University guys are whining babies?

It seems like being a man can be quite tough these days.

There has been a lot of talk lately targeted on local university male students. I read with interest in one of the local newspaper which interviewed female undergraduates and graduates on their opinions of their fellow male peers. To my surprise, of the 100 interviewees who participated in the opinion poll, 70 % of them felt that male undergraduates are whiners.

Oh really? My eyebrows rose. This seems too much like a sweeping statement to me.

I am not speaking up for male undergraduates and I do agree that there are really some black sheep who are immature in their thinking and love to whine. However, I believe these are just the minority of the male undergraduates. At the very least, most of the guys that I know in university are not whiners.

In the newspaper interview, some examples of immature guys that female undergraduates could not stand include: those who stay in hostel but rely on their girlfriend or parents to tidy up their rooms, make their girlfriend wash their dirty clothes (including soiled underwear), or guys who conveniently shun project work, do not do their tutorials and simply copy from others, guys who ask their female classmates for answers during tutorials just in case the tutor questions them and they will not give a silly answer, guys who have a question to ask the tutor but instead “encourage” the girls to do it for them. And the list goes on. One interviewee even cited an example of a guy who cried because of a disagreement during a committee meeting.

All these may be true experiences that some female undergraduates have seen or heard of the male students. These may also be the behaviour of some male undergraduates which irked their female schoolmates.

But, are these examples exclusive to guys? Do some girls not behave in this way as well? Why do girls react so strongly against guys who act in these ways? If I have a female and male friend who both cried during a committee meeting (this seems like a rather ridiculous and hilarious example), my heart would probably go out to the girl, console her and feel sorry for her being upset. As for the guy, I probably think, “my goodness! You are such a big man and yet you cry over such a small thing? You are so immature!”

Why do we set a relatively higher tolerance level for girls who whine, but slam guys who do so? Could it be because we expect too much from the guys?

In Singapore, when girls embark on their university studies, their fellow male freshmen are usually two years older, since all local guys have to go through National Service for about two years before going to university (unless they are disrupted due to scholarships or for other reasons).

Perhaps, it is because of this age difference (between the undergraduate guys and the girls in the same cohort) that makes it natural for the girls to think that the guys they meet in class and tutorials should be more mature in their thinking, have more confidence and have more opinions to share. And whining is a definite “no no”.

Perhaps, it is also because of the stereotypical views we have on guys: they should be stronger in mind, and in face of adversity, they should brace up and not succumb to it, much less reduce themselves to whining babies. As for girls, we tend to give ourselves and others more “allowance”: we need not always hold up a strong front, if things get too tough, it is fine to whine and cry a bit.

Some people may feel that all these talk about male undergraduates being whiners are nonsensical and senseless. I think it may well end up in a cross fire between the guys and girls, with each party saying “nasty” things (which may not be necessarily be true) about the other.

I feel that there is no point in bringing down the entire group of male undergraduates, make them appear in bad light in the media, much less portray them as whiners. Perhaps, everyone has a different phase of growing up; a whining boy today will grow up to be a mature young man later on, similarly for a whining girl. Let’s just hope the black sheep will grow up, and soon that is.