Representations Of Gender And Masculinity

Pat Barker sets her novel Regeneration in Craiglockhart War Hospital during the First World War. Craiglockhart is where the traumatised and shell shocked British soldiers are sent to be cured under the watchful eye of army Psychiatrist Dr William Rivers. Not only are the soldiers suffering from shell shock, they’re also fighting to save their manliness. Masculinity and gender roles play a massive role in the novel and this essay will show that Barker explores these themes through the thoughts and feelings of the shell shocked and sometimes confused soldiers. One theme that Barker explores throughout the novel is the theme of homosexuality, and even though it’s not clear, Barker implies that Dr Rivers is homosexual.

However, there are limits to the acceptability of male emotional interaction in the book. In Chapter 17 of the book, Dr Rivers lists an array of limitations. He proceeds to tell Sassoon that patriotism is very widely encouraged, "at the same time there's always a little bit of anxiety. Is it the right kind of love?" Homosexuality is very heavily foreshadowed. Dr Rivers states that during a war, the reaction to homosexuality would only be more intolerant and negative than in peacetime, as the authorities and society would want to make it clear and state that there are penalties and serious consequences for the wrong kind of love. In this case, homosexuality. From this perspective, love between men—and male emotional relationships are a smaller part of a larger thing that is decided to be socially unacceptable

In “The Things They Carried”, Tim O’Brien uses male gender roles and masculinity as additional devices in telling a fictionalized war story. Throughout “The Things They Carried”, each of the characters is putting up a facade that highlights their hyper masculine traits based on male gender roles and social norms. Therefore, masculinity influences all of the soldiers in one way or another. Some traits even become synonymous with particular characters. Each one being a different representation of what gender roles they are to follow or not, even in a setting of war. By using male gender roles and masculinity in telling this fictionalized war story, their actions and ways of speaking are“performative actions” that either enforce their masculinity or takes away it.

Regeneration focuses on troubled soldiers ' mental states during WW1. The Craiglockhart setting allows Barker to explore the psychological effects of warfare on men who went to fight and also their feelings about the war and the military 's involvement in it. While the focus of the novel is firmly on the male perspective (indeed Barker claimed she had partly chosen this novel to prove she could 'do men as well as women '), there is a small but important female presence.

...Tell me is it cool to fuck?” or Jay-Z’s hit song: 99 problems, “99 Problems but a bitch ain 't one. If you having girl problems. I feel bad for you son. I got 99 problems but a bitch ain 't one.Hit me.” Each song displays a different type of hatred and is sexually degrading towards women in their own way. However, many of these rappers face the pressures of their hierarchy, the corporations that produce this music, and find what its viewers are listening and responding to the most. The content of the messages in these rap lyrics has become more hardcore over the past years in order to make records sell, because that’s what consumers like, that’s what they want to hear. The negative depiction and hegemonic masculinity are what is making these records sell. Consumers play a key role in the process. Misogynistic representations of women and the more general marketing of “hood narratives”, occur in part, in response to a perceived consumer demand for stereotypical representations of the ghetto, and specifically of young Black men and women (Watkins 2001:389). Negative representation towards women isn’t only talked about in their songs, but shown in the popular music videos that played on stations aimed for kids of the younger generation, such as MTV. It is found that women in rap music videos were more likely then men to be associated with themes of misogyny. The prominence of misogyny as a theme may be related to viewers’ expression of similar attitudes towards their own

In addition, the novel switches around the scenes of male-dominated society where women are taken as a way of assistance and pleasure for men. Here, women do not participate in forming life, but they play a distinctive role in encouraging men and guiding them on the right path. In the text, the role of the women includes responsibility towards their family, a beauty that men praise and underprivileged of rights.

The film starts with the narrator, Jackson Katz, underlining the extreme notion of masculinity that is presented in our everyday lives. Contrary to popular beliefs, masculinity is a projection that is put up by men and not a fixed state of being. The ‘tough guise’, defined by Katz as “the front that so many men put up that 's based on the extreme notions of masculinity that emphasizes toughness and physical strength and gaining the respect and admiration of others through violence or the implicit threat of it”, becomes the main issue that affects people who identify as male. When Katz brought up the meaning of a man, the film intercuts to scenes of interviewed teenagers who used words like ‘tough’, ‘independent’, ‘muscular’, ‘strong’, and ‘powerful’ to describe their ideas of a man. When asked to describe a man who does not conform to these standards, the teenagers used words like ‘wuss’, ‘sissy’, ‘weak’, ‘bitch’, and ‘fag’ instead. This scene truly underlines the widespread binary gender roles that are seen as common and universal among adolescents. In a sense, this influential

The idea that manhood represents a fixed, inevitable; some natural state of being is a myth. It is a twist in its origin: Men created the concept of “masculinity” in order to cage himself in it. What became a norm for “masculinity” in a society is largely a made cultural frame, not something a male’s shared trait. One way to understand the

The theme emasculation appears several times throughout the novel Regeneration in variety of forms. Barker’s exploration of emasculation in the novel challenges traditional notions of manliness, showing war as a possible “feminine” experience. Pat Barker is bringing to attention that the atrocities suffered at war are making the soldiers unmanly as they’re facing shell shock and trauma. There are many situations in the novel where emasculation is expressed, where there is loss of power, masculinity, deprive of the male role and identity has taken place.

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).

According to the United States Department of Labor, 69.7% of men compared to 57.2% of women were participating in the U.S. paid labor force in the year 2013 (U.S. Department of Labor, 2013). But despite this near equality in the rates of participation in the work force, men and women continue to be depicted in very distinct gender roles throughout the mainstream media (Eisend, 2010; Lull, Hanson, & Marx, 1977; Collins, 2011). This gender stereotyping effect is especially prevalent within advertising. Because advertisements in the media frequently rely on gender roles to promote products and services (Eisend, 2010), research examining the effects of gender portrayals in advertising has become increasingly important in the social and behavioral sciences.

Masculinity can range drastically in the level, shape, and or form it takes in each individual’s mind, but this phenomenon is formed as a complex experience through social construction. Masculinity has never been an ideal or a code I found myself reflecting on growing up, but my subconscious was constantly battling the juxtaposition of my experience at home, school, and on basketball teams. These factors would eventually shape my idea of masculinity surrounding home, particularly through the communicative aspects of athletics and academics.

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.

Men do not cry, men do not talk about their feelings, and any man who does not use his fists to

‘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.