Gender roles

Gender roles are bullshit. I've always hated them. As a kid, when people told me that boys weren't allowed to play house, I told them to shut up and pass me my springform pan. I loved baking. My rationale was always, if I had to be alone on an island with one other person, would I want to be with someone who cooks or someone who gets dirty and breaks shit? I think the choice is pretty clear.

There's no logic that justifies telling girls to behave differently from boys. There's also nothing damaging about little boys wearing girls' clothes, it just makes people uncomfortable- like the heels that fathers are afraid their sons might wear.

So I was pretty tickled today to see that slowly but surely, the gender gap is closing between men and women. At least in clothing choice in Southern France.

The guy on the left caught my eye because as I was trying to shove a Blackberry, a wallet, a train ticket, an iPod, a pack of cigarettes (oops), a lighter and a passport into my front pockets, he came waltzing by with a massive bag that would have accommodated all my things with enough spare room to carry a body.

He crossed the street, where he was greeted by a woman with open arms (on the right in the picture). As I watched them kiss, I was floored by how identically they were dressed. The scene reminded me of something my parents would have witnessed if they had come into my room as I made out with my mirror during high school.

I knew that I had to document this, so I hastily shoved everything into my pockets and, like a pervert, followed the couple through town.

I just wanted a clear shot to prove that they were, in fact, a couple, but since they kept a distance, presumably to spare each other from second hand smoke, I never got it.

Oh, well.

I was pleased to see that they could look pretty much the same while being in an ostensibly heterosexual relationship, which puts a massive hole in the theory that men will be gay if they dress like women or vice-versa. Of course, instead of flying across the Atlantic Ocean, I could have stalked a couple in a hipster neighborhood in LA, San Francisco, New York or pretty much any other place worth living in in America.

I'm pretty sure that by the time I'm old enough to have kids, gender roles will have loosened further and it will be okay for girls to break windows with baseballs. I really hope so, anyway, because I have big plans to make quiche lorraine with my son.