Girls Can Listen to Boys, But Boys Can’t Listen to Girls

Women can listen to men, but men can’t listen to women. It’s like an unwritten law, commonly understood by every teenage member of our modern American society. And I’m not talking about thoughts and feelings here—I mean music.

Exhibit one: Girl Gillian listens to an extensive variety of music, spanning multiple genres, and most importantly, enjoys the melodic soundwaves of music from both male and female artists. No one gives particular thought to her musical selections. People consider her cool for having such diverse taste. She can listen to Justin Bieber or Post Malone or Lil Pump or John Mayer and the masses won’t give her choices a second thought, much less a first.

Exhibit two: Boy Brett likes “girl music.” He likes Beyoncé and SZA and Katy Perry and Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga. Boy Brett, according to the general public (or rather his peer population), is gay. He is soft and gay and fruity and less-than-male. It doesn’t matter if he also listens to Kendrick Lamar and Drake; he is definitively, 100% gay because he listens to all those other girls. Eventually, Boy Brett comes to the conclusion that he cannot listen to girls anymore. He is tired of the taunting.

And this is precisely one of many billion predicaments that plague our society. I’m barely even scratching the surface here—there’s still a discussion to be had about how boys that listen to Ed Sheeran and One Direction are also- you’ve guessed it- gay (even though the previously mentioned artists are boys, not girls). The modern-day definition of masculinity has gained such power that even listening to specific musical artists can render one an outcast. It’s as if listening to a song has some much larger, unknown consequence than brief pleasure or emotional release. We shove guns and knives into boys’ hands but nearly go into heart failure when they listen to a girl. Boys can’t even listen to girl music, much less be true to themselves.

It’s odd to me that girls, who suffer a large brunt of society’s faults, can sometimes have more freedom of expression than boys do. But I guess when I think about it a little while longer, it’s not at all that odd, nor is it surprising. We have a tendency to restrict every human’s livelihood with our societal constructs. “Be true to yourself, love yourself as you are, you’re perfect the way you are,” we say. Yet I do a 360-degree turn and the only thing I see at every angle is the exact opposite.

It’s hard to understand why rather than supporting the boys who support girls, many of us participate in actively bringing them down. The status quo of musical masculinity partially exists because we contribute to it. As girls, we always say we want equality, but we take part in this phenomenon that hinders equality for both girls and boys. Maybe it’s time that we let people enjoy the art that they enjoy without ostracizing them for it. Equality starts with acceptance, and I’m sure that something as inconsequential as what music we listen to is an easy place to start.

• boys
• gauchos
• girls
• music
• society
• ucsb