2 upvotes, 1 direct replies (showing 1)
View submission: XKCD 1325: Rejection
I'm can't say I've heard of a female version of friend zoning.
The term describes any instance where one party desires a relationship beyond friendship, with the other rejecting them by offering to be friends. As such it's gender-neutral. Now, it may seem gendered because the assumption in US society (and others) is that women are asked out by men. This means men are the ones who bring it up the most - it's most relevant to them. If the roles were reversed (or ideally, if there was no assumption on who was asking out whom) the term would almost certainly seem less gendered.
Unrequited love is a frustration all genders share, and all of them can have good and bad reactions to it. But humor can end up submitting to trends, and that's what happened here - the trend of calling out so-called nice guys made it into the comic. And like most humorous takes on things, the reality is much more complex.
Comment by FallenMatt at 04/02/2014 at 16:05 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I would most definitely disagree on that definition. I would say friend zoning is the situation where a male tries to date a woman only to be refused on the reason that "it would ruin our friendship/we are better off as friends". Friend zoning is the name given to this because it relegates the man to "the friend zone". Some men believe that this is in fact just a ploy because the girl doesn't see you as a sexual partner and performing certain actions will remove you from this " friend zone". There's a lot of objectifying and other stuff involved as well but let's not get into this.
Now I don't agree with this at all. It's a perfectly acceptable reason to turn someone down because you don't seem them as a partner, and really you don't need any reason apart from the fact you don't want to date someone. However many guys treat this refusal as something more than it is and attach feelings of dread and un-acceptance to the zone.
It seems to me that the culture around friend zone is firmly rooted in a man propositioning a woman. For whatever reasons (partly where it may be because of the assumption that it is a mans job to chase and for women to be chased but it is not soley this) it is viewed that when a friend zoning occurs it will be directed at a man. It's just not imagined for the situation to be reversed in popular media.