Girly and Manly
You know, women gamers put up with a lot that we're not given credit for. If you're like my sisters and I, you were raised with gaming at a very young age. As such, we always had to place our emotions and actions behind a male protagonist - and hardly ever did we complain. For us, it never took away from the game, nor did it really matter that they were male. We were able to adapt to a male-dominant virtual world. And yet when games nowadays come out with female protagonists they are (generally, here) passed over by the majority of male gamers, who for some reason find playing such games akin to getting castrated. Why is that?
It's the same with books. Young girls and women have no problem getting behind a male protagonist and reading books by males, but dare give books to boys or guys by female authors or female protagonists, and you're (generally) snorted at and told that "that's chick-lit". Males deprive themselves of really good characters when they do this, but are never even told such. And yet when women actively seek out fiction written by women or starring females, they're labelled as (generally) anti-male. Why is that?
Is it the way we are raised, in a society so biased on gender-division? Boys toys and girls toys, boys clothes and girls clothes (so much to the point of actually making the way shirts and pants open and close differently for each sex), boys books and girls books, boys sports and girls sports, hen parties and stag parties, ect ect ect... Yeah, I understand that boys and girls are different in obvious ways, but do we have to indict it so much in ways so extreme? Why do we assume a guy is "girly" because he enjoys the colour pink or writes poetry? Why do we assume a girl is "butch" because her hair is short and enjoys cars? Why do things have genders assigned to them (sometimes literally in some languages)? Why IS that? Aren't we past all of that by now?
To me, the reason why feminism is not only stalled, but spiralling backwards in some ways, is because of our inability to even admit the above. If we admit it, we would finally be admitting the problem, and recognising that things need to change. But we are too lazy as a society, and thus nothing gets changed.
It's the same with books. Young girls and women have no problem getting behind a male protagonist and reading books by males, but dare give books to boys or guys by female authors or female protagonists, and you're (generally) snorted at and told that "that's chick-lit". Males deprive themselves of really good characters when they do this, but are never even told such. And yet when women actively seek out fiction written by women or starring females, they're labelled as (generally) anti-male. Why is that?
Is it the way we are raised, in a society so biased on gender-division? Boys toys and girls toys, boys clothes and girls clothes (so much to the point of actually making the way shirts and pants open and close differently for each sex), boys books and girls books, boys sports and girls sports, hen parties and stag parties, ect ect ect... Yeah, I understand that boys and girls are different in obvious ways, but do we have to indict it so much in ways so extreme? Why do we assume a guy is "girly" because he enjoys the colour pink or writes poetry? Why do we assume a girl is "butch" because her hair is short and enjoys cars? Why do things have genders assigned to them (sometimes literally in some languages)? Why IS that? Aren't we past all of that by now?
To me, the reason why feminism is not only stalled, but spiralling backwards in some ways, is because of our inability to even admit the above. If we admit it, we would finally be admitting the problem, and recognising that things need to change. But we are too lazy as a society, and thus nothing gets changed.