Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Response to Chris’s Bro Code Discussion



            I absolutely cannot relate to this.  Just kidding, I may be female but I can connect to some of the points in this post.  You claim men are more pressured to follow a Bro Code than they let on compared to women who admit they are pressured by friends more easily.  I agree that men are more pressured to follow the code, however I believe that is caused by the fact that women do not have a Girl Code the way men do.  As children we hear “bros before ‘ho’s”; I never recall hearing “chicks before dicks” (excuse my French please).  Girls in that sense are ahead of men since not only have we accepted following these social rules does not yield success, but we’ve abandoned them all together.  Your description of the Bro Code as guidelines or a fallback reminds me of the quote from the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie when Barbossa says the pirates code is “more like guidelines anyway”.
            As a female I must admit it would be nice to have that fallback when deciding what one should do when dealing with friends.  I noticed our need for a Girl Code comes up mostly when dealing with the opposite sex, as the Bro Code is used mostly to deal with female-involved situations.  Before I began dating my boyfriend, four friends had already claimed they “liked” him.  As a group of girls all liking the same young man we found ourselves lost as to what we should do about the dilemma.  If he made a move toward one of us were we allowed to flirt back or start dating him?  Could we ask him out ourselves? We had no clue as to what to do because there has never been an established set of rules declaring what is appropriate behavior between girls.
            The article is correct that “positive consequences occur when a man acts authentically”.  While lying does work for one night stands, being honest and keeping open communication works to maintain a successful relationship for both women and men.  When people act like themselves instead of trying to be what they think others want from them then people can connect more on a truer level.