The Bachelor... Again!

Surprise, surprise I watched the Bachelor this week... This past Monday was not a regular episode because the Season Finale is next week. The last episode before the finale is always a special Bachelor edition: "The Women Tell All"... or the "Men Tell All," for female Bachelorettes. During the show, the producers invited Jason, the Bachelor during this season, and all the girls that were rejected in past episodes to talk and "dish" about their experiences. They also featured couples that are still together from the Bachelor or Bachelorette. Trisha and Ryan, the famous "bachelor couple that is still together!" spoke about their family and children. When I was watching Trisha and Ryan the thought occured to me that Trisha was the Bachelorette, which means that she asked Ryan to marry her. This made me think about the different roles that women and men are beginning to play in marriage and relationships. During the time when my grandparents, or even parents, grew up it would be outrageous for a woman to ask a man to marry her- especially on national television! This shows an increasing trend in our society of gender-equality. Obviously there are still many stereotypes and inequalities among both sexes, but I think this is a step in the right direction toward independence and confidence among women in relationships.

Girlfight

In class we watched the movie, "Girlfight," which is about a girl named Diana who wishes to be a boxer. Most people make fun of her and think that she is joking when they first find out, however, many become supportive of Diana when they discover that she is really serious about this dream. Her father is very traditional and believes that her brother, Tiny, should box and that she should wear dresses and do "girly"things. I do not think that Diana wants to be "girly" or "not girly," she just wants to be herself and enjoys boxing. Diana wants to be treated as an equal among the men that she fights in the ring. I thought that this was a great movie because the characters, Diana and Tiny, defied "gender rules" and each pursued their own dream. I do not think that the idea of a girl boxing is as foreign today as it was when this movie was filmed (about 10 years ago).
I went to "Cagefest Extreme" recently and the first two fighters were girls making their professional debuts into cage-fighting. Also, in high school there was a girl on our football team (which was in the best district in the state of Virginia and wins the state championship regularly) that was on the team because she was a good player and was about the same size as many of the boys on the team. Some people thought this was strange, especially the guys on the team, but most were happy for the girl and saw no problem with her being on the team because she was talented at playing football.

"He's Just Not that Into You"

Tonight I went with four of my roommates to see the new film, "He's Just Not that Into You." When I was a sophomore in high school, I wanted to find out more about "how men think" and bought the book which pretty much states-- if he's not calling you back, if he's not asking you out, and if he's cheating on you-- maybe he's just not into you. I loved how the movie starts because it shows a little girl on a playground that is bullied by a boy and her mom explains, "that's because he likes you." This seems so strange, but I can guarantee that almost every girl has been told this nonsense at least once during her childhood. The problem is that this attitude transcends into future relationships and provides an explanation for why men act like jerks and yet we are still convinced that they like us. I loved the movie and found it really entertaining, mostly because it was more realistic than most movies. It showed men and women vulnerable and eager to find love. There was a girl that acted pathetic in the presence of men and stood by her phone waiting for a call, but there were also men in the movie that waited for women to call them, frantically checking their phones every fifteen minutes. When I first heard about the movie, I assumed by the title that it was only centered on girls that wonder why a guy does not like them. I immediately thought, why is the choice up to men to decide who likes who- can't a girl "just not be into" a guy? But the movie was actually about both male and females and the struggle to find love, or friendship, or fall out of love, or to just find yourself. It was refreshing to see a movie that, in my mind, treated men and women equally.