Why we need to end the “Good Guys Are Hard to Find” narrative

Earlier this week Jezebel reposted a great essay by Hugo Schwyzer titled How the “Good Guys Are Hard To Find” Narrative Hurts Women. In the essay Schwyzer writes of his female students (high school and college-aged) and how he’s worked with girls who believe that if  their bodies aren’t perfect, they have no right to expect too much from guys. One girl figured she had no right to ask her boyfriend to stop checking out other girls when they were together. Another young woman said she couldn’t expect her boyfriend to choose spending time with her over watching porn or playing video games because she doesn’t look like “freakin’ Megan Fox.”


Schwyzer writes:

This perfectionism dovetails dangerously with another theme in young women’s lives: the “good guys are hard to find” narrative. This belief that reliable and loving young men are rare reinforces the pursuit of skinny, sexy, beauty: the fewer decent lads out there, the more “choice” those guys have. And even the decent ones, so the culture tells us, will make relationship decisions based on women’s appearance. For some, that means all the more reason to compete – and for others, all the more reason to opt out and “settle” for what they’ve been told is the best they can reasonably hope for.

Some people say the solution to this is to do a better job of raising our daughters. While I agree that it’s important for girls (and boys too for that matter) to have their confidence bolstered by their families, I’m not convinced this is enough. I grew up with two parents who constantly told me I was smart and beautiful and fearfully and wonderfully made by God. They told me I should only have relationships with boys who would respect me and my body. While I do credit this upbringing with helping me make good choices about sex, it did not keep me from staying in relationships with assholes for far too long. 


Sometimes it was because I was foolish enough to believe I could turn a jackass into a gentleman, but when I was a young teen I stayed with a jerk because I thought I should feel lucky that an older, handsome, and popular guy would even bother with a flat-chested, acne-prone bookworm like me (who also had no idea what to do with her hair).


Schwyzer believes this mentality is in part due to the fact that tweens and teens grow up comparing themselves to models and TV stars which suggests that instead of simply a change at home, we also need a change on societal level. But this is obviously something that will take decades, perhaps centuries, to change, if it ever changes.

In the meantime, we need to do what we can on a community level through mentoring and other programs, such as those that help girls surround themselves with supportive friends. I can remember that despite my bad luck with guys I never once thought of abandoning intellectual pursuits in favor of making myself hotter for the fellows. Why? Because I had a great group of girlfriends who all knew it was cool to be a nerd.