Dear Macho Women and Femme Men,
In this letter I do not hope to solve any problems or to give you any answers, I want to provoke thought, if anything, so that you can discover the problems and find your own answers to them.
Being shunned from society hurts, it can leave feelings of being alone and confused, or even frightened, unable to tell where you belong or who will accept you for who you are. People who see themselves as 'normal' people may use words like 'different', 'weird', 'trouble', or 'gay' when they talk about people who go against their ways of normality. One thing we have learned from generations and generations of history is that people have a fear of things that are 'different', today's generation has a fear of people who go against what is considered 'normal' for genders, also known as gender roles. Gender roles of men shown as strong, brave, and dangerous heroes of masculinity and women characterized as submissive, caring, and gentle things of femininity; these ideas of gender roles are forced onto us leaving us with a perception of what the standard man and woman is, what is 'normal' to society. However, imagine if the standards were to be rewritten putting the gender roles in society on the opposite sex, changing it so that men the ones constantly perused by women and women are raised to not show the weakness in their emotions. Even more drastic yet, imagine that gender roles were eliminated and had no foothold in people's minds, we may naturally gravitate towards our old habits because it is in our biology, or we could reshape the gender roles that are placed on men and women into something different then society has made them today. Is it possible to live without gender roles in society?
A woman goes to a high fashion retailer to look at the latest fashions, she works for a important clothing magazine that is always up-to-date with the trends so her style is always under surveillance. She sees so many cute things that she cannot make up her mind, until she decides to buy them all to fill up some of that empty space in her closet.
A man goes to a high fashion retailer to look at the latest fashions, he works for a important clothing magazine that is always up-to-date with the trends so his style is always under surveillance. He sees so many cute things that he cannot make up his mind, until he decides to buy them all to fill up some of that empty space in his closet.
Take some time to think about what is different about these two segments, really think about what each sentence means for the woman and man. Do not look at them as you yourself would judge them, but from the position of someone likely to find issue with the difference, someone who is held by the ideals of gender roles. Several things could be marked as being feminine qualities such as; working in the fashion industry, being conscious of clothing style, describing clothes you want to wear as 'cute', indecisiveness with decisions, compulsive buying, and even having enough clothes to fill-up your closet. A woman can do all of these things and not be questioned or feared for any reason, but when a man does them it is unnatural and to some even sickening. There is such a large displacement between societies' image of the ideal man and this man, he is so far from 'normal' that he is feared because of his unique differences and is shunned from society. The same could be said for a woman who has qualities normally reserved for a man.
A man sprints down the street from his house so his family cannot see him cry, he goes down a dark alley and finds an abandoned 67' Chrysler. He starts to beat the car with whatever he can find, not even noticing the deep cuts forming on his hands.
A woman sprints down the street from her house so her family cannot see her cry, she goes down a dark alley and finds an abandoned 67' Chrysler. She starts to beat the car with whatever she can find, not even taking noticing of the deep cuts forming on her hands.
A person who looks at this with strict belief in the gender roles in society would take notice that the woman is physically exerting herself, running away from her emotions, is not scared of danger, knows something about cars, she releases her anger in physical form, and is unphased by the pain in her hands. Qualities that are typical in a boy and not quite so typical in girls, this difference leads to society into feeling unrelated and distant from the single person justifying the person's exile from society. These characteristics are scary coming from a boy, but from a girl it seems even more drastic. She is a girl, most would perceive on site that she is happy, safe, and unthreatening, but when she acts out in anger in such ways she is looked at more critically then the boy because it is expected from the boy, not the girl.
Women have made leaps and strides in equality, fighting uphill against the gender roles that are placed on them as women. This has given women a much stronger sense of pride in recent years, allowing them to have the courage to break several of the barriers that were used to keep woman in check back in the day. "*" Most women today would say that their sex is not a hindrance to them and they can do anything a man can do.
This is not the same for men, man has not made strides for equality because most men are content with the position they hold. Leaving them to the mercy of the brutal standards such as "big boys don't cry" and "take it like a man" which are forced onto men at a young age. Leaving boys from a very young age to be very critical of the way they act and self conscious of the way they are perceived by others. They are unable to do several things that a woman can do because of the way they are raise to be self conscious of themselves doing anything feminine.
The purpose of the gender roles is unclear, it has been for several years a way to keep people in check, particularly women and homosexuals. It has also been fundamentals that we raise our children on, giving them guidelines they will come to see as the way the world works. They have been seen as both attractive qualities that bring people together in love and irregularities to be feared and avoided. These roles do slightly adapt to the times, but I think this is not a problem of adapting to the situation we have, but a restructuring of the system for situations that are to come. We need to reevaluate what is true within these gender roles and what is opinion.
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