The Ideal Man?

The other day I was handed a small yellow post-it note, from my teacher, with the phrase “6 characteristics of an ideal man”. She wanted us to give her only 6 characteristics of our ideal man. For me, this question was quite difficult to answer because there isn’t really a way to describe my ideal man in only 6 characteristics. After taking a while to think about it I came up with, what I thought to be, 6 of the most important traits: Trustworthy/Honest, Respectable, Hard-working, Sense of Humor, Loving/Caring and finally he has to have a feminine-side, meaning he is in touch with his emotions. Now to me those are some pretty common characteristics, yes? However, when we put a list up of everyone else’s, there were some surprises. Most people did agree upon general good attributes/qualities; however some went into a little more detail. Few people made sure that they put “hot” or “hot abs” and even “nice tattoos” and “piercings”. But is it really the looks that are the most important thing? Another point that surprised me was that a lot of women put trustworthy and honest, implying the stereotype that men cannot be trusted and will go and cheat on their girlfriend/fiance/wife. This whole topic pretty well related to one of my favorite movies, starring Gerard Butler and Katherine Heigl: The Ugly Truth. One hilarious movie, but yet contains many stereotypes and true facts about both men and women. One quote that stuck out the most concerning this topic was the conversation between Abby and Mike:

Abby: The big strong brave men, that we've all been reading about in novels and watching in movies since we've been nine years old, - -that's a fallacy. They don't exist. Men are not strong. Men are not brave. Men, are afraid. Even if they have a moment in a hotel elevator and it's totally romantic and full of potential, men are incapable of copping to it because, why? Men are weak.
Mike: Let me tell you something about women. Women would have us believe that they are the victims; That we break their hearts for sport. That's crap. They say they want romance, they say they want true love, but all they want is a check list. Is he perfect? Is he handsome? Is he a doctor? For you men who fit the criteria, don't kid yourselves. Cuz they're not sleeping with you, they're sleeping with a carefully calculated set of venal choices. Money over substance, looks over soul, polished over principles. No gesture, no matter how real or romantic will ever compensate for a really impressive list of credentials.

This quote pretty well explains itself, all about women wanting to meet this perfect guy, making sure that he is everything on their “checklist”. But then again in the same quote, Abby was explaining how men aren’t all what we stereotype them to be. To me, the entire movie was strictly related to gender and the stereotypes associated with gender. A perfect example of this was the movie poster (shown above); “it reinforces the gender norms that the movie portrays. Women think/feel/love with their heads, men think/feel/love with their genitals. Women can't do anything based solely on sexual desire. Men can't do anything based on their or others intelligence.” 2. If this movie isn’t a perfect example of gender norms and stereotypes then I don’t know what is.

References:
1 Quote taken from the movie The Ugly Truth, produced in 2009
2 Sundstorm, Laura. The Truth about the Ugly Truth. Adventures of a Young Feminist.