. I had professors and TAs both who were either constantly surprised to see me show up in a lab or a tutorial, or who ignored my presence completely. I had to give responses to jokes – more than once – when I aced integral calculus to the effect of, no, I did not actually give the professor a beej at any point, it turned out I’m just good at that shit. When I needed help with other classes, later, I either couldn’t get the time of day from the people who were getting paid to provide that same help, or was condescended to so badly that I didn’t end up going back again, because fuck /that/ noise. All the bad evaluations in the world never changed a thing, either, and the couple of times I attempted to bring up my concerns to someone official, I was told that they were all we had, that there were a lot of students, that it was very busy, but thank you, we’ll definitely look into that, and – yeah, no, nothing changed, of course.

        Of course, there were some brilliant, amazing men, students and faculty both, who I met in my CS program that I respect a ton and are friends with (and one I am married to, hell) to this day. But, goddamn, even the comments I got from some of them, on occasion – they just wouldn’t think, or they’d say something that I’m sure they thought was a compliment but was pretty goddamn backhanded, or they’d walk back whatever shit-talking they’d been doing with ‘oh, but you’re not like that of course’.
        (A lot of them – the ones I’m still in touch with – are a lot better now, and I am very glad of this, but good gravy it was just more shit on the pile back then.)

        It gets to you. It wears you down. I was one of the ones it helped to break; I switched majors in the end of the third year of my degree. Part of it was because I was fascinated by my new major, yes – but part of it felt like giving up, and maybe it was – I certainly heard enough comments to that effect, let me tell you (although even cracks about giving up wasn’t as bad as the sage nods and the oh-so-sympathetic “oh, yes, well, it is a difficult subject, of course”). If I was smarter and could’ve figured it out myself, or if I had been able to get the help I needed, maybe I would’ve walked away with a double major instead of just a minor in CS. I could’ve done that. But I didn’t really want to, and part of /that/ was because I didn’t want to have to deal with the bullshit any more, at least in the classroom.

        I’ve kept an eye on things in the tech industry all along, though, and every time a new scandal is announced, and the companies all proclaim up and down that change is coming, and oh yes, they’ve definitely learned their lesson, but women really /do/ need to stop being so sensitive and maybe it wouldn’t be so much of an issue if they just talked about it before things got to be a problem… yeah. No. None of it is surprising at all, not knowing the culture, but goddamn, it still makes me furious.

        1. CJ

          You always think there is a line even most assholes in the work field won’t cross, and then you find someone did.
          I know loads of women who started out in STEM and are now either working in their own small companies or switched to teaching related jobs because the constant aggression directed at you takes a toll.
          So much energy that has to be wasted on assholes instead of doing good work.

        2. Halpful

          ha, I think I know who you’re talking about (or there’s more than one of That Professor, which… sadly wouldn’t surprise me). apparently he toned down the ex-wife rants a bit, but he’s still a hell of a missing stair. I was warned, thankfully, so I showed up with very low expectations and an imaginary bag of popcorn, but I wish I’d had the nerve (and communication skill) to try and get through to him. Or at least poke at his climate-change conspiracy theories. Talking to him was always an… experience. I still don’t even know how to explain what was wrong with a lot of his bizarre assertions. He could argue black is white and white’s no colour, and have you walking away seriously wondering if he was right somehow…

        3. Dragonfire

          There is very definitely more than one of That Professor. (I’ve heard of a couple of them from other schools, actually.) I would guess that you experienced one of the many siblings of my That Professor. Unless you attended school in a not-quite-scottish castle perched on top of a very small mountain…?

          (I don’t recall anything about climate change conspiracies from mine, although /that/ wouldn’t really surprise me, to be honest.)

      4. Egg

        I wouldn’t even allow the “underdeveloped social skills” thing as an excuse, personally. *I* have underdeveloped social skills. I *know* people with underdeveloped social skills. Having underdeveloped social skills doesn’t automatically make one be hostile against one gender. Although it’s true that men are more allowed to get away with keeping their social skills relatively undeveloped compared to what is demanded from women (and those who are perceived to be women), there are plenty of awkward girls and women out there who are doubly at a disadvantage for being who they are.

        [/returns to woodwork]

        1. thejeff

          The general result of actual awkward social skills in my experience is avoidance, stammering and awkward silences. Not creepy, predatory behavior.

    3. Kamino Neko

      This isn’t the first time she’s torn into Joe.

    4. thejeff

      When those three sentences were all about how she didn’t want to be told by strangers exactly how fuckable they thought she was and then she finds out (we can assume) that this creepy stranger has been keeping notes on how fuckable every woman he notices is and he starts right in with the exact same thing she told him off for last time? With a good dose of the old “You’re too hot to be smart”?
      Yeah, I’m surprised she’s as mild to him as she is.

  18. Cephalo the Pod

    That’s ons hell of an eyeroll.
    Almost looks like she’s got Prophet Eyes.

  19. Bluewind

    Could somebody remind me what Joe’s going for? I mean major wise not hump object wise.

    1. Leorale

      I’m not sure it’s been established.

      Roomies!Joe got over his embarrassment of being kind of a nerd, and he switched his major to engineering and built robots n’stuff.

      1. Bluewind

        I think someone said it was in one of the books, but I figured it had to have come up in strip at some point by now. I know I eventually want to save up for a few of his books because
        1. This is a great web series and I want to support it in a way other than being near ads and annoying friends to give it a try
        AND
        2. If shit goes down a′ la The Last Man On Earth or The Walking Dead, I want as many hard copies scattered about as possible to increase the chance this comic survives the apocalypse.
        I’m reasonable like that. 😉

    2. Kamino Neko

      Creeper Studies.

  20. Emperor Norton II

    I like that Rachel’s hatred for Joe turns so strong that she’s murder-staring at him so hard, her eyes glow white from the heat.

  21. Josh Spicer

    I’m not sure what she’s doing but it looks like she just got possessed by Aphrodite or Lillith, neither of which are willing to put up with Joe, and his personality is kinda their job.

    1. C.T Phipps

      At the risk of pointing out Greek mythology, I was under the impression Aphrodite was attracted to the ultimate asshole of the setting.

      1. MM

        Yeah, this is more of an Artemis-style rage.

        1. Josh Spicer

          Fair point. Wasn’t sure if there was an actual Greek god of lust and/or sex. Aphrodite fit the bill for the moment.

          At least Lillith was accurate.

        2. C.T Phipps

          Well, she’s involved with Samael/Lucifer. Albeit, his portrayal varies with mythology and folklore.

          🙂

          But I get your meanings.

        3. Josh Spicer

          She put the lust in man and is the cause of wet dreams.

        4. LovelyMonsters

          I never thought of it until you said that, but damn men blaming women for their own feelings and poor impulse control goes back a long way.

        5. Arawn

          As far as the bible goes… almost from the beginning. It takes a certain kind logical pause to believe that God, who created everything and females for all creatures but man, had to take a rib from Adam in order to make a woman to fulfill a natural role he knew all mammals need if their race is going to continue.

          Then again, we’re treating creation myths as complete unadulterated truth which I’m told isn’t the way they were meant to be taken while being told by others that everything in the book containing creation myths is the complete truth. Logical pauses are apparently necessary in other areas too.

        6. butting

          About a hundred years back smart folk started pointing out that the Hebrew says something completely different, that the way Eve is taken from Adam’s side (ribs aren’t mentioned in the text) suggests that Adam is some form of androgyne (the “made in our image”-as-male notion falls apart real quick on close inspection), and that the separation of the two isn’t a one-is-superior-to-the-other[1] but is rather more suggestive of something not-completely-at-home-in-this-world being finally becoming a natural part of creation.

          (and that’s before narrative theology came along, asking: “so, what are the reasons we’re told this story in this way?”)

          Maybe in another hundred years the questions being asked by folk of that ilk will start to take effect. Who knows. Maybe?

          [1] do NOT start me on bad translations of Paul. *please*.

        7. butting

          (which is to say: isn’t it curious how the interpretation of these stories has been taken over and repurposed by men of various cultures? let’s not ask how astonishingly unreliable the leading men of those cultures have shown themselves to be by their own record, it leads to all kinds of awkward questions.)

        8. C.T Phipps

          There’s a lot of messed up stuff in the Bible but the whole “Eve is the origin of Sin” thing is sort of the cherry-picking which I noticed as a five year old. A. The Devil started it. B. Adam did it too even if Eve was involved. At five I decided sexism and racism existed because people were lazy (I learned it was a bit more complicated than that) and apparently people just wanted to feel superior with zero effort.

        9. butting

          Bingo. One of my favourite takes (apologies DMW if I’m going in a direction you’d rather I didn’t) is that the “curse” on Eve is nothing of the sort: it’s a warning, and a promise. “This snake hates you because of this, and is going to do everything possible to try to stomp on you from now on, and things will be hard. And, keep in mind, his fault. But: he’s going to get crushed, I promise, and it’ll come from you.”

          (the witnesses of the crucifixion and resurrection, and the first followers told to pass along the news of the resurrection? that’s significant.)

          Or, we could take another reading, that privileges a different group (the one that, oh looky, traces back to a “but it was HER fault!” whiner), that we’ve been putting up with since forever.

          Damn, but I want to see that shit end. It’s not just self-serving cherry-picking, it’s cherry-picking by illiterates.

          (which, I’ll freely admit to having been illiterate on this point myself, but, hells, how did these bastards get to take over so thoroughly? grrrrrrarrrrrggghhh.)

        10. zoelogical

          maybe even Athena?

          i mean, Artemis straight up murdered a guy who saw her in the nude. Athena turned a girl who challenged her into a spider to live for ages on end. which is worse.

        11. MM

          True. I was just thinking of the “I didn’t need to be sexualized right now, eff you very much” parallels.

        12. zoelogical

          haha tbh either is fair

          u could probably even draw comparisons to Hera, Queen of the Gods, eternally pissed off for compelling reasons

      2. Kamino Neko

        The ultimate asshole on Olympus was her dad (…probably*). (Not that that would necessarily stop either of them…)

        A lot of her lovers were certainly assholes…and so was she, really. Most gods were.

        * Some myths say Uranus, which would make Zeus her cousin, being born of Uranus brother, Cronus.

    2. CJ

      No one but Joe himself put the lust in Joe (not to mention it’s his decision to behave like an asshole). You do not need to involve female deities to place blame.
      Maybe he is channeling Narcissus, who was so much in love with his own reflection he was unable to interact with the world. And died.

  22. Irredentist

    They’re gonna bang, I call it right now. Also good god, someone teach Joe how to not be an ass.

    1. Sporky

      Honestly I’m hoping that doesn’t happen. It reinforces tropes we don’t need to see reinforced, and also, it’s kinda been done already.

      1. Irredentist

        But she could totally beat the misogyny out of him! In a hot way! Ah you’re probably right 🙁

        1. Puckish Rogue

          As much as they physically make a good pairing I still reckon JoJo is a better option

        2. Leorale

          She can fix him, with her penis

      2. Cerberus

        What Sporky said.

        A relationship based on one person “taking it on the chin” to make the other a better person never ends well and frequently ends either in abuse, or the person subjugating their humanity for the other becoming a worse person instead to make the cognitive dissonance go away.

        I want Joe to improve on his own. To want to grow for his own personal growth, not because he thinks faking growth will get him laid.

        1. Irredentist

          Yes, in the real world, but this is comics, we can do whatever we want lol. Jk, but in all seriousness I imagined it more as Joe being the one taking it on the chin. You’re right though.

    2. John

      Been there, done that, don’t need it again in this universe. Maybe this time Rachel can teach Joe a lesson he actually needs to learn rather than, “It’s okay if you’re a dick to women in person, because you can always pick them up on the Internet where they don’t know you’re the dude who harassed them in the checkout line.”

  23. Cerberus

    Comic Reactions:

    *pained sigh* Oh Joe, way to make me regret giving you some character growth props a couple of strips ago. And it brings up an uncomfortable aspect to his growth.

    He’s slowly able to see his best friend who is a guy as human and as being important as more than a prop in his life, but he’s miles away from even doing the women around him the decency of remembering their names as he openly objectifies them to their faces even after they’ve told him to buzz off with that shit.

    And that’s going to be the central pillar of this twisted architecture of his. Letting go of the safe idea of women as props and accepting the vulnerability and uncertainty of interacting with the “meat” as equals.

    But if he wants to be someone worthy of human contact especially of the variety he craves, then he’s going to have to grow in exactly that way, sooner rather than later.

    Panel 1: So here’s one of the more frustrating things about Joe. There’ll be a moment where you see him interacting in quiet 1-on-1 spaces and go “yeah, he’s really close to growing and developing in positive ways” and then he’s back in public and it’s right back to the performance and its toxicity.

    Right after breaking down and actually acknowledging the importance of Danny in his life, he’s right back to insulting his major and calling it an imaginary world in stark contrast to his “real world” where everything is a performance that doesn’t actually make him happy.

    He just can’t resist.

    And it gets to a thing about masks as that’s a common theme in this comic. A mask is a performance and isn’t exactly one’s core. But at the same time, one’s mask is part of them and is a statement on their character and has real consequences nonetheless.

    Like, Becky’s wacky mask is very much an intentional playing up, but that mask has been around enough that it’s part of who she is, who others associate her as, and is an easy role for her to slip back to when stressed and can mean sometimes making uncomfortable nazi jokes in public.

    And on the dark side, we get folks like trolls who believe their mask of aggressive nihilism is somehow separate from their “real selves” but frequently just become the thing they were play-acting in a more unironic sense.

    For Joe, his misogyny may be an intentional pose, but it’s what he slips into in any public space. It’s what he’s known for and we’ve seen in comic the heavy effect that has on other characters and the way he’s made certain things so so much worse for people.

    And even when he recognizes its worthlessness, he can’t stop wearing it and letting it consume him. And so the gap between mask and who he is gets smaller and less meaningful.

    1. C.T Phipps

      Beware when you put on a mask it doesn’t become glued to your face.

      1. Leorale

        The problem with pretending all the time is that, sometimes, people believe you.

        1. tangled_z

          No, the problem with pretending all the time is that, always, people believe you.

        2. thejeff

          The problem with pretending all the time is that, eventually, you believe you.

        3. Lone Wolf

          “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” ― Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Mother Night

    2. Falcon

      You know, I sometimes feel you overreact to things based on a single strip that hits home with you (and don’t get me wrong, don’t stop. You hit areas I’m ill-equipped to), but this seems pretty spot on.

      1. LovelyMonsters

        If you’re ill-equipped to comment on the areas Cerberus responds to, how do you know they’re overreactions?

        1. thejeff

          In theory, possibly because the reaction to those strips is shown by later strips to be unwarranted?

          Mind you, I don’t think Cerberus actually does this often (or at all, from what I can think of offhand). She’s more likely to be right while much of the rest of the commentariat is still in denial.

        2. Cerberus

          Supporting this, I was deeply painfully wrong about pretty much everything involving Mindy and Anna, so yeah, there are definitely points in which my analyses are wildly off the mark cause I misread the dynamics in the scene.

        3. C.T Phipps

          I forget what your exact reaction on them was. Which did you think it was?

        4. Cerberus

          Basically I thought they were in a couple and Anna was being brusque not because she was based on the worst Mike, but because she’s non-white and visibly queer and in a public location doing errands and just wanted to get home as quickly as possible.

          I may have also seen them as additional potential older mentors.

    3. Bagge

      And just like Becky there is also a mechanism of wish-fullfilment behind the masks. Joe WANTS to be a womanizing player who is safe from feels. Becky WANTS to be a wacky clown who never gets sad. Walky WANTS to be an immature brat who doesn’t have to take responsibility. So they play it up in an effort to become their mask.

      1. chris73

        And its not really working for any of them but who is going to be first to realize that?

        1. Bagge

          Well…. it’s not NOT working. A mask is a useful shield, and it helps showing you the path towards improving yourself. But it can’t replace actually walking that path.

          Becky needed to allow herself to be vulnerable to people like Joyce and Dina in order for them to accept and love the real Becky (worked wonders!)

          Walky needed to admit to himself and Dorothy that he actually does care about her a whole bunch, and that he is NOT too cool for study (and desperately needs it) in order to break the wall that was built between them by his refusal to address what bothered him (and for him to at least have a fighting chance of learning college-level math).

          Joe… has a long way to go.

        2. chris73

          He does and as someone that can somewhat identify with Joe a bit its not going to be easy and it will take a fair bit of work

    4. Kernanator

      To quote one of my favorite Let’s Plays: “Masks – sorry, personas – overlay a face with a false image, but at the end of the day it still has to fit.” Joe’s macho act might not be the end-all-be-all of who he is, but it’s still something he is doing.

    5. butting

      Joe. Performance. Becky.

      Ouch. And spot on.

      Joe performs because it lets him trade on his privilege.

      Becky (and every woman, and every LGBTQ character) performed out of defensive needs, in response to frequently-overwhelming expectations. Until the screw-this-shit moment of Toedad fixing on conversion therapy, and, after her attempted-pounce on Joyce, her deliberate efforts to leave that role in tatters on the floor at every opportunity. (literally, once.)

      I’m lightly familiar with (and shamefully haven’t read) de Beauvoir and Butler. And I can’t help wonder if we’re seeing Rachel punch through the expectations of her performing her socially-acceptable-and-expected-role in much the same way as we’ve just seen Danny (by asserting his bi-ness) washing his hands of his own expected role.

      Willis, you magnificent bastard, this is beautiful.

  24. Mandy

    You tell ‘im, Rachel. I hope she’s the one who hacked his list.

  25. Tacos

    Broasis? I guess that’s now a word.

    *sigh* Seems like Joe still hasn’t learned his lesson.

    1. Falcon

      There’s no one lesson. Joe’s learned plenty of lessons, not all of them are going to stick right away, and even after he’s able to stick with them he’ll continue being a douche in other ways. As do we all.

    2. 3oranges

      Weird word for a men-only space, when it still has both “bro” and “sis” in it.

      1. Dusk Rain

        Good point. We should spell it broa-cis.

  26. Gojira

    That’s the 2,499,107th time she’s heard that sentence end that way.

  27. Krail

    It took about two strips longer than I expected for a female CS major to show up. I kinda expected that to be the punchline of the comic immediately after they showed the building.

  28. Bluewind

    Random post
    I’ve been on a YouTube binge despite having an appointment in the morning (save me), but I keep finding great stuff! Anybody else seen the queer prom series of videos done by buzzfeed? My heart is now a puddle and my brain is like MORE THIS! ^_^

    I hope you’ve already seen it Cerb. If not, I think you and your fiancé will love it. You are honestly the first person I thought of when I finished it because of our talk of LGBTQ+ media the other day. I wanted to share. We need more this and less bullshit. It makes me feel positive for a change 🙂

    1. Cerberus

      Aw thanks! And yeah, I’m always happy for my students who get to bring their loves and be their true selves at their dances. It’s a beautiful thing.

      1. Bluewind

        I’m so glad you’re at this new school hun. I really think you’re gonna get to do a lot of good there 🙂

        From what I understand in the comments on the video and looking up their twitter, Otter had some home issues after they got home from winning the trip to L.A. and had to make a go fund me to get a place of their own. It ended up a few THOUSAND over goal which is just amazing. I hate that they had to deal with it at all, but at least the timing meant they made it out okay. Because seriously, they were one of the stars of the buzzfeed queer prom and set off so many comment threads with high schoolers questioning their own sexuality XD

  29. C.T Phipps

    The first thing Joe needs to wrap his head around that a high rating is not something that’s a compliment.

    It gets him in problems with Roz and Rachel and….well, everyone.

    1. Sam

      With the ratings, there is no complimentary one, it goes from insult to SUPER MEGA INSULT and that is it. It is always an insult. There is no point where it is a compliment when you do it for everyone you meet.

  30. Halpful

    huh. now I’m wondering where danny went after panel 2. is he about to reach in and drag joe away? did he see something shiny? or is he just conveniently off-panel for a bit?

    1. Purple

      It sort of looks like he spotted something in panel 2. Or… someone? Could it be Amber??

  31. Cerberus

    Panel 2: Again, the performance over all. Even when it’s destroying his life. Even when it doesn’t even give him the things he pretends it gives him. He can’t bear to let it go. He can’t bear to introspect and actually see how bad it is both for himself and the women he targets.

    And so he fronts and tries to stall out character growth. If he waits it out, then he can go back to doing what he did with no change or awareness, doing the same unsatisfying thing out of sheer addicted habit to the fear of ever letting a woman put him in the position of feeling vulnerable and not in control.

    And that’s both tragic and unfortunately painfully common.

    Panel 4: Yep, here’s about where I’m ready to throw up the Carla-esque middle fingers and give up hoping for his growth and redemption. Like, fuck, after all that, he’s still openly calling women by their numbers with no acknowledgement of their names or personalities, demanding their time and energy with no concern for the fact that they clearly have things to do, and acting as if they are mere flesh props rather than people with actual lives.

    And like, that’s not just the mask. He genuinely does feel entitled to the lives and attention of others, especially women, and he genuinely does seem to be completely ignorant to or openly contemptuous of the idea that his stereotypical college movie ideas of women is bass-ackwards and offensive.

    And the worst part of this is its yet another example of Joe ignoring a woman asking him to knock this shit off. Like Rachel fucking read him the riot act over this shit and gave him an actual death glare and he’s just continuing to harp on an interaction she clearly did not have a positive association with.

    Because the alternative would be admitting fault and letting this poisoned fantasy go.

    1. C.T Phipps

      I wonder if the castration line is the only one which would actually get through his head he’s not “goofing around” but seriously angering them.

    2. Irredentist

      Harsh, but not unfair. Men always tend to be idiots until such a time when they are forced not to be.

      1. Fart Captor

        Not always. The “unbelievably stubborn idiot who refuses to acknowledge fault” phase is NOT universal

        1. Irredentist

          Maybe I just don’t know any good men then.

        2. C.T Phipps

          In my case, I was a homophobe in high school and stuck to a lot of fundamentalist views which were (unknown to me) misogynist. In my take, it took an actual religious experience to get me to knock it off and re-evaluate all of my views to the “asshole test.” I.e. “Does this make me an asshole to someone?”

        3. Fart Captor

          I’m not saying that people who DID go through a phase like that aren’t good people. Even though Joe’s still in that, he’s not entirely bad.

          I’m just saying not everyone does, certainly not to Joe’s extent.

          I blame blind privilege, and the pervasiveness of toxic masculinity for the most part. Men who grow up with less of that don’t have as much of a tendency towards stubborn pigheadedness, and its entirely possible to avoid it entirely, or at the very least grow out of it sooner.

        4. Emily

          No, but it’s depressingly common.

  32. Tunasammich

    “Hey you, eleven.”

    Wow. I thought Joe was an idiot before. Now I really hate him.

  33. Rukduk

    1. I guess Joe used up his alloted character development/growth time for the (in comic time) day opening up to Danny.
    2. I didn’t realize Rachel was capable of activating the Avatar State at will already.

  34. Haven

    Obligatory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBfk4V4ajAE

  35. C.T Phipps

    I think Joe has been insulated from what people think of his dudebro attitude by his environment until this point. Dorothy’s reaction of being absolutely done with his shit seems to have been his first wakeup call in the setting. Joe genuinely thinks what he does is cute and endearing.

    1. Irredentist

      It was at first. Then it became all too real for everyone.

      1. C.T Phipps

        Joe seemed to go, for me, as a person with a healthy sex drive and desire for equally willing partners to pretty much an embodiment of the worst dudebro behavior which stops short of being an actual rapist.

        We have Ryan for that…or had. *Cryptkeeper laugh*

        1. Irredentist

          I think he was always meant to be a caricature of dudebroish behavior. But then it crossed the line from being funny into actually painful shit. Thankfully we still get the punchlines but it’s rough for everyone.

        2. Meta

          Joe may be an actual rapist, given his “alcohol facilitates threesomes” line. We don’t know for sure.

        3. Irredentist

          Although to be fair he did recently admit that he never actually had that threesome.

        4. Meta

          Oh good point. He is still willing to consider it as an option though…

        5. C.T Phipps

          I think that may be why Willis stated Joe never had any.

        6. Meta

          True, but he still considered it a reasonable explanation for how he got one, so I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that he’d try it.

        7. chris73

          Seriously? Theres enough there to dislike someone without having to make stuff up as well.

        8. Meta

          http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/01-if-the-shoes-split/theplural/

          I’m not making anything up. “Booze can really facilitate the threesomes.” The fact that he was lying about the threesome doesn’t change the fact that he once implied that he used alcohol to coerce people into sex.

          I’m not saying he is a rapist, but it is not out of the question. Though, as several people have pointed out here, Willis probably made the threesome thing a lie partly because otherwise there would have been an actual rapist going unpunished in the main cast.

        9. chris73

          We’ve had word of god say Joes pretty big on consent plus we’ve learned the threesome was all talk so unless we get some sort of evidence to the contrary (flashback of some sort maybe) I don’t think there needs to be much discussion on whether Joe is a rapist or not

        10. Meta

          I agree on the whole — as I suggested in the last post, I don’t think Willis would want him in the cast otherwise — but I still wasn’t making anything up, and I still think his definition of ‘consent’ is deeply questionable based on the fact that he considered the threesome thing a legitimate brag.

        11. thejeff

          He’s always been this way. We’re just focusing on it more now, but the clear signs were there from the very start. The “do list”, complete with organization by ratings, RSS feed and password was introduced on the first day of school – when Danny talked to him after Dorothy broke up with him. He was adding Dorothy to his “do-list” while talking to his best friend who’d just been dumped by her.
          This is Joe. This has always been Joe. It was all in that first conversation. The rest has all been elaboration and repetition. (And a few small hints of change.)

  36. Cerberus

    Panel 5: I dislike what Rachel did to Amber and Joyce and Ruth, but this? *kisses fingers* Molto bene. Cause like yes, this is the interaction I’d love to actually have with the Joes of the world but don’t because if you piss them off as a trans woman they might kill you.

    It’s the type of reaction I love my fiancee for having the fearlessness to make when they get pissed enough. And it’s a wonderful shut-down of some fucking tired ass bullshit and in the next panel seems to actually have penetrated his skull and made an impression for once, getting him for the first time to back off being a complete public asshole to a woman he’s demanded the time of.

    Panel 7: And it fucking pierces. Those eyebrows. He doesn’t have the “slightly angry because the woman isn’t interacting as he likes” face he has in Panel 5 and has had frequently in the past. He’s genuinely kowtowed and his eyes actually betray the fear and insecurity he’s using this broken performance to paper over.

    And that’s powerful. I don’t want them to date, largely because I don’t think anyone should have to do the emotional labor of “making their partner a better person” at their own expense.

    But this is the first sign that someone can short-circuit the thousand routes he has to dismiss what a woman is actually saying to him and rip off that mask and force him ever so briefly to truly sit with why he is clinging to this bullshit misogyny.

    And maybe if he has these moments more frequently he’ll get to a place where he won’t actively hurt others to avoid the human experience of feeling vulnerable and not in control.

    1. Rukduk

      I don’t want to date, but I kinda want them to eventually develop a grudging friendship as Joe grows as character. And while I don’t appreciate the way Rachel tore Ruth down (and by extension really messed with Amber, Billie, and Joyce’s mindsets) I do like her as a character. She has the feel of a manga rival in some ways. The outwardly antagonistic character who belongs to a third party who will work with or against the main hero as the situation calls for. Kind of like Zuko in book 2 of ATLA, but not as angsty.

      1. LovelyMonsters

        I don’t want them to develop a friendship of any kind. As a woman I spend a lot of time being shown that it’s my responsibility to let bygones be bygones, that I should clap and coo and otherwise shit myself with happiness every time a dude makes a stride in realising he’s been a tool, that I should reward the bare minimum of being treated like a human with loyalty and affection and support, and just, no. I’m sick of it.

        Sometimes the seed of potential cordiality gets burned dead by the other person’s behaviour before it ever has a chance to sprout. And even if not, what exactly is it that they would develop a friendship about? Like, why would a friendship need to exist between these two total strangers who do not (afaik) share any classes or mutual friends and who have spoken twice in the entire time they’ve shared a campus. I feel like a friendship between them would be contrived, and contrived specifically to serve another steaming helping of that cultural message that women are obligated to give their time, attention, and emotional energy to men in gratitude and exchange for what doesn’t even qualify as civility.

        Like, just personally, being addressed as the numerical representation of how much pleasure the other party feels in looking at me, as though he has no responsibility to acknowledge my identity or humanity because he is a man and I am a woman, and then being told by a third party that they hope I will offer Mr Number Muncher friendship at some point in the future when he’s improved his behaviour (a big assumption in and of itself) would upset me.

        1. Halpful

          Ha, now I’m picturing Joe as pac-man, being chased by the ghosts…

        2. tangled_z

          So much this!

    2. Emperor Norton II

      “Panel 5: I dislike what Rachel did to Amber and Joyce and Ruth, but this? ”

      COMPLETE DERAIL OF THE MAIN DISCUSSION COMING UP.

      So, you got me thinking about her speech to Ruth, and I checked those strips out again. And I remember that I did not necessarily disagree too much with what she said except the conclusion: “Redemption is a story. Redemption is not real.”

      See, now that was the one line that really bugged me back then. But now I’m wondering..,. Was she really saying that any form of redemption is a story? That it’s not possible?

      Or was she saying that the particular type of “redemption” she just described is a story and not real?

      Because that makes quite a big difference.

      After all, what Rachel saw at the moment was someone who, to her limited knowledge, got away scot free from having done a bunch of terrible things. And then Ruth came in apologizing and (Rachel thought) expected everything Ruth had ever done to Rachel and her friends to be water under the bridge, no hard feelings, eh?

      And that, I now think, is the sort of ‘redemption’ she thinks is nothing but a story. Not that redemption in general is impossible, just that for it to be real, there has to be an over-time change of behaviour, coupled with proper consequences for the bad things done.

      Of course, she never truly clarified this, so I will gladly admit that there is a lot of inference on my part here. But I do think that a contextual definition of “redemption” in that speech makes it make a lot more sense.

      And also of course, even if I was right, it’s only because I’ve had the opportunity to think about it in a calm, detached manner of the outsider; and even then, it took me quite some time to even realise that this inference was possible. It’s not an obvious interpretation of her words; and we can clearly see that Amber is listening to it with the most obvious interpretation, and being hit hard by it.

      1. zoelogical

        i dunno like

        i got the impression that Rachel thought that meant redemption in general; mainly because if Rachel thought there was any hope of redemption, she wouldn’t have condemned Ruth so forcefully. like. there wasn’t any tough love about her approach, you feel me, there was just judgment. what Rachel did was beyond an unkind thing to do.

        i think rachel was saying that who you have been is who you always will be. which….really isn’t fair

        but also she deserved not to continue to have Ruth as an RA

        but, yeah, i think that what she said is exactly what she means. because if she’d meant anything different, she wouldn’t have said it

      2. Anowan

        Who said “story” equals “lie” ?

        I know “story” is never use in a positive light and is opposed to “reality”, but stories are what keep us going. The reality is that one’s not in a good place, the story is that one wills to be and will be and gives oneself the means to make this story come true.

        I think that was a part of the dynamic that kept Ruth going : the reality is she did wrong and is not well, the story that she can compensate for this wrong and save herself, but Rachel dismissed the ability of stories to come true.

        Maybe it boils down to the difference between the lies we tell others (“it will never happen again, I swear”), the lies we tell ourselves (“they’re all against me, I did nothing wrong”) and the stories we decide to create in the world (“I will make it right”).

        Rachel believes that the third category doesn’t exist, and I can’t blame her. I stand my ground on her being only twenty and not knowing everything.

      3. ischemgeek

        Rachel strikes me as someone who’s been an abuse victim, with the kind of abuser that follows the classical model of cycle of abuse (as opposed to a tyrant like Toedad or an enabler like Hank or a passive-aggressive narcissist like Carol). The pattern of honeymoon period – gradual fall into destructive behaviors – big incident – apology phase – honeymoon period-repeat is really good at destroying any optimism you have that a person can ever possibly change.

        The kind of cynicism and bitterness she has comes from hard experience. She doesn’t believe in redemption anymore because she’s been promised someone will make it right and then had that promise broken too many times. I recognize the bitterness she’s got – it comes from the same place as my bitter pessimism that anyone who has power and authority to help me out when I’m being abused or harassed will. I’ve had authority figures believe me at my word about shit exactly 0 times (even going so far as to flat-out ignore circumstantial and physical evidence in my favor so they wouldn’t have to do anything), and I’ve had them take action exactly once, after it was witnessed personally by the authority figure who took action (and then I was blamed for not telling even though I told, and for not standing up for myself to someone three times my bodyweight and nearly twice my height. Because an 8YO kid can totally take a violent sexually abusive 16YO in a fight amirite? Also the authority figure did not abide by mandatory reporting laws cuz he’s a goooood boooy who’s just misundersooooood and there’s no need to ruuuuinnn his liiiifffee over a smallll mistaaake like sexually harassing and physically abusing a pre-pubescent child on the bus for over a year. Said guy is in prison now for child molestation, and who’s surprised? Everyone except for me, apparently). I’ve been let down by those in authority so many times, I have no good faith assumption left to extend to them. It’s been ground into the dirt, kicked, spat on, pissed on, doused in gasoline and set alight until it’s nothing but ash at this point. So I operate on the assumption that they will fail me unless they have literally no other option but to do right by me. Because, without exception, that assumption has been the right one.

        Rachel’s bitterness toward’s Ruth seems like it’s coming from the same sort of place. A 20YO doesn’t end up that jaded and bitter without life experience behind it.

    3. Anowan

      I don’t want them to date either because in another universe, Leslie transcended time and space to save Rachel so that she could break the couple Joe and Robin were at the time. Then everything was good, Robin came back to Leslie and Rachel being alive saved Joe from having to grieve her death.

      Like, been there, done that.

  37. Dragonfire

    …My Gravatar is suddenly a delicious coincidence, and goddamn, I am so sympathetic for her, because this was my life ten years ago.

  38. Meta

    …So, Joe has learned nothing from this debacle.

    1. Danni

      joes incapable of learning

    2. C.T Phipps

      He’s okay with Danny being bisexual so improvement on homophobia.

      Treatment of women? Not so much.

      1. Meta

        I mean he’s demonstrated that he’s fine with other men being queer in a couple strips — the one where Danny asks him if he’s ever thought about ‘studying’ other genders, and the one where Joe says (regarding Ethan): “If this was a date, I would tell him to have you back super late and to use a condom.” I’m pretty sure he would still react very defensively if someone suggested that he was gay.

        1. chris73

          No he probably wouldn’t, you can see in this strip how he reacts when someone questions his masculinity:

          http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/01-if-the-shoes-split/manhood/

          I’d say he handles it pretty well

        2. Delicious Taffy

          Are you suggesting that gay guys are less masculine than straight guys? :/

        3. chris73

          Nope I’m not saying that at all. I wanted to find an example of what Joe would do if his sexuality was questioned but the closest one i could find was when he questioned what type of threesome he had and he didn’t seem overly worried but since that was shown to be a lie I disregarded it and went with the next best example of him questioned and that was his masculinity

          As I say I don’t think Joe would be overly worried about someone suggesting he was gay

        4. Meta

          http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/04-the-bechdel-test/hotter/

          http://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-2/02-choosing-my-religion/line/

        5. Puckish Rogue

          That could also be taken as he’s not interested in Danny, his best friend of many years

          Also in regards to his views on consent:

          http://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-2/02-choosing-my-religion/casualbang/

        6. thejeff

          It’s interesting that his views on consent are presenting in the creepy kind of sex-positive “what were you thinking not having sex” way. She didn’t fit one of his checkboxes for apparent consent not being sufficient, so there’s no reason for misgivings.
          Even if Billie was giving off all sorts of weird vibes throughout that scene.

        7. Puckish Rogue

          One of the problems as I see it is (and I’m trying to tread very warily here) that non-verbal communication is huge, that what we say and how we say it changes how something is taken

          You can see here on the boards here, someone will say something and it’ll be taken the completely wrong way whereas if we were all at the pub we’d be able to take our cues from the body language of whats being said and there’d be a lot less arguments (or maybe more punch ups :-))

          So when you get into the area of human relations (ie bonking) it just makes it worse in that Joes views on consent in that strip are very good in that hes following the rules (so he was right in a sense) but Danny could also see that something wasn’t quite right so didn’t follow through on the offer (which was also right)

          I’m just glad I’m married and I don’t have to concern myself about stuff like this anymore

        8. timemonkey

          I don’t think so., Unless he thought it was immediately hindering a chance to get laid Joe would likely just roll his eyes and move on.

    3. chris73

      You mean the current debacle, the debacle thats probably been going on for like half and hour, the debacle in which he hasn’t had a real chance to sit down and go over whats happened because hes still in the middle of it?

      Growth in this strip takes time because this isn’t a comic strip version of “a very special episode” so it mirrors real life more

      Joe has, probably, been shaped a lot by his fathers actions and hes been wearing a mask for a very long time, much like the mask a lot of the other characters wear and, like them, it’ll take time for that mask to be removed

      Fact is hes probably learnt a lot and hes got a lot to go through but it seems a bit mean to berate him because he hasn’t done a complete 360 degree change of behaviour

      1. Irredentist

        Not really berating him for not doing a complete instant 360, but berating him for his continued monumental shittiness. I think that’s fair.

        1. chris73

          To me when you look at at the characters growth arcs it takes some of the months or even ears to improve

          We’ve seen Joe admit his fears and respond to Danny in a much better way, we’ve seen Joe respond to Dannys declaration in a positive way, I think that Joe has shown the start of a turn around and its probably only been half an hour or so

          I just think that Joes getting held to a different set of standards to other characters

        2. Fart Captor

          No, he’s not.

          Until Joyce stopped being crappy, people had the same kind of criticism and even hate for her.

          Ruth still gets that for behavior she has stopped, taken ownership for, and acknowledged that she can’t expect to be forgiven for.

          Billie got angry, judgemental comments for snapping at Joyce less than 8 hours after her girlfriend had to be hospitalized under a suicide watch.

          People expressed distrust and animosity for Hank all the way up until he said goodby to Becky at the health center before heading home.

          But most importantly, Joe has not actually stopped his awful behavior yet, or admitted fault yet. It’s completely fair for people to not give him credit for things he has not yet done.

        3. chris73

          Ok thats cool then would it also be fair to say then he shouldn’t be criticized for not showing growth or having learned anything since the space of time has been short or that hes still in the middle of it all blowing up since he hasn’t had any real time to process whats happening

        4. Fart Captor

          I’m not seeing how that follows.

          The fact that he will most likely start growing out of this does not mean people aren’t going to continue to be annoyed by it, or that criticism becomes unreasonable.

          It’s also not as if this is the first time someone has tried to get him to stop this behavior. We’ve repeatedly seen him brush off attempts to get him to shut up about his god damn boner. This is just the first time we’ve seen the reaction to his crap get to him.

          So for me, the fact that it’s only been an afternoon since this started has already been accounted for in that I’m STILL willing to believe that he will learn something

        5. nightsbridge

          Nah, he’s still resisting growth and displaying awful. He’ll maybe be a better friend to Danny but he’s still been horrible to women here. That’ll become unfair when he stops.

      2. Emperor Norton II

        Incidentally, it’s a “complete 180” when you change behaviour. If you do a 360, you’re back at where you started.

        So in a way, Joe is in fact doing a complete 360 in today’s strip.

        1. chris73

          Yeah that makes more sense

        2. Sporky

          they call it the xbox 360 because when you see it you turn 360 degrees and walk away

      3. Meta

        But look at it this way. Rachel TOLD him she didn’t want to be rated a while ago. His list got leaked and many of the women on it told him they didn’t like it. He acted like he was the victim, fleeing to what he thought was an all-male side of campus — then he referred to Rachel by only her number… AGAIN. It’s not “mean” to say that he should have learned not to do that from this situation. It’s not just about him being a jackass, it’s about him being willfully ignorant in a very straightforward situation.

        1. chris73

          and thats fine but my response was that he has learned something, a couple of things and he’ll probably learn more once he gets a chance to compute whats happened

          But it’d be very difficult for him to do so as hes right in the middle of it, its happening right now so he hasn’t had a chance to sit down and go over whats just happened

          Its fine to point out the things hes done/doing wrong but to complain he hasn’t learnt anything is a tad premature (might be a better word for it), like theres posters here that don’t want him to change at all maybe

        2. thejeff

          What has he learned? Near as I can tell, he may have learned that he needs to be a little more open with Danny, if he doesn’t want to lose his friendship. Possibly even more, he may have realized that he doesn’t want to lose Danny’s friendship. That got him to admit that some of his persona is “just talking a good game.”

          He hasn’t actually said or done a single thing to suggest that realizes that behavior is actually a problem. As he clearly shows in this strip. From the “other body parts” to the ratings and whatever variant of “too hot to be smart” he was going to say.

      4. Emily

        Joe hasn’t even managed a 2 degree shift in behaviour regarding how he treats women even after it’s been made 100% crystal clear his behaviour is hurtful to others and makes them hate him. Like you shouldn’t need hours upon hours of reflection to realize referring to women by the arbitrary numerical value of how fuckable you think they are is a Bad Thing To Do.

        1. Puckish Rogue

          Well yes and no, I agree you shouldn’t need hours upon hours of reflection but when you’re trying to change (probably) over a decade of thinking, when you’re trying to change everything you’ve (probably) learnt from your father, when you’ve suddenly (and for Joe it is sudden, we may not think it is but for Joe it is) learnt that everything you know is wrong then yeah it might take a few hours, might take even longer to change those ingrained habits

          As for change yeah it is change, it really is its just that the change is very, very small. In this strip the change is that Joe thought calling Rachel an 11 would be an in for him (a positive) whereas here hes knows its not an in but using it like a nick name

          He shouldn’t be using it as a nick name but its a slight (extremely slight) improvement in that hes not trying to hit on her at all and I think that once Joes arc is done and you look back on all the strips you’ll be able to chart the progress, its just that at the moment the progress is very small

        2. thejeff

          If you read that as a positive change, you’re reading it very differently than I do. Not only is using “11” as a label for her even worse than just telling her what her rating is, but she explicitly told him how much she didn’t like being described that way. At least in their first encounter you could argue that he thought she would like it, now he’s been told not to. And he does.

          And of course he’s hitting on her – or at least starting to. Not quite as openly as the other time, but he’s still referring to his estimation of her looks – like opening with “Hey gorgeous” to a near stranger who’s already shot you down. He doesn’t get very far with it, because she goes off on him first

        3. Puckish Rogue

          Very slight positive change that once his arcs ends we’ll be able to look back and see the progress happening

          As for hitting on her I don’t see that, the emphasis on you and so suggests to me he’s genuinely confused as to why shes there, not as an attempt to hit on her

          But then it wouldn’t be the first time I’m wrong in my predictions so theres that I suppose

  39. Ferdinand Rosenthal

    Gods, Joe. Walking disappointment.

  40. Keulan

    Damn Joe, you’re gonna have to learn to tread a lot more carefully than that in the future.

  41. Meta

    “…llliberal artistic?”

  42. Lauralot

    Okay, so. Rating women is gross, keeping an actual list of your rankings of women is even worse, addressing women by their numbers is abhorrent, and addressing a woman by her number after she’s clearly expressed anger and disgust over that is just the worst. I am in no way defending Joe’s behavior here, because it’s toxic masculinity and casual misogyny at its finest.

    But assuming Rachel hacked and released the list (and she’s the only one so far who has both the skill and the motive), that’s…a lot of wrath to direct at someone she had one bad interaction with. At least, I think that was their only interaction, in case I’ve forgotten something. I mean, it’s possible that Joe just caused her to lash out due to dealing with 30 million misogynists before him, but given the way we saw Rachel interact with Ruth…something has made her seriously spiteful and mistrusting. It’s becoming concerning to me.

    1. Lauralot

      Just for clarification, I’m not saying that it’s wrong or worrying to be mistrustful and spiteful toward dudebros and people abusing positions of authority. It’s just that Rachel seems to go from zero to a thousand really damn quick.

    2. Emperor Norton II

      “But assuming Rachel hacked and released the list (and she’s the only one so far who has both the skill and the motive),”

      Considering how freely Joe would hand out the password to that list, and considering how freely he would mention it in one-on-one settings; she is far, far, far from the only one with both skill and motive.

      “But assuming Rachel hacked and released the list (and she’s the only one so far who has both the skill and the motive), that’s…a lot of wrath to direct at someone she had one bad interaction with.”

      That list is chock full of a whole lot of bullshit to direct at people that Joe’s not necessarily had -any- interactions with, only looked at while they were walking past. To have it publicized is exactly what he deserved.

      1. Lauralot

        I’m not saying he doesn’t deserve it. Again, what he’s doing is awful and I don’t condone or excuse it in the least.

        I’m saying that if it is Rachel, she’s displaying a pattern of going for the throat and the first opportunity, and I’m worried about what happened to make that her method of attack.

    3. Fart Captor

      Though Rachel does seem like she might be a generally grouchy person, she had one really bad interaction with Joe. Like, Joe’s calling her “Eleven” here because he never even introduced himself or asked her name before he announced how badly he wanted to fuck her as if that should matter greatly to her, while right outside the room where she sleeps.

      Though being a not just a woman, but an attractive woman going into male nerd dominated field, it’d be very, very likely that her tolerance for macho bullshit is very, very low. In my experience, women in computer science get an extra helping of bullshit from their peers if they if they’re anything prettier than “homely”.

      I can also easily imagine that when she actually saw the list, and how comprehensive and invasive it was, that was when she decided to release it, because that was the last straw.

      and as a woman in computer science, has

      1. Cerberus

        Yeah, there’s that extra edge to this. All that Rachel knows of Joe is that he was in an area he was literally camped outside her unlocked door and told her how badly he wanted to fuck her the second she stepped outside and that he showed an active ignoring of her attempt to shut him down, insisting on an obligation on her part and ignoring clear negative body language to fuck off.

        Like, Joe might not be a rapist, but dear Bob is that legitimately frightening to encounter the second you leave your room. Like, if someone did that to me when I left my very lockable front door, I’d be freaking out about it. Having that happen in a space I had no real means of securing? When I had an RA I didn’t trust and an RM who in my opinion clearly didn’t seem to care about abuses of power or wrongdoing?

        And if you added to all of that her actually seeing the list, the dehumanization, the thoroughness of it, and the “how to exploit weaknesses” qualities to some of the entries… eesh.

        And on top of that, he’s showing extra bad boundaries still calling her by the thing she actively communicated she didn’t like. Like oof, that all puts a spin on her interaction and why she’s not going to be in a mood to entertain this. Or why if she was the one to release it (I don’t think it was), she did so.

        1. Lauralot

          That’s a good point. I’d forgotten he was right outside her door.

        2. spoopyfox

          huh i read that strip as proof that he was still tailing behind dorothy and walky

  43. Jeremy

    Nice save there Joe, real Smooth. LOL

  44. Bagge

    How is that “winning back” thing going so far, Joe?

    1. Emperor Norton II

      I can picture Becky just popping her head in from off-panel and saying just those words to Joe, before disappearing again.

      1. Needfuldoer

        Double deuce on proud display and everything.

      2. Bagge

        Nah, Becky is NO SPITE whatsoever, and hardly any sarcasm. Just look back at her interaction with Robin.

        For drive-by sarcasm, I think other Rachel, Grace, Carla or even Dina in a sassy mode are much more likely.

        1. Bagge

          OK, fine. She DOES spite against chipmunks, but that’s it.

          http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/03-when-god-closes-the-door/frame/

        2. chris73

          Well Dorothy might disagree on that…

        3. Emperor Norton II

          I beg to disagree. Part of her motivation for becoming a scientist was indeed to spite all the assholes (starting with Toedad) in her community that tried to deny her such an opportunity.

  45. Sdrainbow

    This is, like, the third or fourth time someone has referenced Rachel as being off-the-scale gorgeous. I don’t see it. Of course, super gay, I can only process female attractiveness logically, but it seems to me Rachel, while certainly possessing striking and attractive features, is in the same ballpark as Joyce, Sal, Amber, and Sarah.

    1. Irredentist

      I wasn’t gonna say anything because I didn’t want to be an asshole but I kinda agree lol

      1. chris73

        Its subjective of course but for me its Rachel, Joyce, Sal, Sarah and Amber in that order

        1. Irredentist

          Oh god now it’s a bunch of men rating women. We have let the comment section down. What have we done.

        2. chris73

          Well I’m not assigning numbers so does that help?

        3. Irredentist

          Marginally

        4. chris73

          Um how about he started it first?

    2. Fart Captor

      I dunno, it seems clear that her face is supposed to be really pretty, but I suspect that her body language / attitude probably factor into it.

      The other woman we’ve seen him get really into (for more than 5 seconds) was Sarah, who also immediately wasn’t having any of his bullshit. At the time it seemed kinda gross because it felt like Joe was turned on specifically by Sarah’s resistance, but its possible that on some level he finds strong women who won’t take shit from anyone very attractive. Unfortunately for Joe that is also the sort of woman that his current “charm” will only piss the hell off.

      That, or I’m overthinking it and Joe just has a “type”

      1. Delicious Taffy

        Strong women are hot. For example, any main-cast woman from Dragon Ball, particularly #18.

    3. zoelogical

      isn’t that, like, just joe

      so it’s by joe’s subjective standards

      (rachel you’re lovely and do not deserve the male gaze)

    4. Smiling Cat

      First, beauty is subjective, so one person’s opinion of beauty doesn’t have to reflect everybody else’s.

      Second, the comic is, well… a comic using stylized art. Even if there were an objective standard by which beauty could be judged (a fairest of them all if you will), the art style isn’t set up to convey more than relatively simple representations of the characters. To get that technical, you’d probably need calipers and 3d models and charts and diagrams and stuff.

      Third, beauty is subjective. One Joe’s seven is another Ruth’s Ten and all that.

    5. Needfuldoer

      “Physically attractive” is just one of many boxes to check, though. The characters you listed have wildly different personalities. Rachel’s witty but closed-minded, Sal is independent but aloof, Amber’s smart but panicky, Joyce is kind but naive, Sarah is pragmatic but perpetually grumpy.

      Personally, I think who someone is matters more than physical attributes in the long run.

    6. JessWitt

      She’s statuesque. And she has lovely raven-colored hair.

      1. ValdVin

        Some of us guys also really enjoy freckles. (Of course, having my own may contribute to that.)

  46. Cmd1095

    *sigh* goddamnit Joe you just had a good moment that showed there was hope for you, couldn’t ya have kept that going for like… 2 strips?

  47. @zombieundergrnd

    Few things here.

    First, I imagine there are some women on campus who do not have it out for him. Most likely those who are not very confident about their looks who might take it as a positive if they are ranked higher than they consider themselves to be (“Wait, he thinks I’m a 7?”)

    Outside of those individuals, I am curious if there is a (universal) number that would cause the least amount of animosity.
    Like if he is ranking someone a 10 (or 11 as in today’s strip), then the attitude is he sees them strictly as a sex symbol. At 9 you have that same lean but it is leaving room to not see it as a total sex object aspect. 8 would seem to be a middle ground where someone isn’t mad about not being considered higher but not be too low. 7 might be starting to push it in the opposite direction and below that is just going to make people annoyed/more angry.
    Obviously no one wants to be thought of as simply an appeal based number, but at the same time, most people probably have some sort of ranking they’ve attributed to themselves (which in some cases may be a cause of depression — likely driven by other things as well).
    So there will be plenty of people mad and because they have a real target to aim their ire at, will leave it that way. Others will be mad at the moment but will eventually have something else to be mad at and won’t dwell on it. And then there are those who were offended early but shrug it off and move on. Joe will get the cold shoulder from them initially, but that will wear away.
    I think ultimately the only way Joe actually learns anything from this is if he runs into a woman who fell somewhere between the last two groups. Offended early and will be cold initially but doesn’t close the door on him completely. The key will be that she feels strongly enough to want to open his eyes about how much more she (and women in general) is/are and that he is missing the opportunity to experience all of that by simply seeing women in the very narrow scope through which he currently views them.
    That person may not actually be on campus right now though.

    1. MM

      No. There is no number that makes this okay. Nobody likes being told they don’t measure up when they weren’t asking to be measured in the first place, and can only do so much to meet the arbitrary standards being set even if they want to make improvements. And if the only way Joe’s going to learn to treat women as people is if one of them has to spoonfeed him a lesson he should’ve learned by now, he really is hopeless. (Fortunately for him, I think he is capable of figuring it out on his own if he wants by just sitting back and actually listening and observing, instead of looking for ways to score.)

      1. Cerberus

        Yup, it’s like street harassment. There’s no flattery in it, just being made to feel like crap and be dehumanized.

        And for most women, the numbers are bad no matter what they are. If the numbers are low, it means some douchebag is believing their subjective opinion of their beauty needed to be plastered everywhere as some sort of intended shame. If the numbers are high, it means some douchebag was targeting them and saw them as marks to pursue and harass and was encouraging others to do the same.

        And all the numbers are used in place of their names and are reducing them to their bodies in a space where they are actively there as part of a dream to master a specific discipline and with proof of their intellectual prowess. A reminder that to too many men, all they are is meat and holes to be targeted who can never be considered people and that they are not fully welcomed into the public space they more than have a right to be equal participants in.

        1. Li

          +1

          Also, no, not everyone has a mental idea of their own ranking, OP. (Quit trying to pretend that ranking women is a universal phenomenon — now we are even meant to all be ranking ourselves! — instead of something only jerks do.)

        2. Cerberus

          I feel like the reason that “these numbers are objective” toxic masculinity crowd do it and spread it is because they’ve been fed the idea that “men are logical, women are emotional” and are so terrified of being deemed girly in anything, that they go to weird lengths to try and render subjective experience and emotions as some universal objective thing.

          So who one is attracted to must be an objective 1-10 scale based on normative beauty standards.

          And I think this also feeds into other toxic attitudes that come up again and again. Like, this gets applied to all subjective experiences by a certain type of insecure man.

          Like they can’t handle that a movie or a video game might resonate differently with different audiences. Instead, they assume that there is an objective scale of good and bad movies that just happens to line up to their own tastes and biases.

          And so when they see an audience loving a work or a thing they’ve assumed to be bad by the system, they freak out, because it reveals the lie that is trying to pretend subjective taste is objective. And they’ll freak out at someone who loves non-normatively or thinks “low numbers” are attractive, for the same reason.

          And it’s why guys like Joe are so slow to abandon systems like this even when they are hurting them. What’s at stake (for him) is not his ability to get laid or love or be seen as a non-shitbird, but very likely his ability to pretend he can run away from the dreaded Feeeeeelings and be “properly objective” and thus shielded from the uncertainty that comes with accepting subjectivity as a thing that can exist for guys.

        3. Li

          This is a fascinating theory. It definitely also makes sense with what I was saying a million years ago about the ‘objective’ ranking system being more about competing with other douchebros to make sure you were only lusting after The Finest Grass-Fed Womenz (which I remember you agreeing with), too.

          (Cognitive dissonance then assures that a huge chunk of the douchebros who are shocked by a audience loving something they think Must Be Bad by the numbers inevitably resort to that weird conspiracy theory. “People are only PRETENDING to like this for SJW points!” for example. Or, for the slightly more thoughtful, “Feminism has destroyed people’s tastes!”)

          (FYI, someone elsewhere called your analysis “overreacting”, and I’m sure they’re aware that was a terrible word choice on their part, but it has always reminded me more of Lit Critique. Lit crit doesn’t make a reader who uses it omniscient — sometimes they’ll see a message that wasn’t the author’s intention and won’t be followed up on — but I don’t think lit crit is meant to give a reader omniscience. It serves other purposes to look at media with that kind of microscope sometimes; for example, sometimes it’s just kind of fun to unpack media at that level, to look at one or another slant a work could be read to support. My favorite activity in those classes was always when we were told to look at a given work with two different, incompatible lit crit lenses.)

          (I think one way of looking at lit crit and the fact that you can usually apply contrary lenses to a work and have roughly equal success is to say “well, that just proves lit crit doesn’t mean anything and we’re reading too much into stuff”, and to a certain extent human beings are pretty famous for our skill at pattern recognition to the point of false positives… but I think what you’re, well, supposed to get out of this sort of thing is that people — authors as well as readers — are complex. We create stories that have multiple valid interpretations. Maybe as many valid interpretations as there are readers to consume them. Stories resonate with people in different ways, and what you bring to the table will definitely have an impact just as much as what the author deliberately put there, but authors also bring things to the table without meaning to.)

  48. missilentmurmur

    I’m surprised she is on talking terms with him after what went down

  49. Delicious Taffy

    Did she just reveal her reptoid eyes?

  50. Dariu55

    I would have said “Orange”

  51. Reltzik

    …..

    Okay, so here’s the real test. Joe just showed some character growth, and now he’s…

    …. well he hasn’t LOST that bit of growth. For all we know, he’s still able be open with Danny and maintain that friendship. THAT nugget of growth hasn’t gone away, that we’ve seen, and I don’t particularly suspect that it will.

    But now he’s faced with another growth area, and Item I of growth that he experienced a few strips ago clearly does not automatically translate into Item II that he’s facing right now. …. and it’d be a bit silly to expect otherwise. What kind of world would it be if someone overcoming one of their personal problem areas translated into them simultaneously overcoming ALL of their problem areas?

    But the real test here, I think, is whether Joe is still in a growth-…. mindset? Growth-mentality? Something like that. Still in a learning state of mind. If so, we might see a lot of things change in the next few strips.

    …..

    …. not holding my breath, though. DoA just doesn’t resolve itself that fast.

    1. chris73

      This

    2. Cerberus

      I’m a little worried that he seems to be resistant to his growth mentality and is super eager to “reset everything back to normal” after doing the minimum amount of growing.

      Like, that’s not uncommon. Folks frequently want desperately to re-establish a status quo when one is disturbed, but given Joe’s previous behavior in resisting opportunities for growth or responding to setbacks or examples his system isn’t working, it’s definitely at least a point of concern even if that proves ultimately to be misfounded.

      1. chris73

        Well remember that, to him, this is all new and happening right now. So its less resistant to change and more holy shitballs whats happening here I don’t understand whats going on

        I mean yeah he might not grow (which would be a pity) but more likely whats happened with Danny, Joyce and Dorothy will have sunk in and likely the reaction from Rachel will help him to process everything thats going on, once he gets away from all the stimuli

        Don’t get me wrong hes done this all to himself and he only has himself to blame but now what he needs to do is go back to his room and take in and go over everything thats happened

        I mean I don’t know about anyone else here but when I’m under periods of stress I tend to go back to what I know and its not until that stress is over and I’m calm that I’m able to get my head around whats happening

        Or maybe it might help if Danny, Joyce and Dorothy were to smack Joe on the nose every time he says something bone headed…

        1. Cerberus

          Indeed, he’s still processing it and in denial mode. I’m just concerned but optimistic because he’s used initial denial tactics like this to avoid actually processing things in the past. And I’m hoping this time its just the panic responses and habits before he actually really sits down with what he’s been doing and how harmful it has been to himself and others.

          Think of it like my early reactions with Hank. Wary, but cautiously optimistic yet braced to be severely disappointed in case that optimism is unwarranted.

        2. Puckish Rogue

          Theres nothing wrong that, its completely reasonable but something I’ve noticed is that there seems to be an almost unreasonable expectation on some of the characters to change or how much they can/should change

          Using Hank as an example he started out as an unreasonable fundie but slowly changed and then when he got more time on the strip he ended changing more than anyone else, in my opinion

          For his daughter and Becky hes questioned his faith (or at least his church) which I’m assuming hes had for his entire life, hes questioned his entire world view, hes questioning his marriage and keeping secrets from his wife of approx. 30 years, hes going against his community and yet there’re still posters on here saying he could do more

          I’m pretty sure some have been saying he should buy her a phone, set up a bank account for her, some have probably said he should adopt her and yet whats he done has been big, really big

          So I wonder if some of the characters on here have bigger hoops to jump through, to be “accepted”, than others do just so that their actions aren’t immediately pegged as negative

        3. thejeff

          Nah, we’re just waiting for Joe to actually change any of his behavior towards women.
          He’s kind of acknowledged he hasn’t been treating his best friend well and this is being hailed as a major sign of transformation. It’s important, but it’s only a small step and it doesn’t actually say anything about him changing his approach to women.

          As for Hank, while a lot of people were apprehensive before Joyce’s weekend at home, he’s now widely regarded as “Most improved Dad”.

        4. Puckish Rogue

          I agree, I mean want to see Joe improve and be the man he could be. I’m just saying there is improvement in his overall behaviour, there are strong signs he can improve and that I’m hopeful he will but it also sounds as if there are some posters that don’t want certain people to change, that want to keep seeing them as “the bad guy”

          Like take all the Danny hate that used to be around on the boards, nothing the guy could do was right and everything he did was seen through a prism of negativity (like if Danny was a glass of water type of thing) and the general perception only seemed to changed after it was pointed out how abusive his parents were and he started to be attracted to Ethan

          There just seems to be some characters on this strip that get unfairly (in my opinion) maligned and that nothing they do is right or if they, grudgingly, do something right its never enough

          Of course the same criticism could be levelled at myself over my dislike of Ruth

    3. Trolldrool

      Joe has started to improve, but we should still be prepared from a lot of cringeworthy behaviour from him in the future. He has over a decade of ignorance and misinformation to get rid of, and unfortunately it’s very human to not realize which of our beliefs are wrong until we’ve been confronted with several of them separately.

    4. Schpoonman

      Keep in mind these events are unfolding over days for us and minutes at-most for the characters. I don’t think Joe is a bad person at his core. If he’s given time and patience he’s been seen learning before.

  52. Yotomoe

    GOODNESS GRACIOUS.

    1. CianM1301

      GREAT BALLS OF FIRE

      1. Reltzik

        ….. so, castration via blow torch?

        1. neeks

          Best way to cauterize the wound.

    2. Remmington Steele

      Good golly Miss Molly!

  53. Eldritch Gentleman

    Rachel has this “Joe trying to be actually charming? Okay that’s a new level of creepy…” reaction XD

    1. thejeff

      Nothing new at all. He’s trying to be charming in exactly the same creepy way he tried to be charming to her before. Except this time he’s where she takes most of her classes, instead of outside her door.

  54. Koms

    Noooooooooo!!!! While as an Electronics and Telecom major I didn’t face anything like this, I had to deal with some shit in the workplace initially. I work in a company with a severely skewed gender ratio. And in a profile where women don’t generally work. People suggested I should take up a desk job rather than work in the field as soft women should do soft jobs. Ugh. Later I got the reputation that I work like a man (eye roll).

    And so many times I had to explain to my men friends that A) a woman doesn’t wear makeup to attract men but to wear makeup. B) a woman does not enjoy being stalked. C) a woman is also a person and just because she is out and about minding her own business doesn’t mean a guy has the right to harass her.

    Sorry for the text wall. This just made me so angry

    1. ValdVin

      I’m a guy who went to a School of Engineering (not saying when, but my first Amateur Radio Handbook had vacuum tube circuits in it). Not many women were in it, and the headwinds for women who took up “mens’ (sic) majors” was palpable.

      Joe’s mindset seems to be stuck back then.

      1. ValdVin

        (By which I mean, his mindset doesn’t represent an accurate or fair snapshot of things then, of the attractiveness of women who took up STEM majors when I was in college, but the stereotype he’s taking up now is representative of a fallacy which was much more believed back then.)

  55. CianM1301

    I think what Joe really needs right now is to take a step back and realize that he isn’t God’s gift to women. Hopefully, the list being compromised will be a humbling experience for him and he’ll learn something from it.

  56. Vulcanodon

    “And other body parts”? I’m beginning to suspect Joe isn’t terribly bright. This’d be a real good time for him to just be quiet and do more listening. Maybe some reading.

  57. ischemgeek

    Goddamn it Joe. >:(

    Right now Joe is every person I spoke to when I was a baby queer looking to science and didn’t know I was trans yet. “But you’re a pretty girl! You don’t need to do that!”

    “Girls don’t need science!”

    “Just find yourself a good husband, he’ll do all the thinking for you!”

    “Don’t worry your pretty head about it.”

    “I don’t think it’s appropriate for a nice girl like you to try to work with all those men.”

    “I don’t think technical fields are appropriate for women. Have you considered teaching?”

    … Like if you’re anywhere even halfway average in appearance and female-presenting you get all of those things from all directions and I do not blame Rachel one bit for having negative patience for it.

    1. Eldritch Gentleman

      I’m hearing all this and it seriously looks like US is some kind of misogynistic hell-hole… must be all those Puritans going there…

      1. Dragonfire

        Let’s not pretend that it’s not like this elsewhere in the world, please. My own experience was not in the States, for one, and speaking to women involved in STEM from around the world has shown over and over that although the particular experiences differ, backlash against female academics and scientists is not just a Western problem.

      2. ischemgeek

        I am Canadian actually. Land of snow, ice, maple syrup and Pride-marching feminist PMs.

        So not just USian problem.

    2. Eli

      I cannot even count how many times me and my other femalw friends have been asked if we wanted to be teachers when discussing our career paths. I’m an English Major, not an Education Major, and if you talk to me to literally five seconds you would know I am not a huge fan of people. What part of me, other than the fact that I’m a woman, screams teacher to these people? Me amd my friend studying Psych were talking about this last night. We both have a huge respect for teachers but the fact that we’ve been asked that so much has started to feel very offensive. Like, I have way bigger career aspirations than that man…

      1. Dusk Rain

        I get asked “So you want to teach people English, right?” all the time when I tell people I majored in Japanese. Like no, I majored in Japanese, not English (or education) and THAT is the language I want to work with. Plus I would not be a good teacher. I knew even as a kid that I wouldn’t enjoy it, plus I don’t enjoy kids that much… (I don’t mind teens and adults but still don’t want to teach them.)

      2. C.T Phipps

        I’m curious what’s considered to be “small” about teaching as an aspiration but that’s the fact I’m a professional writer who never was able to get a job teaching the subject he loved.

    3. Moojoo

      I always used to get, “Oh cool, so then you’ll be a science teacher?”

      …no. No, I will not. I said my major was physics. Not education.

      Old ladies on the bus were the best. They were always really interested in what kind of research I was doing, and assumed I would continue doing, rather than assuming I was going to teach.

      1. Cerberus

        The irony of this thread is I went into science teaching mostly because I love it and always wanted to at least partially teach, but also not an inconsiderable amount because I was done dealing with sexism and transphobia in traditional science lab environments.

        1. ischemgeek

          I have known a lot of people who left the industry because they were done. Of the graduating class at my uni, I think 1/25 ciswomen are still in the industry (6yrs on) vs 1/3 cisdudes?

          So yeah. Hard enough to get girls to keep interested in science through grade school ( in elementary school it is about 50-50 but by high school science clubs and activities all skew heavily dudely) with all the media and adults being all good girls don’t do STEM” but even harder when you have men actively trying to push them out (and succeeding).

    4. Dusk Rain

      I feel you on the misdirected misogyny. (That’s the term right?) Though it isn’t entirely misdirected in my case, being bigender.

      It’s like, you end up torn between saying “don’t do that to women” and “I’m not even your target wtf.” (Usually I try to say both.)

    5. SgtWadeyWilson

      Well I’d just like to say, as politely as I can: damn every person you spoke to then to their respective negative afterlife or lack thereof.

      Everybody needs science, and if the “men” who “should do the thinking for you” actually sat down and thought for a second, they’d realize that it’s not only cruel, but illogical too.

      Focusing on the logic side, it’s commonly accepted that having people with different perspectives tackle the same problem often solves a problem that previously seemed unsolvable. So why try to keep any field that boils down to figuring shit out limited to a select range of perspectives?

  58. Tim Kai

    Okay, I finally see the eye roll in the last panel. It took me 30 seconds, though, and until I saw it I thought Rachel was possessed! Which is hilarious, but I figured I’d mention it anyway.

    1. Eldritch Gentleman

      She is possessed by a Bloodthirster of Khorne, that’s just how great her rage and blood lust is.

    2. Warren

      “There is no more Rachel! There is only Pazuzu, Devourer of Testicles!”
      “Heh, that actually sounds pretty ho–OHGODMYTESTICLES!”

  59. darkoneko

    I thought the eyes were just blank at first.

  60. Tomas

    Looks like “castrate” is Joe’s safe word.

  61. Tenchan

    Well, that certainly brought the whites in her eyes.

  62. SlothfulCobra

    I’ve heard of Information Science majors and Computer Science majors, but never have I heard of such a thing as an “Information and Computing” major.

    1. bunivasal

      IU’s computing school is specifically called “The School of Informatics and Computing” and their information science is “The School of Information and Library Science”.

      Rachel’s specific degree could be involved in informational architecture systems. Which can be information science coursework applied towards software engineering.

  63. BenRG

    I’ve got a feeling that Rachel is going to have a role in advancing Joe’s character arc to the next level; maybe even a key role!

  64. Guest

    Those are nice boots she has.

    1. butting

      Shame if she had to stomp someone with them, yeah?

      1. Dusk Rain

        That’s what she’s gonna do~

    2. Remmington Steele

      Ah, she should just kick him in the goolies already.

      1. Puckish Rogue

        I don’t know if that’s the best long term solution to Joes issues

        1. Eldritch Gentleman

          But it’s the best long term solution to women’s issues with Joe.

        2. Puckish Rogue

          Didn’t quite seem to work when Joe had his first (hopefully not last) date with Joyce though

        3. Eldritch Gentleman

          You know what they,violence is the solution, if it isn’t you are just not using enough of it. I’m half-joking here but Joe would either Get the hint or become Incapable of requiring new hints.

        4. Puckish Rogue

          Well sure I get that and I completely understand, I mean part of me thinks Joe needs a slap but then the other thinks where does that lead? Slippery slope argument and all

          But yeah Joe can be quite frustrating

  65. Remmington Steele

    Joe, just do the Long Walk. Come back when you’re ready.

    1. Puckish Rogue

      Are we talking Stephen King or Judge Dredd? (I’m cool with either one)

      1. Delicious Taffy

        Whichever one has Nevermore playing over the credits while you walk away from the camera.

        1. Puckish Rogue

          How about this instead: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzMSfaNXYZg

        2. Delicious Taffy

          I don’t like to steal bad jokes from Family Guy, so… No.

  66. BigDogLittleCat

    And just like that, Joe shows he hasn’t learned a damn thing. Goes right back to women as body parts sans brains.

    In the meantime, what happened with Amber and Ryan? It’s now been so long the suspense has decayed to simple curiosity, on par with what happened in the wacky lesbian dating shenanigans sitcom or what is Mary smiling about?

    When Joe and Danny showed up at the Computer Sciences building, I thought Willis would tie it back in by having them run into Amber, who certainly won’t look kindly on a man who feels so much entitlement to women’s bodies, but it doesn’t look like it.

  67. Black

    Did he REALLY call her out by his “sexual attractiveness rating?”

    I really hope she ends their little conversation by hitting him with pepper spray!

  68. Minder

    Glad to see some more good coming out of Rachel and her foaming rage at social injustices in this storyline, instead of more really unfortunate negatives like the shutdown that crushed Ruth and possibly Amber.

  69. bunivasal

    I was ready to be on Danny’s side, but then I noticed Joe refers to Rachel as “Eleven.” He doesn’t know her name.

    The person he considers to be the most attractive woman on campus. Someone he rated as part of a campaign to rate the physical attractiveness of every woman on campus. A project that presumably required considerable research.

    And he doesn’t remember the NAME of the person who was most attractive.

  70. Orion Fury

    Challenge Graciously Accepted.

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