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Femininity vs. Masculinity; How do we percieve it?

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Renny:
[if this thread was made before... Woops.]


Always found this a fly that occasionally comes to visit and bother me.

(click to show/hide)What makes something feminine, and what makes something masculine and why is it that one is perceived better than the other? This is such a common topic, but I'd like to know the views of our fellow GSR-ians here.

I think it's always great to have more equality in the world, but as a self-proclaimed pessimist, I don't think it's possible. The most we can do is get near equality but never fully achieve it.

That being said, one particular case I always see is how we always want to see more "badass" women in the world, or more tomboy-ish women. Why? Usually badass stuff that these women do can be perceived as "manly" or if anything, impractical for women to do on a regular basis for whatever reason (although badassery is subjective so I expect this to be an airy subject to speak of).
As far as tomboys go, however, that's usually the case of a girl trying to be more boyish, and not girly. But my problem is, what is so wrong about girliness? I'm bothered by it because it's like discreetly implying that what men do, wear, and act, are better then what girls do, wear, and act by these particular behaviors and such.

And then for men who want to act girly, it comes off as a negative thing usually, which is shake-my-head-worthy. What makes men acting girly a negative thing, but women acting more boyish, positive?

Neither men or women are better off in either regards. (women are still the minority but I'll leave that out for next time)
But it seems like we all still favor masculinity over femininity in the long run. Maybe we dislike this "femininity" or "Girliness" because it's so stereotypical? It seems fakey? But men can also fall in their own stereotype as well. I prefer some femininity in my ladies but maybe that's just me.

In the end we should just be who we are and not have to prove ourselves for who we are, but eh.

Thoughts? Opinions? Complaints? Am I making sense? I think I missed some points I wanted to say; I'll post them later if I ever remember them.

PS. I actually do prefer tomboys and "badass" girls. But that doesn't mean I won't like my girly ladies also.  O0

Hopefully this post makes more sense and less stupid sounding /nope

Why do people think “guyish” stuff are (usually) better than “girly” stuff? Why do “girly” stuff and traits tend to be taken in a more negative light? What makes something girly or guyish in the first place?

This goes into fact that we have labeled many things, traits, aspects, and tropes with gender roles. Perhaps not all was directly labeled, but in the back of our minds, or implied in stories we read and see, we tend to put certain aspects towards certain gender roles and sexes.

For example: When we see a character who needs to always be saved or something.. we immediately think the “damsel in distress”. We usually expect this to be a female character too so it's usually considered a "girly" trope. Many of us find it annoying, too. We also got the “high school girly girl” syndrome which tend to be associated with make-up, excessive purchases of materials like clothes, more make up or just “cute things”. Then we have stuff for example like barbies and ### and what do many of us end up thinking of? Ladies. The clothes they wear we got ‘girly” clothes like bikinis, dresses, spaghetti straps and such as “girly”. Even genre’s for stories like love and romance is usually aimed towards the female audience.

For males, we tend to associate them with the heavy machinery; the guns, the bombs, the giant swords, the fighting, the ass kicking, the violence. Hell we tend to associate these things to badassery and then in general, associate it to males. And the tropes they have tend to relate to those things listed, like the one-man army, the video-gamer, the street fighter, the army general, etc. When we think video games, a lot of us still think “guys” first, cause it’s still apparently considered a “girly” trait. The clothes we tend to associate males with is just typical shirt and pants, or maybe the occasional longcoat and stuff.

I’ll use fiction as an easy place to start.

I know too many people who like their women to kick ass and this usually tends to associate with tom-boyism, which in literal terms from how I see it is the ladies associate their lifestyle more like “guys” from how they dress to how they act. A lot of the people prefer their female characters to be this way. They do not like the common stereotypes associated with female characters such as those I listed earlier (and may not like it in their own selves either). They shake their head at the idea. And I already seen the people who brag about how their girl isn’t the “typical” girl who has those “typical” stereotypical female traits, but rather, end up acquiring all the traits that are usually listed in the “stereotypical male” traits. Like having the ladies with guns and giant swords, and/or acting like "dude".

The same can be said for male characters, where we usually want them to remain guyish for the most part. Or at least do “guyish” things. We still do not seem to look at males who are more in tuned to their female side with a positive light. When we see a guy wear a dress we almost never take it seriously or laugh at it, considering it a joke. Why? Or if a male character had the damsel in distress trope we’d probably gag more at that then a female who had it. And etc.

So as my questions ask, Just why do people do this?

If we saw Girly and Guyish traits more equally, I’d think we’d feel less uncomfortable and don’t have a strong desire to show off they are not girly or ###. Hell most of these traits shouldn’t even be assigned gender roles such as damsel in distress. We know this trope is ###, but the fact we associated to females the most, is shake-my-head-worthy.

I would hope that maybe we do see these traits and such as merely labels and not associated to any gender at all and just ‘traits.” But seeing as even now I see the misuse of gender labels and roles so much, I can only wonder.

I know many of the people here though are a lot more open minded than most so this is why I ask you guys.
PS. I think it's always great to have more equality in the world, but as a self-proclaimed pessimist, I don't think it's possible. The most we can do is get near equality but never fully achieve it. I also think we need the “inequality” to function but that is another story.

PSS. I personally enjoy the ladies who can kick butt while still being “girly” as I find the trait endearing. Then again maybe all I’m trying to do is support my love for the “girly” ladies cause I think they are cute. But *ahem* I’ll just stop talking here. :D

Let's do this.

Mitsuo:
So Renny does this mean you're a guy?

Renny:

--- Quote from: BarracudaSP on March 21, 2012, 02:53:55 am ---So Renny does this mean you're a guy?

--- End quote ---

People think I'm a legendary pokemon if that helps.

hippielama:
i prefer a tomboy protagonist because it usually means shes confident and willing to face adversity, its not exactly what i would call masculine but its definitely not girly.

theres nothing wrong with being girly, its just annoying.

Renny:

--- Quote from: hippielama on March 21, 2012, 02:59:31 am ---theres nothing wrong with being girly, its just annoying.

--- End quote ---

Any reasons for that opinion, good sir? It's stuff like this that intrigue me. It is still implying girliness is a negative trait even though it's part of our society. XD a big part especially.

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