T-Shirts For Misogynists

You know how there used to be nothing sadder than the sight of a badly-dressed man traipsing home through town with bags and bags of brand new bootcut jeans and comedy t-shirts? Well now there is.

At this point, you've probably heard all about Topman's decision to spend the autumn/winter 2011 season chasing the misogynist pound. If you haven't, here are two t-shirts that appeared on the Topman website last week:

The appearance of the t-shirts online threw up a number of questions. Such as, are Topman aiming this one at a man who fucks other people's dogs?

And is this one pitched at people who beat up women? If the answer to either of these questions is 'yes', then why? And if it's 'no', who the hell thought it'd be a good idea to stock and sell t-shirts that souvenir shop-running ex-pats in Magaluf would reject for being too crass? (Not to mention terrifying. This one makes me feel like a scared child.)

No doubt you there are those among you that possess the requisite wit to detect the humour in these designs. Regrettably for you, some killjoys (aka "Suffragettes" aka "the fun police") went mad; condemning Topman and demanding that everyone's favourite taxpaying retail chain remove the shirts from sale IMMEDIATELY.

Topman acquiesced and removed the shirts, even throwing in a public apology for good measure. But you know what? Maybe they shouldn't have.

Look at it this way: Leave these t-shirts be, and no longer would the owners have to hide their hatred for women beneath veils of basic human decency. If society allowed these men to dress like the bullies that they are, maybe their t-shirts would actually serve as warnings to the public, one that says: 'Beware: the man wearing this is a prick, and may attack you if you are a woman.' I liked this idea so much I decided to design some misogynist-outing t-shirts of my own.

Like all great works of art, I decided that my t-shirts needed names. This one's called "Real Men Wear Pink".

"Which Side Are You On?"

"Throw Fergie Down the Stairs".

"Slagz Utd", for the man who enjoys both football AND misogyny.

A stylish "ironic" tee, for misogynist hipsters.

"Spirit of '77".

I wanted to test my shirts in public, so I called up my friend Amy and we caught a bus to where the misogynists lived: Bernard Manning's Embassy Club in Harpurhey.

This was the wretched sight that greeted our eyes. The cavemen in their cave; half-cut, not particularly happy, and dressed horrifically. I wasn't expecting Bora Bora Beach Club, but I was expecting the misogynists to at least give off the impression of being alive.

Inside the club, things were pretty morose, so we decided to head outside and get some action shots for our advertising campaign. Here's me doing the worst thing you can possibly do to another human being!

After a while, even kicking non-existent foetuses to death gets dull, so Amy volunteered to try out one of our next-gen designs: the Self-loathing Slag Suit for Auto-Misogynists. But how did we create this masterwork? We cut holes in the shirt where her tits were. Like Ballard said, "sex + technology = the future."

Needless to say, the locals loved it, and plied us with Guinness after Guinness until the last orders bell rang. I had grown fond of these men in the time I had spent at Bernard Manning's Embassy Club in Harpuhey; I could see now that they were just lonely, and not bullies at all – nay, it was they who had been bullied by life, by their cuckolding wives, by the government who'd taken the working man's lot and sold it off to wine bars, estate agents and young cretins like myself who'd willingly pay £9 for a lime daiquiri in the pubs these men used to dream and laugh in when they were young.

I chided myself for being so presumptious, and then this guy started dribbling at us, so we left.

When I went back to Topman the next day, there was no sign of the offending t-shirts. The Suffragettes had ensured that they were erased from history forever, and Topman was back to shifting its depressingly sane collection of stripy tops to people like the guy in the shot behind me. However, I did manage to track down this: a t-shirt of my favourite pop star. I found it hard to understand why misogynists would wear a picture of a woman on their chests. I guess Topman can't be a shop for people who hate women after all. Phew!

WORDS: SAMUEL BREEN
PHOTOS: KYLE MICHAEL TARBUCK