= better than ->
Recently, I’ve gotten into a pretty bad habit of not going to class. Instead I stay home in bed or around my computer listening to Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra wishing that I hadn’t been born in the late 80’s. Yesterday, however, I didn’t even have to pull myself out of bed for class, I jumped up and ran out the door knowing that my cultural geography class was going to be covering the topic “Gender and Sexuality”, I knew it wouldn’t be overly informative for me but that there would be at least 3 or 4 opportunities for me to argue with people (and win).
But that didn’t happen… there were too many sexist, racist and homophobic comments coming from every corner of the room - I had no idea where to start.
I’ll be fair, there were a lot of good points made (that my teacher didn’t really know how to explain…but that’s what happens when a geographer who studies population distribution attempts to explain the danger of gender roles). Professor Pope did a pretty good at describing that the identity of a girl is almost entirely contained in her physical body. Our body, as women, is absolutely our primary outlet for our identity - which is why we see it being manipulated, abused and loathed so often.
Even the “popular” and “pretty” girls have to worry about gossip - when they’re the ones that everyone is allegedly attempting to be. They become so wrapped up in this “girl culture”. It reminds me of an episode of Degrassi High… I think that’s what it’s called, the newest one… Where the “fat” girl become a model. I was so incredibly pissed off. It was really cool to see a bigger girl in a leading role… she was smart, got fantastic grades, everyone really liked her - but then they just had to make her a model. I see the reasoning behind it “let the fat girls know they’re still pretty” … but that’s what pissed me off, it’s like saying “it’s okay to be fat, or have more meat on you - as long as you’re still pretty enough to be a model”. So you can be fat, but not ugly. Pick one.
Anyway, it was after the inital description of gender roles and the danger of them that the bullshit started to pour in. Gay men were described as “womenly” and Professor Pope enhanced this idea by comparing them all to the Queer Eye for the Straight Guy queens… Saying that gay men have become the new “interior designer women”. She also played us a video of these women coming in and changing a man into a “sissy boy” which included these characteristics - clean, nice and likes shopping. She also used the age old example of Madonna as a person who broke gender roles (who in my opinion, really didn’t…) and how this lead to the new era of “soccer moms with secret desires”.
In the end we wound up with two lists. The first was “what and where is girl culture” and second “what and where is guy culture”. The lists were absolutely unbelievable…
Girl culture - what and where
- The mall
- The beauty parlor
- The kitchen (no, I’m not kidding. It was on the list.)
- The cardio side of the gym
Male culture - what and where
- Sports bars
- Construction sites
- Strip clubs
- Italian cafes
- The weight lifting side of the gym
WTF eh? A class where we are supposed to be exploring and debunking gender roles - showing the danger of them, and expressing our concerns, and we wide up with sexist filled lists, a stereotypical definition of a gay man and Madonna as an icon of feminism. The guys in the class also got defensive because women have more social experimentation. One guy let the class know how frustrating and unfair it is that a woman can wear a man’s jacket and get no second looks, but a man can’t wear a woman’s… and that if he were to dodge into the woman’s washroom because the male washroom was too full he’d be charged with some sort of sexual assault.
Okay, those couple of things completely make up for the wage gap, the amount of sexual, emotion and physical abuse that is put on women every year, the discrimination in work places, street hollering, the unreachable body ideals, sexual exploitation, childcare discrimination, late sufferage, sexist religions and unfair social constructs. You’ve convinced me. Feminism is crap. Men are really the oppressed ones because they can’t wear women’s jackets.
You can blame that on yourself really. …The unfair stereotypes of men, are there because of men pushing them. The same guy also made the argument that because women can use their sexualities to get a head - they really have the power over men. Why should we have to use our sexualities? Why can’t we get ahead with our minds and ideas, not our bodies. Just because we can recognize the male gaze thus taking some of the power away from the gazers, doesn’t mean that the power has flipped, it just means that we recognize that we’re being enslaved to it.
It was a piss off of a class.
