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Men & Women
| Good [+1]Toggle ReplyLink» neoform replied on Tue Feb 3, 2004 @ 11:23pm |
 Coolness: 340385 | New reality show highlights just how differently men and women operate
By S.G. Rewal The Toronto Star February 3, 2004 A good friend of mine, who's less prone to the wiles of beautiful women than most guys, likes to tell the story of how he once accidentally walked into a men's clothing store and left half an hour later with a pair of $500 jeans he hasn't worn since. I was thinking of his story, and all the other poor saps who have fallen under the spell of feminine beauty, as I cringed through the first few episodes of The Apprentice, NBC's new reality show. It pits a group of young, attractive businesswomen against their male counterparts, competing against each other in a series of entrepreneurial showdowns to become Donald Trump's hot-shot protégé for a year. During the first episode, each group navigated the streets of Manhattan in their best power suits, trying to make money selling lemonade. After some early confusion the women got themselves organized, found a busy street corner and employed their most obvious advantage to win the competition. Guys were shown giddily handing over $5 and $10 bills (keep the change) for a cup of powdered lemonade served up by beautiful women, some of whom offered a kiss as extra incentive — one even gave out her phone number in exchange for a sale. The men, using more traditional methods, didn't stand a chance. They were outsold four to one. In another episode, the women used the same asset to buy specific products and services for as little as possible. One slack-jawed rube, whose spine must still be trying to reattach itself, stood in a sporting goods store and practically gave away a golf club. The guys did not fare as well, and the result was the same. The women won easily. In a world where the power of feminine beauty is controlled by advertising and media hype, it creates a dangerous effect. But women aren't to blame. Men are the ones who need to shape up. Every time men react to a woman by falling all over her beauty, hoping for some attention, they only reinforce what advertisements and the media are saying to women — cash in on your looks the way we do to sell products, then watch the power it has and keep doing it over and over again. It only creates a gap between men and women, often leaving guys humiliated and women imprisoned by their own appearance, with little room for them to come together in meaningful relationships. My friend takes a drastic counter-approach. When he does admire a beautiful woman it's usually from a distance — most often from the other side of a bar, with his head slightly turned to catch a reflection off the last available sliver of a backroom mirror. A lot of guys are aware of what can happen in the presence of a beautiful woman — leaving a tenner for a $6 bottle of Stella, buying crappy lemonade on a street corner, spending $500 on a pair of jeans. And even though a lot of guys understand beauty is wrapped up with power, money and pride, it still seems trivial. That's why so many men who are affected by feminine beauty are also so uncomfortable with it. They no longer swagger in its presence, they cower. And if they are offered its attention, regardless of the motive, they stumble around clumsily in a state of uncertainty, trying to figure out what to do with it. Contrary to the hopes of the feminist movement, the gender dynamic has turned attractive women, once objectified sexually or ornamentally, into the hunters. Men, who throughout history have pursued beautiful women, but from a position of strength and confidence, now understand how it feels to swallow their dignity. But unlike those who bought in to the core values of the feminist movement, women cashing in on their looks are still kept, perhaps not by men, but by a culture driven on competition for social success, which often takes its cues from marketing firms and advertising agencies. Trading on beauty in this environment, as their means for status, is a dangerous game, for beauty is fleeting. When it slips, having left other character traits undeveloped throughout their adolescent and adult lives, their worlds can easily bottom out. But does that make beauty a sin? When the epic film Troy is released this spring, audiences might contemplate this question. Helen of Troy, whose beauty launched a thousand ships into battle, never fully realized the extent of her power. But even though she never asked for this power — for beauty is God- given, or Zeus-given, in this case — she was ultimately seen as a person with no sense of her own dignity. She had no remorse for what her beauty wrought, on herself, her numerous suitors, or the thousands who suffered during the war. For anyone who has tuned in to Average Joe Hawaii, images of Helen might come to mind. The reality show revolves around a former beauty queen placed on an island with a group of nerds, geeks and a few average Joes, all of whom signed up for a chance to capture the stunning woman's heart. But just as she began to warm up to a few of them, a group of chiselled jocks arrived on the island. The show illustrates the power of feminine beauty. Both the jocks and the nerds are equally unsure of what to do in her presence. In one scene, an extremely overweight chef from Philadelphia strips down to his swim trunks and steps into a hot tub with the woman. Despite her attempts to let him kiss her, he remains mortified and then afterward berates himself for not taking advantage of the opportunity. Meanwhile, he swears, in order to have a chance at her, he's going to start working out and lose a drastic amount of weight. To her credit, the beauty queen diplomatically manages not to completely humiliate the guys — although who knows what's going on behind the scenes. It's a morbid fascination, watching these men question themselves, their masculinity and every fibre of their being in the face of a beautiful woman. Whether the women on the reality shows are aware of the destructive power of their beauty or not, they wield it with impunity. Unfortunately, men continue to step right up to the chopping block. But just as women had to learn how to stand tall and fight for their dignity in a world dominated by the other gender, let's hope men learn to stand tall, refusing to grovel over something as trivial as beauty. In the long run, we would all be better off for it. |
Men & Women
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