Recently, I was influenced by a student in one of my upper-division sociology classes who claimed that she was fed up with the way that society has changed because it has influenced the way that relationships are viewed today. She complained heavily about the way that men view women and how this viewpoint discourages women of today's society. It caused me to think, what really has happened to the way we view gender and relationships?
Most of these changes in the way we look at women comes from changes in society's expectations of women. What if a boy truly liked you for your personality and not for the curves on your body? Women should not be based on measurements set from magazines and stars on a television screen who tell current generations that 0 is a size and any size over extra-large deserves its own store. In personal relationships, it should not be about physical involvement with one another. It should not matter what you say over a message on Facebook or how pretty you look in your most recent profile picture. He should actually respect you. He should respect the choices that you make to protect yourself. As women, we should have been taught to be treated with respect but we often forget. When we forget, we lose everything that we were raised to protect.
Men can challenge this approach and claim that not all men are disrespectful and women are just as difficult. Both statements are completely correct. It is a two-way street, and often times men can be treated with just as much disrespect as women. What if women actually strove to find a man for what he is made to be rather than his appearance? The ideal man is supposed to be strong, good looking, wealthy and smart. Our natural inclination as women is to judge on appearance first, whether we claim we don't. Magazines make men to be chiseled with rock hard abs, successful in the world and able to contribute to the family in the future. Men are shaped to be strong and when they express emotion they lose their sense of masculinity. So why are men not allowed to express emotional strength? What is it that causes men of our generation to avoid commitment? Maybe men of current generations combat the fight between emotion and strength by pushing away relationships that may cause them to stray away from the idea of the "perfect man."
As women, we often forget what we deserve, and as men, we often forget what respect is. Today women are taught from magazines and tabloids to strive for a perfect body, rather than a beautiful mind. Men are taught to do what more masculine, rather than what they emotionally yearn for. These gender stereotypes are destroying society and the development of relationships in upcoming generations. The media is persuading teenagers by saying that being pretty is perfect, being strong is cool. Men and women are deviating from classical gender stereotypes and are transforming what it means to have a personal relationship. We forget because society is causing us to ignore respect and emotion and idealize beauty and brawn above all things. Beauty and brawn are sexy and as result, sexuality is shaping relationships. We are becoming wrapped up in a world of technology, a universe combating alterations of the standards of beauty.
What are we supposed to do?
We combat these alterations by reminding ourselves that we are all much more than what we appear to be. It is OK as a woman to have respect for ourselves and our values. It is OK as a man to be capable of feeling emotion. I think we often forget that it is OK to be human and to be capable of feeling compassionate.
Well how do these gender standards affect personal relationships?
I would need an entire article or even possibly a book to highlight the way relationships work in today's society. Frankly, to put it quite simply: we can all strive for a healthy relationship if we are emotionally capable to handle it. As women, we maintain respect and do not prioritize beauty as the definition of our individual identity. As men, we remember that masculinity is simply a competition and that your biceps are not capable of emotion like your heart is. If we can move toward individual emotional improvement, we just may be able to save relationships from ending up as sexual catastrophes.
