Where have all the young men gone?

cheers
Sat, 17 Sep 2005 16:24:15 +0000

AS a girl who attended a private all-female secondary school, I’d say there is a difference between authority-pleasing girls and girls who prefer a polite, ordered environment.

However, the difference is irrelevant outside of school. There are few polite, ordered environments in adult life. Department stores? When they are empty?

From my perspecitve, skewed as it is, American society made significant changes to the standard of ‘boy’ behavior. Boys are now expected to act more like girls. Some of that is a step in the right direction, some of it has gone too far.

Boys aren’t girls. Thank goodness. Vive la difference!

Gilrs have been encouraged to act more like boys too. Still, I’d argue that authority figures still promote and reward girl’s authority-pleasing behavior–to the girls’ detriment. Girls who prefer polite ordered environments can become hothouse flowers who only bloom when all the cricumstances are exactly right.

I have a couple of sister-in-laws who are hothouse flowers. Life, being a messy, insufferable state, is very very tough on them. My brothers are on duty 24/7 trying to create the perfect polite world for their wives–a sisyphusian task and a waste of my brothers’ lives (if you ask me).

Of course, the whole campaign to lift the assertiveness of girls is undermined by the current hyper-sexualization of teen and pre-teen culture. Who can learn to speak up and be assertive when the world is staring at your pubic bone and you’re worried if your pubic hairs are showing at the top of your jeans?

Girls are caught in an insidious Catch 22.