Generation X, Y, XY, XX? The Gender Role Disaster

I restrained myself from tarnishing my work with the abused title “Dude, where’s my Penis? (And or vagina)”, though it really is the best opening line for a theory of mine that would explain a lot of nonsense. The type of nonsense that makes one cringe looking back at their own generation.

Every kid at one time or another looks back or forward in time wondering why their time was so freaking lame. Even though, each era has it’s pro’s and con’s, I am going to find an excuse for those of us growing up in the last 20 years for all our embarrassing crap. To be more specific, ages 20-35.  I think the kids now how some stuff to look forward to.  At least there is a lot more creative music coming out now than when I was in High School and with the economy many may be forced to be a little more real and more complete as young adults.

Yes, my generation will not have to bare the scarlet letter of polyester ties, burnt out hippies, or whatever tacky crap like those before us. Think of it, we have a real bad list of shit kiddies. From meth heads to gang bangers, rich kids wearing droopy jeans and commercial mohawks my generation has consisted of capitalist brainwashing and poser producing resulting in a population that consumes mass quantities of crap to sate their info overloaded inflated egos bent on instant gratification.

We’re the youth generation that allowed the rest of the world to call us ignorant and all we could say is “Huh?”,  then lean over to the Asian kid and ask what “ignorant” meant. What have we brought to the table? Our pop culture revolves around the recycled identities of other generations.

Country sings about the same shit they always have, its simple folksy stuff, it’s not meant for anything new. Rap and Rock, basically still revolve around the plight of the angry black man and suburban kids rebellion against their oppressive parents. They are both very tired ideas.

But what is perhaps tired, but not so old is the blunt testosterone laden socially regressive aura of our youth culture as a whole. Thats the only thing new we have to say is that  a shallow, insecure, ignorant bravado is the American way.

We have all the Spam in the world but nothing culturally to standout for the ages and add to the development of our society. It’s like everything is Bee-gees and the Carpenters with no Led Zeppelin or Jimi Hendrix in sight. It’s like all that repetitive hippie shit with no Beatles, bubble gum rock and no Elvis. No Sex Pistols, Madonna, Pink Floyd, Ray Charles, Run DMC, Willie Nelson, Beethoven, Socrates, Einstein, Calvin and or Hobbes.

No JFK, Dali, Poe, Lincoln, Washington, King, Diana, Teresa, Joan, Gandhi, Cyrus, No Jesus, Confucius, Abraham in a sense no God. Nothing to make us say, “Whoa, who or what the fuck was that?” If there was anything that was going to open our minds to a truly new way of thinking or functioning, we haven’t been hearing it. Perhaps we haven’t even been listening.

Only if it was a techy gadget that we thought may make us look cooler or help us detach from the world do we respond. “So what is this rambling about?” you say? Fine, I’ll start to get to the point.

Can you tell me another time where pop culture was so inundated with songs that consist of three things: self worship, demasculisation of peers and the degradation of the female gender? There have been documentaries about this already, and the attack on the music industry itself may be a tired concept, but the music of a generation, speaks for that generation at some unconscious level. So why are we so self involved, insecure and aggressive? We are of a generation that is preoccupied with finding its gonads.

I……I will pause to allow the confusion to sink in………….now I will explain. The women’s liberation movement was sociologically progressive for our nation, but in a weird way was culturally regressive. I have mentioned in a previous essay how woman’s newly found freedom in the workplace had allowed the powers at be to make everything we need to survive more expensive forcing the lower classes to have a double income household rather than choose to, which can put the family structure at risk.

The whole “latch key kid”, “workaholic” “dinner in front of the TV” syndromes. Yet, this is something else. This may be why Chivalry no longer exists, why you can’t find someone as nurturing as your mother. This is the first generation to have to conform to the new social understanding of modern gender roles in the U.S. Meaning, we are greatly lacking in the role models needed to know how to handle it.

Nation wide young men feel demasculinized. Not only do they feel the new pressure of having females compete with them in the workforce, they still have to measure up to the expectations of the female populations. Expectations that plainly skyrocketed, because the female population too it just as confused. They settle well in the workforce, but socially they don’t want to conform. They still want an alpha male, a bread winner, an economic superior. Rarely does a woman respect a mate who makes less than they, and society as a whole is even less forgiving.

For the last twenty years it has been a rich mans world. More than not, education, minimum wage, health care, workers rights, all have taken a back seat to the interests of the wealthy, yet our pop culture feeds this ghetto rich crap down our throats. Ricky Ricardo, at his time had a pretty sweet job. The guy from the Honeymooners, then being a bus driver was respectable enough to have a pretty wife at home. Fred Flintstone worked a crane and had the hottest and smartest bitch in Bedrock. Mr. Brady an architect, who was always home shortly after the kids to sit down for dinner, still had enough cash to support a house of eight, plus a nanny.

Where’s the example for the young male today? You know, the one that shows us the easy way to get over 100K to get a bachelors and masters degree with out being in debt the rest of your life. That may be a small and somewhat lame example, to try to illustrate the frustration going on in the young mans mind, but every asshole that thinks there is a level playing field, is watching from the luxury box. How can they compete as equals but still be enough to have the male pride that has been handed down the generations, especially when they are expected to still always out produce and support their mate.

Meanwhile it’s all easy street shallow manhood on the TV, so that’s what they will emulate. Out of this frustration comes the regression. Like cave men we are so quick to cut each other down, demasulinize peers as “bitches.” And well the bitches, well they are all “ho’s” Speaking of whom, put up with this shit. Why? Because they are just as clueless. Women were objectified, as happy homemakers, beautiful dames, broads even.

Women to a certain extent like to be objectified. They like to feel beautiful, they like to strut their feathers and build sturdy nests. They lost a lot of that with their newly found public equality. Men are still trying to find where chivalry ends and sexism begins, but in reality, chivalry itself had died and we may never see the likes of it again. There isn’t going to be any black and white movie romantic come ons or witty banter. Most of the women you meet are in the workplace, it’s inappropriate, its harassment, and it’s your paycheck.

Every damn thing is a business, including relationships. First baseball, now love. Men are so shell shocked and unknowing what to do for they can’t go by their fathers. The social structure and gender roles of their fathers society is now outdated. That is, if their father is even around in the first place.

The tribe, U.S. society as a whole fails miserably to raise young men. Pop culture is next to useless, so the female population takes what they can get and will put up with behavior unprecedented in U.S history. Do you think Daughters of the Revolution would put up with some guy calling them a bitch? The flappers of the prohibition era, were cutting their, they might have been cutting off balls if the guys talked then how they do today. Would the women of the 50′s, 60′s or 70′s put up with what women do today? Would either the men or women comodify themselves then as they do today? This is the end result in a capitalist culture. You are just another product of the machine. Not just a consumer, but a billboard, to perpetuate the system when the economy grows and culture fades.

If I had to guess, I would say for the last (at least) 15 years, at anytime 25% of the songs on the top 40 list are passive aggressively if not blatantly violent towards women. The sick thing is, those songs are the ones that girls love to dance to the most. It’s sad.

I remember when they used to crack on Madonna. But at least she chose when, where and how people objectified her. Not to mention, she made lots of money and *gasp* made original music with original thoughts to communicate. I’m not saying they aren’t out there, but the true poets of our generation lay silent or silenced. For those who have the spotlight and notoriety, and yes I target you “poets” even the one who got themselves shot, I target all those who hide behind the fact that they admit they are “entertainers” when confronted, but claim to be artists otherwise.

You “hardcore” motherfuckers who have nothing hard to say but shallow threats and bitch ass crying. The young ladies and divas. All the “it girls” that deliver one wonderful message after another to your adoring fans made up of impressionable little girls. You “reality” TV producers, your MTV honchos, all you smoke screen spewing politicians and bull shit bombarding marketing companies. You have failed this generation. You have failed your country.

HOW FREAKING DRAMATIC!! But, truly, there has not been such an, sexually confused, spoiled and mistreated generation whose values are so helplessly diluted by the forces around them. So in closing, all you “family values” trumpeters, all you “pimps”, “independent women” out there, you can just shove it all up your ass because your all bitches to me.