If you’ve been on TikTok recently, you might have seen the #WomenInMaleFields trend, where women joke about the “funny” things men do. Some of my personal favorites are, “Uber driver looked like he was having a rough day, so I told him he’d be much cuter if he just smiled,” and “W hen I get rejected by a guy, so I call him ugly anyways and that I never liked him in the first place.”
While these are made lightheartedy, they speak to a truth that all women have experienced many times in their lifetimes. How often have we been told we’d be prettier if we smiled? How frequently have men become angry at us if we say we’re uninterested? I think this trend exposes a hard truth that men haven’t heard before — that their actions have consequences.
Arguably, the best part of the trend isn’t just the scenarios these women are coming up with, but the men in these comment sections are expressing genuine anger over these videos. Is this because they can’t handle the consequences of their actions? Is it because they know that what they’re doing is wrong? I can’t help but wonder if women started doing the actions in the trends, we would see an uptick of men complaining of how “horrible” women are (as if they don’t do this already).
When I asked my friends what they thought of the trend, almost everyone I asked could have easily made five fitting TikToks about their experiences of dealing with men. And I think this brings women together in a sort of “sisterhood” way. It points out what we’ve put up with for far too long and brings women from all walks of life together. Even if you and the girl next to you in class have nothing in common, at least you have the shared experience of womanhood together.
Of course, since women can rarely have anything on their own, we’ve seen men start to reverse the trend with #MenInWomensFields. Still, the scenarios are nowhere near the intensity of the original trend (and not as funny, in my opinion). They had the opportunity to make their turn on the trend lighthearted and show an appreciation for women.
Instead, it’s trivial things like, “Just lied to every girl that approached me tonight by telling them I had a girlfriend so they wouldn’t talk to me,” which is making fun of a natural thing women do to protect themselves against men who may be bothering them. And I think this speaks to how men (of course, not all!) hate to see women succeed. How long was the trend ours before men started to feel threatened and started to make their own?
While this can be a column all on its own, I think it needs to be discussed. Until next time