"Real" Men Don't Exist

There is a lot that I have learned throughout the last four years having attended a university. One of the biggest things I have learned (and realized for myself through first-hand experience) is that gender does not exist.

Don't get me wrong here, there are many differences between men and women. But the illusions that we adhere to as being "feminine" or "masculine" are exactly that. Men have penises, and women have vaginas and breasts. THAT'S ABOUT IT. Of course I can't leave out the fact that those biological traits are coupled with their complimenting hormones: men have testosterone and women have estrogen. I also can't leave out that these hormones are what determine how men and women develop into adulthood.

Gender is an illusion. Here is an example.

The color PINK is perceived as a "girl" color because it's "pretty," and apparently only girls can be pretty. This is false. Dictonary.com says pretty is an adjective used to describe something "pleasing or attractive to the eye, as by delicacy or gracefulness." Is this to say that men cannot be attractive or pleasing to the eye? Absolutely not. Is this to say that men cannot be called pretty or graceful? Absolutely not. I tell my boyfriend that he's pretty all the time. He smiles, gives me a kiss, and says "YOU'RE pretty!" To give more depth to this argument, gay guys are often called "pretty boys" because they tend to wear more effeminate clothing, and sometimes make-up. But even the fact that they wear "girl" clothing is an illusion because you have to ask: what makes it feminine?

Does it have a vagina? no..
Does it have breasts? no...
Does it carry children in its belly? I don't think so.

Then what is it about the color pink that makes it a "girl" color? What makes this question even more contemplative is that pink was often regarded as a "boy" color back in the early 1900s because it was a shade of red, which was seen as a "stronger" color. In opposition, blue was seen as a "girl" color because it was softer and delicate. This lasted until Nazi Germany started separating people by colored patches (the Star of David for Jews, pink triangles for gays) and were often confusing because there were so many different ones. Coming out of WWII resulted in pink being more associated with women, while blue went to boys.

Why has this illusion of gender become such an influence on who we become?

I blame the smart people who made dumb decisions. They set a standard and mocked the alternative. Nobody likes getting mocked, so it's much easier to just follow the "standard" to avoid being questioned. "Pink is for girls? OK!"

What I find the most depressing about this illusion of gender is that everyone believes in it. It's everywhere you look. It's on every commercial you watch on TV or hear on the radio. It's blindly spread by families through the new generations. It's at retail stores. It's at your favorite restaurant. It's the car you drive. It's the way you wear your hair. It's on food labels at the grocery store. It's in video games. It determines the presents you buy your family and friends. It determines your "role" in life. It's displayed on every website and ad that comes across your computer. It's in the products you buy. It's in the music you listen to. It's all pervasive and it doesn't even exist.

Just like God.

But the only reason I brought this all up is because I saw a headline that read "Top 10 Drinks REAL Men Don't Drink." I clicked the link and it lead me to a website called www.askmen.com. You can search it for yourself because I am honestly not interested in finding out what part of these alcoholic drinks are equipped with breasts and vaginas, making "REAL" men incapable of drinking them

Jack Thompson-- eat your heart out!

As video games are becoming more and more popular, there are always those who debate their influence on young kids. Jack Thompson is an attorney who is fixed on the idea that violence in the media (mostly video games) is turning our children against us. After every video game debut, he makes a point of having his opinion heard about why he thinks said video game is a social nuisance. My own opinion on the matter pushes the responsibility of violent children on the parents, the people who raised them and allowed them to play these games. Blaming the media for any social problem is just ignorant (and an easy scapegoat), because if anyone believes that the false reality depicted on television is real, who else's fault is it than their own for being so naive?

It isn't often that we hear these nightmarish stories where kids commit crimes and say they got the idea from Grand Theft Auto (or FEAR, or Halo, or Gears of War, or any other first-person shooter), but they definitely don't go unheard.

Two recent crime sprees were specifically blamed on the influence of GTA:IV by the kids who commited the crimes themselves. A group of 4-5 kids (ages ranging from 14-17) in some little po-dunk town ended up snatching a lady's purse and beating her up, stopping a car at an intersection and pulling the driver out to beat them up, stole the car, and then went on a vandalism spree. They said they were "bored" and got the ideas from GTA:IV. Another story out of India had a kid carjack someone or something, and he said he got the idea from the game TOO.

First of all, none of the kids were old enough to purchase the game themselves. So who DID buy it for them? Their parents. If a parent buys a kid a hammer, and the kid doesn't know that the hammer could cause severe head trauma when applied correctly, who's fault is it that the kid caved in his skull when experimenting with gravity? Yes, it was the kid who caused the trauma, but it was the parent who failed to educate their child that the combination of head + skull does not = happy fun time. A hammer is a hammer, and is used for hitting nails, not skulls. Second, where are the parents when their kids are playing these games? They obvioualy do not take an active role in their child's life, and are allowing society to raise them instead. That in itself is dangerous.

The reason I bring all this up is because another story came out where an 11-year old girl saved her family in a car accident, and she said she knew what to do because of? GTA! My hero! Here's an excerpt, and the full article:

It happened on August 27th around 9pm, as the Norris family of five was heading to Diamond, Illinois to visit relatives. Their 2000 Jeep Grand Cherokee swerved off the road, hitting a guardrail and flipping four times before coming to a stop, caving in the roof and smashing out the back window. With her mother hanging upside down and her father pinned against the steering wheel, 11-year-old Audrey Plique climbed out of the back window and helped her parents and two younger siblings escape the car. The motivation for her heroic act, according to her mother Karen Norris? "She just knew, from playing 'Grand Theft Auto.' She saw on there that when a car rolls over, it can blow up. She knew that could happen to us."

Of course we all know that if a car rolls over it won't immediately burst into flames as depicted in all the GTA games (except IV). But even this act of heroism proves that her parents neglected to check the content of the game before allowing their child to play. The girl thought the car would blow up because that's all she knew. If her parents took an active role and explained that a car would not blow up if flipped over, perhaps she wouldn't have had such an immediate response to the incident. Of course, it is not even debatable of what she would have done if properly educated, either way she was a hero.

Eat it, Jack Thompson.