Analysis Of The Book ' The Handbook For Men '

     Male expectations are ever present in our world creating an adverse effect on men making them feel inferior if they are unable to succeed financially. Arthur Miller’s play Death of a Salesman explicitly shows just how harmful these expectations can be to a person and their families. The main character in the play Death of a Salesman Willy Loman is greatly affected by these male expectations. The man is expected to not only support his family but must also be able to climb to the top of the corporate ladder. Willy’s inability to succeed financially as expected from society in turn affects his two sons Biff and Happy and his loving wife Linda.

What is it that drives commercials towards their target audience? Commercials can be for a certain age, race, and sometimes even a certain gender. Pop culture has influenced the minority groups and shed light to women 's rights or so it was thought. Lisa Shaffer a fellow student feels otherwise and believes that Pop culture has only defended traditional values and does little to challenge those who already have power . Commercials bring in gender norms and in Steve Craig’s article, “Men’s Men and Women’s Women” he speaks on four particular TV ads directed towards a particular gender. What is interesting is it shows a false image of the opposite sex to the audience being portrayed toward their preferences. It is the image the audience wants to see that appeals to them. This is all in an attempt to sell their products and take advantage of our desires and anxieties. Craig shows commercials brings gender norms that produce the ideas of what a man’s man and a woman’s woman which is why he would agree with Shaffer because it promotes an old way of thinking.

What is it that drives commercials towards their target audience? Commercials can be aimed toward certain age, race, along with certain gender groups. Pop culture has influenced minority groups and shed light on women 's rights or so it may seem. Lisa Shaffer a fellow student feels otherwise and believes that Pop culture has only defended traditional values and does little to challenge those who already have power . Commercials bring in gender norms and in Steve Craig’s article, “Men’s Men and Women’s Women” he speaks on four particular TV ads directed towards male and female audiences. Interestingly enough these tv ads deliver a false image of the opposite sex to the audience catering to their preferences. It is the image of what the audience wants to see that appeals to them. This is all in an attempt to sell products and take advantage of our desires and anxieties. Craig shows how commercials bring gender norms that produce the stigmas of a man’s man and a woman’s woman, which makes it apparent that he would agree with Shaffer because it promotes an old way of thinking.

“I am here to start a fight, because I’m a man and that’s how I solve problems” (Phillips) The main argument presented in Brian Phillips’s essay “Man Up” is what ‘being a man’ means in the football world. In football, being a man means dealing with your problems and not being afraid to fight back physically. Phillips says that football players put on this tough guy act on the field, they fight like real men, and do not run from their problems. In this essay, Phillips argues against this idea of toughness by redefining it. All aspects of football, not just the player, but the networks and the fans treat football as a man’s sport. Phillips addresses mental/emotional issues as a problem in football by describing the abusive relationship between Richie Incognito and Jonathan Martin. Since football is a man's sport, emotional issues are just unacceptable, but Phillips challenges this idea.

From an early age, our society begins to construct gender identities. Males are pressed to learn “suitable” gender roles in accordance to the masculine expectations our society has created. This means from a very early age boys are taught what it means to be a man. Porter’s way to explain masculine socialization is through what is known as the “man box.” Inside the box is a list of socially valued expectations that compose what manhood is about. The box includes expectations/guidelines such as, “don’t cry or openly express emotions (with the exception of anger), do not show weakness or fear, demonstrate power control especially over women (aggression dominance), be a protector, do not be “like a woman,” be heterosexual, do not be “like a gay man,” be tough, athletic, and strong, do not need help, and view women as property/objects.” This idea of manhood is instilled in young boys head and continues to stay with them for the rest of their lives. A fear

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When adolescent, inexperienced on the journey onward, it is the ambition of boys to become men. When physically mature, often deep into their journey of life, it is the aspiration of men to not lose their inner child. The 21 century, quite unlike any other century before, permits this progression to be an integral part of manhood. Arguably, the 21st century has embraced more tolerance than any other century before. Many identities have been redefined and some have been called to question. Nowadays, what it means to be a man is far more multifaceted than society understood it to be centuries ago. Even the definition of masculinity seems to have met its biggest resistance with gay rights. Authors like John Eldredge and Michael Kimmel both suggest

The article by Sally Raskoff states the current situation of gender and power in society. She states that we currently live in a male dominated society and hence our actions and languages reflect that. Examples of curse words are given to show how they refer to women negatively. This is happening because of male masculinity. According to Sally Raskoff, Males want to be seen as assertive, aggressive, and strong. And in order to show they are those things, they insult other males by referring to them as inferior things, body parts of women they consider to be “dirty”. One way to combat male masculinity is by emphasizing femininity, which is about encouraging women to be more nurturing, caring, mothering, and passive.

In Mac Marshall’s book Weekend Warriors he takes a look at the men of Truk Island in the South Pacific. The people of Truk Island are avid fishermen, relying on the sea for thousands of years for survival. According to Marshall who has lived among them, the Trukese men take their masculinity seriously and see it as something that can change. To present themselves as manly the men boost each other to take personal risks to their safety while thinking “manly” or “strong” thoughts (Marshall 1979).

The book Transforming the Inner Man gave me a greater understanding that were very helpful to me. In chapter three on Performance Orientation on page 44, John and Paula Sanford talked about performance orientation which refers neither to the work we do nor the things we accomplish, but to the false motives which impel us. I learned performance orientation is an attitude not a set of behaviors. It is an acceptance of lies about myself, built into myself from infancy. I realized I am angry that I must perform to earn everybody's (including God's) love, affection, appreciation, admiration and acceptance. I realize I will never be good enough, smart enough, attractive, worthy, deserving, or lovable enough to earn it. I realized my anger is often suppressed and I may rebel by sabotaging successes in order to fail.

In this story it primarily expresses what the idea of a man is, and how it that idea is extremely narrow and regularly unfair. To help reinforce this, the author Paul Theroux gives an example in his essay “Be a man!” strikes me as insulting and abusive. It means: Be stupid, be unfeeling, obedient, soldierly, and stop thinking.” (Theroux 1). That quote depicts Theroux’s view of what American society wants in men, and how it is exceedingly narrow and doesn’t give much room for anything else. Theroux is stating that that being a man means you have to follow one of these traits. One of those points leads us that men have a sense of being brash, cold hearted, loyal, warrior, and most importantly be tough. This sense of being tough is so dominate it allows for a constant pressure to up hold this in the public eye. Like Theroux, many men have to abide by these rules in order to within societal conformity. That means for males, they can only be seen as tough when it comes to everything.

I thought the Greer chapter on "Masculinity" to be quite frivolous in her observation of men. She obviously spent too much time in pool halls, taverns and soldier barracks performing research. I did not find it fair or helpful to compare an entire gender to the basest subset of the male population. Greer’s thirst to assign stereotypes to men invalidated much of her "research" and conclusions in my viewpoint. I found Meade to be difficult to read and understand, but I liked that she performed some immersive and exhausting research on her subjects. I do believe that society places some expectations on people based on their sex. However, I think society places a lot expectations on people, and people act differently based on their society. Society

As discussed in class and presented by several groups, when it comes to people appearing on magazine covers, the dominate race to be seen on covers are white people. It is never a half and half mark when putting a count on the covers. While doing research for the presentation for Men's health magazine, it became quite a struggle to gather information on which person was the first person to be on the cover who was of non-white ethnicity. GQ seemed to be easier to research since it is a much older magazine than Men's magazine.

American women have many reasons for not being involved in politics. Jennifer L. Lawless and Richard L. Fox the authors of Men Rule: The Continued Under Representation of Women in U.S. Politics, think that there are actually seven reasons. These reasons are backed by numerous charts based on surveys and studies conducted by the pair. These reasons range from how women think about the political system to women’s responsibility at home.

“The speed and power of the thing was greatly to be admired.” Nature had continued to overpower the men just as sharks can easily overpower any man, just like the shark is in this story. The shark having more power has the effect of making the men much more nervous. “The correspondent saw an enormous fin speed like a shadow through the water, hurling the crystalline spray and leaving the long glowing trail.” Sharks are very strong and aggressive animals, and the author uses words like ‘enormous’ and ‘hurling’ to make it clear to the audience.