In a Woman's World....

Why do the boys get to have all the fun?



I just happen to run across this music video on Facebook, but I thought it was perfect in the fact that it makes fun of how women are just assumed to play a certain role in music videos (mostly rap, r&b, and hip-hop genres), but it is never thought that a man should play that role. Although in this video Jennifer Lopez contradicts the men playing the woman's role a tad because her friends and herself still fit the description of women in today's music videos, but I haven't scene a ton of music videos lately, but I'm sure if the male artist has a nice body or "social" acceptable body I'm sure he shows his off as well.

I like the fact that this video confronts the masculine view  or the hegemony of women  described in the definition of feminism perspective first with the comment "if she was a guy we wouldn't be having this conversation at all" and even makes fun of it, as one of her friends goes on to suggest " why don't we have half naked men on the bed for no reason" or the previous comment "why can't the women for once objectify the men?" And then obviously the entire video goes on to mock how "all" modern music videos are and how women are perceived, with the men trying to dance, pour champagne down them, washing the cars with the body, etc. And it is humorous to watch the men do this, and I think it is meant to be that way. But why is it that it is so satisfying to the world when women do it and humorous when men do it?  The last thing element I think that added to the video was that it came back to the original scene making it seem like it was only a day dream, like it never really happened.

I want to switch over right quick to the Orientalism of the Disney Princesses. I think that in this article they don't only focus on the orientalism of the princesses, but that fact that they only focus on the princesses image. Take a look at the men in these films. Most of them are tall, strapping men. Very broad shoulder and muscular,  some even have lower cut shirts and their bodies types are those of what I think the world classify as the ideal men bodies. One picture created is even quite revealing as I was looking for these princes and I came across images like these for all of them.

even in men's advertisement you find these images....

 So we do see the same images on the men and women side. So are men just as insecure as women ? Do men feel the same pressure to reach for the unrealistic image society has put as a standard? Maybe we don't notice it because men are just more passive with their feelings. It makes you wonder.

In a woman's world maybe we want a our husbands to play the role of cooking and cleaning, or to know what its like to have periods, to bear a child, and maybe we want to have a Mr. Americas pageant to enjoy. But if women begin to consume these images of ideal men as much as the world seems to consume the images of ideal women, are we putting the men, young men, boys in the same places our that women, young women and girls seem to face. Is that karma? Justice? Or just history repeating itself over again  and digging ourselves even deeper.