'Signals' reinforces gender stereotypes

By Editorial

"I've got an idea. How about we start this scene off with you saying: I didn't rape that girl," the improv actress said to her male counterpart Monday night in Mayer Theatre.

If you are a freshman, you may have shifted uncomfortably in your seat when you heard this line either Monday or Tuesday night.

The approximately 75 minute two man show called "Sex Signals" was mandatory to all first year students and open to upperclassmen on Tuesday.

The performance explored issues that many college students have on their minds: sex, stereotypes, drinking, dating and, of course, gender roles.

The tongue and cheek jokes were crude and endless, but let's be honest, who hasn't heard some of those lines uttered at a party, in the hall or worse, in your own dorm room?

The actors aimed to connect to their audience by talking like us, but do we really sound like that? And think like that?

While the intention behind performances and programs like this one are admirable: raising awareness about violence against women; perhaps we should be a little ashamed by what they assume.

Take one scene where the male actor from "Sex Signals" plays a college man who's had too many drinks and proceeds to sit down next to the actress and make a pass at her. "So, are you a freshman?" he says. She backs away, but he reels her in, literally, with his large arm around her shoulders and carries a conversation about an inch away from her face.

Soon his hands are all over the actress and she looks squeamish, but never says "Stop!" until she ends the scene. In the recap, she explains that the male actor had incorrectly interpreted her signals as "sex signals" and essentially pursued her against her will.

The actors poll the audience: "How many of you have seen this before?" Many students raise their hands, reinforcing the idea that this senario is a common one.

So what are these actors asking us to assume here? The man is almost always the aggressor in a dating situation. He cannot carry a conversation with a person of the opposite sex without somehow plotting a way to get into her pants. And if he's been drinking, well, there's no hope for that guy. He might as well put a giant foam penis on his head to warn women because men don't have Jiminy Crickets on their shoulders, they have little phallic angels.

And how about the average collegiate woman? "How do people expect us to act?" the actress asks the audience. Someone shouts out, "Cross our legs."

"That's right," the actress says.

While the actors aren't intentionally promoting the idea that women are timid and submissive, that is the premise of this show and many rape programs alike.

It's a familiar story: The man pursues the woman, who is intimidated by the man's power. She makes feeble attempts to tell him "no," but he is overcome with an uncontrollable lust that clouds his judgement. Therefore men must take better care to her signals.

Women, are you insulted that people assume you aren't confident or strong enough to direct your own sexual agenda? That your only role in this play is a "yes" or a "no?"

Men, are you embarrassed that people assume you don't have a brain, but rather a magnetic bulge in your pants that leads you around off-campus parties?

Maybe this scene does take place all the time, but are these our natural gender roles? Or are we stuck in a perpetual cycle where we continue to play our parts? Apparently, in order to over come violence against women, we must somehow rise above our involuntary inclinations.

It seems as though even the most sincere attempts to break out of this cycle actually have the effect of reinforcing the very gender roles that may set us up for sexual violence.

The vehicle being used to discourage violence against women almost sounds like some kind of a deranged children's playhouse game:

"OK, I'm the woman, so I'll play the victim, and you're the man, so you play the rapist."

Maybe we should instead focus on the fact that men do have brains and women are assertive. That hiding behind the pretense that every man thinks like Adam Corolla did during the "Man Show" heyday isn't acceptable -- it's just marketable. Or pretending that secretly, every woman wants to be that girl on the tramp-o-line, simply isn't true (pun intended).

Let's fight to prevent violence against women. But first, let's stop casting them as victims.