10 harmful stereotypes about the relationship of women and men
We all, anyway, we think in stereotypes - generalizations of a greater or lesser degree: division by any sign, be it "housewives" or "athletes", inevitably gives rise to a set of clichés. Of course, the tendency to stereotyping depends on all sorts of contexts - the country of residence, level of education, or, say, religiosity. But there is a division that we see everywhere, into “female” and “male”, from character traits and mental abilities to professions and dressing styles.
These stereotypes do not arise from scratch, but taking root in everyday life, it is very difficult to root out from there, they begin to determine our behavior and, most importantly, not everyone is noticeable. We decided to make out the most common misconceptions about how heterosexual relationships are built and how women and men behave "typically" in them. After all, in order not to fall prey to stereotypes (or not to make it your partner), it is important to understand how they work and whether they do not begin to harm your relationship.
Appearance - the main thing
There is also the second part, about a man who should be a little more beautiful than a monkey, and also about the fact that a real man is distinguished by his strength, smelly and hairy. Both parts are about a look that should fit into certain standards. The canons of appearance for both women and men are strictly regulated and stereotyped. At the beginning of a relationship, each / each of us is highly likely to have its own baggage of rules "how a woman should look like" and a man like a woman should look like. Women are checked for the degree and quality of makeup, for kilograms, for grooming - and if the result of the test does not meet the "gold standard", then the woman is considered unjust and unattractive.
Men are no less rigidly assessed through their personal care practices. If a man seeks to look well-groomed in a different from “male” canon (say, manicure, makeup, extravagant style of dressing), then in certain patriarchal circles he may face a negative attitude - accusation of unmanly or homosexuality, which in a conservative society is considered an insult and especially hits the patriarchal man. As a result, the main victims of stereotypes about masculinity are men themselves, and about femininity - women. After all, it turns out that the opposite sex is not at all such inhuman requirements for the partner’s appearance as we think, and in pursuit of a “beach body”, a deep bikini or a triceps we often go ourselves, mistakenly thinking that this is what we are expected of. .
All women want children
The option "I want a child" is not built into either the woman or the man by default. You can, of course, argue and confirm with personal experience that the naturalness of the maternal principle is irrefutable, but this does not cancel the fact: not all people want children - and the floor has little effect on it. It must be said that Russian society as a whole is more patriarchal and child-centered in comparison with Western countries. State policy is designed so that such a discursive marker as a “child”, along with the word “motherhood”, enhances the social status of any public statement. It works in the opposite direction, so that women, as a rule, motherhood is imputed as the main priority in life: a full-fledged, accomplished woman is not necessarily a professional, but necessarily a mother. At the same time, different positions are assigned to the status of motherhood and paternity, which, for example, leads to the traditional solution of the issue of custody of the child in favor of the mother. Despite the fact that men sometimes want to have children much stronger than women, the stereotype imposes its own restriction on them: some do not even risk admitting to their fatherhood, taking it as a sign of weakness.
Men want sex, and women want love
This statement has a lot of forms of expression in folklore. All of them, as a rule, naturalize the polygamous nature of men, point out the difference in approaches to treason among members of different sexes, point out the "physiological" nature of the love desires of men and the "romance" of the love desires of women. Simply put, porn is for guys, women's novels are understandable for anyone. All this creates fertile contexts for rhetoric, in which men are attributed to the need for sex without any special feelings, and to women - the opportunity to engage them only for love. The modern world, where women have become freer in the right to dispose of their bodies, not to marry after each intercourse, and even, oh, horror, to offer a man one-night sex proves that this is not the case. The fact that men are often taken by surprise means that they have not yet restructured and that new rules create discomfort for them. Not to mention that the desire for sex without the continuation, expressed by a woman, may entail the label "prostitute".
Women are hinting. Their no often means yes
You can find entire lists on the Internet that list “what a woman says and“ what she really means. ” A norm for men, on the contrary, is considered to speak directly, without any confusion, with the absence of any double meaning. It turns out that everyone is held hostage by the way of speaking, which correlates with their gender prescriptions. If, for example, a woman would say a very clear "no", then this "no", as part of following the stereotype, can be perceived as a "flirty yes." As a result, partners hardly find a compromise: men always try to “read between the lines” or come to the conclusion that trying to understand a woman is meaningless, and women, in turn, consider men to be one-dimensional, not reflexive creatures. In the worst case, the inability to hear a partner and understand that “no” in the mouth of a woman means “no” can lead to the fact that a romantic date or casual acquaintance will end with rape.
Women prefer rich men
In this stereotype, the old and fabulous "goods you have, we have a merchant" live on. It constructs the market order of building relationships. A man is considered as a consumer, a woman is an object of consumption. Accordingly, the richer the man, the more opportunities for consumption. This stereotype has a downside - impute to men the need to maintain women. Keeping and maintaining the status of an object, a woman turns out to be a consumer of a man’s financial resources on the basis of the fact that they are in a relationship. Of course, not everyone is in a hurry to enter into such a relationship consciously, but even completely calculating couples sometimes subconsciously act and think within the framework of a model where a man has to earn enough to satisfy his partner’s requests, and she in turn deserves it by the very fact of her existence . And the amount of money in the account of a man is only details.
All women dream of getting married
In other words, this stereotype can be represented as follows: all women think about “how to ring him”, and men - “how to drag her to bed and not marry.” Various institutions reinforce the idea of the desire of women to marry. Starting with the popular sympathy, "sat down in the girls", ending with numerous media examples - in advertising, gloss, the wedding industry, in many respects focused specifically on the brides, and not on the suitors. The consistently strong position of this stereotype can be supported by women themselves. So, there is an internal misogyny - the condemnation of women who are not seeking to "nest". Speaking about men, it is traditionally assumed that the offer is made by men, the same traditionalism imputes their need, but not the passionate desire to get married. This stereotype is tenacious and does not intend to give up so simply: for example, recently it has penetrated even into a progressive lecture by a teacher of the Higher School of Economics on Coursera.
Men are not ready to care for children
And although in a number of countries the practice of maternity leave for men has long existed, in Russia childcare is still considered a “non-male affair”. This stereotype narrows the concept of paternity, takes men outside the practice of everyday troubles with a child. Raising children and caring for them becomes the territory of women’s monopoly ownership. Fathers who pay a one-time shred of attention to children — those who have changed the diaper, who have walked with a stroller over the weekend — are rewarded with a mass of encouraging feedback from society. But fathers, who left work to raise children, may well be a target for censure. Alas, the stereotype dictates its own rules and prevents each particular pair from working out a schedule and option that will suit them in their particular circumstances. After all, to sit with children at home is not an easy job, which both women and men are capable of.
Women are more important than family, and men are more important.
This statement claims that a single and gender-marked orientation in life aspirations is imputed to people who have somehow existed offline before a relationship. One is the getter, the other is the keeper of the hearth. In this case, both should be content with their position, because in nature it is laid down that women and men get satisfaction from different things. About the presence of a specific "female" happiness, they write a lot in a psychological gloss for women or, say, in women's novels. This same mythical "female" happiness may wish girlfriend birthday.
“Male happiness”, as a rule, is not desired for men, however, his understanding is also localized and determined by male consistency - financial, career, physical. According to this stereotype, a woman should be comfortable in a house, and a man should be offered professional development, and not the other way round. Women who develop professionally, and men who are passionate about home and children, are at best perceived as exceptions, at worst - as unworthy representatives of their own sex and are awarded the labels "careerist" and "henpecked".
Women are always trying to change men
Moreover, women, according to this statement, do it in a certain way, behind which the name “eat the brain” was fixed. Perseverance, perseverance and the lowest methods to achieve are attributed to this process, be it hysterics, tears, endless calls to do something, or, conversely, to stop doing something. We seldom think about it, but among other unpleasant consequences this stereotype generates an ugly morality in its effects: if a man raised his hand to a woman, it means she brought it. After all, they, women, are able to bring. And vice versa: the existence of this stereotype for women gives indulgence to use tears or other non-constructive methods of dialogue - simply on the basis of the fact that this is characteristic of women and, therefore, is allowed. Actually, if you look wider, then imbalance or egoism - all these slippery features of human characters - can be characteristic of anyone and anyone, being universal, and everyone needs to control their craving for manipulation, regardless of biological sex.
Men are rational, women are emotional
Sacralisation and exaggeration of differences in the psyche of women and men have been encountered at different times and in different cultures, and nowadays the allegedly inborn different degrees of emotionality in different genders are often illustrated with data from the field of pop psychology. Both the logic of men and the emotionality of women - all this, according to the stereotype, is explained by the difference in the structure of the brain and the different development of the hemispheres. Increased female emotionality is also often referred to as “hysteria,” although the medical diagnosis itself, “hysteria,” also known as “uterine rabies,” has been irrelevant for a hundred years now.
And still, we continue to believe that men are logical beings, but women cannot think naturally by nature, at best they have an inconceivable “female logic”. While this stereotype prevails, it is difficult for everyone. Men are charged with a taboo on certain forms of manifestation of sensitivity since childhood, for example, the familiar “don't cry like a girl”; women are credited with birth this irrationality of actions and reactions, as well as violent emotional behavior as the norm of a female character. All this complicates, and sometimes makes it impossible to mutual understanding between partners and their openness to each other.
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