Male Inferiority or Female Superiority?

Male Inferiority or Female Superiority?

            Are gender stereotypes, especially in college students, actually still prevalent? Gender roles play such an enormous part of our society and sometimes we don't even realize it. Since the beginning of human life, females have been expected to do their jobs as MOTHERS, watch the kids, cook, clean, while the men are the warriors who protect the women essentially. While this is just beginning to change in today's world with the push for equality between men in women, there is still a divide in what we perceive to be our gender roles. Movies only further this by the stereotypes portrayed in films, especially those trying to depict what "college is really like".  National Lampoon's: Van Wilder is one of those films. Van and Richard are the two main male characters who are basically in competition for Gwen, an attractive woman who is made out almost to be like an object. In the movie the two guys go back and forth, messing with each other's lives in what we perceive as them just not liking each other but in reality they are battling for who gets to date Gwen. Gwen is perceived as being a very intelligent woman because she is a reporter for the school, while Van is basically portrayed as some guy who doesn’t go to class and doesn’t have the intelligence to get his degree. At the end of the movie there is a scene where Van has to cram a semesters worth of work into 6 days and pass his exams to graduate. Somehow Van manages to get it done and graduates, celebrating with a huge party at the end of the movie. I think this was a low key stereotype of the typical guy in college. Guys in college are made out to look like they are less intelligent than females and are always partying instead of focusing on school. Females are looked at as being extremely studious and gentle, more focused on their future and education. Tannen sort of agrees with this, she talks about how female students are much more introverted when surrounded by males and how they pay more attention to the important details. Gwen is the school reporter, she has no struggles in school, and just her overall demeanor and the way she speaks would be considered thought out and intelligent. In comparison to Van who is vulgar and impulsive to say whatever he chooses. In reality and applied here to UNCC I don’t think that is always the case. While for the most part girls are a little more careful and think out what they’re saying, the dividing line between genders is not too far apart. Here the student body is pretty equal, whether that be academically or socially. Movies do a good job in building a stereotypical reputation for the male college student with these exaggerated and discriminatory portrayals. At the end of the day I believe we are breaking these stereotypes and gender is irrelevant to the modern day college student.