Battle of the Sexes

http://youtu.be/AWpsOqh8q0M

This is the music video for "If I Were a Boy" by Beyonce. It may seem a little cliche, but this song and music video display gender roles in our society very nicely. The lyrics say "If I were a boy..." and lists several things that men are permitted to do that a woman is not. The twist on the video is it places Beyonce as the "boy" and her boyfriend in the video as the "girl" in the relationship, so it's easier to see how Beyonce's actions (imitating the boy) would hurt anyone, not just an overly-sensitive girl. This forces the viewer to think about the feelings of both people in the relationship and a mutual understanding is, hopefully, reached that the actions are inappropriate.

The lyrics of the song say a woman is faithful, normally the more vulnerable one that gets hurt, is taken for granted. The video and body language implies that she is expected to turn away all other potential suitors immediately and we also see that she is the one that makes breakfast and remains at home.
On the other hand, the male turns off his phone, ignoring his girlfriend, he puts himself first, he hangs out with who he wants to, drinks beer, and chases girls. What is shown is the man is the one that goes to work and flirts with other girls and doesn't care or feel any kind of guilt. (Beyonce, a woman, is actually the one acting this way the first time around, just to show how much of a jerk a girl would look like if she behaved that way.) These gender roles can be applied more generally and maintain accuracy for our culture as a whole. Being a heterosexual female myself, I can clearly identify with the subject position of the female gender role and agree with many of the lyrics of this song, having experienced them. At the same time, even if I agree that this is stereotypically how men act, I am not a male and I know they have their own side to the story as well.

Very broadly, in our culture, females are typically the ones that are supposed to be pure, stand by their man, and cater to him. Males are supposed to be the bread winners, aren't supposed to be soft, work on their own schedule, and are allowed to show their physical attraction to women more openly. For both roles, this is not always the exact way things happen at all. Many times women cheat, care only about themselves, and have absolutely no cooking skills. The same applies to men; some men are stay-at-home dads, are openly caring, don't drink alcohol at all, and treat their significant-other right.

Even if some factors of these roles for each side may hold true in many scenarios, much of the time pressure from society and those around us to fit into a certain role is the actual cause for the behavior. A woman could get too clingy if she's been talking to her mother for too long and is urged to have children and guys, at times, might feel as if they should have a certain 'macho, I-don't-care' attitude toward women around their friends. It may not be what that person believes is acceptable deep down or who they are as a person at all, but society compels them to act a certain way.

The point is, that although we have moments where we think "all girls" or "all guys" behave in a certain unfavorable way and that they are simply "beyond reason", in reality, we just need to take a step back and think about the circumstances. We're all human and we're not always going to be happy with each other. This is true between people of the same genders too. (Cat fights, bro brawls). Sometimes we do things just to piss the other person off or just to show that we can win. Hopefully, we eventually get over it and act like civil human beings. But this is many times way past the point of hurt feelings or much worse, deeming it a real "stumbling block". To overcome our differences we just need to have a clear understanding of the other person's side of the story and respect each other as people with feelings and individual importance, all gender roles aside.