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Weaponized Incompetence

  Hi guys!      Lately on my Tik Tok, I’ve seen a lot of videos discussing/responding to videos posted by women in heterosexual relationships. In these types of videos, the woman laughingly recalls how her male partner messed up something she’s usually in charge of. For example, it might be about how he changed their kid’s diaper wrong, or used the wrong laundry detergent, or, I don’t know, almost gave their kid arsenic because he doesn’t know which bottle labels correspond to which. The severity of the mistakes range depending on the videos, but the bottom line tends to be that they’re comedic, with the women laughing over the men’s ‘sweet’ but failed attempts to take on traditionally female-tasks. However, other groups on Tik Tok do not find these videos so funny. Many responded to them in frustration, saying that men in these relationships are perfectly capable of learning how to do these tasks, but don’t because they’d rather just leave it to the women. Hence the...
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Fight Club and the Masculinity Crisis

In this past week, I watched Fight Club,  a 1999 film directed by David Fincher. While it was an engaging watch (that I would definitely recommend checking out), the themes of the movie reminded me a lot of our discussions about masculinity in this class. I won't delve into the entire plot to avoid major spoilers, but the essential premise is this: the movie follows an unnamed (often referred to as "the narrator") white collar, Kafka-esque, tired office worker, with no purpose or direction to his life, and living with crippling insomnia. His materialistic, consumerism lifestyle is extremely monotonous, until he meets an interesting man named Tyler Durden on a business trip flight. After the narrator's apartment blows up from unknown causes, he goes to live with Tyler, who pushes him to "hit rock bottom," and to let go of the materialistic life, saying to him, "Once you let go of everything, you can do anything." The two of them start a fight club, ...
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Female Superheroes

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     Traditionally, superhero movies have starred male leads. The plot generally follows a young man with a heart of gold and a sad past, who is tasked with saving the world. He’s good looking, strong, and manly- which subsequently means he must have a love interest (a woman). She is usually kindhearted, innocent, and in need of saving by the end of the film, raising the stakes of the story. This formula is widely used throughout the superhero and action film genre, and mainstream media is used to consuming it.  However, in recent years, female superheroes have been depicted much more frequently. Heroes such as Mystique from Xmen, Black Widow and She-Hulk from Marvel, and Wonder Woman and Catwoman from DC are a selection of heroes in recent action films who fight to save the world. But, there are some significant differences between their portrayal and that of their male counterparts. Instead of a ‘buff’ physique, the women have an hourglass and busty figure, further...
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The "Pick-Me Girl" and her Descendants

       During my time at uni and throughout my years in the education system, I’ve picked up on common trends in binary stereotypes of girls and boys at school. Obviously, as my peers and I have matured, the nature of these labels has changed, but an underlying current remains: while the identities associated with boys- either harmful or positive- existed on their own, the categories for girl students were often linked to boys and how it affected them. Girls behaved/presented for boys, either to attract or repel them, whereas boys just existed. That isn’t to say that boys were never criticized for their behavior, clothes, or personality, however, in my memory, people didn’t assume they were a performance for girls.       One  example of this phenomenon is the recently popularized term “pick me girl.” The pick me girl, often attributed to a high school student, wants to be “picked” by her male peers, and therefore will appeal to the male gaze/...
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