Media and fighting: highlighting the "divide"

What is our culture's obsession with fighting over men and women? 


"Sexual desires do not unite men but divide them." When I heard this quote, I immediately thought of how this concept is extremely common (and even celebrated) in our society today. With both men and women, fights over individuals they desire are commonplace - with some even being physical and violent. A Google search shows at least 5 news results in the last month regarding bodily fights over a member of the opposite sex. Freud, after this quote on 502, continues on saying that "...they [brothers] were all one another's rivals in regards to women. Each of them would have wished, like his father, to have the woman to himself." I think this really holds true today, especially in terms of physical violence against another person in order to get the one they want. 

People love the idea of "winning the girl" - innumerable movies are based off of this premise. Most notably, a movie called This Means War (made in 2012) is about two CIA agents to date the same woman. They spy on the girl and each other, eventually physically fighting each other in front of her. On a lesser scale, movies like Bridget Jones's Diary and the Twilight Saga highlight this concept of men fighting over women. The "winning the girl" concept is more commercialized, as I don't think I can recall one movie that shows two girls fighting over a guy. However, girls fighting over men does happen, and is encouraged in a "catty" sense. A YouTube search shows a video with over 500,000 views called "2 WOMEN FIGHT OVER A MAN".


Both of these concepts - the catty girls fighting over a guy and the noble men fighting over a girl - don't give either gender enough credit. Regardless, they come up again and again in our culture via the media.