Masculinity and Evolutionary Psychology Essay

The definition of masculinity; Is the fact of being a man or having qualities considered typical of a man.

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

Compare and contrast the representation of masculinity in two films or TV series of your choice.

Now, taking into account the SQ/EQ, we can determine how individuals would respond to regular situations. The response to stimuli is heavily weighted on self and our own experiences - as we are a product of our environment. However, fifty percent of one’s own personality is determined genetically, within one’s very own alleles. This is why people act so much like their parents. Mothers can actually pass down a gene to their sons that makes them dangerously unempathetic. This exact gene is what causes more men than women to become serial killers. In addition to the basis of human structure, men also have a higher tendency to be aggressive, rendering most empathetic responses null, and barely thought about. Since males are more likely to be systemizers, their

Science supposed to be unbiased in disregard of gender. Scientist supposed to back the truth through fair and honest experiments without bias or sexual preference but history had taught us that even in science, women are perpetuated and “used” for their own patriarchal gain. In the paper “The Evolutionary Origins of Patriarchy” by Barbara Smuts, Smuts talks about evolutionary basis of male motivation to control female sexuality. Evolutionary psychology has its roots in Charles Darwin theory of Natural Selection-“Through natural selection, [Darwin] explained, men had become superior to woman in courage, energy, intellect and inventive genius and thus would inevitably excel in art, science and philosophy” (The Female Malady, p.122). Such publications not only gave burst to the male society (patriarchal) but gave them more reasons to perpetuate inequality. This is also corroborated by another journal, in the paper “The Origins of Sex Differences in Human Behavior” by Alice H. Eagly and Wendy Wood, which they conclude by saying that evolutionary

Many people confuse the definition of gender and sex. “Gender, on the other hand, refers to the meanings, values, and characteristics that people ascribe to different sexes. Sex is a biological concept, determined on the basis of individual 's primary sex characteristics.” (Blackstone) Society gives social cues on the appropriate behavior for each sex. For example, women are to exert more feminine traits such as being dependent, emotional, passive, innocent, nurturing, and/or self-critical. On the contrary, men should be more

The article “The National Conversation in the Wake of Littleton is Missing the Mark" By Jackson Kats and Sut Jhally is about finding the cause of violence and relating it to students who dispense harm to society, as well as other students. There is a focus on masculinity, along with behavior and how that behavior is being influenced by the environment. The article focuses on factors such as peer exclusion, the prevalence of violence in the media and most importantly, violence in relation to gender. .

Sociologists reject the idea that behavioural differences between men and women are biologically determined. Outline the key grounds for this rejection and discuss what this means for a sociological understanding of gender.

What makes a man, a “man”? Is it how much money he makes? The car he drives? The life he lives? Or, the amount of “Masculinity” that he shows? These are some of the stereotypical question that becomes the ideas of what men should have or strive to achieve. In Post-Princess Models of Gender: The New Man in Disney/Pixar by Ken Gillam and Shannon R. Wooden, they bring forth the ideas/thought of what the characteristic of men should be, by the overly influential control Disney and Pixar have on us and our future generation. Similar to what Matthew Immergut, in his article Manscaping: The Tangle of Nature, Culture and the Male Body, they both share ideas on the thought of man. The argument addressed in the question is either the way we view masculinity should be changed or not to determine us as men. In which the answer is, yes it should. Male or man, is a gender identity which show/ categorize, us separate from our female counterpart, Female or woman. But then are criticized on their place a “males” by getting in situation the emasculate them. Just because men independent or allowing for help, either overly sensitive or possess a lack of emotion, or whether or not “he” shaves his body or not should deter what the worlds thought on his masculinity

Evolutionary history effects more than just genetic behaviour level. It also effects how society socializes its members. Males –despite having the innate behaviors and perspectives on relationships— experience socialization that, in essence, reinforces gender differences in perspectives and behavior. From early childhood up until adulthood, the individual is bombarded with a plethora of advertisments that portray males as more aggressive (Henslin p. 78). In television male newscasters turn female athletes into sexual objects (78). And socialization is not limited to the media. It begins in the home –within the family. In an experiment performed by Goldberg and Lewis, Mothers were more less likely to keep their boys

Another evolutionary explanation of gender development is mate choice, which suggests that gender role behaviours are related to reproductive strategies. It is thought that men will look for women who are young whereas women are usually more interested in the resources of a mate. This can be explained from an evolutionary perspective as mating with a physically attractive woman

All societies behave in a different way towards two sexes and distinguish two genders. Through innumerable indications, we are taught that men and women are different. In everyday life, it is commonly assumed that men are more aggressive than women. Statistics indicate that males are more likely than females to commit such crimes as murder, armed robbery, and aggravated assault which are the result of feeling aggressive. In addition men describe themselves as being aggressive to a greater extent than do women and show greater potential for acting aggressively. All of these assumptions lead us to a certain question: Why are human males more aggressive than females? Actually, there are two

Interpersonal Theories of Gender are described as factors that influence the development of masculinity and femininity. Our text states, “Psychodynamics theory emphasizes

In her paper on the biological differences in cognition between men and women, Doreen Kimura suggests that the social differences between genders arose out of biological necessity (Kimura 46). Even so, it is difficult to argue that social factors do play a large part in gender in society today. A closer look at both biological and social perspectives will reveal more about the processes that determine gender roles.

As evident from the generalized patterns found in differences in behaviour and outlook observed between the sexes, it may be tempting, as has been done in the past, to conclude that gender is an unavoidable aspect of human existence as determined purely from one 's genes. Indeed, human physiology is subject to sexual dimorphism; statistically significant differences in brain size and rate of maturation of specific substructures in the brain exist between males and females (Giedd, Castellanos, Rajapakese, Vaituzis, & Rapoport, 1997), yet these physical differences fail to explain how individuals form their concept of their own gender, and why they tend to conform to their perceived gender roles as defined by the society in which they live, when these roles are ever-changing. Thus, it is important to differentiate between the physical and nonphysical traits, and how the labels of femininity and masculinity should not confuse the two aspects. As defined by Unger (1979), “sex” would be used to refer to the biological differences in males and females, while “gender” describes socioculturally determined, nonphysiological traits which are arbitrarily designated as being appropriate for either females or males. With more recent awareness and interest in matters of gender nonconformity and individual gender identity, new research now explains how these concepts of gender are shaped by social influences (Perry