I posted my status as: "I'm taking up kickboxing" on October 7, and 9:31pm. Instantly, one girl and one guy liked my status.Then, my status was silent for a while. I received one more response from one of my parents' friends. She is very into being an independent and strong woman. So, naturally her response was encouraging:
"Totally cool! Then if you even have to "take care of business"....you'll know how to! Pretty darn cool!"
I left my status up for about 2-3 days. There were no other responses. which really surprised me. However, on Saturday, I got a text message from an old friend. He said that he saw on facebook that I was taking up kick-boxing. I told him, yes. He made a joke about how he thought he was the "muscle in our friendship." I laughed it off, but I couldn't help but wonder what his message was.
It seems like I got mixed and sparse results which is disappointing, but the two responses I got were interesting. The woman was excited and encouraging. She wanted me to be able to protect myself with my new skill. However, my male friend made a joke about how men are generally the ones that defend women and do activities such as kickboxing.
I think I'm going to repost my status tonight and see if I get more results.
8 comments:
Masculinity (kick boxing) is power. Women tend to be excited for other women who are empowered. Men may feel threatened. Just my opinion.
interesting, I guess there is still a bit of masculinity associated with male activities. I wonder what the "muscle" comment meant
I got a lot of people who were supportive as well. I'm not so sure kickboxing is a super masculine thing anymore. I guess it's associated with toughness, which is traditionally a male trait. When I think of kickboxing I think of the movie Enough with J-Lo, where she ultimately learns how to fight so she can defend herself - it's interesting how we associate things like that with "girl power" but don't associate things like sewing with "man power"
Women liberation! It's funny to see how those response differed so much according to gender. For guys it is kinda funny and sounds like the girl is just being idealistic. But for women is serious stuff and shows how they can do anything they want and nobody should judge.
ah, chivalry. i think men still want to protect women. and, don't want to feel that they are incapable of doing it.
women are attractive when they like doing guy things. guys do like girls that like sports and other things that they are interested in.
The masculinity comment is a bit ambiguous. It is interesting to see that someone wanted you to be able to protect yourself, not be healthy and fit like many other comments focus on.
I think that most people are supportive of women doing "manly" activities like kickboxing because they want their female friends to be able to take care of themselves if they are alone and in a dangerous situation.
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