It’s Called the Blame Game

Gender and sex has now become a blaming game as society continues to advance throughout the years. Women are ostracized for being born female, and males who do not fit the norm of being “male” are criticized for being feminine. “The term ‘female’ is derogatory not because it emphasizes woman’s animality, but because it imprisons her in her sex” (Beauvoir). Even though women are born female, the blame is automatically passed onto them from birth. Not only is this displayed in real life it is also displayed in cartoons and movies that many of us have grown up with. An example would be “Beauty and the Beast”. Everyone who watches this classic Disney tale believes that it is about a woman who falls in love with a man who is turned into a beast for his arrogance and breaks his curse. It makes children believe that even if you are not the best looking person out there, someone will love you for who you actually are rather than for what you look like. Unfortunately, it is much deeper than this. Children do not understand that this classic tale is a social construction of victim blaming. Due to the Beast’s arrogance and now monstrous looks, society does not trust him which feeds to his anger and drives him away from the town, only to live by himself in the castle. Belle is seen as odd since she loves to read, but society only sees her as a woman who can bear children, therefore they want her to stop reading books and find a man that can help her reproduce. Another villainous main character, Gaston is seen as manly and the perfect man for Belle. He tries to force himself on her and when she denies him, he does everything in his power to claim her, even getting the townspeople to go to the castle and kill Beast. This whole movie shows Gaston as a bully but he is loved by society because he possesses certain characteristics that make him the ideal man. The reason why Belle and Beast fall in love in the movie is because they find solace in each other when society rejects the both of them. Rather than trying to help the victims, the townspeople are helping Gaston achieve what he wants, and that’s Belle.

Society tends to reward the bullies and cast out the victims to be put in their place or destroyed. Society today does the same things to females. If a woman is raped in the middle of the night while walking home, she is often blamed for walking that late at night or because of what she was wearing; society’s rebuttal is that “she was asking for it.” They do not consider the male involved. Society shames women for being a lesser person and only sees us as child-bearing machines in order to pass of the family name of the males that we are married too. “To define her as the bearer of the eggs and the male as bearer of the sperms is far from sufficient” (Beauvoir). Society treats males as higher beings and disregards any of their wrongs, as “boys will be boys.” It does not take into account women’s roles in society and how they play a vital role in it. I mean, how else would these “men” be born if women were not here. Women play a source of life and play an important role in sustaining it. Instead, we are seen as a scapegoat when things do not go according to plan in the world of men. If a child has behavioral problems, it is seen as the mother not raising him right. If a child is not doing well in school, the mother is to blame for not educating them. It will always be the blame game in today’s society because society is the one that is wrong and continues to teach old-fashioned lessons to today’s youth. We are constantly surrounded by it from when we were youths until today. Many are blinded by it because they saw it as correct when they were young, making it a bad habit to break.