I was having a conversation with a friend a few weeks back, and the talk turned to his romantic difficulties. He’s a good guy, but has limited romantic experience, and tends to put women on pedestals and engage in bouts of self-pity punctuated by occasional dips into ‘chicks dig jerks’ territory. As you can imagine, these tactics have not led to astounding romantic bliss.<\/p>\n
Anyhow, I was explaining that I think that part of his difficulty is that he thinks of women as essentially different from men, where I don’t believe that they are. The topic of different ‘gendered messages’ that people get came up, and I found myself saying, “I don’t actually think that any gendered messages, no matter how ostensibly positive the messages may be, are actually good.”<\/p>\n
He was taken aback, and asked, “Wait, none<\/em> of them are good?”<\/p>\n I thought a minute before saying, “No. None of them are good. Do you have an example of a gendered message you think is actually good?”<\/p>\n “Yes! Women should be taught that their bodies are sacred.<\/em>”<\/p>\n That’s when I realized it was probably hopeless. *Sigh*<\/p>\n Anyhow, I open the question to you, dear readers . . . are<\/em> there positive gendered messages? I figure things that rely on differences in biology are a gimmie (Men don’t need to be taught that they have the choice of whether or not to carry a child to term. Women don’t need to be taught to wear a condom. Etc.), but beyond that, can you think of anything? I’m uncomfortable with absolute statements, but right now my position is fairly absolute, which is why I’m opening this up to discussion.<\/p>\n Please do not comment unless you accept the basic dignity, equality, and inherent worth of all people.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I was having a conversation with a friend a few weeks back, and the talk turned to his romantic difficulties. He’s a good guy, but has limited romantic experience, and tends to put women on pedestals and engage in bouts … Continue reading