Male Entitlement/Friendzone
by Kait
Seeing as Valentines day was just this month, I thought it an opportune time to discuss some issues that I find seem to go hand in hand with the holiday.
Now, the holiday itself isn’t problematic at all, a day celebrating affections for your significant other is actually kind of cute, in my opinion. However, it brings up this idea of instant gratification and an obligation for women to put out. It also begs the discussion of the idea of the ‘friendzone.’
Firstly, there’s this toxic idea that seems to exist that if a man does something nice for a woman, like buy her dinner or flowers or anything of that vein, the woman owes him something. Usually sex. Obviously there are plenty of people that don’t think like this, but unfortunately there are also plenty of people that do. This is problematic for a few reasons, the top one being that if it you have to guilt your partner into sleeping with you, it’s rape. Full stop. There really is no ‘gray area’ to the idea of rape, if you have to coerce, guilt, shame or convince your partner into having sex with you, it wasn’t truly consensual. For a sexual encounter to be consensual, there has to be a mutual agreement and want from both parties, and even if a partner is satisfied after being coerced into having sex, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they wanted sex. Therefore, it was rape. It’s also perpetuating this idea that women are solely sex objects, here for the enjoyment of others. This is because by creating this environment where when you do nice things for women, you feel they owe you sex, you are are reducing that woman to the sex. What you’re saying is that you weren’t doing said nice thing out of your own volition, but because you thought that you’d get in her pants.
This now brings us to the idea, the very fake idea, of the friendzone. Used liberally by many, created by fedora wearing, neck-beard having, self-identified ‘meninists,’ the friendzone is related to the idea of women owing men something when men are nice to women, the only difference being in this case while sex usually is expected, so is a relationship. Now, the problem with this term is this; a lot of times people use it jokingly, but, while the word itself means, ‘a man who is only friends with a woman and desires more,’ for women it can hold a...grosser connotation, to be honest with you. Think about this way: how would you feel if someone was nice to you for a period of time, treated you like a friend, and then it turns out they want a relationship with you, and because you don’t have feelings for that person in that way, you’re demonized for not dating said person who was nice to you only because they wanted to have sex with you. We as a society have a very gross attitude towards this idea of ‘friendzone.’ Within the past year, we’ve seen an increase in male-on-women violence, including a virgin shooting up a college campus because he was mad that women wouldn’t sleep with him, and a teenager stabbing a young woman because she wouldn’t go to the prom with him. The idea of the friendzone creates male entitlement, and then, invites violence and harassment when they’re shot down. The worst part is, a lot of times, our response to these issues are “well, she should have given him a chance!” Which, of course, perpetuates the problem because we excuse the behavior and write it off as being the woman’s fault for not giving the “poor, misguided white guy” a chance (this is the same thing as victim blaming, by the way). I can assure you that a majority of the males that identify themselves as being in the ‘friendzone,’ are actually in the ‘oh god, not this guy again’ zone.
Now, the holiday itself isn’t problematic at all, a day celebrating affections for your significant other is actually kind of cute, in my opinion. However, it brings up this idea of instant gratification and an obligation for women to put out. It also begs the discussion of the idea of the ‘friendzone.’
Firstly, there’s this toxic idea that seems to exist that if a man does something nice for a woman, like buy her dinner or flowers or anything of that vein, the woman owes him something. Usually sex. Obviously there are plenty of people that don’t think like this, but unfortunately there are also plenty of people that do. This is problematic for a few reasons, the top one being that if it you have to guilt your partner into sleeping with you, it’s rape. Full stop. There really is no ‘gray area’ to the idea of rape, if you have to coerce, guilt, shame or convince your partner into having sex with you, it wasn’t truly consensual. For a sexual encounter to be consensual, there has to be a mutual agreement and want from both parties, and even if a partner is satisfied after being coerced into having sex, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they wanted sex. Therefore, it was rape. It’s also perpetuating this idea that women are solely sex objects, here for the enjoyment of others. This is because by creating this environment where when you do nice things for women, you feel they owe you sex, you are are reducing that woman to the sex. What you’re saying is that you weren’t doing said nice thing out of your own volition, but because you thought that you’d get in her pants.
This now brings us to the idea, the very fake idea, of the friendzone. Used liberally by many, created by fedora wearing, neck-beard having, self-identified ‘meninists,’ the friendzone is related to the idea of women owing men something when men are nice to women, the only difference being in this case while sex usually is expected, so is a relationship. Now, the problem with this term is this; a lot of times people use it jokingly, but, while the word itself means, ‘a man who is only friends with a woman and desires more,’ for women it can hold a...grosser connotation, to be honest with you. Think about this way: how would you feel if someone was nice to you for a period of time, treated you like a friend, and then it turns out they want a relationship with you, and because you don’t have feelings for that person in that way, you’re demonized for not dating said person who was nice to you only because they wanted to have sex with you. We as a society have a very gross attitude towards this idea of ‘friendzone.’ Within the past year, we’ve seen an increase in male-on-women violence, including a virgin shooting up a college campus because he was mad that women wouldn’t sleep with him, and a teenager stabbing a young woman because she wouldn’t go to the prom with him. The idea of the friendzone creates male entitlement, and then, invites violence and harassment when they’re shot down. The worst part is, a lot of times, our response to these issues are “well, she should have given him a chance!” Which, of course, perpetuates the problem because we excuse the behavior and write it off as being the woman’s fault for not giving the “poor, misguided white guy” a chance (this is the same thing as victim blaming, by the way). I can assure you that a majority of the males that identify themselves as being in the ‘friendzone,’ are actually in the ‘oh god, not this guy again’ zone.