As Ehrmann states in the opening scene, “If you're going to be a man in this world, you better learn how to dominate and control people and circumstances.” This quote summarizes the never-ending goal men must meet in our society. This goal, of maintaining masculinity, has lead to the violence, depression, and confusion among males. In the film, they examine the cause and effect of male gender-policing in our society. Through personal anecdotes and expert testimony, the film sheds light on the painful cost of masculinity in America.
The behaviors and societal norms we associate with male and female are socially constructed. As Dr. Thompson states in the film “boys and girls are far more human and far more the same than they are different.” However,
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For example, my swim coach was always giving positive critiques to the boy swimmers and promoted the feeling of family within our team. However, for my brother when he played football, I remember how demeaning the coaches’ language was to the players. One organization he played at only allowed certain people to play while the other boys rarely played. Whereas, the second organization he played for managed to balance the spirit of football with being positive with the players. In this organization, I rarely heard negative things from coaches. Thus, the influence of a coach has a great impact on their players not only in their performance but also their ideas about …show more content…
For young males, “suicide is the third largest cause of death.” Also, at 15 “boys begin to have five times the rate of suicide as girls. Everyday 3 or more boys commit suicide” (Dr. Way, The mask You Live In). One example was the story of Luis and his mother. His dealing with depression and how he turned to drugs because of the loneliness he felt spoke loudly to not only white masculinity but minority masculinity. As a minority, he faced the pressures of being a man and being a first-generation American; having to make his mother proud of him. Another heartbreaking moment was during the mask exercise Ashanti Branch had his students perform. Hearing the things some of them were going through and the clip of the boy crying in his lap because of the burden he carries every day, speaks to the need to allow young males to express their emotions in a judgment-free environment. Through this, as shown in the San Quentin program, men are able to not only understand where their anger and depression stems from, but also how to deal with their issues and become better
Society faces an issue that is not usually addressed because it is seen as the norm in today’s American culture. It is the crisis of masculinity. The notion of how men should be portrayed is not usually identified as a problem; today’s society views men’s apathetic and exasperated exterior as the orthodox behavior of everyday life. Boys at a young age are taught by the popular culture that they need to be a “real man” - strong physically and emotionally. The mask many men put up is based on the extreme idea of masculinity that emphasizes toughness, physical strength and gaining the respect of others through violence or the explicit threat of it. This front is put up by men because they do not want to stray from what is accepted, for men who
Both Deborah Blum’s The Gender Blur: Where Does Biology End and Society Take Over? and Aaron Devor’s “Gender Role Behaviors and Attitudes” challenges the concept of how gender behavior is socially constructed. Blum resides on the idea that gender behavior is developed mainly through adolescence and societal expectations of a gender. Based on reference from personal experiences to back her argument up, Blum explains that each individual develops their expected traits as they grow up, while she also claims that genes and testosterones also play a role into establishing the differentiation of gender behavior. Whereas, Devor focuses mainly on the idea that gender behavior is portrayed mainly among two different categories: masculinity and
No matter what, we are almost always talking about violence masculinity in America. Whether we are talking about the horrifying, high-profile mass shooting we have seen over recent decades, the far greater rates of murder and gun violence we see on a day – to – day basis that barely register in the national news, or the epidemic of sexual violence and domestic violence, the vast majority of this violence is committed by men, young men, and boys (Jackson Katz, 2013). Throughout this essay the topics covered will be how culture defines masculinity, according to the film, violent masculinity as a cultural norm, agents of socialization that teach boys how to be men, the cool
Society’s current structure of masculinity is unforgiving in form. It cuts out other forms of masculinity, it physically and mentally demanding, and its ill effects extend far beyond the men it infuses itself in. Yet what would we do if we were given other options for masculinity, ones that allowed for unique blends of attitudes and perceptions? Looking in to the lives of homeless men we can see the forced strategies which create new masculine codes created for the adaption against patriarchal pressures. They are made out of survival need to circumnavigate the painful mental and physical reality that is only made worse by harsh masculine standards. Yet these new masculinities hold out a form of hopefulness for society. They offer up new discussion to what it means to be a man, the potential for change, and what we can expect from changes in male identity over time. Using what we learn from the disadvantaged, we can hope to improve the lives of people, although the process will take time, effort, and careful mediation.
In today’s society, masculinity has changed throughout time. Fast forward one hundred years ago, masculinity is defined as being strong and having a good paying job. But as the world is changing so is the representation of manliness. You don’t have to show your dominance over men or women today, but you should support your family nowadays and we have all been brainwashed by the thought of masculinity from our ancestors. As men our reputation is always being valued but now it isn’t so much about our reputation but about caring for one another and especially for our families. Perspective of manhood is also a significant factor in portraying what masculinity is in the eyes of other people. Masculinity has been shown through money, appearance, and providing protection for your family members but as we shift into the modern world, masculinity is not seen as displaying the most discipline but caring for one another by taking out some of your time to help one another. Throughout the paper, I will be writing about my interviews from a broad spectrum of ages from one of my younger sisters to my dad with not friends not at Seb’s in between so I can get what it really means to be a man from all ages.
Americans understanding about getting involved in physical activity has been evolving since the idea of sport first entered the culture. At first a sport was nothing more than a way to prove yourself to others and to show masculinity. These changes were brought to fruition through more knowledge. When Americans first realized that physical health was of importance, it was what started to make sure that everyone was getting active in some way. These changes happened first for males. It was, for a long time, still considered inappropriate for a female to in peak physical condition. Because it took so long for anyone to believe that the same resources that men were given to stay physically active should be given to women to, women are still not given the same opportunities at any level of sport in America today.
Regardless of my lack of adequate educational opportunities during my childhood, as I progressed throughout my higher academic courses over the past years, I have learned that I have always been treated differently due to my sexual orientation. In other words, as a heterosexual Christiane male in the American community; I have always being treated with honor simply because I supposedly fit the acceptable identity of a male standard within the Liberian and American community. For example, as a straight man in the American and Liberian community, I have the freedom to use any restroom and I have the opportunity to walk around my community without fearing for my safety as compared to a LGBT person. Unfortunately, members of LGBT label do not get
There is a masculinity crisis in America that has been escalating, since society has gravitated to the auspice of anti-marriage and single parenthood. The nuclear family is the root of a successful society. In a traditional nuclear family, family structure plays a vital role in the healthy developmental stages from birth through adolescence; otherwise, the child cannot adjust due to lack of social conventions. There are numerous factors that contribute to the threat of masculinity in our society; namely, families headed by single mothers, the media metrosexualizing males, and absence of God.
The Hippie era has come to end and the days of self awareness have arrived. Instead of focusing on love to all, many Americans were indulging in their self pleasure. According to Alfred Kinsey’s research Americans sexual behavior deviated from their widely accepted norms (Glbt.com/shsh/sexrevo cites correctly). Wilhelm Reich added to Kinsey’s research with a remark that he believed sexual repression overwhelmingly distorted psychological development (glbt.com/shsh). To further societies receptivity of sexuality the case Roth v. United States in 1956 created a public arena in which it became possible to discuss sex and represent it both literary and visually (glbt.com). Furthermore the counterculture of the 60’s had a new candidness of sexuality,
Showing your humanity through raw emotions used to be seen as proof of a person’s sincerity, honesty, and integrity. Something happened in the 20th century, women became the picture of teary-eyed fragility and the tearless, aggressive male became the ideal of masculinity. Media messages, commercials, and television shows stopped portraying men as responsible, competent, and compassionate husbands, sons, and fathers, instead they consist of idiotic or misogynistic archetypes. When men are portrayed as sensitive humans, it is largely under the caveat of being gay. As stated in A New Vision of Masculinity, there is still little worse than being mistaken for a homosexual (Cooper, 2016).
I think you did a great job of explaining which narrative you chose and shared your favorite line. Like yourself, I also enjoyed how Perrin discusses how society interprets feminism and masculinity. I also was admired by the fact that he enjoyed nurturing his family and exhibiting emotions such as love to his daughter’s cat. To me men and women should be able to share their feelings, likes and dislikes without the world condemning them as something out of the norm. What is normal? In today’s society, the media portray numerous examples of how men and women should represent themselves in the sense of actions, behavior, and appearance. Too many people in today’s society worry too much about meeting society’s standards
Masculinity is described as possession of attributes considered typical of a man. Hegemonic masculinity is a form of masculine character with cultural idealism and emphasis that connects masculinity to competitiveness, toughness, and women subordination. Masculinity hegemonic is the enforcement of male dominion over a society. Masculine ideology dates back to the time of agrarian and the industrial revolution in Europe when survival compelled men to leave their homesteads to work in industries to earn a living for their families while women remained at home to take care of family affairs (Good and Sherrod 210). Women did not work in industries then because industrial labor was considered too physical beyond their capacity. This led to
These claims by culture and feminism do not match up with the definition of manliness, and that is where the debate lies. If the discrepancy was due to the researchers Mansfield and Gilmore, what are they to make of their observations and study? What are we to do with centuries of history in which humans lived with men at the helm because they were needed? How are we to explain the unconscious feeling that a man is doing right when he works to provide for his family? How can we explain the opposite feeling when a man does not? The argument that is not being made on the manliness side is that men should be the only ones in government or in business or that misogyny plays any role at all. They are not arguing for a return of the patriarchy, but they are arguing for a return of true manliness.
Masculinity is diverse and it pervasive as discourse in the in the individual consciousness. Foucault (1990), in his book “The History of Sexuality” at part “Scientia Sexualis”, offered a new concept of power that is not based on a particular class domination to view sexuality. Therefore, the power that is constantly competing to gain access to the formation of the truth-Knowledge. Masculinity as a discourse, in the end, would be a basis of truth -knowledge, that is applied by action. As a knowledge, masculinity ultimately affect the sexual life of the individual, in such matter, this male masculinity of the man. The influence of discourse on sexual life depicted by the society. For example, the tribes and religion believe virginity is sacred, and responsibility to keep women virgin or on their pregnancy because having sex with them is the construction of masculinity.
which each person respects the group to which he or she belongs (Rees & Edwards, 2011). Countries such as USA, UK, and Australia are more to individualism. This is because they are only focus on themselves and their immediate family; prefer to have privacy, favour to have personal opinion and so on. On the contrary, Malaysia, Indonesia, China, and Venezuela are some of the countries that used collectivism. There are always relying on each other and focus on group’s welfare.