In the age of new movements of equality like feminism, you would expect societal expectations of gender to improve. However, it seems like movements like feminism alienate men and cause a larger divide, this could be due to men feeling threatened? Maybe they think that there’s no need for feminism and that sexism has been demolished. To those men who believe that, I would ask them why the gender pay gap is currently at 15.5%, with women making $0.81 for every $1 a man makes. I would ask them why 104 countries have jobs which are off limit to women, and I would ask them why only 1.7% of reported rapists are convicted.
As I was scrolling through youtube, a myriad of videos ambushed me, a phenomenon of videos titled ‘asking my guy friends questions girls are too scared to ask’ (or something along those lines). While the videos sound like they are perfectly innocent, they’re not: they reverberate the gender narrative which society constantly commands to females. Intrigued by the concept, I watched the videos, they oozed with immature sexism and objectification; a single girl asking a group of pubescent boys questions such as ‘what is the body type of your ideal girl’, and everytime, the boys all harmoniously responded in a laddish, ‘alpha male’ manner. The boys joke about it, deciding what they would want, the exact proportions and amounts, and the tone they address it is disgusting; acting like eager children in a Build-A-Bear. Meanwhile, the girl sits there, probably uncomfortable, agreeing or simply just spectating the testosterone filled catastrophe unravelling before her eyes. Occasionally, there’s a somewhat respectful comment made like “a girl’s personality also matters”: comments like these are idealized in the comments section, thousands of people worshipping a boy for acting like a decent human being. Not only do the males pry on the physical appearance of females, but they also have a list of requirements: being funny, being kind (these are pretty respectable), but also “not showing too much skin” and “not going out with guy friends”. The fact that men feel like they can dictate things to women, to rationalise their own insecurities is disgusting, why should a man be able to tell a woman how much skin she should show, and why is this an expectation of so many men?And of course, there’s always that one question, ‘what’s your favourite body type’. You can probably imagine the crude, specific and oddly descriptive answers that are given.
To a young viewer, these types of videos can be damaging, they could make young people feel self conscious about their bodies. Society already does enough to make women feel like this, society gives us the beauty standard, tells us to be subdued, tells us to be strong-willed but not too strong-willed that the men feel threatened. Society gives us an exact body type to aim for, it tells us to have thin legs, be thin, but still have curves, have plump lips, a perfect nose; the list goes on. And for so many of us, this is unattainable, it’s just not how we’re genetically programmed. Of course, many mental health issues can stem from this, including eating disorders. Sometimes its impossible for a woman to naturally fit into the beauty standard, and we have to go to extreme lengths to make our bodies appear how society wants them to. And if that’s not enough, the beauty standard is constantly changing, like trends. Women’s bodies are trends to society. Men, objectifying women, treating us like something disposable. It goes without saying, not all men are like this, in fact probably less than half, however my problem is that this kind of behaviour goes unnoticed in our society. Not only do these videos cause harm by making young girls feel pressured that they should be a certain way, but they also reinforce and normalise gender stereotypes.
In the age of body positivity, why are we allowing step-by-step instruction manuals on what girls should be like freely roam our social media platforms which are predominantly used by young, impressionable children? Furthermore, influencers who preach self love and body positivity post these types of videos. Don’t these videos completely contradict everything they supposedly stand for? These videos almost always have an objectifying undertone, with men feeling entitled to say whatever they want to females. Who gave them that sense of entitlement? Another feature which often comes up is males stating that women shouldn’t have male friends. I guess this is fine if the female also says that the male can’t have female friends but a lot of the time, this is not the case. Why should females have to end friendships with other males in order to protect a 16 year old boy's ego? Why do we as a society allow boys, particularly teenage boys, to talk in such a chauvinistic way? And it doesn’t just stop at youtube, everywhere you go, males catcall women or make misogynistic remarks, often disguising them as ‘jokes’, like ‘the F in women stands for funny’. And it's normalised. These inane remarks are ingrained into our society.
“Boys will be boys'' is a phrase often thrown around during discussions of this unbecoming behaviour. It's used to justify the objectification of women, like it’s their birthright or something. Like men have no other choice but to act like this towards women, like some kind of biological duty. Why should ‘boys’ be allowed to be ‘boys’? Sexual assault and harrassment have more impact on females than males acknowledge. 99% of women have said that they have been victims of street harassment, and 57% of women have said that they have been grabbed in a sexual way. Males just make one flippant remark and get on with their day. Women have to deal with these remarks, they layer on top of each other burdening her. Studies show that catcalling has a negative impact on a woman, and can cause her to start degrading herself. However, many men claim that a catcall is a ‘compliment’ and that women should feel lucky to be noticed like that by a man. A similar stigma comes to surface when discussing rape and promiscuity. The amount i’ve heard the phrase “she was asking for it” when discussing rape cases is preposterous. No one asks to be raped.
So, if you’ve finished this article and you still think that sexism doesn’t exist, feel free to consider the questions I asked at the beginning of the article. Are men more suited to jobs than women? Are they better workers? Do the rapists not deserve to be convicted?
