I’m taking a class on gender. We were asked to deconstruct typical notions of femininity and masculinity by first identifying what we thought of as masculine and feminine. Some of the things people shouted out were really interesting: like cleft chins for their “animal ruggedness” for men (my sister has a cleft chin, I never really thought of it as masculine, it fascinates me though, I want to touch it to see what it feels like). It kind of reminds me of those cartoons of guys with exagerated chins sticking out with a deep cleft in them (and like that Pakistani actor, gawd I don’t like him). Anyway, my stupid list runs the gamut from aggressive borderline sadistic displays of power and strength to nose piercings and motorcycles and trucks and caps with longish hair sticking out from the bottom. Really, why would someone want to be exclusively lesbian! I guess the downside of male attractiveness is that even men are becoming victims of date rape drugs, as two guys in my class told their story of woe.
You know, as much as today’s world tries to be open to homosexuality, most straight people (especially guys) recoil when someone attributes either homosexuality or any typical homosexual behavior to them. Maybe we are losing the homophobia but becoming more heterosexist…
By the way, I am surprised. We did a survey in class and less than 20% of people were in a relationship. Are they too busy because of school? I think it might be because there aren’t many guys! In my classes, here is the breakdown: I’m typically one of the only two non-white people, 90% are female. So where do women in social sciences and humanities look for guys anyway? And where ARE all the guys? In trade schools? I see lots of guys in philosophy, but they dress poorly, but they are witty and intelligent and eccentric. Lots of guys in management, but their suits and pretensious attitudes seem to compensate for their short 5’5 stature and short-other-things.
It’s interesting how, in highschool, guys are more likely to be the ones memorizing and just getting by whereas girls are doing the hard studying and critical thinking, but in university, many girls take things like social sciences and there is a lot of memorization in that and if you’ve taken one class, really you know them all, whereas you will rarely see a guy doing something like that. Same with phd candidates, mostly guys.
I am getting annoyed by my classes, even ones that don’t connect in any way to gender and sex expound on it ALL THE TIME. Are women ever happy? Are they ever NOT self-centered and so concerned with me me me? Today our prof talked about falling rates of marriage and about how WOMEN are marrying later now. But what about men? I mean, women are marrying men right, not themselves, so why not look at how men are marrying late or not at all? IF they do talk about men, it’s about them as capitalist, inflated egos, “devoid of emotion”, etc. God, no wonder there are no men in social sciences.
