Lately I've been thinking about gender identity quite a bit, and as a subset of that, gender roles. I've always found the mindset that there is a specific role for each gender in relationships to be confusing at best, harmful at worst. But it's a dominant theme in American culture, so it's something that is difficult to ignore.
I have a friend here in San Antonio who watches a lot of "chick flicks." I don't think I've actually sat down and watched a mainstream romantic comedy since I was a pre-teen, so the whole genre had really gone off my radar before I met her. But I watched a couple movies with her recently, and I was really surprised to find that the whole conversation about heterosexual relationships hadn't really budged since the 1990's (and probably earlier than that as well, but I couldn't speak to that, as I was in diapers at the time.) The predominant theme seems to be that men and women are completely different species, each operating based on a specific set of rules. Exceptions to these rules are never addressed, and the rules themselves make an awful lot of dangerous assumptions.
Probably one of the biggest issues with this paradigm is that it ignores the ability to communicate. Most of these films (and other pieces of pop culture, I'm sure beauty and fitness magazines play into this mentality a lot as well, but I don't read them so I can't be sure) insinuate that it is impossible for a man and a woman to simply sit down and talk to each other like equals. Instead, an elaborate courtship game plays out wherein they try to get close to each other, usually with only broad stereotypes about the opposite sex to guide them on their way.
Common themes include:
-Men always want sex. It's literally impossible for a man to not be in the mood.
-Women never want sex. But they always use it as a form of manipulation.
-Men are never emotional.
-Women are never rational.
-Women never say exactly what they want.
-Men can't say what they want, because what they want is sex, and if they say that, they'll get water thrown in their face.
Okay, so far I probably haven't told you anything new. But here's my question, and I'm asking it honestly because I don't know the answer:
Does anyone actually take this stuff seriously?
Again: I'm really asking. Is there anyone on the planet over the age of 15 who buys into this stuff? Are there really adults walking around, working at their jobs, paying their rent or mortgage, living their adult lives, and assuming that this is how relationships in the real world truly operate?
Normally, I would say "No way, that's not possible! That would represent a massive emotional handicap, no one can function that way and maintain a healthy social life." But then a friend of mine linked me this article, wherein a real, live woman spells out an increasingly ludicrous, sexist list of "Secrets Girls Don't Want Guys to Know." This list paints, in broad strokes, a cartoonish vision of the female stereotype depicted in the romantic comedies that I spent more than a decade avoiding.
She is insecure about herself, but confident in her ability to manipulate men. She is driven more by deception than by any kind of desire for a real connection. She has a love-hate relationship with mainstream beauty standards and an equally passionate love-hate relationship with compliments she gets from men. And, I think it goes without saying, she is pathetically shallow.
(I'll spare you the rant about how dangerous it is to insinuate that when women act offended, they're just being coy - for now. But I guarantee it will come up in a later post about consent culture.)
At first I thought, "Who would think it's ever safe or appropriate to speak on behalf of their entire gender? What sort of person would assume that their personal life experience is the epitome of womanhood itself?" because, to me, there is no logic in that action.
But then I thought back to those romantic comedies. And I realized, it's entirely possible that this woman has been conditioned, her entire life, to think that all women are the same. And that everything she reads or sees in popular culture should inform her sense of self, to the very core. It's possible that she has simply internalized the pop culture definitions of gender role so wholly that she cannot even conceive that they might not be true, or might not apply to everyone.
I suppose I've just answered my own question. Yes, some people do buy into this stuff. I guess the next question is: does it do tangible harm? And if so, how do we combat it?
To those, I have no answers. For now. But I suppose that, for now, all I wanted to do was get this off my chest.
