Good idioms! 1) "to play to" means to appeal to, directly address or use something, usually an emotion or fear. In your sentence, "telling working-class men to take feminine jobs plays to their anxieties" means that the suggestion to take a feminine job directly addresses and provokes those men's anxieties that they are not real men. Some other examples: -"The politician played to his audience's fear of immigrants by telling them that he wouldn't allow refugees." --> the politician knows that the people in his audience are afraid of immigrants and used that fear to make them more likely to support him. -"University preparation institutes play to students' fears that they won't get a good career if they don't get accepted into a good university." --> Students have a fear, and the institutes manipulate it in order to get business. 2) "to come off as" means to seem to be something, to appear to be some way, to be interpreted some way. In your sentence, "come off as condescending" means the advice to take feminine jobs seems condescending (i.e. the person who is giving the advice thinks that they are superior to the people they are giving the advice to). Another example: -"John comes off as a really nice guy, but I know that he's actually a jerk." --> John seems nice, but the speaker knows that in reality he isn't.