Gender Bender Mender

Gender Bender Mender
This is what I truly hate about relationships. It’s not about the relationship itself; it’s the gender role expectations people have about relationships. It’s the idea that men are always one way while women are the other, that men are lazy and women are controlling, that women want to go dancing while men want to play golf. In every relationship every gender stereotype is challenged. Men often want a traditional wedding, while women would prefer to quietly get hitched at Town Hall. When looking at an apartment recently a realtor mockingly said about an enormous walk-in closet, “But where will your boyfriend keep his stuff?” I promptly corrected him that my boyfriend is the shopper among us and proceeded to roll my eyes. With the constant divides pop culture encourages between men and women, why do people continue to perpetuate such stereotypes? In a relationship especially, people presuppose a boyfriend is one way while the girlfriend is the exact other, and that they resent each other because of it. In GLBT couples there’s an assumption that there is always both a “masculine” and a “feminine” presence that makes up the couple. But why haven’t people figured out we’re all some of each?