equality – Rosie Culture

How To Actually Support Women

I think we talk a lot of talk about how we want men and women to be equal and many men say that they support women 100%. But I don’t think they really know what that support entails. I saw the following images on Twitter and was disgusted with the reaction from guys who are telling her to be more humble.

Because I have guys in my life telling me to be more confident, that I’m beautiful, that I should stop being so hard on myself. And I don’t believe them, I have a hard time accepting my appearance and if I say “thank you” to a compliment, I’m internally saying “you’re wrong.”

But the second a girl actually loves herself and gains confidence, men and women come out of the woodwork to tear her down. So which is it? You support us, but we shouldn’t get too ahead of ourselves?

If you want to actually support women, you have to accept them. This applies to men and women. You have to let them be themselves, love themselves. You can’t tear them down and call them sluts for sleeping with a few guys or call them egotistical for loving themselves. Because let’s be honest, if you’re posting a picture of yourself on snapchat you already know you look good in it. You have to accept that not all women are weak and in need of your help. But some are.

You have to support them all, not just the ones that fit the mold that you like.

Relationships

Chivalry Isn’t Dead – It Just Changed

I often hear women talking about the way they would like to be treated by men. They want “old school” romance where they’re picked up at their front door, their car door is opened for them, and their meal is paid for. They want their guy to be chivalrous – a knight in shining armor who only has eyes for them and treats them like the princess they are.

Women complain that men aren’t chivalrous at all anymore, that chivalry is just dead and gone. There apparently is no such thing as dating, going out for dinner, or to the movies. There are only hook ups and long texting conversations. There is no such thing as a guy who is going to treat you right and not talk to other girls. “All guys are the same.”

This is so untrue it makes me cringe. Imagine the things men could say about women for even thinking this way.

We live in a different time. A time where women hold a huge amount of power. A time where women can walk to a car, open their own door, and pay for their own meal.

Stop thinking chivalry and start thinking equality. If you expect to be treated like a princess, you need to be treating your guy like a prince. There ARE men in this world who will take you out on dates, hold the door open for you, and be everything you want them to be if you start lowering your expectations and stop thinking back to the way things used to be 20 years ago.

Not all guys are the same. Respect demands respect and the way you act, carry yourself, and the way you date will bring you the chivalry you’re looking for. Granted, you’ll probably run into some boys who will always be sucky people, but if you know you deserve better then you will eventually get that.

You don’t need a knight in shining armor – you are fully capable of saving yourself. When you are aware of that, your knight in shining armor will come along (just in case you need a little back up).

photo by: https://www.flickr.com/photos/hernanpc/

Relationships

Falling In Love With Everyone and Everything

photo by: https://www.flickr.com/photos/ideaablaze/

Everywhere we turn, there are interesting people. Walk into class, stumble into the bar, open up twitter, and scroll through Instagram. You can find someone you have something in common with in every nook of your life. So how do you choose and how do you settle?

I don’t think our generation has a problem with forming relationships. I believe there are just so many relationships forming so often that it’s hard to focus on just one. You’re consistently making new friends and having new conversations. Whether it’s over the phone or in person, communication IS happening. Older generations don’t understand that because they don’t understand us. They think we sit on our phones shutting out the world, but instead we’re just learning about a whole part of it they’ll never experience.

We’re buying shots for girls we like in bars, but we’re also favoriting all of their tweets so they get the hint. We’re having conversations with cute boys in the hallway, but we’re also adding them on all forms of social media to get the point across. The amount of communication happening in our so-called hookup culture is so exciting. It could yield someone from settling down, but it could also introduce enough people so that we do know who we want to eventually settle down with.

I have this little problem of falling in love with, like, everyone. I met someone with cool tattoos at a party and fell in love! I saw someone on Tinder has the same favorite band as me and I fell in love! The boy who sits in the back of my class has the perfect hipster haircut and I’m in love! It’s a little problem that leads to a lot of opportunities and experiences.

I don’t want to stop meeting new people. I don’t want to stop going new places. I want to keep stalking people on social media and I want to keep making googley eyes from across the bar.

Do it, do what you want! Start falling in love with everything and everyone around you. Fall in love with your young life while you still can.

Break Ups

Commitment Issues

Getting into a relationship should be considered a big deal. Some people see it as just another boyfriend or girlfriend, some people see it as their whole life changing. If you date someone for a while and see a future for yourselves, then getting into a relationship is the right thing to do. If you’re just lonely and all of your friends have boyfriends, maybe you should reconsider the topic of commitment.

People who have commitment problems see getting into a relationship as too big of a deal. Getting a girlfriend or boyfriend is not an end all be all, this is not necessarily the person you are going to spend the rest of your life with, but it is someone who has that potential. If someone makes you genuinely happy and you choose not to be with them because of your fear of commitment, you are only hurting yourself. Chances are, that other person will get along just fine. You’ll be the one always ending up alone.

For example: if you really like ice cream and ice cream makes you happy, you are not just going to stop eating it because you’re afraid too much of it will make you fat. That’s irrational – first of all, how much ice cream are you eating? Secondly, a healthy relationship (like eating a healthy amount of ice cream?) will only serve to better you as a person. You will grow from it, you will be happy for the time being, and even if it ends badly, it benefited you.

So stop being afraid of the things that make you happy. You have all the time in the world to figure out where you’re going in life and start working a job you probably don’t like, spending time with people you also probably don’t like. While you DO like someone, continue it and stay happy as long as possible and don’t be a sucky person.

Photo by: https://www.flickr.com/photos/katrinasagemuller/

Hook Ups

Have you found your Tinderella?

The ways of dating have changed, there is no doubt about that. We communicate mainly through text messages and stalk our crushes on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook before we even have a full conversation with them. Online dating has also become very popular. Some people are too busy working or are tired of meeting dead-end people at the bar, so they turn to the internet to introduce them to new people.

Tinder is an app that allows you to see what people are in your area. You basically judge them off of a couple a pictures, shared interests that only show up if you have similar Facebook likes, and mutual friends. If you dislike a person, you swipe left or click the “X”, if you like the person you swipe right or click the heart. You then wait to see if you both matched!

So, will you be meeting your soulmate through Tinder? If you’re like a majority of the girls I know, you are swiping left continuously. So much so, you consistently swiping left to the man of your dreams on accident due to your swipe happy fingers. Women only swipe right 15% of the time. If you’re like a majority of the guys I know, you swipe right to almost everyone then decide after who you like when they match you. Men swipe right 47% of the time. It’s complicated, I know.

Here’s some Tinder facts for you: You are 54% more likely to hook up with a Tinder match if you’re within 1 mile of each other. That percentage drops in half for every 2 miles you drift from that. There are more than 1 billion swipes per day on Tinder and only 12 million matches.

Therefore, the chances of you finding your sweetheart (let alone a random hookup) are quite slim. However, you will find clever pick-up lines, some interesting conversation, or really creepy people. I know a few people who have gone on Tinder dates – I’ll let you know if I hear of any of those working out for anyone. If you have any hilarious Tinder stories, let us know!

In the meantime, keep on swiping!

Hook Ups, Relationships

Why I Don’t Want a New Year’s Kiss—and You Shouldn’t Either

Photo by: https://www.flickr.com/photos/tmsthenameless/

New Year’s Eve is quickly approaching, ladies and gents. It’s crunch time, and people are forced to choose amongst a list of bars and parties where they will be ringing in 2015. Women are panicking about not having the right outfit, men are panicking about if they have enough booze, and both (if they’re single) are panicking about the right person to kiss at midnight.

This will be my 21st New Year’s Eve celebration and could be the 21st New Year’s Eve celebration without a New Year’s kiss. And I’m okay with that. Sure, I joke about it, but do I really care? Absolutely not.

Having someone to kiss at midnight does not define you, and it does not define how your year is going to play out.

People hype up a New Year’s kiss, undoubtedly, but it can be special. Maybe this is your first New Year’s Eve together since you’ve had a child. Maybe this is your first as husband and wife. Or maybe your first since you’ve officially started dating. That is plenty of reason to celebrate and look forward to the clock striking 12. However, if you’re single, I suggest you look at the bigger picture. More often than not, single girls scrambling for that magical kiss end up drunkenly making out with some random guy who will never speak to them again. If that’s considered “magical,” I want no part of it.

No one should settle for a messy kiss from a stranger simply because they think that’s how it should be. Personally, I’d rather ring in the new year kissing the guy that I love or kissing no guy at all. New Year’s Eve is 50% about getting as drunk as possible (responsibly) and 50% about spending the night with the people you love most. If you don’t have a significant other to kiss at midnight, I suggest hugging your best friend or taking a shot with a childhood friend you might not see that often.

Have a happy new year, and don’t lose sight of what’s really important.

Danielle Williams

Hook Ups

Yik Yakkin Double Standards

Men are very open about their sexual experiences. They talk about how they got laid that weekend, who they want to hook up with next weekend, and get high fives when their friends think the girl leaving their room the next morning was hot.

Guess what – girls do this too.

We talk about how we want to get laid this weekend, who we want to hook up next weekend, and get high fives from our friends when they think the boy whose room we left this morning was hot.

So what’s the difference? Why is it when a girl is open about her sexuality, she’s a whore or slut? When boys are open about theres, it’s just normal behavior. There is this blatant double standard that everyone has just shrugged off and accepted. Now I’m not pushing every one into one category, some men respect the sexuality of women and some do not. But an overwhelming majority have a problem with their future girlfriends being “whores.”

A popular app named “Yik Yak” is an anonymous Twitter-like app that is based on location. Here at Rowan, you can often see men berating the women they’ve hooked up with because they’re easy and that means they are undateable.

Here’s something to think about: maybe that girl doesn’t want to date you either! Maybe she just wanted to have sex that night and that’s why she was “easy.” You are also the one participating in this one night stand, so that puts you on the same standard as her.

The next time you want to turn to Yik Yak about the girl you hooked up with being beneath you because she likes sex too, please remember anything you think about a girl, you should also be thinking about yourself.

Rosie Kelly