Society Has Always Influenced The Way People Act

C.J. Pascoe’s book, Dude You’re A Fag: Masculinity and Sexuality in High School, examines masculinity and its connection with sexuality through an eighteen-month study at River High School. The goal of Pascoe’s study is to explain how teenagers, teachers, and schooling construct adolescent masculinity through idioms of sexuality. In addition, the book investigates the relationships between gender and sexuality as it relates to a major social institution. Throughout the book she asks how heteronormitive and homophobic discourses, practices, and interactions produce masculine identities through focusing on gender and sexual practices of the students, teachers, and administrators.

It is generally accepted that when children reach adolescent, they become sometimes aggressive. This aggression can cause arguments at home with parents or bullying at school. The formation of aggressive behaviors is probably due to the fighting for more independence as the person transitions from being a child to an adult. In the article, “Dude You’re a Fag: Adolescent Discourse Masculinity and Fag Discourse” by CJ Pascoe, Pascoe explains that adolescent boys police their masculinity by increasing homophobia among themselves. Pascoe argues that development of adolescent masculinity and sexuality are directly connected and intertwined with homophobia. To prove his point Pascoe conducted a study in a high school, where he interviewed 49 (36

This is because the society empowered men with the power to rebuke anything that they consider to have crossed the boundaries of manhood that have been put in place by the society. Optimally, when one steps outside the definition of what the society considers to be masculine then are likely to be taunted by a barricade of insults like faggot, dork, pussy etc. These insults are often trying to take away the manhood of a person to reprimand them for going out of the confines of what is socially acceptable for men. For instance, wearing pink shirts does not make one any less of a man, but since the society has created this notion that pink is for women, men have been forced to conform, and anyone who goes against these social constrictions is considered feminine or gay. Kimmel claims that anything that is perceived as gay often goes into the Negative Playbook of Guyland. To be on the safe side of the society, one has to avoid anything that might make people question their masculinity. What Kimmel is trying to argue is that masculinity is all about conformity; one has to learn to act and behave per the societal expectations of a man. This argument further proves the fact that masculinity is a social construction in which men are forced to conform to norms and values of the society for them to be considered

In the article “Dude you’re a fag; Adolescent masculinity and the fag discourse” C.J Pascoe addresses American adolescent boys learning to become masculine through the rejection of the fag identity. Masculinity and sexuality are embedded with the word faggot. This article focuses on the challenges of the relationships between homophobia and masculinity. This article points out three arguments that focus on homophobia demonstrating that the fag is not only an identity linked to homosexual boys, but an identify that can temporarily adhere to heterosexual boys as well and highlighting the radicalized nature of the fag as a disciplinary mechanism. Homophobia is usually used to describe ways that boys aggressively tease each other, girls do not harass each other this way and they often aren’t embarrassed in the same manner. Pascoe provides examples of how the fag discourse is radicalized and that failing at the masculine tasks of competence reveals weakness and femininity with sexual identity.

In the essay “Gender Treachery: Homophobia, Masculinity, and Threatened Identities” Hopkin’s insists that masculinity is constructed around two opposing notions. Additionally, he insists that the essence of masculinity is therefore paradoxical. How is masculinity constructed? Why does Hopkin’s insist that the essence of masculinity is paradoxical? Additionally, discuss “performing gender,” particular performing masculinity and how “the logic of masculinity is demanding.”

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

Masculinity has changed and evolved since the beginning of human creation. Males have had to adhere to the social norms of their time to survive without undue persecution. In the beginning of the 19th century, there was a shift in the way men could attain manhood. It was no longer easy for a man to enter into manhood with straightforward expectations and rituals. The state of manhood became difficult to obtain because of its precarious nature. During the same period, the industrial revolution was in full bloom giving birth to mass information outlets like newspapers, magazines, and advertisement: media. This set a prevailing state where boys and men alike could gain material on how to become or be men

Pascoe discusses how masculinity can function as a regulatory mechanism of gender in American adolescent boys. It has been found that the word ‘fag’ is not necessarily directed at a homosexual boy, but has taken on a new meaning in school age boys. It is being used as a disciplinary mechanism to police certain behaviors “out of fear of having the fag identity permanently” (Pascoe p.330). This kind of teasing and harassment can temporarily be place on any boy who shows signs of weakness or femininity. The high schoolers in the study told Pascoe that calling someone a fag was like telling them they were nothing or stupid (Pascoe p. 335). Boys could be called a fag for anything that he did that was opposite of masculine, even when it had nothing to do with his sexual preference. The fag discourse seemed to be just another way for the contest of masculinity to take

In Michael Kimmel’s non-fiction academic book chapter: “Bros Before Hos: The Guycode” is an excerpt from his critically acclaimed book Guyland released in 2008, that addresses the ideals and fundamentals of where masculinity stems from and society’s direct effect on young men and the creation of the modern day masculine male. Michael Kimmel’s combination of credible resources, informative personal research, and real-life personal narratives that help to establish and support his strong and feasible argument, of societies effect on male masculinity, that readers alike can relate to and understand.

In Guyland, Michael Kimmel chronicles the journey of young males and the issues they face while trying to exert their masculinity and prove themselves to their peers. Based on interactions among North American males between the ages of 16 and 26, Kimmel has found that at an age where young men had previously prepped for a life of work and committed relationships, they are now living in “Guyland” where they spend their time drinking, playing video games, and having immature relations with women. Kimmel explains that these young men are “frighteningly dependent on peer culture” and “desperate to prove their masculinity in the eyes of other boys.” (30) These young men live in constant fear that they will not measure up to the ideals of

So if one guy called another guy a “fag” it is not necessarily to say that he is literally gay; it’s a charge that he is not being “a real man”. In essence the word “fag” is not only a homophobic slur, it is a homophobic slur that also attacks behavior as not being masculine. This is why Pascoe used the phrase gendered homophobia throughout the book to describe the masculinity the male students showed on a daily basis.

In Pascoe’s analysis of the word fag she interviews many boys at River High and most of them had the same response, that a boy could be called fag for exhibiting any sort of behavior defined as unmasculine such as being stupid or incompetent, to caring too much about something, or being too emotional(57). With this I analyzed the situation I always got stuck in and constantly was under fire for the word fag. At River High having a girlfriend “both protected boys from the specter of the fag and bolstered their masculinity” in certain cases (90). At El Capitan I was the guy who always had a girlfriend but I never dated girls from the same school. Even though I was adored by other girls at the school for expressing my love interest to this other girl. The guys constantly threw the word fag at me for being emotionally attached to a girl. So I was intrigued and happy to hear that in Pascoe’s one on one interviews the guys who would be calling me a fag were actually in the same situation as me but just too scared to admit their feelings publicly. All because of the social organization as Weeks explains that the peer influences within the high school put out a

Pascoe explains that what is considered masculine and feminine essentially gender roles is accomplished through day to day interactions. perpetuated in our society and it is why cheerleading is seen as feminine while football is masculine. Pascoe states that “Through imitating a fag, boys assure others that they are not a fag by immediately becoming masculine again after the performance. In other words, calling another boy a Fag makes you a non-fag and hence reassert one’s masculinity. The use of the word fag is essentially about a gendered homophobia not a sexual homophobia because a male can still be considered masculine while also being queer.

Masculinity is a term that is often associated with strength, power, control, and dominance in men. However, many texts support the claim that masculinity can be perceived as “socially constructed” and available for systematic discrepancy, similar to femininity. For example, in Michael Kimmel’s “Men, Masculinity, and the Rape Culture,” Kimmel identifies the “traditional masculinity” in which men exclusively can experience the “right to manhood” and the “dare and aggression” that is rightfully theirs (Kimmel, 142).

Masculinity, a seemingly simple concept. Yet, when examined more closely, it is clear that masculinity is constantly changing in its definition as well as in its most basic essence. Throughout the years, one can see this evolution firsthand by looking back at the men who have been portrayed in popular media in the United States of America. From the suave Don Draper types of the 1950s to the more casual, educated, and easygoing men- with perfectly chiseled abs, of course- that are portrayed in media today, the difference is clear. This drastic, yet unsurprising, shift in ideals, as well as the exponential increase of media consumed every day, has led to a change in how “masculinity” is perceived, as well as how it is enforced by society in the modern day. Alarmingly, this trend has led to the birth of so-called “toxic masculinity”, a bastardization of the original ideas behind masculinity which has created an enormous, detrimental effect on society as a whole. As defined in the article The Difference Between Toxic Masculinity and Being a Man, toxic masculinity is “manhood as defined by violence, sex, status, and aggression. It’s the cultural ideal of manliness, where strength is everything… where sex and brutality are yardsticks by which men are measured,” (O’Malley) This is a clearly displayed truth, and it’s astounding to see how even from a young age boys are taught not to show emotions other than anger, conditioned to believe that being “like a girl” is the worst possible