The Versatility of Woman

As i sat people watching rather than studying today, I had an epiphany.

We women have such a versatility in appearance. To be viewed as attractive, a woman may be short, tall, skinny, curvy, muscular, etc. However, attractive men are expected to be tall, muscular, and broad shouldered for centuries. Within the 20th century alone, the en vogue body type for women has changed over and over again-flat chested in the 20’s, more buxom in the 30’s, super skinny in the 90’s, athletic in the 80’s, and currently, either very curvy or super skinny. The idea of a woman’s body has changed with the fashions but male body expectations have and will remain consistent must be very stressful.

For a woman, there is hope that in the next decade or so, her body type will be the “it” look and that her day will come. However, for a short, shrimpy guy that same glimmer of hope does not exist. Not only that, but Spanx, Victoria’s Secret bras, and the myriad of inventions I have failed to mention enhance a woman’s body shape. Where is a man’s Wonderbra? There are no artificial biceps and pecs for them. Women do not just hide and enhance their body shape, but their face, hair, feet, hands, legs, eyebrows, eyelashes, skin-clearly the list could go on for days. We women can, to a degree, appear as we wish to be seen. However, men have to proclaim themselves just as they are. If a guy has a pimple, concealer is not an option. The pimple is there clear as day. High heels are not an option for a man or short stature unless he wants to face serious ridicule.

For men, being ridiculed for small things like high heels is almost too easy. If a man knows everything about the Versace spring collection rather than the score of the Super Bowl his masculinity is questioned, but a woman with knowledge in both of these areas is perfectly acceptable. The narrow spectrum of knowledge that is deemed masculine is quite constraining for all men. Besides the knowledge expected of men, personality traits follow the same pattern. The expectation to be strong, rational leaders makes a man's function much less versatile than that of a woman. While it is common for women to be viewed as submissive, the recent trend has been for women to emerge as leaders and rely less on their feelings.

There has been an enormous amount of focus on body and beauty issues within the female population; and while this movement has been very successful in raising awareness for women-what about men? Just as women want to be accepted as they are, men too need a little wiggle room. Let’s be a little more forgiving if a man doesn’t look like Hercules and can tell you when your jacket is out of season. He’s still a man, no?