Our culture has evolved into a culture that largely believes that women should be able to do all of the same things that men do. Indeed, the 1950’s housewife stereotype is often seen as offensive. Frankly, I do not find the devoted housewife stereotype to be offensive. The devoted housewife is at least treated as a human being worthy of human rights. She has value. She is the warmth that the husband returns to at the end of a long stressful day at work. She is his support system when he has difficulties. She is the one he consults with when he has to make important decisions for the family.
Some people, however, may have an image in their minds of a grumpy man coming home from work shouting “where is my dinner!” True, it is not nice being the housewife of a mean person, but in actuality it is never nice being married to a mean person whether you have a career or not.
Hollywood culture shows women excelling in traditionally male roles such as scientists, engineers, combatants. It has turned away from the so-called sexism of the housewife stereotype, but has fallen into a much more harmful kind of sexism—sexual objectification. Sexual objectification is a harmful kind of sexism that views women as subhuman sources of sexual entertainment for any men in their vicinity. It is hard for women to escape it. While a woman can prove that she is not a housewife by excelling at traditionally male endeavors, she cannot prove that she is not a sex object. Even if a woman is ugly and old, she is still a sex object, just lower quality merchandise. Even if a woman is a virgin, how can she prove her virginity?
The Charley’s Angels movie starring Drew Barrymore and Cameron Diaz is one example of a film showing women excelling in traditionally male activities, but while still being sexually objectified in some scenes. The message is that while a woman can do all of the male activities she wants, she still has to be appealing to the male sex. Her sense of worth is expected to be tied to her sexual appeal, and sometimes her self esteem is influenced by how intense of an orgasm she can have compared to other women (see the Working Moms TV series).
Sometimes in television and sometimes in real life, when a young woman chooses to be in a sexual relationship with a man under the impression that she means something to him, the man leaves her. The young woman is then told that this is “just what men are like.” However, this is not what men are like — this is what BAD men are like. Such behavior is not to be accepted as normal, even if it is common.
Television often presents sexually malicious and exploitative behavior towards women as being funny or cute. Below are some examples.
Television makes out some attempted rape scenes to be funny
Television is a part of rape culture, and will show rape scenes and attempted rape scenes on the screen while we are enticed to laugh. Attempted rape can take place in many forms. We may be viewing an attempted rape scene and not realize right away that it is an attempted rape.
One example of an attempted rape scene is from the spoof comedy Scary Movie 3. The scene is a satire of a scene from the horror movie Signs where the preacher’s wife was hit by a truck and pinned to a tree. The police officer explains to the preacher that the truck is the only thing holding the top half of her body to the bottom half of her body. The preacher asks if he could have sex with the bottom half before she dies. He then tries to forcibly have sex with his wife while she repeatedly shouts “No sex! No sex!” Eventually he relents and decides to let her speak her last words before she dies.
Another attempted rape scene was from the teen comedy “It’s a Boy Girl Thing” about a teenage boy and teenage girl, who do not like each other, and who find out one day that they have switched bodies. While the girl was in the boy’s body, the girl decides to make a comment about another boy’s penis. The boy gets angry and decides to get back at her by offering her body for sex to another guy in a trailer park. This scene, though made out to be funny, is an attempted rape. Even though the girl is not in her body at the time, it still is her body, and she had planned on returning to that body somehow. Furthermore, she is a virgin and she had decided not to give herself to anyone until she meets someone special. What the boy tried to do to her was a serious crime. The boy does change his mind, but not because he has mercy on her. He only changes his mind because he is grossed out at the idea of having sex with another guy. Despite his tendencies towards sexual misconduct, the two become boyfriend and girlfriend and “live happily ever after.”
Another “comical” attempted rape scene is from the British TV series IT Crowd. In this scene, Jen’s licentious boss decides to slip a drug into Jen’s drink so that, if Jen drinks it, Jen would enter into an altered mental state that drives her to have sex with any creature sitting in front of her. Things did not go to plan, though. Jen’s boss accidently consumes the drug himself, and then he tries to have sex with two men who are in his office at the time (even though he is normally only attracted to women). The scene is presented as funny, but it is in fact an attempted rape scene. Furthermore, nobody took any disciplinary action to hold Jen’s boss accountable for what he tried to do, nor does anybody even seem disturbed.
In the attempted rape scene of the Revenge of the Nerds movie, the attempted rape actually is successful. In this scene, one of the nerds craftily puts on the costume of the boyfriend of an attractive woman in order to trick the attractive woman into thinking that he is her boyfriend when he is not. Thinking that this man is her boyfriend, the attractive woman has sex with him. When she finds out that this man is not her boyfriend, rather than reacting with outrage, she is actually pleased with him because he is “so good at having sex for a nerd.”
This scene not only makes out rape to be funny, but also shows the woman reacting favorably to the rape encounter in ways that no woman in her right mind would in real life. When we repeatedly see a woman reacting favorably or underreacting to sexual malice, we may start to view a woman who reacts with outrage as being “high strung”, “overreacting” or “a bitch.” In actuality, we are supposed to react to these acts of sexual malice with outrage.
Sexual exploitation — a guy thing meant to make us laugh
Television not only normalizes sexually malicious behaviors by men towards women, but also makes them out to be funny. Numerous scenes from television show attractive women receiving unwanted attention from less attractive men while we, as the audience, are expected to laugh. However, we should not be laughing at this. There is a fine line between a man wanting to take a woman out to show her a good time and get to know her, versus a man saying or doing whatever it takes to get sex regardless of the harm that he may do to the woman.
Television will show a man pretending to care about a woman’s mentally retarded sibling when he actually does not, just so he can get the woman to like him and then get sex. Television will show a man doing activities that look altruistic because “chicks dig it,” not because he cares about making the world a better place.
A prime example of sexual malice made funny is the Howard Wolowicz character from The Big Bang Theory. We are supposed to view Howard as a nerd/dork who is trying to be a play boy, but is obviously bad at it. We are supposed to laugh as he tries to attract women and fails. However, if we look closely, we see that Howard is acting with purely malicious intent. Howard sees the women at the bar as conquests, not as fellow human beings. Howard sometimes even dehumanizes and harasses their friend Penny to the point that in one episode, she punches him. This scene where Howard treats Penny so badly that she resorts to an act of violence is, again, presented as funny.
In one scene, Howard is excited because he heard about some women who used to be fat, but lost weight and are now attractive. He is excited because he figures that these women would still have low self esteem after those many years of being fat, and so he thinks it would be easier to get sex from them. This scene reveals how much of a terrible person Howard really is. If you rely on an individual being in a state of reduced self worth in order to get what you want, then something is wrong with you.
We are supposed to think that the reason women do not like Howard Wolowicz is that he is not “attractive”, but in reality he is a malicious, deplorable human being. In one scene when Howard and Raj are sitting on a bench at the park, an attractive woman runs past them. Howard says hi, and the woman smiles and says hi back. The woman’s returned friendliness gives Howard hope that maybe she would have sex with him, so he gets up from the bench and chases her around the park in hopes that they will have sex.
The scene is presented as funny. We as the audience are expected to laugh, but the implications of this scene are very serious. The scene implies that if you are an attractive young woman, it is unsafe for you to make eye contact or return any friendly gestures of any kind to male strangers. If you do, they will potentially see you as an easy catch and try to have sex with you. This toxic aspect of popular culture places the young woman into a difficult position where she cannot make eye contact with men, and has to act aloof just to maintain her safety. On top of that, her aloofness may be perceived by other observers as being unfriendly and snobby. The woman must then choose between jeopardizing her safety or making herself look like an unfriendly snob.
The scene with Howard and Raj on the bench is similar to something that happened to me. One evening I was walking past a fat drunk guy who complimented me on my earrings. I smiled back in response. Next, the guy exclaimed out loud that because I smiled back at him, I must be willing to be with him. As I stood at a distance away waiting for my friends, he kept yelling comments at me until I eventually flipped him off. My encounter is an example of a situation where any friendliness I exhibit towards male strangers can threaten my safety, just as it threatened the safety of the young woman that Howard chased around the park while viewers were expected to laugh.
Toxic Masculinity
Toxic masculinity refers to a set of behaviors that culture expects men to exhibit in order to be considered masculine, but that actually are self destructive and destructive towards others. Men generally want people to view them as masculine, not as feminine sissies. Different cultures vary in what their standards are for what defines the “manly man”.
In Hollywood culture, the courteous gentleman — who wants to show the woman a good time and get to know her — is seen as a homo or sissy. The manly man has an insatiable sexual desire, and has a long line of female sex partners. He says or does whatever it takes to get sex because “that’s what guys are like.” Not only is it okay for him to exploit women for sex, he is supposed to be that way, “because he is a guy.”
In one scene from the Malcolm in the Middle TV series, Malcolm decides not to have sex with a girl after she falls unconscious. Despite how heinous it would be to have sex with an unconscious girl, Malcolm actually is worried about what others would think of him for deciding not to have sex with this unconscious girl. He needs his brothers to explain to him that it was “actually kinda cool” that he did not do that. The scene is one of numerous scenes on television delivering the message that when a man passes up on an opportunity to have sex with an unconscious woman, he is either a saint or a homo or a wimp.
At its worst, behavioral standards of toxic masculinity say that a man is not supposed to show much empathy because “that’s a chick thing” and a man is not supposed to be in-tuned to another’s needs because “that’s a chick thing.” When a man lives up to these behavioral standards for masculinity, he becomes a terrible creature that no woman in her right mind would associate with! Yet when a woman condemns these “male behaviors”, she is sometimes seen as a man-basher. Of course these are not male behaviors, they are bad-man behaviors. Only bad men behave this way.
Sometimes circles of mediocre men see pleasing women as some difficult-to-accomplish task because of how complicated and difficult women can get. However, when we look at television, we see that behavioral standards for men are exceedingly low. Television will often show the buffoon husband with a smart, attractive wife, and sometimes the buffoon husband is a rotten person. Being thoughtful and caring is the woman’s job. Indeed, men who behave the way that television tells them to behave will be bound to have low-quality relationships, and no woman in her right mind would want them. Yet television will show attractive female characters responding favorably to bad male behaviors. Of course these scenes are fictional, and the women in these scenes are paid actresses.
Why would women put up with toxic masculinity nonsense? Why not just be single or only select decent men? A reason is that culture has tricked many women into thinking that their worth is to be measured by how sexually appealing they are to men — in the vulgar world known as “fuckability”. More specifically, culture has tricked women and girls into thinking that they have somehow accomplished something to be proud of when a man is willing to have sexual relations with them. In reality and in general, men will derive some degree of pleasure having sexual relations with almost any woman — even the ugly fat girl or the little old lady from a nursing home. However, the man has more bragging rights if he can score with a younger more attractive woman. So culture conditions women to compete with each other for the attention of sexually malicious creatures that just want something to penetrate for the evening.
I personally would consider it to be a curse if a sexually malicious creature were drawn to me in hopes of penetrating me. Men who view women as subhuman sexual entertainment are terrible people. No woman in her right mind would want attention from such terrible people, let alone think that attention from such terrible people is somehow an accomplishment that is supposed to boost their self esteem.
Nice Guy Syndrome
Nice Guy Syndrome is a different kind of pathology from toxic masculinity where instead of a man acting liked a crazed sex junky, he is the kind and thoughtful friend who is always there for a woman whenever she needs something; but then feels entitled to something in return, namely a sexual/romantic relationship. Such a creature is no true friend. A true friend cares about you and has your back. This “friend” is actually an enemy in disguise. In his debased mind, he may even convince himself that the woman should choose him over the jerk, but in my opinion he is worse than the jerk.
Men with Nice Guy Syndrome often do not tell the woman in advance that they expect a sexual/romantic relationship in return. Such behavior violates the rules of two-way transactions. In two-way transactions, two parties make an agreement with each other where each party agrees to give something to the other party, and then receive something in return. Giving to someone without telling her in advance that you expect something in return is wrong because you have forced the other person to comply with a two-way transaction without her knowing in advance that there is a price for her to pay. It is like giving somebody ice cream, letting him/her think that the ice cream is for free, and then not letting him/her know that the ice cream costs $10 until after he/she has eaten it all.
Women as Property
Our culture is offended by the notion of women being men’s private property — that is, the property of their fathers or husbands. Yet our culture does not always think as much of a man claiming a woman as his property because he “thinks she is pretty and wants her to be his girlfriend.” Popular culture will even go so far as to expect a woman to be flattered when some random guy claims her as his property because it means he thinks she is “pretty.”
Popular culture seems to have transitioned from seeing women as private property to public property. Now instead of a woman being owned by her father or husband, she is owned by whatever random men are in her vicinity when she walks outside the door of her home. Cat-calling is one form of public property ownership, particularly targeted at women who are unaccompanied by another man.
So which is worse? Of course many would say that we do not want women to be private or public property, but I would say that men do more harm to women when the women are public property. At least when women are private property, they are owned by men who love them and care about them (at least most of the time). Generally fathers love and care about their daughters, and husbands at least should love and care about their wives to whom they have made wedding vows. However, the man who claims a woman as his property simply because he thinks she is attractive will generally have malicious intent.
Women being expected to smile
Certain situations warrant requirements for a person to smile, like when someone is a sales clerk representing a business. Sometimes smiling is a part of the job. However, the notion that a person is required to smile when she is just walking or sitting around minding her own business is preposterous. When you see a woman at the grocery store or at the park who is not smiling, for all you know her father could have died the previous day or she may have received a new cancer diagnosis and was told she only had months to live, and she is about to leave two young children behind.
I have seen women smile during interviews while they are recalling a traumatizing experience that they have been through. Their recollection of the trauma causes tears to run down their faces…while they are still smiling. It is as if popular culture has convinced them to keep smiling no matter how much pain they feel on the inside. Is this necessary? I personally want people to be themselves, and only smile when they are happy. I do not like fake smiles. I have no sympathy for people who want anybody to put on fake smiles.
In a way, expecting women to smile all the time when they are in public is an implication that women have indeed become public property. They are meant to please anybody in their vicinity and no longer have the privilege of being themselves and minding their own business.
So what does this mean for men
Men are receiving messages from television and popular culture that certain harmful behaviors towards women are not only okay, but are all a part of what it means to be a man. It is the man’s individual responsibility to rise above the evils in culture and not adhere to these ridiculous behavioral standards of masculinity. It is the man’s individual responsibility to behave like a decent human being and not expect people to be kissing his feet whenever he passes up on an opportunity to do something terrible to a woman.
