"Nice Guys" & The Friend Zone

OK, first things first, tonight I got elected as the new Treasurer for my uni's Feminist Society which is pretty exciting. I get to be on the Committee and help out with all the cool projects that are coming up. Yay!

Anyway, onto what I was actually gonna talk about.

So, you may have heard the phrase "nice guy" come up a lot in well...life. "He wouldn't do that, he's a nice guy!", etc. What I've noticed is that it also comes up a lot in movies. And not even always explicitly. But there just always seems to be, in a lot of teen/rom-com films, the "nice guy" that the girl SHOULD go for, but silly her, doesn't, until the end! Even if these guys are straight up stalkers, and just pester her until she agrees to like him. Take Pitch Perfect for example:

Don't get me wrong, I love Pitch Perfect, it's absolutely hilarious, and just generally a feel-good movie with catchy tunes. But did no-one think that the way Jesse and Beca ended up becoming closer was kinda creepy? He basically stalks her until she talks to him. And then when it all kicks off and she gets in trouble with the police, he calls her Dad. OK, yeah, he was trying to do the right thing, but that seriously messes with Beca's deal with her Dad, and it wasn't his place to do that. Yet we all immediately feel really bad for him and judge Beca for getting angry at him. And we love it when they get together at the end. But the relationship only happens because Jesse was being a douchebag! He basically wears her down until she agrees to spend time with him, and is then forced to admit "oh whoops sorry I was being really  mean, I should have realised from the start what a nice guy you are!", when really, she was perfectly within her rights to say "dude, leave me alone, this is getting weird now..." He didn't respect the fact that she wanted to be left alone.

This happens a LOT in movies. Guys get feelings for girls, and girls are like "no get away" but because they're such NICE GUYS we feel like they deserve attention from the girl. When really, no matter how nice you are, if it's a no, it's a no. Then at the end, she's forced to be like "whoops!!! I was so silly and horrible!". 

This is annoying enough to have to sit through in movies, but it does translate to the real world. I'm pretty sure this "nice guy" thing is where that heap of crap "THE FRIEND ZONE" came from. When will people (of whatever gender) realise that women don't owe men anything. Just because you held open a door to me and have feelings for me or cook with your Mum or something and are a "NICE GUY" doesn't mean I should automatically be attracted to you and commit myself to you as your girlfriend. Guys who talk about being in "the friend zone" talk about it as if they expected anything else. Don't just assume that it's gonna progress to something more just cos you own a set of testicles, my friend. My 100% platonic friend. Sorry (not sorry).

Also as T Swift says in the picture above - guys who label themselves as "nice guys"... aren't always nice guys. 

I feel compelled to add (as I usually do) that this, of course, does not apply to all men. And that a lot of men aren't like this, just some bad apples ruining it for the rest. But it is something that goes unnoticed quite a lot, and isn't really seen as something bad. So yeah, hopefully soon guys will realise that this sort of assumption is wrong.

Anyway, I'm STARVING as its 9.45pm and I still haven't eaten dinner. Sorry if this is a load of waffle, fighting the patriarchy on an empty stomach ain't easy. I'm gonna go eat now.

Tegan xo