February 9, 2010
Proportions and entitlement
For the last six months or so, I’ve had this guilty pleasure. It’s a blog called, Why There Are No Girls in San Francisco.* Here’s an example of the content:
SF females (a scattering of honeys from Serbia and Turkey aside) don’t aim for sexy in their dress or carriage. They aim for anti-Florida. They are reserved, borderline haughty in demeanor and fashion themselves in one of three looks: the always vogue “I run Iron-Mans” guy-girl look, the cluttered Hipster, or the famous and very popular “SF black”, where you cover up every square inch of your body but are still fabulous because the fabric is black and black is daring and sexy, right? Not right. Boobs are sexy. Legs are sexy. Black is just a color. Black is what Batman wears so he can be stealthy. When Bruce Wayne wants to impress the ladies he wears a tank top.
Today I read a story in the New York Times about the shortage of men on college campuses, and how it’s affecting more than just the admissions offices:
“Women do not want to get left out in the cold, so they are competing for men on men’s terms. This results in more casual hook-up encounters that do not end up leading to more serious romantic relationships. Since college women say they generally want ’something more’ than just a casual hook-up, women end up losing out.”
W. Keith Campbell, a psychology professor at the University of Georgia, which is 57 percent female, put it this way: “When men have the social power, they create a man’s ideal of relationships,” he said. Translation: more partners, more sex.
The pseudonymous author of WTANGISF probably attended one of these disproportionately female universities and now strugges with the reality of living in a disproportionately male city, but I wonder if both situations are just a symptom of Love in the Time of Darwinism:
Women can take a Chinese-menu approach to gender roles. They can be all “Let me pay for the movie tickets” on Friday night and “A single rose? That’s it?” on Valentine’s Day. This isn’t equality, say the male-contents; it’s a ratification of female privilege and, worse, caprice. “Women seemingly have decided that they want it all (and deserve it, too),” Kevin from Ann Arbor writes. “They want to compete equally, and have the privileges of their mother’s generation. They want the executive position, AND the ability to stay home with children and come back into the workplace at or beyond the position at which they left. They want the bad boy and the metrosexual.”
What’s your take? How do you navigate the modern labyrinth of gender roles better known as sex, dating, and marriage?
* I should mention that I am a girl. And I live in San Francisco.
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21 Responses to “Proportions and entitlement”
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Oh, Kelsey. “How do I navigate the modern labyrinth of gender roles better known as sex, dating, and marriage?”
As though I were walking on burning coals. And still I get scorched.
Nobody wants a metrosexual for Christ’s sake.
You don’t navigate it, honey. It will come to you. I’m certain of that.
Boobs are sexy. Legs are sexy. Black is just a color. Black is what Batman wears so he can be stealthy. When Bruce Wayne wants to impress the ladies he wears a tank top.
It’s not about navigation. It’s about blindly stumbling into someone who makes you happy. Or, at least that’s what I did.
The risk is, I guess, that you stumble into someone like me (sorry Alicia).
On second thought, I don’t in fact feel as though I walk on burning coals, although I scorch myself and others time and again.
One stumbles, as Michael said. And it happens.
I’ve never ever ever set out to look for any of the love I’ve found, be it blissful or painful or, more usually, both.
Out of the blue. Or something like.
I don’t date. Nobody likes me. I often feel like I’m running a one-person performance art show much akin to the one Rick talked about only with less diapers and more Pithy Observations, which leads to no one wanting anyyyyy.
(Turkish honies are the best, öyle mi!)
Y’all girls need to quit this dating hoo-hah. I’ve never been on a date in my life (I don’t think).
Come to think, I’m not sure I even know what a date is.
But if you will tell me what it is, I think I might like to date both of you, Amanda Mae and Kelsey.
Last year was the only time I’ve ever really tried looking. I stopped by the summer. Frankly, I think the reason I was looking at all has less to do with feeling a man-shaped hole in my life (ha ha) and more to do with not wanting to have a baby when I’m too old and tired to be a good parent. In other words, I don’t feel any anxiety about being single now. I have anticipatory anxiety about being alone in the future! Isn’t that grand?
I spend all day working to empower low-income parents to be more involved at home, and especially with their children’s educations. Which means I can’t escape the notion that kids across the country are being left to their own devices — and not toward the betterment of society. On the weekends I see my exhausted father and stepmother hiding from the squealing energy of my little brother and sister. I am basically surrounded by the idea that people have kids without the means to really be there for them and love them. I refuse to join their ranks.
This wasn’t at all why I asked this question or posted this post. But the comments led me here, so.
Dunno, but this photograph by one of my Flockr friends seems apt.
“I have anticipatory anxiety about being alone in the future.”
Oh, Kelsey. I have to get serious here.
We are alone in the future.
My mother died last year, so now I am an orphan, and in a minute, I will share some wisdom from an orphaned friend of mine.
What my friend wrote me has nothing to do with love nor romance nor dating nor boobs nor legs nor tank tops but with loneliness and the desire to love and be loved:
Of course, freedom is — what’s the expression? — “a double-edged sword”.
the only entitlement I claim is “American girls want everything in the whole wide world they can possibly imagine.”
Well I imagine someday being married to someone who doesn’t think it’s weird when I make up entirely new lyrics to every song that are half swearing/half lesbian-centered sex acts. Also I would like to respect him tremendously for other reasons too.
And maybe if he would let me name a son Llewellyn, that’d be nice.
Sheila, what your friend says brings back this nagging fear I had about death a few years ago. At night, usually, I would be struck with a sudden anxiety that when I died there would be nothing but that I would somehow be aware of the nothingness.
After several months I came to the sudden realization that if there was nothing I wouldn’t notice. And that was somehow comforting.
Well I imagine someday being married to someone who doesn’t think it’s weird when I make up entirely new lyrics to every song
Alicia finds it odd when I do this. But I usually only make up lyrics to over played pop songs that I have no respect for (and the made up lyrics do include swearing but not usually lesbian sex acts).
Michael, that sudden anxiety that when I died there would be nothing but that I would somehow be aware of the nothingness is one of the thoughts that has stayed my hand from suicide on those few occasions when it has seemed more than a self-pitying fantasy.
Being out in the desert calms what fears I might have about dying and/or being alone.
But this is not very romantic. Except if you dig chicks who think about death.
Kelsey. Amanda Mae. I hope you don’t mind my coming in like a mother or something, but I need you to know this: Amazing women like the two of you will find amazing love. I would bet my impending retirement (and you know how fond I am of my impending retirement) on each of you finding the kind of love you deserve.
Can I just say that y’all make me so happy for seeing through my attempt at some philosophical argument and just offering, like, hugs through clusterflock?
Cindy, I was going to say the same. Catches through and through.
Except for a couple of weeks in September it’s usually just too damn foggy and chilly for gals to show much skin here in SF.
As for the “women outnumber men on campus so that leads to hook ups” thing: I read with amusement the stories over the past few years when some one will tutt-tutt about this new thing called “hook ups”. What utter and complete nonsense. 20 years ago I attended a college that was over 60% male and there wasn’t any shortage of hook ups. And we even used that term waaaaay back then, too.