Twilight and the "Girl Improvement" Narrative

This isn't a new narrative really. It's a classic fairy tale formula - a woman, either an average pretty girl or an actual princess - meets a prince who takes her to his castle, dresses her up in fine clothing and either makes her royalty or makes her qualified to rule through marriage. Either way, she is improved merely by being with him.

Now we do see movies where the opposite is true, a woman strives to make her boyfriend or husband shape up, takes him shopping and buys him nicer clothes, and motivates him to get a job. However, the woman who does this is typically framed as a bitch, or a ball-buster, the guy complaining that her efforts to shape him are emasculating. Of course, the woman usually only intervenes in his life if he's in really bad shape and needs her help - unemployed, dirty irresponsible, plays video games all day long and dresses like homeless man. Rarely does the female character intervene when he's doing all right.

The girl improvement narrative, which I am hereby coining on my own, is a little different. Rather than a woman improving her male partner with her femininity, her partner improves her femininity. He takes her in and improves how she dresses, how she talks, how she carries herself, etc., even if she's doing fine on her own This is often seen in Disney movies, but Twilight takes it to a new degree, trading the sparkling tiara for glittering skin.

Bella draws a lot of criticism for being bland, clumsy, lacking in ambition and any real ability to make up her mind. However, had she not found Edward she probably would have grown out of her awkwardness and matured, personally I give the girl a break for being human and only a teenager. But that's just it, she's only human. Edward swoops in and saves her from her human flaws, and in fact, her very humanity itself. Before they marry he gently works to "improve" her, practically making her apply to various schools, helping her with her homework, in the book he put shiny things in her hair for prom. Though I shouldn't be too harsh on him, at least he doesn't criticize her character flaws or teach her how to walk, sit, and speak like in the Princess Diaries.

The Cullens are like royalty, their mansion a castle. They are wealthy, well known in school, accomplished and well spoken. Bella is afforded every luxury when she is with them - a glamorous birthday party (and later a lavish wedding), beautiful dresses to wear, a luxurious bed to sleep on when she has to spend the night. The couple spend their honeymoon on a gorgeous private island. This is all in stark contrast to her human life, where she lives in a small house and takes care of her father - if this is starting to remind you of Beauty and the Beast, you're not alone. It really is like a modern rags-to-riches fairy tale, where her life is drastically improved just by being his girlfriend. This is not always addressed when critics point out how incomplete she is without him.

Finally, after they marry and she dies in childbirth, almost ruined by the result of their partnership and intimacy, he turns her into a vampire, giving her new life. This is also rarely addressed in the common critiques about the abusive relationship she has with Edward. After enduring his controlling nature for over a year, she finally commits to him forever, gives him her virginity and as a result wakes up covered in bruises with a monster growing inside her. The birth, which to her credit she does choose, kills her. This may remind the reader of the way abusive partners destroy the souls and selfhoods of their victims so they can build them anew, making their victims into what they want them to be. In Breaking Dawn, the Bella that Edward creates by turning her into a vampire is beautiful, sparkling, coordinated and strong - just like the rest of the Cullens. Not to mention that in becoming a vampire, she is forced to cut off all contact with her father and her human friends, and she isn't supposed to be friends with Jacob but at least he is in on the secret so eventually it's okay.

But this isn't about the escalating abusive nature of the relationship. This piece is about how by being his, Bella is transformed from a normal girl to a dazzling princess- I mean vampire. This age old narrative has drawn criticism for the messages it sends to girls, but I want to focus on the message it sends to guys and the behavior it normalizes. These stories subtly tell guys that it is their job to improve the women that they're with, rescuing them from their mere mediocrity. I've known young men who have internalized this, one who did feel it was his job to have a paternalistic relationship with all the women in their lives, giving them advice and making them "better" whether they wanted his help or not. When I rejected his unsolicited guidance he vilified me for being ungrateful, saying he wouldn't help me at all ever again. To him it was absurd that I wouldn't want to improve (I did, I just wanted the improvements to be of my own doing), that by being happy with who I was I was merely settling, and that a mature woman would be happy to accept his improvements.

This used to be the rationale for allowing men to hit their wives. In fact, it is still the rationale behind Christian Domestic Discipline marriages. The idea is that women require guidance from their husbands, and that by correcting bad behavior through spanking, he improves her very character.

The "girl improvement" narrative in various fairy tale, rags to riches movies only normalizes the condescending, paternalistic, borderline controlling way too many guys treat their wives and girlfriends, acting as though it is their duty to make them better women. Twilight is by no means the only example of this narrative that women need to be improved by their male partners, it's just a glaring example.

Feminist Dating Advice #4: The Feminist Approach to "Who Pays"

(This one is for men and women)

The debate on "who pays" still rages on, and for feminists, it's not as simple as "the man" or "the woman." Feminism gets a lot of heat from men who are unhappy with the discourse that demands that men pay for most or all dates they go on, despite the fact that feminists aren't the ones perpetuating it - if anything, feminists are more likely to pay on dates than non-feminists. No I don't have an official statistic for it, but it's pretty fair to assume that someone who believes in gender equality for women also believes that men shouldn't be shouldered with all the financial burdens in a relationship.

First of all, it's important not to assume that just because someone's a feminist, they definitely want to either go Dutch or pay for everything, just like it's important not to assume that all feminists want to be dominant in their romantic and sexual relationships with men in general. Gender equality means that both parties in a relationship pay on dates. Being on a date means that, for the most part, one person pays for both people for each transaction - rather than each person pay for his or her self, which is something friends do when they're hanging out.

Now, if you ask someone on a date, whether you're a man or a woman, you should be prepared to pay for that date. Don't ever take someone somewhere, and then expect them to pay or say "by the way, you owe [X amount of money] for this." If you're expecting someone to pay for something you initiated, you should tell them in advance.

Douchebag story time: this summer a guy took me to the mountains for a weekend, and it wasn't until we got there that he said "oh yeah, you owe $20 in lodge fees for the weekend." Umm, what? I was a bit peeved for two reasons: 1) he hadn't told me that, and probably just assumed that despite being a full time student on a part-time hourly wage $20 would have been nothing; it wasn't a huge expense for me, but it was a substantial amount that I would have liked to have known about before going. 2) I felt that because he had initiated it, he invited me to go with him to a place that was practically his territory (property of a school club he, not I, was a member of), he should have at least offered to pay the fee. Being a feminist, and one who's constantly called out on less-than-feminist behavior, accused of not being a "real" feminist or being a "bad feminist," I didn't ask him to pay lest I risk sounding like a hypocrite. It wasn't a sexist move on his part, but it was a dick move, and one that I'm sure a lot of guys make in their attempts at more egalitarian dating dynamics. But guys, don't do this.

If two people agree to go somewhere in a "what should we do tonight" conversation, who pays for what is a little more up in the air. It can be decided based on who paid last and who has more disposable income at that moment, among other things - it's reasonable to have a dynamic where the person with more money, regardless of gender, pays more than the other. I've been in relationships where I paid more (almost all the time) because I had more money than he did, it just made more sense.

If you feel that you're paying more than the other and you want to make things a little more equal - guys, pay attention - sit the person down and have a conversation about it. Maturely. Without getting mad or making accusations. Before you go out on another date. Do not call the person out while on a date, get grouchy about having to pay, or murmur some hostile, passive-aggressive comment that's only going to bring down the evening for the both of you. This isn't something that should turn into a public argument.

In short, if you want gender equality in the relationship, you need to take gender out of the equation when deciding who pays.

The Politics of Holding Doors

A lot of people don't really understand why I don't usually like it when guys hold the door for me. They think I'm being overly sensitive, that they're just being nice. I know that, most of the time, they're only following gender roles.

Let's get this whole thing straightened out once and for all. Holding the door for someone who is right behind you is fine. That said, if I hold the door for the person behind me, I expect that person to go through the goddamn door. I can't stand it when the person behind me happens to me a man, and he just gets all nervous and insists I go through first while he holds the door for me. I have to wonder, is it really that emasculating to let a woman hold a door for you?

I also hate when a guy rushes ahead of me to get the door, just so he can be a gentleman. Sorry, but it's not polite to treat me like some frail being who can't push a door open by herself (it's one thing if I'm carrying a fuckton of luggage or something, but this usually happens when I'm completely unburdened).

Finally, I get annoyed when a guy stops to hold the door for me even though I'm still 50 fucking feet away from the door. Great, now I feel like I have to hurry up, or I'll feel guilty for taking up so much of his time. Really, I don't need that much kindness, go ahead with your day, seriously, I can handle the damn door myself.

Let's examine the gender dynamic, shall we? Guys rarely hold the door for other guys, women rarely do it for other women, and most men shudder at the very idea of letting a woman hold a door for them. Door holding is almost always a gesture done by men for women, and it sets up a power dynamic. Holding a door for a woman does not give her power, but rather puts her in a subordinate position where she's being taken care of; the guy is doing the muscle work.

If a guy is just trying to be nice, that's great, and that's usually only the case when he happens to get there first, I'm right behind him, and he lets me get the second door if there is one. If he's just trying to "be the man" in the situation, or prove his manhood, I get a little pissed off.

The Man Standard

It's becoming increasingly clear to me that our culture's ideal of a worthy male partner is a guy who is slender, seemingly wealthy, dresses well, and has a future as a successful businessman. But in my experience, these also tend to be the biggest jerks.

Our culture also looks down on guys who play video games, wear "ill fitting clothing," drink, are a little overweight, unsure about their futures, basically the Judd Apatow archetype. While women shouldn't be expected to date "losers," maybe guys like that deserve a little credit. Maybe they don't seem like the perfect guys, but in my experience, those are the nice ones.

I don't mean to generalize, of course. This has just been my experience, and my reason to believe we have our priorities all wrong. To our culture, we focus more on how a guy looks and whether he can provide financial stability than how he treats the girls in his life.

Take this article, for example: http://jezebel.com/#!5774541/men-on-the-decline-women-to-settle-for-dating-assholes

A woman is advised to stay with a jerk because he is mature in the more superficial ways, because he doesn't act like the "man-boy" guys are becoming. Yes, men in our society are embracing an infantilized version of manhood that includes playing video games, drinking to excess, and avoiding commitment, and that can be bad for women when marriage is shunned and women are seen as soul-crushing, dream-stealing matrons who boss their husbands around with "honeydew" lists and orders to take out the trash.

HOWEVER, I've also noticed that the seemingly perfect guys, the ones with good looks and charm, nice clothes and cologne, clean apartments, good credit, and a major that will inevitably lead to a 6-figure salary someday (think Barney Stinson from How I Met Your Mother), tend to carry a sense of entitlement with them. They seem to think they can treat a woman however they want, and they'll get away with it because the woman will be so blinded by his charm and convinced he's the best out there that she'll deal with it, or if she does leave, he can easily replace her with the next girl in a line wrapping around the block. To me, these are the ones to be wary of. They seem amazing on the surface, but it's that surface charm that permits them to be so evil deep down.

Nice guys tend to be found in the group of goofball "losers" women are constantly told to avoid.

Although I should point out, some guys feel entitled because they are nice. I've run into this before as well. It's called Nice Guy Syndrome, where a guy believes that because he is nice to a girl, he should have her. If she rejects him, it's because all women want jerks, and they discriminate against nice guys like him. NGS is often the motivating mindset behind misogynist violence.

What I really hate most of all is the idea that women should settle for less than exactly what they want. They're told that guys will be guys, and women should just deal with it.

It hurts both men and women when a culture idealizes a man for his clothing and bank account, ignoring the kind of person he is deep down. It means that a man's appearance and finances are his most important asset, and that treating a woman well doesn't matter, which in turn hurts woman. It also hurts women when they're told to marry anyone with money and a nice wardrobe, because it often means women are encouraged to date jerks, and stay with jerks, and marry assholes.