"No, They’re Not ‘Out of Your League’ – Here’s Why"

[MusicNerd]

Found this article from Everyday Feminism and it seemed to have a lot of good stuff in it, so I figured I'd share it here! No, They’re Not ‘Out of Your League’ – Here’s Why (And 3 Things to Consider Instead)

[Heather]

Love! This framework has never made any kind of sense to me, and has always struck me as really problematic, so I loves me some smart takedown! Sharing on our social media, post-haste.

[MusicNerd]

ah! i saw and "liked" it-- yay, glad you enjoyed it!

[Yana]

I really like this article, and particularly how it emphasizes the gender politics involved. What I would add to this is the weight that Hollywood has added to the idea of "leagues" and to ranking people based on attractive qualities. For example, on Big Bang Theory, one of the major storylines of the show is that Leonard is attracted to Penny, who is out of his league. This becomes one of the major sources for humor on the show, and makes me really uncomfortable on behalf of both of them. For Leonard, because he is convinced that he isn't worthy because he insufficiently attractive and has severe self-esteem problems, and for Penny, because she is just the object of his desire (and of other men). Yuck. It all comes back to heteronormative, patriarchal society.

[Redskies]

Sign me up to the list of people who can't stand the "leagues" framework!

When I was newly together with my now live-in partner, someone I was acquainted with thought I could do "better", on a few common-but-broken ways of assessing what "league" someone's in. It was hurtful and gross. That person and I are no longer acquainted! They also seemed to have only very dysfunctional relationships and have very messed-up metrics on what they were looking for in a partner, so. I really relate to the part of the article that talks about the social capital and status of dating "Cameron": when I got together with Partner, the vast majority of people were happy that I was happy, but were totally not admiring or celebrating. Their underwhelming reaction was entirely at odds to what I was feeling and to my own truth, which was "I have hit the jackpot here!". It was unsettling and a bit sad. I'd previously dated a "Cameron", and people thought that was way cool; my "Cameron" had one major cool-status point and was hot and smart and considerate, and it was nice, but there was no deeper way in which we fit at all. Why were people more enthusiatic about "Cameron" than Partner? Well... "Cameron" was able-bodied super-sporty and Partner is mobility-disabled, for one. No-one actually says that, of course, but it's a bit obvious that it's under the surface. I still feel weird and unsettling tension between how I feel - that I picked someone who rocks my world - and how the crappy normative narratives would frame it, that I landed somewhere average. It's challenging and gives me actual uncomfortable physical feelings in my chest that I have enough of the crappy narratives in my head to know what they are and know how they'd see it. I don't wish my own truth was any different, but boy, do I wish my partner choice could be Wow Awesome Cool in mainstream narratives, just occasionally, just for a bit.

Well that went somewhere different to where I anticipated when I started writing!

Big Bang Theory manages fails across basically all the -isms, but, just on this point: totally, the Leonard-Penny relationship illustrates this "league" business. They both come out of it worse, because they both see the other like that - Leonard that Penny's too hot for him, and Penny that Leonard's too academically smart for her. Totally falling along stereotypical gendered lines, of course. They both create issues in the relationship because they're both insecure, and often don't relate particularly healthily to the other because of it. On a meta level, the show sort of shines a light on what's going on, showing that there's no sense in it because they both feel like that; but it ruins it all by laughing at it and looking ruefully at it because that's how the world is, rather than showing it up for the rubbish it actually is. It's messed-up in the gendered nature of how it plays out, too, because it's pretty clear that Penny doesn't think less of Leonard because of his appearance, even though they joke about it; but in spite of his efforts to be supportive to her, at times when he's not thinking, Leonard lets it slip that he does think less of Penny because she's not so intellectually smart or working in an academic field. That turns her into the "trophy girlfriend", I think. if the show was trying to satirise these kinds of gendered relations (if! I mostly doubt it), it failed, because it's just reproduced them instead.

[Yana]

Somehow this conversation has turned into a conversation on the failures of Big Bang Theory. If we're talking about the idea of leagues, every relationship demonstrates this concept of "good enough", and all the relationships on that show make me uncomfortable. And while I think that the whole idea of "leagues" based on normative culture are nonsense, I don't think it's nonsense to say that a person "deserves better" in the sense that they deserve someone who is kind supportive, and respectful of them.

Take the example of Bernadette and Howard. Academically, they seem to be at the same level, and Bernadette has a more advanced degree (avoiding one of the pitfalls of the Penny/Leonard relationship), and while Bernadette is more conventionally attractive, she seems to like Howard's appearance. I think she still deserves better in the sense that Howard is a frequent malcontent, a long term sexual harasser, and incredibly immature (plus, he seems to have serious issues when anyone is more successful than he is). I think that the relationship shown, especially in the earlier seasons (I stopped watching several years ago), is entirely on Howard's terms - which is troubling to me. I just want to draw the distinction between deserving better based on society's standards, vs. based on how the other person treats you, which Redskies discussed above.