I choose to focus on the article that shows the Single unhappy unmarried stereotype.
http://www.bonkersinstitute.org/medshow/femsingle.html
Okay so today we look at this article and can't help but laugh, albeit nervously, at what this seems to represent. Here we have a case of not biological or home environment causing disease but an actual institution of society (marriage) or the lack therof causing a disease to be diagnosed. Marriage is such a rediculous topic to use as a way to diagnose mental illness and this may seem obvious but studies have actually come out now proving how marriage actually benefits the mental health of men at the cost of a woman's mental health in later life, that is to say that men who are not married have a correlation with suffering higher rates of depression, anxiety, and other such treatable mental conditions than do women who remain unmarried on top of this most of the health benefits that are claimed to be provided by marriage are shown to only occur in favor of men. So the question becomes then ,"Why as a society are we pushing women to get married through the use of chastity balls, purity rings, and stigmatization of being single over 30."
Upon looking at the first of these events what we have is the charity ball. A sanctioned event where young men pledge that they will not defile the purity of another man's future wife. The disturbing thing about this trend however is that it's not about keeping men pure, it's about not tainting women. It would seem that logically if you cared about purity of youth you would be concerned with both male and female constituents of the population but this slant towards "safe guarding" the virginity of women is so skewed in all of these events that you can't help but see the double standard of when young men have sex they are "lucky" and when young women have sex they were either "tricked" by some unsavory man/woman or she is deemed a slut, enter the virgin whore complex we see in modern society.
So how to fix this? Well for starters lets take a good hard look at how we evaluate and judge people in society. Some of society's standards are there for a reason, it's generally frowned upon to lie, steal, or kill howver other equally respected ideas in society could do with some changing such as normative behavior of the genders. Why can't a woman be a player or stud, if she is considered promiscuous we call her a slut, skank, homewrecker, and several other horrible names but we simoultaneously also praise men for carrying on the same behavior (insert Tiger Woods reference here) and by creating this gender divide in behavior we create the possibility of creating a problem with people when in reality it is our PERCEPTION of the person that is truly the problem. In closing these companies who market solutions to our problems can only do so if they can convince you there is something fundamentally wrong with you, don't be so eager to believe the hype.
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ReplyDeleteGreat post. I would be really interested in reading further into the studies you mentioned, about the relation between men's and woman's mental health and marriage. Do by chance have a link?
ReplyDeleteNow that I am thinking about it, it makes so much sense. Especially considering the way that society has traditionally interpreted marriage.
We stigmatize and stereotype the woman who is over thirty. She stars in hundreds of romantic comedies and is either a cold-hearted, career obsessed tyrant; or heartbroken, depressed and desperate. From a traditional view, when a bachelor decides to "settle down" they lose freedom and take on a bread winner role. However, in doing so they gain the security of a wife to maintain the house, care for him, cook, clean, and raise his kids. The woman is the one who would, in a traditional marriage, be burdened by a myriad of new and permanent responsibilities.
The truly sad thing about this ad, and many others like it on this website, is that the same stereotypes and societal views exist today. Perhaps not to the extent as in the 50's, but as Hannah just said this is something that exists in popular media today - and people love it! The push to get married by mid to late 20's for women is almost ridiculous, and it makes perfect sense for there to be certain symptoms existing in single women in their mid 30's due to the stress and cultural criticism placed upon them.
ReplyDeleteAnd in this discussion, you mention the Chastity Ball. These types of events or symbols definitely exist today, I went to a Catholic high school and we had speakers come in to talk to us about "preserving" ourselves for marriage, and although the topics were presented to both genders, there was a definite bias towards the women in the audience. The perception of women and men (and the labels given to them based on behavior) are what cause problems in society and in the individual.
The studies I mentioned are from a book called "He's a Stud, She's a Slut and 50 other double standards" by Jessica Valenti I'll bring a copy in this week if anyone has an interest in taking a peek at it, some of the double standards are ones you don't even think about.
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