The Big Reveal
Gender Boxes
We looked at what it means to be in ‘the box’
The perceived ‘Ideal man’ and ‘Ideal woman’.
We don’t yet have a fully established non-binary or trans box.
Because culturally… that isn’t yet ‘an ideal’.
And then we looked at the names that people call each other when they don’t fit into one of those boxes and their mistreatment.
then the serious – sometimes deadly – ramifications of all of that.
2 Things:
1. The Insults Are Gendered
The first interesting thing about that all of that,
is that many of the names we call men to insult them, are female or feminine:
e.g. P*ssy, Cu**, Tw**, Big Girls Blouse, Jessie, Little B*tch,
are female too;
and the names we call women when we want to insult them… are female too
Wh***, B*tch, Dyke, Cu**, Sl*t, Slapper,?
To criticise a man… I call him…A Woman
To criticise a woman, we criticise aspects of her Woman-ness.
We criticise them both by calling them: a Woman,
from with the inference that being a woman is the worst thing you can be.
Women in particular, get added criticism about their appearance or mental state too.
So there’s that.
But also:
2. The Box Itself?
Posing this question is always interesting.
We asked: “How ‘in the box’ do you feel you are?”
Quite quickly you told us reasons why you didn’t fit the bill.
When we describe the Ideal Man and the Ideal woman.
Then ask people at live events to raise their hands – if THEY are completely in the box.
There is never a hand raised.
Not one.
Never.
This is because the box is not real.
It doesn’t exist.
No one puts their hands up, because we hold ourselves and each other up to standards that are impossible to achieve.
NO ONE, ANYWHERE, IS COMPLETELY IN THE BOX
It’s actually a TIGHTROPE
and you can’t deviate from it or you’ll fall.
We interviewed friend and body positivity activist, Zoe McNulty about this. She told us she’d wasted her entire 20s and most of her 30s trying to fit in the box.
Her mental health suffered the entire time.
She’s someone, who from the outside, oozes confidence.
People come to her to learn how to ‘be sexy’ and move with sass.
But she told us she still often doesn’t feel ‘feminine enough’.
(We have a series of her sexy dance sessions recorded if you’d like to try).
The incidence of mental health disorders amongst models stands at 68% according to a large study by models alliance in 2018.
They predict a sharp increase in mental ill-health since then, for their upcoming study which will include internet ‘influencers’.
Surely these beauties feel themselves to be in the box?
Nope.
Far from it.
Low self-esteem is rife amongst models both male and female.
This is coupled with extreme ‘image focused’ behaviour including starvation diets, steroids, facial aesthetics (surgery, fillers, etc) and liposuction etc. being the norm not the exception.
So why then is this the standard we are supposed to measure ourselves and others against?
We have never met anyone who fits in the box – and those that come closer… don’t feel better than anyone else.
Possibly worse.
The box is like an imaginary horizon.
The closer we get to it – the further away it gets.
We try harder, spend more and try more extreme solutions to fit in the box, and the standards change again.
Become more extreme.
Or give up and feel that we’ve failed and are ‘outside’ and unwelcome.
Men’s magazines are full of scantily clad women with very low body fat.
And so are women’s.
Isn’t that interesting?
As a society, we shame other women.
We sl*t shame women.
We body shame women.
We shame ourselves.
We abuse others.
We neglect ourselves.
We neglect others.
We celebrate and strive to meet the standards that we see on a magazine cover or in our newsfeed.
When we know logically, the images we are looking at aren’t real.
They are altered, filtered, photoshopped, airbrushed.
Yet we have HER in the box,
and spend our time, money and efforts striving to be her.
The male bodies we see are largely unachievable without chemical enhancement.
Young girls (and increasingly boys)
are having surgical procedures on perfectly beautiful young faces and bodies..
Not for health reasons – but out of fear that they don’t measure up.
Because the box is getting even more extreme.
Permanently connected, constantly judged, and instantly reacted to.
It doesn’t work.
This model doesn’t work for anyone.
This doesn’t work for men, this doesn’t work for women –
this is not a model that works for anybody.
Non-binary and trans people have a whole raft of additional issues to add to this, and sometimes the worst of all worlds.
Why does it happen?
- It is driven by the diet/slimming industry.
- The fashion industry.
- The media and social media.
- Magazines.
- The pharmaceutical industry.
- The cosmetic industry.
- The easiest person to sell to is someone who feels bad about themselves.
- So they keep making sure we feel bad about ourselves.
But it’s also the attitude behind all types of violence.
Whether domestic violence, random violence or sexual assault.
It’s the driving force behind the mental health crisis.
All roads lead to these stereotypes.
This is plugged into everything that we do.
How we see each other, how we feel about ourselves, how we feel about each other.
We need to start asking some bigger questions.
Because once we understand none of it’s real, we can start to do things differently.
When we step back as women and say,
“Wait a minute. I’ve bought into this my entire life”
it’s quite an ‘unplug from the Matrix’ moment.
It’s a lot to take in.
When we see it visually as with the Gender Boxes exercise,
it does help us start to have different conversations.
It equips us with the words.
We need to start asking some bigger questions.
What we consume and what we buy into.
To consider the domino effect that words can have on ourselves and other people.
To see this system for what it is, and teach our children how it works.
We need to notice the negative things we say to ourselves and flood it out with 10 times the positive words.
We need to start looking at our health in a different way.
We need to spread out some safety nets and help everyone down from the tightrope.
Question 5:
Have you ever spent effort and time, trying to live ‘in the box’?