Gender Roles in Dating

Hey there people who may or may not be reading this! Today I want to talk a little about my opinions on how gender affects the way people date. It is going to be pretty heterosexually focused, but as a straight male, I feel the most knowledgeable in respect to heterosexual dating (if anyone is interested, I would love to talk about queer issues as well, but I will need to first have a few more conversations with my friends in the queer community). 

Let me set the scene: a man and a woman are on a date, they decide to go to a restaurant where the man, let's call him Jim, has made a prior reservation. They arrive a little early, so they are forced to stand outside in the slightly chilly night air. Jim, being a gentleman, offers the woman, let's call her Pam (I just finished watching The Office for the second time, I'm extremely sentimental, just let me have this), his coat. Jim will then go on to pay for dinner and anything else they might do in the course of the date (a movie, drinks, bowling). Now, from the point of view of classic dating "rules," Jim is being a perfect gentleman, which has an extremely positive connotation, but in reality, what is happening in this scenario?

When Jim offers Pam his coat, in his mind, he is simply looking out for the woman he loves (yes, he loved her long before their first date), but in societal terms, he is perpetuating the stereotype that men are more powerful than women and can therefore withstand the cold more easily. When Jim pays for dinner, he is probably happy to do so because he knows that the man is "supposed" to pay, but in societal terms he is perpetuating the idea that men should work more than women and therefore earn more money. This basically implies that women are worse workers which then implies a whole other heap of negative things about women.

In this scenario, Jim is practicing chivalry. An idea that came about in the medieval period when only men were allowed to fight and women did just about everything else (maybe an exaggeration, but this is about gender issues not historical facts, so hush) but were looked down upon as clearly lesser. Is a medieval notion something we really want to base our entire search for love on? I don't want that personally. But there may be many who look at this scenario and say, "Jim is just being a gentleman, he is just being nice, you can't fault him for that." And they would have a point, but this is how I would respond.

There is nothing wrong with being nice to your date, the issue stems from the fact that it is only the man who is allowed to do these things. If it was a 50-50 split over who offered their jacket, not because of some outdated gender split, but because one or the other person were actually cold, then it would be okay. If it was a 50-50 split over who paid for dinner based on who has the most ability to pay or who payed last time, then it would be fine. But only then would I agree that whomever is doing the coat offering or the dinner paying is a perfect gentlewoman or gentleman.

And to answer your final question, yes, it does matter. To have true equality in this country (I'm from the U.S. and I have no idea how this applies to other countries, if you have insight on that, please comment to enlighten me) every aspect of gender roles must be examined. There is no sexist ideal too small and in my opinion, the way we approach dating is not a small issue at all. 

Thanks for reading, I would love to hear what you have to say, whether you agree or disagree, what you would like me to write about next, anything you want to say, please just comment. I'm getting desperate. :)      :'(

Stop reading now,

Kellen

Satirical Spaceballs Stunt-Double Scene

Hello all!

This may seem like a strange first "real" post, but this idea is what really made me start up this whole blog thing, so it seemed fitting to write it as soon as possible. So I was sitting in my Introduction to Classical Rhetoric course, learning about early Greek rhetoricians when the movie "Spaceballs" popped into my head, if you have not seen it, go watch it now. Okay, obviously no one did that, but watch it at some point, you can probably still understand what's going on in my weird head without watching the whole thing. Aaaaand there's this thing called YouTube where people with way too much time on their hands, post way too many things and sure enough.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwV61t_Tec8 So, just watch this before you continue reading. It's only a minute. C'mon. Please? Fine. Here we go. You people are so fuckin' lazy.

And apparently so am I. I had all these ideas about what this post was gonna be. Like some sort of satirical take on how the stunt doubles were really stunt doubles even though they were acting as stunt doubles. But as it turns out, I didn't write this soon enough, I got through the first paragraph, saved it as a draft and in the next 2 months proceeded to lose all my notes with extremely complex, almost entirely useless information and now I've completely forgotten everything. So like I said, fuckin' lazy.

Here's the deal, I want to be a writer (journalist, online blogger, reviewer of... things, I don't know, stop pressuring me) so this is me telling you, that despite my previous laziness, I'm gonna start updating this blog. My next post will be created by next Thursday and will either be about some very special movies in my life, sexism, my issues with the two party system in the U.S. or... something else. If anyone is actually reading this, please leave me a comment about what you would like to see next on.... Why???

Stop reading now (and go do something worthwhile, or not, it's really up to you, like seriously, it's your life, do whatever you truly want),

Kellen

Coming Soon...

Just a heads up, I am still working on my first "real" post. Stay tuned as it should be out by the end of Friday. Expect some satire, expect some Spaceballs, expect the unprepared, as my very confused friend always said.

Stop reading now,
Kellen

My Second Favorite Joke

What did the lesbian vampire say to her girlfriend?

See ya next month!


Stop reading now,
Kellen

Welcome

Hello all!

My name is Kellen O'Neill and this is a blog about the subtler things in life that may or may not matter, but usually leave you scratching your head and thinking, "why?" And hopefully not in the annoying way that is most used by toddlers (in reference to this YouTube video, a darkly funny stand up comedy routine by Louis C.K. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4u2ZsoYWwJA), but rather in the way that the great Greek phalafelers once did. Sourcrates Cream being one of the most famous. I would like to say at this time that bad puns won't be the majority of this blog, but it's sort of hard to control so I can't make any promises. What I can promise is I will make you think. About funny things, serious things, maddening things. Anything that comes into my head during a long, boring college class, or while playing League of Legends, or even while playing soccer. My only request for you is that you take these things that you think and you talk about them with other people, create a discussion, because from discussions between human beings have all great things come. That's not really a thing, I just made it up.

Stop reading this now,
Kellen