What do you call a woman who breaks up with a man and then takes a flight to see her ex-boyfriend from two years ago the very next day? What about one who asks a man what he’s looking for in a girlfriend but has zero intention of actually meeting those standards?
According to recent jokey clips on social media, these are women in the traditionally male-dominated field of playing games.
In one TikTok video after another, users facetiously identifying as #WomenInMaleFields are recounting — in a roundabout sort of way — their negative experiences dating men. Staring at their screens as Nicki Minaj’s “Anaconda” plays in the background, the women record themselves doing something — anything, really. The important part is the onscreen caption, in which the poster professes to engage in a toxic dating behavior typically attributed to men.
“A lot of the things that men do that we don’t are pretty universal, and I feel like it’s empowering to flip the script a little,” said Maayan Yve, 26, a content creator in living Toronto.
In her own video, Ms. Yve included a caption based on personal experience: “when he sends multiple texts in a row explaining what’s wrong but I only reply to the last and least important one #womeninmalefields.” In addition to being on the receiving end of such inadequate responses herself, Ms. Yve said she was aware of “many of the men” in her life, including friends and brothers, who were doing the same.
The hashtag is offering a way for women to let off steam and highlight their negative experiences dating men who weren’t kind or forthcoming about their intentions. Perhaps by exposing the dismissiveness, excuses and lies they have encountered while pursuing relationships (or settling for situationships), they are uncovering the playbook and can help women unite and avoid these dynamics going forward (and laugh about it in the meantime).
Being treated this way in a relationship is not new. Steve Harvey said it when he told women to “Think Like a Man.” Ciara said it when she wished that she could act “Like a Boy,” as did Beyoncé when she imagined what life would be like “If I Were a Boy.”
In some cases, the women aren’t putting on a show: They really do behave in the caddish ways described in their videos. Yaritza Ceballos, a tattoo artist living in Miami, captioned her post, “when he tells me I act single on Instagram so I told him social media is not a real place.”
In an interview, Ms. Ceballos, 26, lamented the type of man who assumes a certain level of commitment without bothering to confirm. “It was funny to me how he thought we were in a relationship, but he never asked me to be his girlfriend,” she said. “So he assumed I would be posting him on Instagram.”
Finding the relationship lacking in communication, she cut things off with the man.
The trend also underscores how situationships — a romantic or sexual relationship in which one or both parties do not communicate clearly to define their status — creates space for these sorts of behaviors to thrive. Ambiguity about what another person is to you can easily be leveraged for manipulative ends.
For Ms. Yve, the #WomenInMaleFields trend is a way to make men more aware of behaviors that they might not realize are undesirable.
Reading the comments on her video, she recalled, “there were a bunch of guys saying things along the lines of ‘Oh, I fully do this, and I didn’t even realize.’”
Whether or not the posters intended their videos to change hearts or minds, they seem to be having an effect. Several users wrote that they were shocked to realize that they weren’t the “only one” going through this. Others expressed thanks to content creators for sharing the exact the phrases and one-liners to look out for as red flags.
“It gives women a platform to challenge men in a way,” Ms. Ceballos said. “Like, ha-ha, we know what you’re doing.”
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