Not for girls, not for boys

I saw this article on Facebook when I got home and its relevance to a variety of topics we have been discussing really jumped out at me. The article can be found here:

Understanding Boys, Understanding Girls.

I hope you spend a few minutes reading it, as I would be really interested to hear what you're perspectives are. I know many of the women in our class wrote their papers on women in science or other issues related to gender inequality. I think it is important to realize that the gender norms are oppressive to both males and females, even if females have other difficulties due to males being in more positions of power.

I think this article helps point out that the negative expected gender roles of men actually contributes to the negative gender roles assigned to women. I also really like the idea of, in addition to having empowering conferences for young girls, to have a similar space for boys where they can unlearn the social push towards being overly competitive, violent, and ignorant. My sister was once complaining about how on TV sitcoms you have these smart, beautiful women married to these stupid football watching beer-bellied men who sit around and watch TV all the time.  After discussing for awhile we realized that both genders were being insulted and negatively stereotyped.

I thought the most powerful part of the article was when the speaker described a certain type of man and many of the girls felt they would be made fun of, but all of them thought they would make an ideal partner. The boys agreed they would be made fun of, and thought that the girls would not be attracted to them.

What are your reactions?