When discussing Navigating Masculinities, it is important to look at the back ground knowledge scholars have found. In chapter 3 of Exploring Masculinities, Pascoe and Bridges start out with an introduction explaining how this section deals with the barriers men are faced with in their daily lives. This can be with their sex, race, religion, or even beliefs system. They all play a part within each other that can cause some type on inequality. In fact, they use an example of this on page 223 about a birdcage. They build off of this by saying the wires on the cage are an example of all different kinds of inequalities each man can face. (Pascoe & Bridges, 2016) This shows that although men are the dominant gender, they are too faced with many
Lady Macbeth in the beginning of the play is very manipulative, most of the times she manipulates her husband into doing either what she wants or what she thinks should do. Even though, Lady Macbeth is a woman she single-handedly planned Duncan’s murder, from how to execute it and how to pin it on someone else and at some points Macbeth did not want to do it, but she manipulated him into it. For example, when Macbeth does not want to carry one with this plan, Lady Macbeth convinces him by saying “from this time such I account thy love. Art thou afeared to be the same in thine own act and valor as thou art in desire? (I.vii line 38-41), in this this quote lady Macbeths is influencing her husband’s feelings. This is because she is challenging
It’s a hard time to be male in America and that fact alone should make everyone want to change it. In the Ted Talk “The Mask of Masculinity” by Connor Beaton, he described how men are faced with many challenges throughout their whole life. This includes being taught not to have emotion and that their highest value in life is to have dominance and control. If they portray any kind of feminine traits like singing, dancing or love, they are automatically not a real man anymore. Beaton claims that the biggest challenge men face is, “. . . being able to overcome and move through some of the negative stereotypes that surround masculinity.” The biggest problem today is that men think in order to succeed in life, they have to be in total control and
In Pollack’s expert of Inside The World Of Boys Behind The Mask Of Masculinity, the author illuminated the oppressive struggles males endure as a result of “Boy Codes”. Within the excerpt, Pollack defines “Boy Codes” as a “straitjacket”, or a constraint of male emotions in order to correctly function with society’s assumption, attitudes, and codes towards male figures. Thus, Pollack notes that males employ a “mask of masculinity” to “hide their genuine self” and in turn “conform to our society’s expectations”. Through one’s use of the “mask of masculinity: or “boy codes”, males begin to live a “semi-inauthentic lives” by deeming “fear, uncertainty, loneliness, and need” unacceptable.
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.
The definition of masculinity; Is the fact of being a man or having qualities considered typical of a man.
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.
What is it to be a man? Masculinity is defined and characterized differently across cultures and time there is no “global” standard. In some cultures, being a man may mean being comfortable with both your masculine and feminine sides or it could suggest being “tough” and not letting your feelings show at all. Manliness can be demonstrated in some cultures by providing for a family through work, and in others, it might mean scoring the winning goal in a championship game. Trying to define one’s own masculinity and live up to its standards is a tough and grueling task that many men struggle with. Maintaining this masculinity is something that the male characters in both Death of a Salesman and A Raisin in the Sun are familiar with.
Masculinity is a socially constructed practice that guarantees the domination of men and the subordination of women. This practice has been looked at as a superior “force of nature” in literature for years and years, and Frederic Henry from A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway, McMurphy from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by Ken Kesey, and Joe from Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston, all use their masculine identity as a way to gain and maintain power, both subconsciously and consciously. Masculinity and the supposed traits that come along with it, such as the right to power and the right to use violence, are used as means to find fulfillment and success. Henry considers masculinity to be the ultimate stressor of personal autonomy; he consciously commits himself to masculine acts (suppression of emotion, fighting in war) in order to be considered a dominant figure. McMurphy views the feminine as destructive to men and fights back in an attempt to defeat the “Combine,” or cold war society, that suppresses masculine identity and heteronormative sexual performance. Joe uses the practice of masculinity to justify acts of violence against women: as the supreme being, he can control the weaker gender for his benefit.
T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land explores modernism, specifically focusing on the troubling of binaries and the breakdown of the traditional. The boundaries between life and death, wet and dry, male and female, and more are called into question in Eliot’s conception of modernity and the waste land. The blurring of gender boundaries—significantly through Tiresias and the hooded figure scene in “What the Thunder Said”— in the poem lends itself to Eliot’s suggestion that traditional masculinity breaks down and decays in the waste land. Traditional masculinity is further challenged through Eliot’s criticism of hyper-masculinity and heterosexual relations in the modern era through allusions to the myth of Philomela and the “young man carbuncular” scene in “The Fire Sermon.” Along with this, Eliot stages scenes charged with homoeroticism to further challenge ideas of traditional masculinity. Homoerotic scenes such as the “hyacinth girl” scene in “The Burial of the Dead” and the Mr. Eugenides scene in “The Fire Sermon” suggest an intensity and enticement towards male-male relations, while also offering a different depiction of masculinity than is laid out in the heterosexual romance scenes. Through scenes depicting queer desire and homosexual behavior, Eliot suggests that masculinity in the modern era does not need to be marked by aggression and
To read Babio without recognizing the gender politics at work in the play would disregard much of how the play itself creates meaning. So much of the play’s plot and character dynamics are related to the way gender functions in this play. One major theme of Babio is the idea of masculinity and how masculinity is defined. Through the portrayal of Babio as an effeminate character, Babio is able to define masculinity through absences in Babio’s Character. Consequently, Babio makes the additional point that lovesickness is not an intrinsic aspect of medieval masculinity, despite the fact that love sickness is often attributed to men.
One of the main themes in “The Sun Also Rises” centers around masculinity and what it means to be a man. WWI was vastly different than previous wars because of revolutionary advancements in weaponry. Because of this, the brave soldier with a face of stoicism, willing to run head first into battle was reduced to an almost cowardice child forced to huddle in trenches with men in the same position relying luck rather than skill or valor to survive. Hemingway, a man who fought in WWI, was forced by the war to reevaluate his perspective of masculinity. These radically changed ideas are embodied by the characters Jake Barnes, Robert Cohn, Lady Brett Ashley, Pedro Romero and Bill Gorton.
I found an African-American female sitting in the student center on the phone right by the glass window by the pool area. She has on blue jeans and a black shirt, black and white van shoes on. She keeps smiling while she twirls her hair, it looks like she is talking to her boyfriend. She got up and walked out the door by the game area. I walked to the gym that’s right for the student center desk, I notice a Caucasian male and female playing volleyball each other, I sat down on the bleachers with my basketball and watched how they talked to each other to see if they were dating, friends maybe even brother or sisters. The male spiked the ball and the girl giggled and blushed real hard; right then I had the assumption that the two were neither dating or brothers or sister they were just in the talking stage.
‘Masculinity refers to the social roles, behaviours, and meanings prescribed for men in any given society at any one time… Although we experience gender to be an internal facet of identity, the concept of masculinity is produced within the institutions of society and through our daily interactions (Kimmel 2000)’ . As the type of behaviour and ideals that constitute as masculine vary depending on the social context of the time, the portrayal of masculinity in Beowulf and SGGK (Sir Gawain and the Green Knight) will be somewhat different. Traditional traits that are commonly regarded as fitting with the concept of masculinity include physical prowess, courage, honour and glory, and loyalty. The representation of these traits in the respective two poems will be explored in this essay and it will be argued that while the expectations of masculinity are very similar in both poems, there are some striking differences, particularly a much greater emphasis on the importance of a man achieving glory in Beowulf and a greater regard for life in SGGK.
Compare and contrast the representation of masculinity in two films or TV series of your choice.
Everyone who does not fit the idea of masculinity has been placed in the other category. Kids have a hard time to self-identify themselves because of all the masculine role moles that present themselves in the media. Masculinity has created a structured binary that makes their role the ideal role for society to be. That ideal role is traced back to a long history of old traditions, that society cannot look past. This ideal of masculinity has created complications within gender and sexuality that have made people hold onto heteronormative ideals. The heteronormative ideals have created a privilege society where the white males dominate the world and place everyone who does not fit in their binary into the other people category.