Is 'Different for Girls' Insulting for Girls?
I spent a lot of time in the car recently on a trip up to celebrate my grandad's 88th birthday. Along the way, I spent quite a bit of time rocking out to country stations, because nothing says road trip like some sweet country tunes. Then came on Dierks Bently's "Different for Girls" song.
The beat is catchy, but then you process the lyrics:
“She don’t throw any t-shirt on and walk to a bar
She don’t text her friends and say, “I gotta get laid tonight.”
She don’t say, “It’s okay, I never loved him anyway.”
She don’t scroll through her phone just looking for a Band-Aid”
'Different for Girls' is Sexist
Apparently, Dierks, a male, knows a whole lot about how women process break-ups and heartache. I'm not saying that I'm the most typical female, but really, has no other female ever convinced themselves they didn't actually love the person they just broke up with? Because I'm quite a fan of denial and suppressing real feelings until they go away.
“It’s different for girls when their hearts get broke
They can’t tape it back together with a whiskey and coke”
Hmmmm, so maybe I'm doing this wrong, because whiskey fixes everything. How else do women get over people? Because drowning some memories in booze is definitely the way to do it. Or maybe I'm a dude....
“A guy gets drunk with his friends and he might hook up
Fast forward through the pain, pushing back when the tears come on
But it’s different for girls”
...Or maybe Dierks is sexist. Because seriously, guys and girls are strikingly similar. More times than not (again, maybe I'm atypical), if I'm done with a dude, he's got less chill than me about it all. But really, why is this a song? It's 2016. Guys can cry. Girls can cry. Guys can get drunk and hook up with girls. Girls can get drunk and hook up with guys.
Also, Dierks is saying that guys can go out and hookup, but girls can't? So who exactly are the guys hooking up with if girls aren't supposed to? WTF, Dierks, stop being sexist.
“She don’t sleep all day and leave the house a wreck
She don’t have the luxury to let herself go
(She won’t call just to curse from a wall, she can push
When the going gets tough, yeah, the guys they can just act tough)”
Wait, hello Elle. What are you doing here? You're the tits. Are you hearing what he's saying? You're speaking some truth here, girl, but what else is new? Regardless of what's up in a girl's life, we've got society to answer to; we've got to keep our lives together.
Oh, wait, he's harmonizing with her. So who's team is he on? Is he massively sexist or making a satirical song about the double standard of society?
Sexism is tiring. Subtle sexism happens every day, and sometimes I wonder if I'm just being too sensitive, but then I think about it, and is this all really okay? Should we really be okay with the fact that only girls have feelings and only guys drink whiskey? Why don't we all just process our lives the way in which works for us and stop generalizing stereotypes on #howto get over heartbreak and #howto fit in to the norm.