A strange thing occurs when women love something. A genre becomes less serious. A hobby becomes less respectable. A fandom becomes less intelligent. An occupation loses prestige. But when men start doing the same thing, suddenly it is elevated to culture, knowledge, or art. We like to think that we are objective.
History proves us wrong.
Again and again, society seems to attach value not only to the thing itself, but also to the gender of the people associated with it. What women love is often viewed with suspicion, while what men love is granted respect. So perhaps the question is not why women love the "wrong" things.
Perhaps the more important question is why society keeps degrading what women do, or love.
There’s an unspoken rule that exists in our culture. Girls like stupid stuff. When boys like stupid stuff, it’s cultured.
We see it all the time. Girls lose their voices at concerts and are “oversensitive” or “too emotional." Boys paint their faces for football games and are "passionate." Girls talk about books, celebrities, or what they’re wearing and are “obsessed” with stupid things. Boys are “intellectual” for watching hours of sports, discussing game stats, starting fantasy leagues, or talking about their fancy watches.
The activities change, but the result is always the same: anything that women like is considered less important than things men like.
There are few demographics as widely disrespected as teenage girls.
The consensus has been that teenage girls have bad taste. They have been on the receiving end of humiliation for their interests and enthusiasm. Even their hobbies have been characterised as disposable. The verdict from the past says that society has been the one with bad taste.
Almost all the big players in the music industry today were significantly influenced by the Beatles. They enjoyed their fame because young women adored them. In fact, during interviews, the media would focus on the young women in the crowd and not on the music. After some time, people began to appreciate the artistry of The Beatles. The media then began to shift their focus to the Beatles' noble contribution, from what was described as a teenage craze to an exciting and new cultural phenomenon.
This remains the narrative today. Artists from boy bands to Taylor Swift have always been victims of the same media narrative of having frivolous, entertaining fandoms. Ironically, many of these artists have become the musical pioneers of their generations. The problem has never been the taste of girls. The problem has always been that society has perceived them as tasteless.
Something interesting occurs when men develop a passion for an activity deemed feminine. The activity gains prestige.
Consider, for example, the case of cooking. Cooking was once viewed as an unexceptional domestic task that women did. It was a responsibility, not an expression of creativity. The perception of the task radically changed when the cooking was done outside of the domestic sphere and professionally in institutions that accompanied elite establishments and chefs. Today, fine dining is a refined art. The same phenomenon is observed in various spheres. Respect for an activity is often subsequently granted when that activity is deemed to be male-dominated or when it is formally institutionalised.
Romance can be considered the most successful genre of literature. Each year, romance literature sells to millions of people, mostly women. Romance literature is often described as redundant, unrealistic, and requiring little to no thought to read.
Literature genres that have been traditionally male-dominated, such as war literature, political thrillers, or science fiction, are often regarded as serious literature. This does not measure the worth of any genre, but the manner in which cultural prestige is distributed. Comparatively, there is virtually no cultural prestige on stories that center around the feelings, relationships, and experiences of women compared to stories that center around topics that are traditionally masculine.
This trend transcends the world of culture and entertainment.
Time and again, scholars have noticed that when jobs become feminized, their status and wages decline. What is particularly disturbing about this trend is that there is no evidence to suggest that the tasks themselves have become easier or less significant. On the contrary, what happens is that society’s attitude towards the job in question changes. In short, value is not placed on the task but rather on those who do it.
A lot of people believe that we have surpassed such biases in our society. However, common language seems to tell another story. Terms like "girly," "basic," "dramatic," and "hysterical" are widely employed in denigrating hobbies related to women.
Consider how rarely the hobbies of men get this type of response. No one calls a sports fan "basic" for buying the team's products. No one wonders about the legitimacy of being interested in accumulating memorabilia from a favorite sports team. No one teases a man for remembering the stats of a team for years. It is exactly the same level of passion that gets described as over-the-top when practiced by a woman.
It’s not a question of whether women like the ‘wrong’ things, whether they always pick the best music, the best books, the best careers, or the best hobbies. No one does that. The question is, why do we let things devalue once girls and women like them?
Look hard enough, and you’ll see it’s a trend. The worth of an activity plummets, even though the activity itself hasn’t changed. What’s changed is how we view the people who enjoy it. Recognising this trend doesn’t mean we have to love every girl-loving thing. But it does mean acknowledging a prejudice that’s influenced society for centuries.
Maybe it’s not that women love the wrong things. Maybe we’ve learned to value the wrong things.