Posted by Jenni
The 'Friend Zone'. *cue dramatic music here*
Let's face it, most of us have heard of the friend zone. It's a big enough part of internet culture that it's hard to avoid. If you've been lucky enough to avoid it, take a quick look over at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friend_zone for a bit of background. But why write about it now, you may ask? Some of you may be aware that I did an article a while ago for the BBC on being asexual (find it here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/
In each case, the woman has no say in this -- compatibility doesn't matter, prior relationships don't matter, nothing else factors in. If the hero accomplishes his goals, he is awarded his favorite female. Yes, there will be dialogue that maybe makes it sound like the woman is having doubts, and she will make noises like she is making the decision on her own. But we, as the audience, know that in the end the hero will "get the girl," just as we know that at the end of the month we're going to "get our paycheck." Failure to award either is breaking a societal contract. The girl can say what she wants, but we all know that at the end, she will wind up with the hero, whether she knows it or not."
But yes, the friend zone. What exactly is it?
Well, most descriptions of it are variations of the following: "Boy likes girl. Boy is super nice to girl and really awesome and the best friend ever. Girl dates asshole. Boy is friend-zoned. That bitch."
I mean, yes, there are descriptions where it's a girl who gets friend-zoned. But they're usually brought up to show how honestly, its not a sexist thing, really, its not! So let's go with the majority and look at why exactly the friend-zone is so problematic, and how mainstream culture reinforces it as okay.
The first thing you'll notice, of course, is that it's the girl's fault. How dare she not like him? After everything he's done for her? How dare she? This, dear readers, is entitlement. Quite frankly, as a girl, I owe you nothing. Especially not dating, or sex. And let's face it, this is about sex. Yes, it's played off as romance, but one look at the meme I was featured in and we'll see the crux of the issue. I was (and am) in a romantic relationship with that boy. The reason he's apparently 'friend-zoned'? The assumed lack of sex. So it's not enough to date these 'nice' guys, there has to be sex. Basically, the friend-zone? It all comes down to "I'm nice, why won't you have sex with me?"
And here's the thing. Whilst it is most definitely the person in question's fault for feeling 'owed' sex in return for niceness, this is a view that does not happen on it's own. This is a view shown throughout mainstream culture. Whilst cracked.com doesn't have the best track record, and most of the article this quote is from is nowhere near as good as the quote itself, here is a lovely summation by David Wong on why this is the case:
"We were told this by every movie, TV show, novel, comic book, video game and song we encountered. When the Karate Kid wins the tournament, his prize is a trophy and Elisabeth Shue. Neo saves the world and is awarded Trinity. Marty McFly gets his dream girl, John McClane gets his ex-wife back, Keanu "Speed" Reeves gets Sandra Bullock, Shia LaBeouf gets Megan Fox in Transformers, Iron Man gets Pepper Potts, the hero in Avatar gets the hottest Na'vi, Shrek gets Fiona, Bill Murray gets Sigourney Weaver in Ghostbusters, Frodo gets Sam, WALL-E gets EVE ... and so on. Hell, at the end of An Officer and a Gentleman, Richard Gere walks into the lady's workplace and just carries her out like he's picking up a suit at the dry cleaner...
(If you are interested in the rest of the article, it can be found here. The rest of its rather dodgy, and the comments are nasty, though: http://www.cracked.com/
It's no surprise then that this level of entitlement pervades everyday discussion. Of course, in real life, the girl gets to choose who she wants - be that you, someone else, or no-one at all. In claiming the 'friend-zone' as some awful, awful thing that only horrible people would ever condemn someone to, people are relegating any relationship with a woman that is non-sexual in nature to something worthless. Or, in other words, the worth of a woman in a relationship is measured solely by how willing she is to sleep with someone. And that is definitely a problem.
Firstly, it encourages male/female relationships to be viewed as either worthless, strange, or manipulative - there's either no point to it, they're not 'normal' or she's leading him on. For younger people especially, this sets in early - I know I remember some of my (male) friends being tormented for being friends with me, and not 'getting any'. This is a real issue - it encourages treating women as 'the other', and makes it easier to form negative views of them. Secondly, it encourages (hetero-normative) sex to be seen as the ultimate goal of a male/female relationship (romantic or none). I won't get into this much here, but let's face it - treating (hetero-normative) sex as some kind of end goal is really not a great thing. It's bad for everyone - be it asexual people who don't desire that, people who simply prefer other kinds of sexual intimacy, and queer people with no interest in a sexual relationship of that kind. Finally, it leads to resentment - if you truly believe you are owed something, and that something is not given to you, it's no surprise that you would be bitter and take that out on those who have denied it you. The friend-zone is a self-perpetuating cycle of misogyny.
So what exactly can we do about this? Well, it's not easy to break down something that's this much a part of mainstream culture, that's for sure. And I'm not entirely sure of what is the best way to go about it. What we do need, however, is strong representations of male/female relationships that don't end in sex, and that are treated as a perfectly good thing for their own sake. Cases where the boy doesn't get the girl - and is okay with that. So here's hoping to that.
Final note: I am aware that this article relies heavily on binary language/concepts, but the way I figure it is that the friend-zone issue is very much a binary issue - it is very much about how society views women one way, and men another. Obviously, it also affects non-binary folks too, but for ease of discussion, I chose to focus on that side. If you have any thoughts on how it also affects non-binary folks, please do let me know in the comments!
*If you're curious, it can be found here: (Warning: Lots of nasty comments on sexual entitlement, asexuality, rape and other such things) http://www.reddit.com/
r/funny/comments/wkwzd/making_ the_news/ and more recently, http://www.reddit. com/r/funny/comments/13kbv0/ friendzoned_so_hard/