Summary Of The Mask You Live In

At my age, most woman in my home town cannot be able to attend college. Both financial and traditional issues are the reason that prevent woman from seeking further education after high school. People there think that college is a place for men, who can be able to learn and make money to taking care the family. Therefore, parent willing to pay for their son to go to college. In the opposite, Woman’s job is cooking, cleaning and taking care children; hence, they do not need go to college; women go to college is just waste parent’s money. I am not an exceptional one, so I am just like most of my girlfriends have no chance to sit in college’s class room.

In today’s society, boys and men are groomed to be non-emotional, tough, and aggressive in order to be portrayed as being masculine. Boys and men often form their own idea of what it means to be masculine through the eyes of the U.S. culture. The U.S. cultures presents masculinity into our daily entertainment such as; sport games, music, and more. The U.S mainstream media presents masculine traits it in a way where males feel the pressure to meet this expectation to be considered as a masculine man.

In Paul Theroux’s article “The Male Myth” Theroux makes a point that he does not like the stereotypes placed on men in today’s society. Theroux’s article is focused on exposing the stereotypes that men face and the reasons for their occurrence. He claims that writers and many others are directly affected by the expectations of masculinity that are thoroughly incorporated in America. The ideas of masculinity are deeply rooted in high school sports, in the view of the president, and in many other areas. Theroux attempts to prove that being a man in American is, “…pitiful, a little like having to wear an ill-fitting coat for one’s entire life.”

Paul Laurence Dunbar, dispatches the cold troubles of African Americans in the lyrical poem, "We Wear the Mask." In this poem, Dunbar links imagery, rhythm, rhyme, and word choice to in order to institute a connection to the reader. From reading the poem, one can infer that Mr. Dunbar is speaking in general, of the misery that many people keep concealed under a grin that they wear very well. But if one were to go further and take the time to research Mr. Dunbar’s selection of this piece and the era of which this poem was written, one would come to understand that this poem focuses entirely on Paul Laurence Dunbar’s viewpoints on racial prejudice and the struggle for equality for the African-American’s of his time period. Though this

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.

Dave Barry, a humorous author writes “Guys vs Men” to try to enlighten the term “man”. He focuses on certain aspects that separate guys and men to separate stereotypical characteristics. Barry entertains readers as he uses funny comparisons, analogies, and entertaining punch lines to support his what he thinks the distinct differences between guys and men really are. Barry argues the idea that “man”, is a term that comes with responsibility and unwritten expectations for guys. The intent is to stress that there is another way to look at males, perhaps not characterize as characteristically masculine, but just as a “guy”.

Nothing is more real than the mask we choose to show each other who we are. In a coming-to-age novel, A Separate Peace, John Knowles depicts the common rivalry between young adolescents, where masks are used often. Gene is a student at an elite boarding school, Devon, when he meets Finny. As his jealousy grows towards Finny, it leads to an awful life-changing decision. When they are planning on a double jump, Gene bounces on the limb causing Finny to suffer from a horrible fall. Finny later finds out about the truth and runs away in fury, which caused him to break his leg again. As he was receiving a surgery for his injury, Finny died. Gene’s transformation involves the changes of his mask and shadow, which results in his later acceptance of

Gender roles often have disastrous consequences for people who struggle to fill their assigned stereotype. Last Wednesday, Carnegie Mellon had a special showing of a new film, The Mask You Live In, that focuses on how society’s narrow definition of masculinity can cause more harm than good.

The documentary “The Mask You Live In” by Jennifer Siebel Newsom’s shows a wide array of interviews and case studies of men and young boys showing them talking about the pressures of masculinity in the American culture, then that of young girls. This documentary shows how they handle and deal with the pressures and hardships of living up to this image of the American male. From a young boy, they are told to “Be a man!” “Don’t cry!” “Stop with the emotion!” and “Man up!”

Around the world many women faced and still continue to face oppression. But in the United States, a movement geared toward women sprung up took their attention captive in the 1960’s. This became known as Women’s Liberation. What pushed this into momentum was that women in the U.S. were seen as the person who cooks, cleans, and takes care of the kids. However, in an address to the House of Representatives in May of 1969, a woman gave a speech to speak out against the way women were seen, and to change the way the male mind viewed women.

We Wear The Mask was written in 1886 with post slavery America being the significant historical backdrop. In this poem, Dunbar explores the duality of experience of African American's at this time. The outward experience presented to the world at large - “We wear the mask that grins and lies” - versus the inward truth of suffering and turmoil - “With torn and bleeding hearts we smile”.

Being “Masculine is something that most of us, even women are very familiar with. When we think of masculinity we think of toxic masculinity or being hyper aggressive, non-emotional, hypersexual, and violent. For society, that is what masculinity is, toxic. In Jamie Lake’s I Got You, there were at least three different representations of masculinity. I believe that Jamie Lake gave

The Mask You Live In is a 2015 American documentary film that covers the topic of hyper masculinity in American society and its effects on the development of boys in this country. The primary argument that this film makes is that it is highly unrealistic for men to live up to the standard of hyper masculinity that our society as created and forced upon them. In fact, the film makes the argument that men who try to live up to these standards are setting themselves up for failure because many of them fall in to deep depression as they fail to measure up to society’s skewed idea of masculinity. This film uses various interviews from many different individuals including a single father, victims of abuse, and teachers in order to support the overall claim that it is trying to make along with going into some of the effects that hypermasculinity has on boys as they grow up. Overall, I feel that this film does a fantastic job of communicating both the dangers of trying to live up to a frankly outdated model of masculinity as well as showing how unrealistic this standard of masculinity is in modern society.

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

According to Anthony Clare the heart of the masculinity crisis lies within the understanding of “the private and public sphere, the intimate and the impersonal, the emotional and the irrational” (Clare, 2000:212). Both men and women are both confined to their spaces and the line between the two has somewhat been blurred, thus resulting in a crisis. The way in which this line is blurred is by masculinity becoming more feminized. There have been two major shifts in masculinity over