The reversal of roles

I was just wondering, does anyone else find it strange that men today care more about their appearance than women do? Seriously, men can be seen in hair salons, going for facials, waxing and even manicures and pedicures sometimes. The new idea of “the perfect man” is someone who is clean shaven and beautiful; with perfect hair and skin; Then I don’t have to tell you what the new idea of “the perfect woman “is, do I? Well the new idea of what a woman should be like is the ultra-tough woman, who’s either out in the career world asserting her power and status, or driving her kids around in a 4x4, never hesitating to show everyone who’s in charge. Whatever the role is, it doesn’t matter, as long women of today are not soft, petite and feminine.

Now, I know that there are many people who would just want to kill me for even writing this. I remember when I was doing my psychology undergraduate degree. One of the important arguments we used to have was about the socialization of males and females. Our lecturers would argue adamantly that it’s not natural for girls to want to play with dolls and for boys to want to play with cars. Instead, according to them children are socialized into these roles from a very young age based on old traditional values of their parents. I could never agree with this argument 100%, some things were true but as a Muslim I know that Allah has created men and women differently and we are supposed to be living out our natural roles in order for harmony to prevail in society.

Of course this does not mean that one role is better than the other or that our different roles make some of us more superior than the others. No, Allah Almighty has told us that men and women are equal in the sight of Allah and the only thing that differentiates people is their piety. On a social, functional level however, we cannot all play the same role because then we’d just have chaos, which is pretty much what is happening in today’s time, although very few people are actually willing to admit to this.

So what happens when the men in society are over concerned about looking good; when they compete for who is the “sexier man”, and who has the better hairstyle, and whose skin is softer and glows more? It’s a complete reversal of everything and as a woman I am left wondering where that leaves us. I mean honestly, who wants to be around a man who spends more time making himself look good than you do?

And I could even take this discussion further by talking about men’s clothing. I remember a while ago I was walking in a department store and looking at the “men’s” clothing I couldn’t help but think that their clothing looked much prettier than the clothing they had in the women’s section. I’m not even joking here, it’s really true. They had these cotton tops with embroidery on it, for men, and really nice fitting pants, not to mention some of the shirts they sell. It really was weird.

So yeah, I guess that’s just the way things are today, but I like being feminine and soft, I like wearing pretty clothes and I’d really prefer to be the one taking longer to make myself look good. As for men, well in my opinion they should look like men. The “metrosexual male” doesn’t really appeal to me. I’m not saying men shouldn’t be well groomed, clean and neat, after all our beloved Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) was always well groomed, clean and neat, but from the descriptions we are given, he (PBUH) actually looked like a man. So I guess it shouldn’t hurt to have facial hair, and the perfect hairstyle is unnecessary, and seriously manicures and pedicures shouldn’t need to feature at all. In any case, this is just all my opinion, I know that there are many people who would differ with me, but you know what, I’m not asking anyone to agree with me, I’m just telling you what I find strange about today’s world and each person is allowed to have their own opinion.

Image from here