We now interrupt your regularly scheduled angry rant to bring you this moment of social criticism.
Traditional gender rolls are pretty awful.
Gender
Tag Archives: gender
Screw Your Preconceptions (Part 2)
As a follow-up to this post, I’d just like to point out the difference between sex and gender. Sex is seen as biological while gender is a social construct. What it means to be a man or a woman varies by culture (masculinity in Mexico is not at all the same as masculinity in Japan, for example). What this means is that a person can be biologically XY (sex) while also being female EDIT: a woman—thank you to ellenfremedon for the correction—(gender). Even this man-woman dichotomy is an erroneous preconception, however! Humans have more than two sexes, and genders vary so much across the world that I wouldn’t want to have the job of counting them all. And just in case you were wondering, etiquette dictates that you refer to someone with the pronoun appropriate to their gender, not their sex. (When in doubt, ask, but don’t be a jerk about it.)
Screw Your Preconceptions
Life is not Disney. Everything you know from Hollywood is wrong. “Common sense” is bullshit. How much of life’s misery could be averted by keeping these things in mind? Take, for example, relationships. If TV is to be believed, relationships are pretty straightforward: Meet someone. Fall in love. Dating turns into marriage. Kids. Happily ever after.
This is a fantasy, and it’s not the “gosh, that would be ideal” kind of fantasy. It’s the “complete work of fiction” kind.
Healthy relationships don’t just happen. They take work and commitment. Not every day is sunshine and roses. Sometimes you argue—sometimes about big things. And odds are good (like 100%) that this won’t always happen in the ways you anticipate.
Consider the romantic comedy genre (cue groaning). How many unique movies are there within this genre? Basically none. Take a look at that chart over there (→ that way →). X meets Y. X flubs meeting. X and Y get to know each other better. X and Y begin dating. Things go well. Really well. Then not so well. Big problem. The couple either splits up or seems likely to split. Additional hardships come, causing X and Y to rekindle their devotion to one another. X and Y overcome hardships. Marriage. Roll credits. The End. Happily ever after. X and Y are forever satisfied with their love, and there’s no more to the story.
Subjunctive Morality 