Let’s not mock bald men. But do they really feel threatened? | Stephanie Merritt

An employment tribunal has equated insulting a man’s hairline with commenting on the size of a woman’s breasts. It’s not the same

Last month, when the whole of Twitter was sharing that quartet of Emmanuel Macron photos, a female friend and I were voicing our appreciation of the chest hair aesthetic and cheerfully agreeing that we absolutely would, when a gentleman earnestly interrupted to remind us that it would be considered unacceptable these days for two men to discuss a female politician in such terms.

I didn’t like to distress him with the suggestion that there may yet be dark corners of new and old media where men rate the shaggability of women in public life (ask Angela Rayner), but his reprimand spoke to a broader point: when it comes to objectification, we are currently enjoying a brief window of licence denied to men.

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