So I've been laughing at that Friendzone meme for a long time, but then I started to notice that a lot of feminists claim that there is no such thing as "friendzone". Being aware that people tend to treat their opposite-sex friends awkwardly and there might be some truth in the meme, I got confused. Could you please explain what's the fallacy behind guys thinking that they got 'friendzoned'?
Asked by
ozziescribbler
So basically, the “friendzone” is a super problematic term because it USUALLY refers to a situation in which a dude thinks a woman is obligated to like him romantically just because he’s nice to her/he likes her romantically. Not always, but a solid 90% of the time I would say this is the case.
So, why is this problematic? Well, this sense of obligation is a serious component of rape culture. I dunno if you know this term, but rape culture is a culture that insists victims are to blame for their assaults because they were not vigilant enough about what they were doing, what they were wearing, how intoxicated they were, etc. It makes rape excusable because the victim was “asking for it,” instead of blaming the rapist for their crime. The idea that a woman owes a man (and I use these terms because GENERALLY it’s cis men using the term against cis women, but again, not always!) anything because he’s nice to her is ludicrous, takes away her autonomy over her own body and her own relationships. It’s an integral part of Nice Guy Syndrome, too.
There are some really good articles on the issue:
http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Nice_guy_syndrome
http://icedteaandlemoncake.wordpress.com/2011/04/04/feminsim-101-nice-guy-syndrome/
Hopefully that helped!
