Cue Beyonce’s iconic song, “If I Were A Boy.”
Some women who are actively dating have had enough of being treated poorly regarding love and are deciding to take action to level the playing field, where the ‘Women in Male Fields’ TikTok dating trend enters the chat. This trend comes from the theory that women have historically been excluded from jobs in male-dominated fields and treated poorly within interpersonal relationships with men, as most videos center on workplace, career, and societal expectations for women.
Essentially, this viral dating trend, with the hashtag #womeninmalefields, involves women pointing out the perceived toxic behavior and patterns of men and flipping the script by acting just like them. Some toxic relational patterns spotlighted within this trend aim to expose and dismantle the societal structures that women, unfortunately, experience in heteronormative relationships, with the hopes of challenging these hurtful norms to create equity and respectful relationships.
However, some women are deciding to take this trend and literally mirror their male counterparts’ disrespectful behavior, which includes lying, cheating, gaslighting, and saying derogatory remarks against their partner, making it challenging to delineate if their dark humor has any truth to it – which it likely does.
The women who choose to participate in this challenge have been subjected to toxic experiences in interpersonal partnerships, and with over 100,000 videos spread across TikTok, it’s disheartening to see. But these women are taking their power back by showing how ridiculous and problematic these behaviors are.
But do two wrongs make a right? The purpose of the dating trend is to make a statement against toxic male behavior and patterns in romantic relationships and how they are detrimental to the mental, emotional, and health of women. Still, some TikTok users are leveraging the trend to flip the script, proving that they can do similar behavior while establishing control, which does not allow for mutual respect and understanding between the opposite sex.
One TikToker user made a video alluding to cheating and gaslighting in relationships, where she wrote, “When he catches me lying, so I hit him with ‘rd bro believe what you want.”
While the root of #womeninmalefields is women exposing unhealthy behaviors in romantic relationships, it’s now morphing into a pseudo-female empowerment and male-bashing trend and proving to be unproductive to sparking actionable change in how we communicate with the opposite sex. Instead, it furthers the same toxic behaviors that are eroding trust, loyalty, and love between the two sexes.