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There's been much talk in the last week of exactly what constitutes "inappropriate" professional/academic behavior towards women. After President Obama joked that California Attorney General Kamala Harris is, among other things, the "best-looking" Attorney General in the country, a shitstorm of criticism and backlash of defenses cropped up in the press.

While many asserted that Obama's joke was inappropriate, some female pundits on Fox and Friends as well as CNN columnist Roxanne Jones said that the anger was a severe overreaction. The gist of their argument? "I'd be flattered if the President said I was pretty." (How nice for them!) But we don't really know how Harris herself feels about it: Smartly, she's stayed out of the subsequent debate.

All this begs the question: When do we draw the line between a harmless remark and a sexist statement? And regardless of whether it was meant to be sexist, isn't the offhand objectification of women by a figure in power sort of harmful either way?

Yesterday, Professor He Guangshun of the Guangdong University of Foreign Studies posted a comment he made in class to Weibo (the Chinese Twitter):

It's cruel that girls have to come to class at 8:30 am. They should have more time to put on their makeup and enter the classroom elegantly. That way, encouraged and moved by their beauty, boys would have the drive to work hard.

First of all, I always considered going to any pre-noon class in makeup the same thing as going to the gym in makeup. No, sir. I will carry on the proud co-ed tradition of greasy top-knot and pizza-stained sweatpants, thank you muchly. If the boys were "moved" by anything, it was the fact that I smelled like rum, cigarettes, and one ineffective spritz of Gap Dream. IT'S CALLED BEING LOVELY, PEOPLE. TRY IT.

Second of all, I mean... nothing about this makes sense. Put on makeup, you've got a class full of Beautiful Minds. Put on yoga pants, and you're distracting? Other points of confusion: The fact that Guangshun thought it was OK to say in class. The fact that he thought it was so clever he should put it on the Internet. And, above all, the fact that many people are laughing it off or agreeing with him. Including women.

Part of the reason for this is that Shanghai students, even those who have access to a college education, show a marked disinterest in gender studies education and traditional gender norms are huge. Then again, what's our country's excuse?

On the bright side, I'm all for nixing all 8:30 AM classes. You?

Follow Anna on Twitter: @annabreslaw

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