Responding to: Men Are the Problem by Jaylee Moina 

Ladies and Gentlemen: Her 

Although men are ultimately the worst, women are not always the best just by default. Women are multifaceted and the way society treats women can impact us in so many different ways. Some women put up their guard towards the world, some may want revenge, and some women don’t see anything wrong with the way society treats us. A woman is valid in feeling any way she wants to towards the patriarchal society and men in general, however, her actions may not always be justified even if we know where she’s coming from. In fairytales, media, and real-life women are not always perfectly correct beings who do no wrong. There are times when a women’s demise is not at the hands of a man but at the hands of herself. Jalylee argues that men are the problem, but I think that sometimes, women are as well.  

A femme fatale is a female character archetype we see in media and entertainment. A femme fatale is described as “a character type that embodies beauty, mystery, seduction, and danger. Her role often involves entrapping a man into her web of deceit and ruining him in some way.” (Abreu Rafael). I want to argue that femme fatales can be examples of women involving themselves in questionable behavior that usually involves using men and other people. To elaborate on some characteristics of a femme fatale, she has beauty, seductiveness, manipulation skills, wit, intelligence, and mysteriousness. A modern movie example of a femme fatale is the character Amy Dunne in Gone Girl. Amy manages to frame her husband for her disappearance and fake murder which she carefully calculated and executed behind the scenes for months. Amy wanted to pin this on her husband as a response to his infidelity and overall his lack of interest in their current relationship. She successfully convinces everyone that she is dead and her husband is responsible, and then later after revealing she is alive, she manipulates her husband into staying in the marriage rather than getting a divorce. In the process, Amy kills one of her obsessive ex-boyfriends and claims that it was actually him behind her disappearance and alleged murder. The film does show how her husband slowly became disinterested over time and how she knew about him cheating for a while. Her husband definitely has faults in the relationship, However, a man being unfaithful should not justify the murder of another man. While women protagonists are usually portrayed as mostly morally correct in fairytales, femme fatales are the opposite where they will do what they gotta do for self-beneficial reasons. 

Jaylee argues that the relationship between men and women in society causes men often to assert their power in innocent women’s lives and treat them like objects or second-class citizens. While this is very true, there are many instances of women taking advantage of men in a situation and basically finessing them for no reason. Music is a place where you can find a lot of female artists expressing this type of idea. The song “Cash Shit” by Megan Thee Stallion is a rap song about a woman prioritizing money in her life above all romantic relationships. He knows he giving his money to Megan. He knows it’s very expensive to date me. Told him go put my name on that account because when I need money, I ain’t tryna, hold up” (Stallion 2019). This relationship with a man that Megan is describing is mainly transactional and it seems that she is using him for financial gains. The title of the song reflects the main themes within it as well “Cash shit” plain and simple. A woman receiving money in a relationship does not always mean she is taking advantage of her partner, but if the relationship is solely based on a man’s ability to provide for the woman, then it is taking advantage of someone and being morally grey. Megan Thee Stallion makes it known that if you are a broke boy then you have slim chances with her because “it’s very expensive” to date her. 

The song “KÁRMIKA” by Karol G and Bad Gyal depicts a woman using a man for sexual pleasure only, despite his feelings for her. “Quisiera verte yo, Para comerte y no, Para meter corazón (puedo rompértelo). Se que te gusto y to’, Pero obviamente yo, Estoy en otra cuestión (¿cómo explicártelo?)” (Karol G 2023). The song is explicitly about a woman who ends up hooking up with a guy usually when she’s drunk just for her sexual pleasure and nothing more. In “KÁRMIKA” the woman holds no romantic feelings for the guy and she uses him for sex despite knowing que el se le ilusiona. When a man uses a woman for sex or only calls her up when he’s drunk our inherent reaction is to call him a good-for-nothing dog, rightfully so. However, when women act the same towards men it’s usually celebrated and not seen as bad as a guy using a woman for sex. The moral grayness is apparent in this song as well because as a woman when I listen to songs with this type of message I know women who operate like this usually have a past of getting played and heartbroken by men in the past. Even though there’s a part of me that supports these actions against men when I listen to these songs, the other part of me knows it’s morally questionable behavior. 

As a woman, it is hard to criticize the actions of women because I know that we are magical beings. And it is true that men often abuse their power over women in a patriarchal society. However, men are not always the problem, they usually are and women are extremely capable of being the problem themselves.

 

Works Cited

Abreu, Rafael. “The Femme Fatale — Definition, Characteristics, Examples.” StudioBinder, 18 Dec. 2022, www.studiobinder.com/blog/what-is-a-femme-fatale-definition/. Accessed 22 May 2023.

G, Karol, et al. KÁRMIKA. 2 Feb. 2023, www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbRwWlOtlSw. Accessed 22 May 2023.

Gone Girl. Directed by David Fincher and Gillian Flynn, 20th Century Studios, 3 Oct. 2014.

Subbi, Arsha. “The Deranged Femme Fatale in Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl – Samyukta: A Journal of Gender and Culture.” Samyuktajournal.in, 31 Jan. 2019, samyuktajournal.in/the-deranged-femme-fatale-in-gillian-flynns-gone-girl/#:~:text=The%20protagonist%20of%20Gillian%20Flynn. Accessed 23 May 2023.

Thee Stallion, Megan, and DaBaby. Cash Shit. LilJuMadeDaBeat, 2019, www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Xe7OAFljOA. Accessed 22 May 2023.