A unique schism has developed in the world of the post-modern relationship, a schism that has brought a veritable role reversal to the previously established and socially-accepted positions of the genders.
Seen most often outside of the high school and college relationship, women previously were expected to be in the more subjugated position of the happy homemaker while it was socially acceptable for men to be out all night and without too much guilt being put on them when they decided to return home.
Even when the second wave of feminism gained ground in America during the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, the standard familial model of father, mother, two and a half kids, and a white picket fence was still a popular formula for a happy and healthy existence within the accepted social and economic norms.
However, within the last five to 10 years, a new trend has taken hold of college campuses, the workplace and even the home: Women are refusing this socially accepted model of living in favor of the more thrilling life that had previously been enjoyed primarily by guys from fraternities or the more lewd population of the male businessman — a standard of living one could affectionately call “sexual ADD.”
In the charming vernacular of the homosexual community, women could have previously been referred to as “bottoms.” However, ever since women have slowly begun to realize that they do indeed have the choice to do whatever the they want, their own disenfranchisement with the established order has grown until Polly Proletariat cast off her pearls and traded in her apron for a pantsuit.
This leaves the men of this current generation in a rather peculiar predicament. Men today have grown up with the role of their fathers and their father’s fathers, and the examples of their mothers in the role of the happy homemaker. And while this worked for most of the baby-boomer generation, those who identify primarily with Generation X and the iGeneration come from a steadily increasing divorce rate, leaving many to be raised by single parents, most of whom are women.
The increased divorce rate has created the aforementioned schism and has given birth to a unique role reversal and social dichotomy that is steadily gaining prevalence.
Men, who grew up under their mothers’ tutelage, have generally become more sensitive and unconsciously dependent on women to help care for them. In psychological jargon, in the absence of a father figure, many have fallen victim to an unresolved Oedipal complex. Those whose fathers left their mothers for another woman or stepped outside their marital bounds often make the fatal mistake of believing that women are their playthings, their mindless puppets with whom they can do whatever they want.
Even the “nice guys” who would never dare to say such a thing out loud secretly and unconsciously believe that they will one day meet their idealized fantasy woman who will be a mixture of the actresses that they see on silver screen and the “actresses” that they see on their computer screen. Either way, and despite many of them being raised by women, men still grow up believing that they are in control of this world and that a woman’s place is either (A) at his side (B) on her back or (C) on her knees.
However, women have grown up with a different perspective on the higher divorce rate. While a man may see his father leave and unconsciously draw closer to his mother while still romanticizing the ideal of his absent father, women grow up more determined to be different from their mothers, to not fall victim to her same mistakes while simultaneously resenting their fathers for leaving them. This fosters within these women the flip-side of the Oedipal complex, the Electra complex, which leads to the rather odd social structure that is becoming more and more prevalent on college campuses today.
Women, like men, are becoming victims to the idealized lifestyle of “sexual ADD,” meaning that the level of promiscuity without any need or desire for a relationship or even one steady partner is rising. No longer do women go to college to get their Mrs. degree; they go to get an actual degree while satisfying their carnal desires in the process.
And while this is great for women, this leaves men at college in a unique predicament.
Most relationships are cultivated in college, but this is no longer happening. Women are no longer interested in having a relationship, because marriage is slowly becoming a sham and they don’t need men any longer to support them or help them enter the upper echelons of power. So these men who grew up being cared for by their mothers and who are still unconsciously looking for a woman who will fill that role of caretaker in their lives are being phased out, ignored and used by the women who are only looking for something fun and casual while they concentrate on getting what they want out of life.
A perfect example are the characterizations of Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt in the film "500 Days of Summer." The male lead "grew up believing that he'd never truly be happy until he met ‘the one.'" The female lead "only love(d) two things. The first was her long, dark hair. The second was and how easily she could cut it off and not feel a thing."
This progressive shift from the days of women reading trashy romance novels to reading Jean-Paul Sartre and of men watching CNN and reading "The Economist" to watching "Jersey Shore" is primarily responsible for the state of relationships among the youth today. And what began with the baby boomers and their excessive amount of procreation seems poised to be rectified by the downfall of not only the American tradition of marriage, but also the standard tradition of the monogamous relationship.
Women were always more apt to try and hold a relationship together when men did something stupid. With the growing disenfranchisement among women with the idea of a relationship, men are veritably doomed. Because no matter how much a man may entertain the idea of easy and casual sex with many women, a man still likes to come home to his mama.
Carter Lyles is a student at Santa Fe College.
