Social Pressures, Role Reversals [Nine's Perspective]

     Hallo. As I am sure many of you have noticed, Lady Lili is very busy these days, with her college studies and things of that nature. She will be back to post sometime in the near future. I am here to make that wait a little less plain and post-less. You may call me Nine. I am a male that often ponders similar things, and thus I have been given permission to share some of my male views and insights on her lovely blog. Therefore, from here out, each of my posts will be part of a segment on this blog called 'Nine's Perspective.' I hope my posts will entertain you, and prove to be thought-provoking. Let's move onto the first, shall we?

     Lili often speaks of sexism, and un-equality. Her most recent post, 'Pointlessly Gendered,' started me on a path of thought. Things are indeed a bit unbalanced these days. Things marketed to females tend to follow the confines of social and cultural stereotypes, such as using the color pink. But, when we get down to the issue, I believe things run much deeper than we sometimes allow ourselves to realize. Today, we will focus on the cultural influences on how the opposite sexes treat one another when they reverse society's pre-determined roles for us.

     Let me ask you something. Do you believe that a couple should make their own decisions and choices? Does it matter who does what? You may say no, without thinking about it, and maybe, just maybe, you are not being honest with your true feelings. Society puts an extreme amount of pressure on all of us to be how they feel we should be. Both males and females experience this pressure, and we are bred to accept our 'roles.' Case in point? Let's say you all met this wonderful couple. They got along really well, and were all lovey-dovey with each other. Now, before you know anything else about these two love birds, they tell you that the Female works all day, and the Male stays home and takes care of their three children, and cleans and cooks. What would your initial reaction be? How would you view that male? How would your parents view that male? Odds are, even if you aren't willing to admit it, you would think less of the male, simply because he is not assuming his pre-determined role.

     In American culture, there are many pressures on Females to assume a certain role, but it is important to not forget that many Males suffer the same pressures. People think less of a man who does not work. What do they think of him? Lazy, no good, not a real 'man.' Ladies, think about it. What if you had a job you were REALLY happy with, and you loved working there, and it more than paid the bills? Let's say you had kids, and your husband was smart, could work, but his job wasn't that important to him, and it meant a lot to him for you to keep the job that made you so happy? You would probably adore him for it. He's sacrificing his work life for yours, so he can take care of the house, and the children. But, what would your parents think? They will both most likely dislike him, immediately at that, especially your father. This becomes worse if they do not know much about him. Already, just because you are happy with your current setup, you have brought down the possible wrath of your parents against the man you love. He will now have to endure the nasty stares from your father, the drilling questions, etc. Perhaps your mother will pull you aside frequently, asking you why you aren't being a 'true woman.' You might want to make your own choices, and you both might be very happy with your lives, but everyone is going to sneer at you for it.

     What is my point here? Is it that we should just accept our roles and not complain? Certainly not. We should not give into the pressures that we endure, or accept the roles that society attempts to force on us. We should be ourselves, and work with our partners to make one another happy. A great relationship is two bodies, two minds, and one heart. Do what you can for each other. Is role reversal a truly equal relationship? Not exactly, but there is something good to be said about a man that is willing to make sacrifices for his lady, just as she is for him. If we want true equality, we should pay more attention to these types of things. Social pressures seek to drive us from doing a lot of things. I don't really find that, in a relationship, you have to assume any type of role, whatsoever. But there is something to be said that, should we want to assume roles, we get chastised if we do not assume the 'right' ones. We should examine ourselves, and make sure that we are not adding to the problem by pressuring others to do things 'our way.' I am Nine, and this is my final word for today.

Pointlessly Gendered Roundup 1

Okay, due to insistent complaining by a few of my readers, I am finally writing a new post. With december finals and the holiday madness, writing fell by the wayside. And with classes starting again on tuesday, this may be the last post for a while again... but we'll see.

I've been meaning to start my own "pointlessly gendered" series, a concept I've seen on many other soci blogs. I've collected a few pictures since deciding to include this in my blog, so here they are.

These first two I found in a christian bookstore. Not-so-surprisingly, the place was actually teeming with sexism. But here are a couple of the most obvious/humorous.

Despite all of the violence and godly wrath, apparently the bible is too girly for some men. Not anymore, thanks to the "everyman's bible"... a version not only written by men, but meant exclusively for men. 

Christian jewelry for teens... separated by gender, just in case God needs help clarifying the sex of his followers. I guess to get boys to wear jewelry, you need to give them a direct association with God... or use a z instead of an s.

This last picture I found at a gun shop. Yet again, not that surprising.

There are so many things wrong with this picture, it actually hurts my head. The colors, the designs, the sizes... 

This picture also represents a concept known as "women vs people", wherein being male is neutral and the norm, and being female is the alternative. Notice the names: "whoopass" is the one for men, and it's the normal one, whereas "ms. whoopass" is the alternative, for women. This is actually quite ironic, since pepper spray is generally geared toward women... so why isn't the pink one "whoopass" and the army one "mr. whoopass"? 

Just shows the millions of tiny ways this culture is still very androcentric. 

Mighty Morphin Power... Sandwich Maker?

Anyone else see the obvious gender stereotype here? Anyone, anyone?

Well in case you lived under a rock during the 90's and know nothing about the MMPR, there is a clear difference between one of these characters and the other five... the pink ranger is a female.

Couldn't you tell by the very feminine pose that no other character in this shot is using? Her legs are together femininely, and even her hands are poised a bit differently, higher up on her waist rather than her hips, and fingers flared outward.

Now, in the story of the show itself, there wasn't too much of a gender bias. The female rangers weren't ever necessarily the leaders of the group, but they got just as much screen time and fighting action as, say, the blue ranger.

No, just the fact that the one girl of the group was given the color pink was enough of an obnoxious stereotype for one television show to dish out. And not shown in the picture above (and again, in case you never saw the show), in other seasons of Power Rangers, another woman was included in the group, given the color yellow. Another feminine color. And while we're on the subject of stereotypes, for a long time, the yellow ranger character was Asian. Asian, yellow... really? And mind you, this couldn't even have been misconstrued as the color gold, because a gold member came along later... a male, of course.

So we have a blonde, white-skinned pink ranger, and a quite racially insensitive Asian yellow ranger. And when the yellow ranger wasn't played by an Asian woman, she was played by a black woman. Why couldn't we give the black actress the pink color?

This is how blatantly easy it was to be sexist, let alone racist. And worst of all, I totally bought into it. I remember as a child fighting with my best friend about who got to play the pink ranger. No girl wanted to be yellow, let alone a male oriented color such as red or green.

So have the Power Rangers gotten their act together in the past 20 years? Well let's see...


Power Rangers Jungle Fury (2008)

Okay, the yellow is still a woman, but they replaced the pink with a purple ranger. But it's not really purple, it's "violet" and its animal is the wolf, so it's okay for a guy...


Power Rangers RPM (2009)

The pink is gone entirely now, I guess because who has ever heard of a pink racing car? But the woman is still yellow, of course.


And the most recent,
Power Rangers Samurai (2011)

Okay well, the pink ranger is back, but both pink and yellow are still women, and now they're shoved to the back of the picture...

But hey, at least the blonde white chick is stuck playing the yellow ranger now, and the indistinguishable minority woman is allowed to be pink. If that's not a huge step forward in women's rights everywhere, I don't know what is.