Stop trying to hide behind yourself // We are what we are

Gender issues, seemingly the Pandora’s box of writing topics, eh? Well, let’s just get down to brass tacks.

Our peers, ’society’ as it were, dictates a lot of what we deem ‘normal’ and ’status quo’, right? Well, over the course of the past hundred thousand years or however long we’ve been around on this planet, there have been a burned-in set of ideas and guidelines that we’ll say the majority of people follow. Depending on where ever you want to look at it in history, men and women have never been equal on all fronts. Both having ups and downs, pros and cons, the responsibilities given to men and those given to women are clearly different. Everyone always has that stereotype that like, women need to stay in the kitchen and cook and clean, and men have to go out and get the job and make the money, when in fact, especially recent years, that just isn’t the case 100% of the time. I’d be willing to bet it’s not even the case 75% of the time. However, where ever you decide to look in history it’s going to be a little bit different. Even today, cultures differ their views towards men and women.

We all go to Wayne State, a college with an extremely expansive cultural diversity, and for the matter, a high concentration of Muslims and people of middle-eastern descent. In the middle east, they still have women totally covered in shrouds, and they’re not allowed to speak unless spoken to. What’s the deal with that, you say? Well, it’s obvious, you have a different outlook and ideas surrounding the issues of gender than they do.

Now, it’d just be rude and wrong for you to try and justify your stance on the issue as any better or worse than anyone else’s. Let’s look at Halloween (she didn’t show it to us for the hell of it, might as well at least call upon its vast reaching gender-subjectivity and cues on how we apparently thought of women in the 70s ) Let’s face it, when you think about horror movies, it’s always the virgin white girl that dies first, am I right? It’s been a stereotype since the 70s, and Scary Movie 1 thru whatever they’re up to now makes a point of calling it out. They all say that women are just not as coherent or as ‘in the zone’ as men when it comes to basic survival instincts. Is it true? Ponder that for a minute or two.

Now look, I’m a guy, I guess you could sit here and come up with a million reasons why I’m biased or something, but I’m not. I’m the one always cleaning my apartment and cooking, and frankly I think a girl who goes out and does something productive in society, is assertive, confident and smart is like crazy attractive. The fact is, it’s just now starting to happen (women getting their voice out, I mean). I think over the years women just got fed up with it, and after the bra-burning years of the 70s and 80s, the girls brought up in the late stages of the 20th century are really starting to turn those stereotypes around, and good for them, but I also think that by we all in society as recognizing this, I don’t think we should be just leaving boys out to hang. It’s a fact, now boys are doing significantly “less good” in high school that girls. Is that to say in a household either of the contributing members has to be less smart or less qualified in life? No, but again, ponder where this tract is going.

Men and women are geared physically and psychologically for different things, don’t ever forget that. Whether you believe in a supreme creator or not, something put us here the way you are, and when you look at things on a deeper level, you’ll see why there isn’t a predominant representation of female football teams and why most of the time it’s guys going out on opening day of hunting season. It’s what we’re born with. Changing that may lead to consequences no one will see coming.

N M Buccinno