Order! Stay in line! Order! If you move out of your place-
-you will have none.
The society and individual mind have one thing in common, they can’t stand not being organized. Everything has to be aligned. Now, you might take yourself as a relaxed person, and not a perfectionist. You’d say, no, I don’t like being organized. But what is being organized? Is it just making sure everyone follows the Marie Kondo philosophy (she is amazing, and you should listen to her regardless)?
To prove my point, imagine you’re in a classroom. It’s a classic Japanese anime school experience. You’re sitting by the window and outside, the cherry blossoms are blooming. A breeze takes you by surprise and brings some of the pink flowers on your desk. Suddenly the bell rings, it’s summer break; however just when you’re about to leave, your homeroom teacher stops you to hand you your homework. When it’s done everyone gets up to leave, the homeroom teacher being the first one. You decide to take one last look at the classroom when-
You see it.
A tiny chalk mark that the teacher missed on the rather clean blackboard. Order: breached.
Before you know it, you’re picking up the duster and wiping it out. It’s gone, the blackboard is all black now, you know because this time you checked twice. Order: restored.
It’s a tiny thing, yet we all know it bothers everyone. We can’t stand breaking the simple rules of alignment, on which the entire concept of conformity is based on. Conformity is when people subconsciously follow a certain set of rules or norms that they’ve been conditioned towards. If one is to step out of the designated norms, our brain quickly recognises it. Some norms are relative while some are universal. For example, in America having a gun is a norm, while in other countries it’s most definitely not.
Since gender is a universal concept, the norms revolving around them is nearly the same in every part of the world, making the impact and the pressure to stay inside the lines drawn by the society excruciatingly intense. A girl must be submissive, a boy must be dominant. A girl must always smile, a boy must never cry. When individuals are divided into categories as such, they feel the desire to show everyone just how wellthey can fit into its standards.
To test this, an experiment was conducted by Timothy M. Franz and other psychologists and named the ‘Gender conundrum’. They labelled two exit doors in New York city with a female sign and a male sign, like those on bathroom doors to indicate which one you should enter. Both genders tried to adhere to the rules because they may not think much of it consciously, but subconsciously they feel that if they were to walk through the wrong door, they would be seen as less in their gender.
All throughout the history we have seen the ‘stricter’ versions of such norms- a woman should never show off her ankles (18th century), a woman can have never inherit a family business, a man can never seem too affectionate. Due such rules, a smart woman felt worthless andfrustated, an emotional man feels disgusted for being called ‘feminine’.Compared to these, in the modern times, these rules have become diluted. A woman can show off ankles, she can be political, worthy of a job. Many of us even consider that we live in a post-feminist society (we do not) and women have made their way out of the gender norms. However, is this truly the post-feminist standard that we have achieved?
Gender norms evolve overtime, as clearly explained in the previous paragraph, but how much has the society really changed? Are we not instead feeling the pressure of the new societal norm i.e. to be progressive and hence trying to strike a balance between the both? To make the statement clearer, I’m pretty sure most of you reading this blog have seen the movie ‘Gone Girl’ (directed by David Fincher, 2014). In that the main lead Amy Dunne played by Rosamund Pike talks about what being a cool girl is in the modern society.
“Cool girl means I’m hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poke dirty jokes, and burping. Who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow still maintaining a size 2; because cool girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool girls never get angry; they only smile in chagrined loving manner and let their man do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind. I’m the cool girl.”
In this monologue of hers, you can clearly see the she has figured out the balance between the two norms the society struggles to maintain. We want women to feel like they’re free, like they are no longer meant to be modest and hide their ankles. They no longer have to be shy about sex or eat in moderation. But all of this is only so they are more appealing to men that they supposedly belong to. She’s ‘cool’, so she’s understanding of the underlying misogyny, that when her husband flirts with younger woman, she shakes it off. And she’s ‘hot’ because the worth of woman is still her body. Still how much she can serve in bed. She can be loud, but not bossy. She can say what she wants, but they won’t hear it. They assure her that they are, and turning their backs on her soon enough. If a woman is anything else, if she likes to watch the financial news and read books and is vegetarian, she’s the weirdo and no one likes her.
We’re moving forward by being part of the ‘progressive’ norm, by allowing women to sleep around and yet we are adhering to the old one that states, ‘she must always be submissive.’ The society is convincing itself that’s the new ‘cool’ place, when in reality she’d still be handed the low pay check, she’s still be at a disadvantage against a man at a job interview because the family is still her responsibility not his. And she’d understand that, she always will. After all, she’s the cool girl and it would hurt their pride if she was anything else. She’d be with the white chalk mark on the blackboard.
Bringing you all back to the Gender Conundrum experiment. Another observation to this experiment was that men were less likely to step out of their assigned doors. Men would be more conscious of their identity as a male and feel more threatened if told otherwise. Throughout history, it has been the men that have made rules and have been less accepting of change. And since they have oppressed women more, we have mainly noted what harm the masculine gender norms have done to females and dismiss what they have done to men themselves.
Even in modern times, a man can’t cry too much, he can’t work with makeup, he can’t be too excited. If he’s nice, he’s not as attractive. If he’s sweet he’s too submissive. If he wears pink, he’s effeminate. He can’t be weak, he can’t break. He can’t ask a woman for help and definitely can’t need help because of one. The hypocrisy of these norms is that, people assume that men can get through everything. That when a man is assaulted, he’s lucky to get some action. That when a man is raped, there is no law to protect him. That when a man needs psychological help, he’s weak, he’s worse,
He’s a woman.
With the awareness of the LGBTQ+ community, the society tries to strike a balance between the changing times and their old beliefs yet again. Homosexual men are considered womanly, and thus any man who is gentle, is labelled as gay. As an insult, of course, let’s not kid ourselves. It’s okay for them to believe that a homosexual man can be different, since his very existence is far out of what’s considered normal in our society. So, they’re allowed to put flowers in their heads and cry about their favourite books. They’re different to us anyway, so why not go all out? But you can’t be straight and feminine. Oh no no, we have a rule book for that. I’m afraid your opinion on makeup is invalid, your job as a ballet dancer is strange. You certainly can’t paint your nails or wear a skirt. Oh of course she can wear whatever she wants. She’s a cool girl! But you’re only cool if you wear jeans and be normal.
These restrictions don’t seem much to men, because like I’ve mentioned before, they’re the ones that oppress themselves the most. They’re afraid of change, afraid of being called different or a little girl or even gay. They supress their feelings because they’re not even supposed to express most of them. They should be indifferent, pushy and have a badass motorbike. Even when they’re not, they would pretend to be and it would break them to realise they were anything else. Of course, I’m in no way stating that women do not make men feel pressured in their gender identity, they most certainly do.
Thankfully, we live in a time where people have started to recognize the hypocrisy of their own behaviour and are trying to change it, trying to think beyond the social influence. So, if you want to cry, just cry. If you don’t want to be silent, don’t. If you like flower crowns, you wear them and if you hate football, just turn off the TV. It’s okay to not be the cool girl or to be able to ride a motorbike. It’s okay to be straight and still wear a skirt. Gender in the end is a social construct, and the white mark on the black board isn’t you, it’s the fear of the society to let go of the old rules. But, sooner or later, someone will wipe it off because they just can’t stand it.
And we can start from a clean board again.
Article by Alisha Ambre
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