Why are girls beautiful and boys handsome? By: -

I stared right into the eyes of my sociology teacher with the utmost indiginance as she asked the class: "Why are boys called handsome but girls beautiful". The reason I was startled was not because of the nature of the question but the way she asked it. It had an underlying tone of sexism, as if this choice of words in itself was the fault of our male-ridden society.

Absolute nonsense. The reason why there are two different words to describe the physical attributes of the two different genders is because they have unique connotations. Beauty is often associated with feminine perfection and vice versa. Now, if in the beginning of time, "handsome" was used to describe a woman, it might have stuck and so men might've been beautiful. A quote from Romeo and Juliet comes to mind when I think of this idea: "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet". 

Just to reiterate my point, here's a picture of a fluffy cat: 

And here's a picture of a hairy otter:

They've both got hair, so why aren't they both called fluffy or hairy? Are we being animal-ists? Why don't I see any campaigns supporting this cause? 

So, my dear sociology teacher, shun your political correctness and shun you ignorance.

Tis' the product of 200,000 years of human evolution:

Logic. 

Know the difference. 

Thoughts on Gender Roles By: -

To what extent are traditional gender roles changing?

There is clearly an evolution in both of the gender roles in almost every aspect. The most obvious change is that women are getting more jobs. It is traditionally considered that men are the breadwinners whereas women take care of the household and children. Statistics prove that there is a big change in this regard considering that back in 1950 only 25% of the women were part of the American workforce whereas it is predicted that by 20150 about 47% of the workforce will be made up of women.

Is there such this as a new man?

To a certain extent, yes, because there’s no doubt that women are becoming more liberal but this isn’t changing the man that always used to be; aggressive, independent and in general self-reliant. I do agree however that some things in a male are changing such as they have become so much more metro-sexual and there are more exposed homosexuals than ever before.

Is there a new femininity which is more assertive and less dependent on men?

Yes, I do believe that women are becoming less dependent on men however I don’t exactly agree that women are more assertive than men. This point can be looked at from many angels. Physically men are clearly the dominant ones but then again, more females go to college than men, proving that they are strong-willed.

To what extent is there a crisis in male masculinity?

I do agree that there is a male crisis to a noticeable extent but not something that men should be anxious about. Men are in danger in a sense that we’re losing our traditional roles such as being the breadwinners of the family but looking at it globally, men are still by far the dominant income producers. According to ‘The telegraph’ news paper, they state that ‘Between January and March this year, there were 40,000 fewer women looking after the family or home, bringing the total number in this category to 2.063m’ This figure is equivalent to nothing compared to the entire population.