Last Friday, my esteemed colleagues, Leslie Barnhizer and Aliya Buttar, wrote a guest column for The State Press, calling for ASU women to establish sexual independence and throw off the yoke of male expectations. You might have missed it if you didn't have class that day, so I recommend finding it online so you can immediately send them a congratulatory e-mail and maybe a nice bouquet of flowers.
Aliya and Leslie's column was exactly spot-on. Women at ASU are not conscious of the many male restraints, expectations and ways of thinking that they daily live under and conform to, the fruit of which scream to be rejected: machismo, boredom, passivity and egotism. And by male, I mean the people in power, who through a strange coincidence also happen to be mostly biologically male.
Overcoming them is not a matter of giving stern lectures and wearing unattractive clothing (thanks, stereotype) but rather a matter of taking on a freewheeling, self-reliant attitude of self-respect and combative criticism; of having a sword to parry with and an ability to laugh imperiously.
College is like a little box they put us in to rattle around in while we ferment. We learn how to think and act here, and that applies to social as well as professional habits. How many women at ASU have no further aspirations than finding a boyfriend, marrying him, and maybe getting a safe job working at some office? There's so much more beyond this narrow path, yet the Western heterosexual male tradition ensures that women are blindfolded to life's possibilities.
Students are unique creatures in that we exist in a bizarre limbo between adolescence and adulthood, in the non-world of the college campus; under the shadow of the economy and the state, we'll begin to parrot the behaviors of "responsible adults" in exchange for the approval and acceptance of our teachers, peers, and eventually, bosses.
Any hope for meaningful, creative, emotionally compelling work and relationships is abandoned in favor of "getting what you can." You see this everywhere at ASU, in men and women: the boring, functional pairings, the countless misty-eyed holdouts scanning the skies for "love," the meaningless yet desperately sought-after sexual encounters.
"Whoa! I got laid, dude! Never mind the fact that I despise her, she's still totally hot!"
Throughout it all there's a common denominator of passivity and cynical acceptance of what is, and often an inability to relate to other human beings. Worse, many women aren't even aware of how boring, domineering, and egotistical their men are, and have no concept of a truly joyful, communicative, unexpected kind of relationship.
Of course, many are aware, and simply take what they can get. But who says it's better to have someone than to be alone? Why all the fear and paralyzing self-doubt? The myth of "true love" perpetuates countless terrible relationships, as women put up with appallingly boring men in hopes of being happy forever. But women have to learn to laugh and see the limitless horizon that awaits them if they are to learn self-reliance.
The thought of taking an actively critical attitude never enters the minds of many females at ASU, because the instinct to passivity, self-doubt and timidity is too firmly ingrained. It is simply easier, less painful, to ignore the gaping holes in people and ideas than to fix or confront them.
Maybe the women of ASU should do everything they can to criticize the men in their lives; maybe the character built from calling him out on his crap will give them new strength; maybe if ASU women were bolder, more assertive, tougher, conscious of every chain, rope and string keeping them tied down, and more willing to laugh loudly and cruelly at pathetic macho posturing wherever it rears its egotistic head, relationships - and life in general - would take on new meaning and new joy.
Matthew Neff is a senior studying English literature, and can be reached at Matthew.Neff@asu.edu.
