Thursday, July 29, 2010

Men Hurt by Sexism, Too


You can read the complete text of author Greta Christina's "5 Stupid, Unfair and Sexist Things Expected of Men" HERE (and I hope you will), but below is her list:

1. Fight, fight, fight!

2. Be a good husband/partner/lover -- but don't care too much what women think.

3. Be hot to trot. Always. With anybody.

4. Stiff upper lip.


5. Fear being perceived as gay.

2 comments:

Jon Yoder said...

Interesting article. I do think that there are some guy stereotypes that can be annoying, but being hurt by sexism isn't something I can say that I've experienced.

It could just be the atmosphere that I'm in though. Here's my take:

1. Fight--portrayed in movies a lot. Realistically? Not so sure.

3. I don't get this too much at Harding. ;)

5. This one I the most out of all five. It's almost always in a joking way, but for less manly guys, I guess it could get old.

Jonathan G. Reinhardt said...

1. Natural. My 3&4-year old nephews fight a bit every evening, just to relax some tension.

2. Impossible. And not so much a standard males apply to themselves (except for maybe "lover) as women apply to men, I think. To use another outrageous stereotype, it's the women who leave/cheat on/never get interested in the "nice guys" that would care a lot about what women think, not the men who learn it's a sure-fire way never to get with a girl. So perhaps this isn't sexist so much as it is a reaction to the biological, reproductive advantage of assertive men. (Dare I say "Nature" might outweigh "nurture" here?)

3. Natural. Even the smallest male organism feels this anxiety, by biological prerogative, I'm sure.

4. Also just called acting mature.

5. Pretty constant when you're a European in the U.S. and not at all as laughable as the author portrays it.

I'm not sure I feel all damaged and distorted by this, though. Every culture has norms of gender, and I think that's okay.