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| It could be a boy or a girl... does it change anything by that? from ualucky@flickr |
During the weekend I stumbled upon two articles related to travelling and dating. The first one was Don't Date a Girl Who Travels while the second one was Date a Boy Who Travels. My first reaction to each of them was: "what a pile of bullshit!". Clearly it was not something with me as a target audience.
But after a while of reading both articles, I realized something very striking and deeply saddening. They end up portraying a very harmful social expectation of gender roles, just deepening the current inequality.
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| A childish view of people and relations, but certainly not cute as this picture from susivinh@flickr |
Whereas in the first a boy looks for a down-to-earth girl without ambitions and independence, to be maintained and dependent, the second show that a girl should aspire to a boy with experience, determination, and drive to dazzle and impress her. I don't know, or really care, the gender of the writer in each case... it's largely irrelevant.
Every argument against a girl who travels could be made against a boy who travels. Likewise all the arguments for the boy who travels could be used to argue for a girl who travels.
Why cannot we grow up as society?
As for me... I prefer something like this
"... a girl with passion, dreams and wit."
