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I have a topic I wanted to discuss, and it is somewhat tangential, but I wanted to get more opinions on it and start discussions from it.

I recently came upon this book called "He's Just Not That Into You" which I thought shed a lot of light on our expectations of the gender binary in a way that was very troubling to me because it seemed truthful while also trapping women in very passive roles. I should preface this by saying the book is written by men as an advice column to women. There's an excerpt on USAToday.com that I found through a google search, of the introduction:


Many women have said to me, "Greg, men run the world." Wow. That makes us sound pretty capable. So tell me, why would you think we could be incapable of something as simple as picking up the phone and asking you out? You seem to think at times that we're "too shy" or we "just got out of something." Let me remind you: Men find it very satisfying to get what they want. (Particularly after a difficult day of running the world.) If we want you, we will find you. If you don't think you gave him enough time to notice you, take the time it took you to notice him and divide it by half.

Now you begin the life-changing experience of reading our book. We have put the stories we have heard and questions we've been asked in a simple question-and-answer format. If you're lucky, you'll read the following questions and know what they are: Excuses that women have made for their unsatisfying situations. If you're not so lucky, we've also included handy titles to clue you in.



So already they have set the condescending tone. And the advice they offer, while disguised in "empowering" advice for women, such as to not wait by the phone waiting for a man to call, is actually very disempowering. They say that if a guy doesn't go out and "get" you he's just not that into you and you should give up. At first, this message resonated with me in a truthful way, because let's face it, who hasn't had their fair share of rejection? But then I really thought about what they are saying to the whole body of women. They are really saying that women shouldn't go for what they want when there are challenges posed, and they are furthermore assuming that women automatically become control freaks or overanalyze the situation passively when they are met with challenges. And by doing this, the authors also assume many things about the man's side of the gender binary. That if he is a man, he will go for what he wants, and there is no weakness to pose as an excuse or other things in his life that matter more to him than a woman he is sexually attracted to. 

What really struck me about this book was my initial empathetic and thankful reaction to it, and then my averse reaction to it when I figured out that assuming the gender binary and then generalizing about that binary is extremely harmful to women's independence and strength.

Anyway, I probably shouldn't be taking it so seriously because it is a cheap romance self-help book, but I guess it resonated too much in reality for me to let it go, with several of my girlfriends constantly waiting by their phones waiting for a man to call. Girls at a supposedly empowering Women's College! Plus, I have been seriously considering the theory that there are more than two sexes because of Critical Feminist Studies, and if there are in fact more than two sexes, this book would have to be completely rewritten. Its fatal mix of chauvinism and assumptions about masculinity and femininity within the contrived gender binary really struck me.

What do you guys think about the affects of this book? Do you think I'm taking it too seriously, or do you agree with me? Do you think it's accurate that a guy has no interest if he isn't proactive and a girl just has to sit around and wait for that guy to be proactive, and we're just in denial as women? For lesbians, do you find that in general the butcher lesbians tend to be more proactive in finding their sexual interests than the femmes? I'm wondering if every relationship has to always be in the hands of the "men" at first to "work."

I'm also wondering if this book offends anyone else besides me.