No music for you: How about something on gender roles?

When I was in my very early tweens I had a hardcore-feminist phase when I was convinced that all men were pigs and dimwitted and women were so superior. Luckily, I was not dimwitted enough to keep that opinion and around 14 or 15 I had established the belief that women and men were equally pigs and dimwitted.

Still, I stayed a feminist, only a true feminist, you know, the annoying kind that actually would like to see some equality amongst genders and preferably a somehow less rigorous gender stamp on people because most girl’s toys suck balls (I don’t wish any kid a toy washing machine for Christmas, let alone a pooping and peeing baby doll) and panty hose have been invented by the devil.

I was lucky enough to have a family that never forced any gender roles on me, I grew up with male and female book heroes and homosexuality was not a taboo topic at home so I didn’t have to get out of a conservative worldview when I grew older, I simply never experienced it.

Sadly enough, I can relate to that video so much because a friend of mine made a similar movie at school and won numerous prices.

I am still very fascinated and interested in gender studies. I never put much emphasis on it during my studies because many books about it get you in a very bad mood but I always appreciate modern and humorous takes on tropes and clichés that especially affect our perception of gender in media. However, sometimes I have to take all that with a grain of salt. See, once you change the perspective and notice the way that men and women are conveyed in the media, it’s hard to ignore that.

Usually, the strong feminists in movies are horrible but I love that scene and she is likeable because we all know that she will have a drink with these guys later on, she’s not out for revenge. I might feel like that because I get into this rant-mode as well as soon as religion or gender roles or the human ideals are discussed but…let’s just keep going with this one, ok?

It can ruin harmless and stupid comedies and movies. Even the usually pretty good genre of midlife crisis movies is forever ruined for me because movies only allow men to have a midlife crisis and they always get out of it because of a very young woman. Old women – if they get a movie at all – only get old macho guys, so they basically relive everything that their younger movie counterparts have to endure for the sake of romantic comedy. See? Even by giving some examples, I get into this weird, cynical outlook on gender roles.

Anyways, if you can deal with that here are two women who kick ass. Sarah Haskins unfortunately doesn’t do “Target Women” anymore although this was the funniest series on Women in media I’ve seen so far.

feministfrequency is still on the go and written/produced by Anita Sarkeesian. Although she is less laugh out loud funny, she is less observational and deals with tropes and co more on an academic level. She has not only examples but also the background literature which is really interesting or did you know that there is something like a smurfette principle? Anita is pretty cool, I might not agree with everything she is saying (I guess I am more the Sarah Haskins type) but it’s hard to dismiss her points completely and her videos and writings help to acknowledge that there are certain images that get forced upon us through tv, movies, books, heck, all society.

I really would like to see something like this on men’s tropes because series like “The Big Bang Theory”, “Two and a half men” and every single family friendly sitcom with a ruthless, dumb and child-like husband (which are about 90% of them) convey a rather distressing image of men and have equally ridiculous tropes.