Listen Live
St Jude banner
CLOSE

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was sitting at the dinner table with a male friend and his father, who was lamenting the condition of his girlfriend’s gutters. “They’re ready to fall off the house,” he said. “In fact, there are a few things around that place that could use a man’s touch.”

My friend stopped the older man in his tracks. “Dad, don’t say that around Jillian,” he warned. “She’s the handyman at her home.”

Whether it was replacing a light fixture with a chandelier—complete with a new dimmer switch installed into the electric box—or building a six-foot-long dining table from scratch, cutting and sanding the wood and staining it a cherry-mocha hue, my friend was right: I wore the tool belt in my apartment. And I resent anyone who implies a woman can’t install a garbage disposal as efficiently and effectively as a man.

If you agree, cue an eye roll or two, because here are four other stereotypes some men have of the fairer sex, and why we wish they’d bury them along with their dusty toolboxes.

1. We’re all wedding and baby crazy. Our Pinterest boards are filled with wedding inspiration, sure, but that doesn’t mean we’re planning our wedding to you on the first or even 75th date. Also, many women I know edging toward 30 aren’t even sure if they want children. The idea that we’re all growing up to get our M.R.S. degree and pop out a baby or two—no career, wild travels, or other goals in between—is way outdated and way annoying.

2. Our sex drives are more golf cart than racecar. Media—think sitcoms, especially—and some men like to portray women as begrudgingly giving a guy a gift when we give it up for the evening. We couldn’t possibly like sex, let alone want it more than once a month. While we may not think about sex every 7.2 seconds, or whatever the most recent study says about men, we do like to get it on. We appreciate good sex, we enjoy our partner’s talents between the sheets, and we can match our man kiss for kiss and more.

3. We think crying is fun. (If it wasn’t, why would we do it so often?) Women are emotional water balloons ready to explode as the slightest pressure or prick (pun intended). But just because we can’t make it through Le Miserables—or OK, any ‘ol rom-com—without waterworks, that doesn’t make us emotional messes. We’re stronger than most men will ever know.

4. If we’re the boss, we’re also a bitch. While men can climb the corporate ladder by buying their buddies a beer and bonding over a game, we clearly clawed our way to the top and think that the only way to stay there is to shove everyone else back down. Men can give direction to their subordinates and be called a “leader,” while women who utter the same phrase are “bossy,” “mean,” “desperate for attention,” or worse. How about this, instead: We’re smart, ambitious, good at what we do and expect the same from others? What’s so bad and bitchy about that?

Source: Glamour.com