Dear young
adults in the USA,
Being an adolescent in today’s age is anything but easy. It
means your body is changing dramatically at a physical and chemical level;
school becomes more demanding as do expectations from parents and peers. I
remember trying to figure out who I was and who I wanted to be and on the top
of it all I have to try to fit in with the rest of everyone. To fit in, you
must follow the socially constructed gender rules, which we can call The Girl
Code and The Guy Code. These “Codes” can be found lurking underneath everything
you do. From school to sports, to jobs, the media or just hanging out with a
group of friends. However, Girl Code has way harsher expectations and
consequences on girls than Guy Code has on guys.
First off, lets begin with what these codes are and what
they mean. Guy code encourages guys to be independent, successful, support
their families, and to not be seen as weak. As Kimmel explains, guys are
supposed to “Exude an aura of daring and aggression. Live life out on the edge.
Take risks. Go for it. Pay no attention to what others think”(Bro’s Before Hos
610). So, guys fit in when they achieve power, strength, success and money and are
supposed to be aggressive when doing so. They aren’t supposed to care about
what others think and are encouraged to be their own person. They are put down
when they act feminine (which nowadays seems to be a synonym to weak) or rely
and depend on a woman to heavily. A good example of this is if a man is “Pussy
whipped”. This term defined by Urban Dictionary which is a site where the
general public can define slang terms, as “ A situation whereupon a male is undeniably
at the mercy of his girlfriend and answers to her every beck and call, usually
followed by the reprioritizing of girlfriend over friends, family [and]
school…” (UrbanDictionary.com). This term has a very negative connotation, it
is saying that men should not prioritize their girlfriends and that putting
“too much” attention towards them will be looked down upon. There is also no
commonly known antonym to that term. Girls are not put down when they cater to guys’ needs. When
girls make sacrifices for a guy, it isn’t looked down upon in our society, in
fact, it is encouraged.
The Girl code is
centralized around not being considered a slut, vanity, pleasing men, and having
a good relationship with your girlfriends. Maybe even in that order. Growing up
as an adolescent girl means following a Girl Code that is emphasized,
influenced and maintained by the media, the long world-wide history of
patriarchal societies and women’s suppression and even women themselves.
The media plays a huge role into female gender roles in our
society. TV, Internet, radio, magazines, music, movies, billboards, and
newspapers are thrown at people every single day of their lives. The images and
words on these advertisements almost consistently put women down. They sexualize,
objectify and weaken women’s demeanor. In many ads men have the upper hand and
women are often unclothed and supporting men’s needs. Kilbourne says that “the popular culture usually
trivializes abilities in women, mocks men who have real intimacy with woman and
idealizes a template that views sex as more important that anything else, and
ridicules men who are not in control of their women.” (Two Ways a Woman Can Get
Hurt 578). Kilbourne emphasizes how women are sexualized and belittled for the
whole world to see. It says be beautiful and let the man take control because
he knows better anyways. When the average American watches 28 hours of
television per week, there is no way that those subliminal, and sometimes not
so subliminal messages don’t get into our head and way of thinking.
Women’s history has never been an easy ride. In a society
dominated by males from leaders in areas from religion to business to politics,
women are not going to have much of a say or any sort of representation in
society when they make up more than half the population. I mean, women only got
the right to vote in 1920 with the passing of the 19th amendment. Some
of us have grandmas that were alive before that amendment was even passed.
Things are slowly moving forward as woman activists make some changes in our
policies but there is still a very large discrepancy and an even larger set of
stereotypes, stigmas and control that are slow to fade away. Women are supposed
to be the housewives and homemakers, they are supposed to take care of the
children, listen to their husbands, cook for the family and clean up after them
too. Girl code is derived from and maintained from all of these negative
stereotypes and traditional gender roles of how women should be in society.
Another contributing factor to the negative Girl Code are
girls themselves. Girls are constantly judging and criticizing each other and
themselves. From personal experience, a girl, or a group of girls that are
considered popular have the power and authority to grant other girls’ rank in
social settings. If you are not in the popular crowd, you better not upset
anyone in that crowd because they have the power to openly slander you and
people will adopt their opinion to fit in, no questions asked. They judge each
other mainly on appearance, but also the type of girls they hang out with, how
many guys have they been with, they type of clothes they wear, how much time
they put into looking good and much more. There are unspoken, fine lines that
define what is too much or too little or bad and good in all of these subtle mannerisms. They call each other sluts and whores
when they don’t know a single thing about the other girl or girls. They bad
mouth a certain girl or a group of girls in front of guys to make themselves
look better and for the so called “sluts” too look bad. It is a sneaky, passive
aggressive, or just plain aggressive world out there for the girls and
continuing this sort of behavior does nothing but reinforce conformity in
gender roles and stereotypes. The main focus in adolescents’ social life is not
to make quality friend who will always be there for you, it is to be liked and
accepted by people who are cool. People who are deemed “cool” follow the gender
codes. And to be liked by them, means you have to conform. The Girl Code are
rules that are NOT meant to be broken. It’s a world were conformity is encouraged
and differences are pointed out and scolded.
When one breaks Guy and Girl Code, there are consequences. Guys
are given power in our society, whereas girls have to work for it. A guy is
already held to a higher standard and they just have to keep that standard
going by not deviating from the norm. In contrast, girls are already oppressed
and looked down upon in general and they need to work to prove themselves. If a
guy breaks guy The Code, the guys around him will look upon him as weak and
feminine and he might be left out of the crowd. On the other hand, if a young
girl breaks The Girl Code there are extreme consequences. Girls love gossip.
Girls pounce at the opportunity to point the figure at another girl. Stories
are exaggerated and turn into rumors. Rumors work perfect for getting any bad
attention off of them while making themselves look better at the same time. If people
are gossiping then other girls will have to go along with it in order to
properly conform and not get the finger pointed at themselves, even if they
know it is wrong. Being chastised from your group of friends and having
everyone know about something you did, can cause detrimental social
insecurities. Girls are more likely to develop anxiety and depression. Girls
develop eating disorders because they don’t think they look good enough. More guys commit suicide than girls,
however; girls attempt to commit suicide 4 times as much as guys do (http://www.suicide.org/suicide-statistics.html). According to
www.Suicide.org, the reason that they don’t end up actually killing themselves
is because they don’t tend to use as fatal of methods like a gunshot to the
head or jumping out of a building like guys tend to use. I believe that even
when girls are killing themselves, they don’t want to be seen as bloody or ugly,
they rather try overdosing on pills which don’t affect them physically on the
outside. The need to look good follows women literally until death.
Guys are encouraged to be independent and strong in society
while girls are supposed to be dependent and submissive. We suffer from lower
incomes, bad stereotypes and stigmas, objectification, harsh criticism and
judging in regards to looks and lifestyle. Women suffer from mental and physical disorders as a side
affect of the rules we so sternly need to follow. The pressures from the media,
men, and even women are immense and conformity seems like the only way to sneak
by without being hurt. Women have to learn to live life dodging all of the
criticisms of being different or of looking and acting certain ways. It is
about time to acknowledge all of these secret and unspoken rules. It is about
time that we become a more fair and gender neutral society.
Sincerely,
Jessica Zacarias
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