What Makes Wife Material????

What Makes Wife Material????

            The way men deliberate about relationships is relatively straightforward and simple. Men communicate with each other creating sexual scripts. This line of communication initiates building block as to how men think about females and if they are “relationship material” or not. The attached chart breaks down, in six sections, the qualities of a lady.  The X-axis displays how “hot” a woman is on a scale of 1-10.  The Y-axis reveals the amount of “crazy” a girl possesses.  The chart illustrates that any female under the 5 rating on a 1-10 scale, is a “no go” girl. In a man’s eyes, these girls are not attractive enough for any relationship. Once they move past the five on the “hotness” point, there are two options; either above or below the crazy line. As a girl becomes more attractive, the tolerance for “crazy” increases. Anything above the “crazy” line is in the “danger zone”. Listed under the “danger zone”, and at about a five on the “hotness” scale, is the date/fun/wife zone. The hotter a girl becomes and the less crazy, the rarer they are.  However, this portrays the female as better wife material. Even How I Met Your Mother uses the scale. 

            Breaking women down into these categories presents a stereotype that guys begin to think are “normal”. The media is creating sexual scripts that all men feel like they have to abide by. These scripts can be obtained through movies, television shows, social media, and many more. This table was posted from Facebook, but many movies, books, magazines, and television programs also follow this normative behavior. In movies, the guy, usually, only goes for the attractive girl. These are represented as normal, and although everyone has their own version of beautiful, guys are encouraged to not go for a lady below a five rating.

            Scripts are commonly used to obtain information.  As stated in the Social Cognitive Theory, people learn from observing.  When an action is rewarded and is demonstrated by an attractive character, the viewer is more likely to commit that action to memory.  The Social Cognitive Theory enforces behavior, such as saying thank you, as well as sexual scripts.  Hust, Brown, and L’engle state in their research that the more sexual content an adolescent is exposed to, the earlier that adolescent will start participating in sexual activities (Hust 5).  Graphs, like these, encourage the grouping of women and thinking about them in a sexual manner.  Sexual scripts and learning numerous amounts of information from media outlets, not only contribute to the natural progression of adolescent development, but also their views and opinions of women when maturing into adulthood.

 Works Cited:

Hust, S., Brown, J., & L'Engle, K. (2008). Boys Will Be Boys and Girls Better Be Prepared: An Analysis ofthe Rare Sexual Health Messages in Young Adolescent's Media. Mass Communication & Society.