A rant about women as the death of fun
It's Monday. It's butt-ass cold. Time for a rant!
This has been bugging me forever. And EVER. Rachel and I have often commiserated over our mutual hatred of this stereotype. But today, the day after the Super Bowl (which I did not watch, full disclosure), it seems particularly relevant. Because the Super Bowl is the king of commercials and commercials are some of the worst offenders vis a vis the cultural shorthand I am about to decry. And wow, wasn't THAT a tortured sentence?
I am really sick of the idea put forth in seemingly every TV show, movie and advertisement that Women = Death of Fun.
Women hate fun things like parties and movies and golf (the fun of that being a matter of taste, natch) and unhealthy food. Women want to stop men from ever having fun, ever again. If you marry one of us, you are doomed to never have fun again, because WE HATE FUN. We hate your friends. We hate beer. We hate poker, in fact we hate anything that remotely resembles a game of any variety. We hate everything you like and want you only to like things that WE LIKE. We will make you watch chick flicks and listen to Kenny G and eat celery and read Ladies' Home Journal or whatever the hell else fills you with dread. We don't know who Han Solo is and we don't care. We don't care if you ever feel fulfilled or cheerful ever again as long as you're doing what WE WANT, which is the laundry and the yardwork while you sit in a house where nothing belongs to you and which you had no voice in the decoration of. We will surround you with floral chintz, hide your favorite possessions and banish your dog to the backyard. We will make you into what WE WANT because we are controlling nags who care only about babies and shopping.
So band together, O Ye Beleagured Men. Check out of your relationship, because your wife's a nagging bitch anyway, right? There's no reason for you to be engaged or talk to us, because we're just going to ignore you and make you do what we want, anyway. If you want to be an immature douchebag, well you got a ready-made excuse, because the women hate everything that's good in the world and will keep you from it. And you know how? Because we are the gatekeepers to The Sex and if you don't lock step you won't get any of it, and we know that's all you care about...nasty, vile men with your sex and your wanting of it...and we frankly couldn't care less if we never had it again because we already got what we want, which is you, locked up tight and kept away from anything fun or anything you enjoy, forever. So get used to it.
Because we are Women, Destroyers of Fun. You tolerate us to have access to sex, and when you marry us or otherwise commit, you might as well be dead.
Or so endless media portrayals would have you believe.
I hate this. And it's everywhere. To the point that sometimes I think some actual women act like this because they've been led to expect it, like it's their role in society. As a woman, it saddens me that my gender is saddled with this perception that we're to be tolerated and endured, instead of enjoyed and appreciated.
Did you guys see "Knocked Up?" This entire movie is dedicated to this very idea. There's a scene in a restaurant where two couples are having dinner, and the two men are jokingly quoting Star Wars at each other (I think it was Star Wars...if it wasn't, it might as well have been). And the woman get these disgusted looks on their faces like these men are so horrible and juvenile and they're soooooo embarrassed.
OMG. Who are these women? Do they exist in the real world? I would have been jumping in with my own Star Wars quotes. Nobody beats me at movie quoting, that's for damn sure. The movie kinda-sorta redeemed itself by having the awesome Leslie Mann protest about how she didn't want to be the Death of Fun to her husband later in the film. But that scene still pissed me off. (Another major point of the movie was that men ought to grow up sometime, which I don't take issue with, but there's a difference between "growing up" and "giving up everything you enjoy." The former is required, the latter is not, or shouldn't be.)
I know plenty of women who are not like this. I know men who cherish them for just that reason. These women value their partners' individual interests. They want their input. Sure, they care about getting chores done, but they also care about the Doctor Who marathon. They like a good chick flick, but they also like football, or hockey, or whatever. I want to see the sitcom not about some henpecked husband and his shrewish wife, but about a couple who does the grocery shopping but then lines up at midnight for concert tickets, where the wife goes for drinks with her girlfriends while the husband has poker night and nobody resents the other's activity. Where they get into food fights but share the cleaning up. Where the wife gets the husband to give Jane Austen a chance, but the husband gets the wife to try camping. Can't the nagging go both ways? Can each person keep their own hobbies and share others? Isn't there room in a marriage for her beading hobby AND his collection of vinyl? I know couples like this. Where are they in the media? Or is comedy always about miserable people?
Actually...yeah. It mostly is.
But I would like the men of the world to know that I am not the death of fun. Nor are any of my friends. Well...a couple are.* But they're really hot, so it's okay.
--------------
*please note that this phrase and the one that follows refers to no actual friend of mine but it was a good way to end the post, so if you're reading this and wondering if I'm referring to you, I'm not.
**postscript: I am aware that some women may end up being the Death of Fun because their partners kinda forced them to be. Not denouncing that. Just pointing out that this is an unfair and pervasive blanket media stereotype for all women. Which sucks.
This has been bugging me forever. And EVER. Rachel and I have often commiserated over our mutual hatred of this stereotype. But today, the day after the Super Bowl (which I did not watch, full disclosure), it seems particularly relevant. Because the Super Bowl is the king of commercials and commercials are some of the worst offenders vis a vis the cultural shorthand I am about to decry. And wow, wasn't THAT a tortured sentence?
I am really sick of the idea put forth in seemingly every TV show, movie and advertisement that Women = Death of Fun.
Women hate fun things like parties and movies and golf (the fun of that being a matter of taste, natch) and unhealthy food. Women want to stop men from ever having fun, ever again. If you marry one of us, you are doomed to never have fun again, because WE HATE FUN. We hate your friends. We hate beer. We hate poker, in fact we hate anything that remotely resembles a game of any variety. We hate everything you like and want you only to like things that WE LIKE. We will make you watch chick flicks and listen to Kenny G and eat celery and read Ladies' Home Journal or whatever the hell else fills you with dread. We don't know who Han Solo is and we don't care. We don't care if you ever feel fulfilled or cheerful ever again as long as you're doing what WE WANT, which is the laundry and the yardwork while you sit in a house where nothing belongs to you and which you had no voice in the decoration of. We will surround you with floral chintz, hide your favorite possessions and banish your dog to the backyard. We will make you into what WE WANT because we are controlling nags who care only about babies and shopping.
So band together, O Ye Beleagured Men. Check out of your relationship, because your wife's a nagging bitch anyway, right? There's no reason for you to be engaged or talk to us, because we're just going to ignore you and make you do what we want, anyway. If you want to be an immature douchebag, well you got a ready-made excuse, because the women hate everything that's good in the world and will keep you from it. And you know how? Because we are the gatekeepers to The Sex and if you don't lock step you won't get any of it, and we know that's all you care about...nasty, vile men with your sex and your wanting of it...and we frankly couldn't care less if we never had it again because we already got what we want, which is you, locked up tight and kept away from anything fun or anything you enjoy, forever. So get used to it.
Because we are Women, Destroyers of Fun. You tolerate us to have access to sex, and when you marry us or otherwise commit, you might as well be dead.
Or so endless media portrayals would have you believe.
I hate this. And it's everywhere. To the point that sometimes I think some actual women act like this because they've been led to expect it, like it's their role in society. As a woman, it saddens me that my gender is saddled with this perception that we're to be tolerated and endured, instead of enjoyed and appreciated.
Did you guys see "Knocked Up?" This entire movie is dedicated to this very idea. There's a scene in a restaurant where two couples are having dinner, and the two men are jokingly quoting Star Wars at each other (I think it was Star Wars...if it wasn't, it might as well have been). And the woman get these disgusted looks on their faces like these men are so horrible and juvenile and they're soooooo embarrassed.
OMG. Who are these women? Do they exist in the real world? I would have been jumping in with my own Star Wars quotes. Nobody beats me at movie quoting, that's for damn sure. The movie kinda-sorta redeemed itself by having the awesome Leslie Mann protest about how she didn't want to be the Death of Fun to her husband later in the film. But that scene still pissed me off. (Another major point of the movie was that men ought to grow up sometime, which I don't take issue with, but there's a difference between "growing up" and "giving up everything you enjoy." The former is required, the latter is not, or shouldn't be.)
I know plenty of women who are not like this. I know men who cherish them for just that reason. These women value their partners' individual interests. They want their input. Sure, they care about getting chores done, but they also care about the Doctor Who marathon. They like a good chick flick, but they also like football, or hockey, or whatever. I want to see the sitcom not about some henpecked husband and his shrewish wife, but about a couple who does the grocery shopping but then lines up at midnight for concert tickets, where the wife goes for drinks with her girlfriends while the husband has poker night and nobody resents the other's activity. Where they get into food fights but share the cleaning up. Where the wife gets the husband to give Jane Austen a chance, but the husband gets the wife to try camping. Can't the nagging go both ways? Can each person keep their own hobbies and share others? Isn't there room in a marriage for her beading hobby AND his collection of vinyl? I know couples like this. Where are they in the media? Or is comedy always about miserable people?
Actually...yeah. It mostly is.
But I would like the men of the world to know that I am not the death of fun. Nor are any of my friends. Well...a couple are.* But they're really hot, so it's okay.
--------------
*please note that this phrase and the one that follows refers to no actual friend of mine but it was a good way to end the post, so if you're reading this and wondering if I'm referring to you, I'm not.
**postscript: I am aware that some women may end up being the Death of Fun because their partners kinda forced them to be. Not denouncing that. Just pointing out that this is an unfair and pervasive blanket media stereotype for all women. Which sucks.