“Women in Male Fields”: The social media trend simply explained
indomains? Fortunately, there are more and more of them, even if we are still a long way from having skilled trades and engineering jobs or executive positionsreallyare staffed in a gender-appropriate manner. But withhat der “Women in Male Fields”-, which is currently ongoes around, despite its name, only does so much. With gender injustice, even more so.
“Women in Male Fields”: This trend is behind the hashtag
There are now over nine million users worldwideandshared the hashtag “Women in Male Fields.” In the accompanying content - mostly memes or short reels - they share anecdotes about problematic behavior that is stereotypically attributed to men and act as if they were the ones who exhibited this behavior. The reversal is intended to point out the absurdity and invasiveness of these actions or statements that women make, in theor are confronted at work. Typically accompanied by the “dat anaconduhh” sound. Any examples?
The American and queer TikToker jordan.rand shared a video on TikTok with the text “A guy I was dating said he was bi and wanted to know if I thought that was okay. I then said: 'Sure, as long as I can watch'." The sad core of the joke: that straight men fetishize bisexual women and want to exploit their sexual orientation for their own fantasy gratification.
Marla_fritz, on the other hand, shared a similar video with the text "He was crying in bed, so I just said, 'Oh man, not again,' turned over and just fell asleep." The painful punchline here: that some men tend to be overwhelmed by their partners' emotions and then completely refuse to talk.
But the trend has long since caught on with local creators - including the star of feminist education work on social media: Tara-Louise Wittwer. And in one of her current Instagram posts she has several examples of the “Women in Male Fields” trend in her hand luggage:
“Women in Male Fields” trend: Strong activism or cheap punchlines?
First, the good (and sad) thing: Among many of these videos and memes mentioned, other women comment that they have had the same experiences with men. So much so that one TikTok user asked: “Have we all been with the same men?” Another wrote: “This trend makes me realize that I have never had a unique experience.” Of course, this is anything but pretty, but it can have a unifying power. Women feel less alone with their experiences and can find comfort from like-minded people, even if only briefly, in a comment section.
Editor Chloe Laws, on the other hand, says that the trend helps her to better process all these experiences with humor. Sometimes it's just necessary to laugh at the absurd amount of misogyny that we experience every day online and elsewhere. Fair enough. And yet – as with every social media trend – there is an unpleasant downside to the coin.
