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role in the dating world. In my many years of sipping frighten-
ingly overpriced vodka-sodas in the company of questionable
yet carefully selected members of the straight-male community,
I’ve noticed several interesting trends, like our collective insistence
on one gender paying for the other gender as an ultimate sign of
respect. I’m not exactly sure when we all agreed that men who
are on dates with women should foot the bill, but I know for a
fact that it wasn’t when women were allowed to have opinions
or credit cards, which feels simultaneously several and not
enough years ago. It’s curious that while we’ve let go of many
norms and even laws regarding relations between women and
men, this one has held on for dear life. Overconfidence in our
own imaginary gendered rules has meant that although every
heterosexual man knows that he is supposed to pay on a first
date, only a fraction know they’re supposed to ask the women
they date follow-up questions.
The truth is, dating is hard. It’s hard for women, it’s hard for
men and it has become increasingly and unnecessarily painful for
all of us because of shifting gender norms, which have come to
modify the rules about dating. But it’s not like we’ve all settled on
a whole new set of rules. Men are getting mixed signals. On the
one hand, they are being told that women want to be treated as
equals, that they are starting to have more spending power and
status in society, which means that men attempting to do things
for them is condescending, unwelcome and outdated. On the
other hand, men are being told that being a man means being
a gentleman, and the main way to show respect to the opposite
sex is through chivalry. Because those two messages conflict,
men are justifiably lost.
As a queer woman who has dated both women and men,
I can say that, for me, same-sex relationships have been much
easier because there aren’t predetermined rules or roles. The
first time I went on a date with a woman, I was floored. It was
the first time I’d actually felt like I could be myself on a first
date. There was no insecurity jungle gym to navigate. Queer
relationships tend to be more fluid because each person is free
to be who they are or want to be in the relationship based on
their preference rather than predetermined roles defined by
society. In a way, they are a social experiment for what rela-
tionships could look like if gender were not the most immediate
organizing factor, as it often is. When you imagine what it
would be like if we assigned roles in relationships based on
arbitrary characteristics like hair colour or earlobe shape,
you see how ridiculous it is. How weird would it be if we
decided that the person with the darkest hair in the relation-
ship should always get the check or that the person with the
most detached earlobe should always get out of the elevator
first? It’s just as senseless to assume that a characteristic like
your gender should determine your role in relationships. Of
course, not all couples fall into traditional gender roles, but
even the existence of that predetermined structure requires an
acknowledgement of the structure you are deviating from. It’s
worth thinking about what deprogramming ourselves could
mean for heterosexual relationships.
The change is—first and foremost—individual, but it also
has to be collective. We are not in a place where everyone is free
from gender norms, and the messages that men receive about
their gender are setting them up to fail, particularly in their
intimate relationships. Emotional vulnerability is not a sign of
being weak; it’s the hallmark of any healthy relationship.
The paradox is that demanding that men be tough actually
makes them weaker emotionally. But expecting men to be
emotionally intelligent in their relationships is like expecting
people to know how to do a butterfly stroke when they’ve been
instructed to never get wet. Ending the great suppression could
be one of the greatest gifts to people of all genders. Men could
a cces s t hei r f u l l hu m a n it y so t h at t he p eople t hey love don’t h ave
to do it for them.
Excerpted from For the Love of Men: A New Vision for Mindful Masculinit y
by Liz Plank. Copyright 2019 by Elizabeth Plank. Excerpted by permission
of St. Martin’s Press, LLC. All rights reserved.
CHARACTERISTICS LIKE HAIR COLOUR OR EARLOBE SHAPE,
YOU SEE HOW RIDICULOUS IT IS THAT WE DO IT WITH GENDER.