Masculinity Definition Essay

Historically, masculinity in the United States has been constructed as being White Protestant Anglo-Saxon, furthermore heterosexual and in charge of all matters, and this definition sets standards against which other men are measured an evaluated. Michael Kimmel provides a good definition:

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

Why acknowledge history? The solution is because we essentially must to achieve access to the laboratory of human involvement. In the essay “Haunted America”, Patricia Nelson takes a truly various and remarkably gallant stance on United States history. Through the recounting of the White/Modoc war in “Haunted America,” she brings to light the complexity and confusion of the White/Indian conflicts that is often missing in much of the history we read. Her account of the war, with the faults of both Whites and Indians revealed, is an unusual alternative to the stereotypical “Whites were good; Indians were bad” or the reverse stand point that “Indians were good; Whites were bad” conclusions that many historians reach. Limerick argues that a very brutal and bloody era has been simplified and romanticized, reducing the lives and deaths of hundreds to the telling of an uncomplicated story of “Good Guys” and “Bad Guys”.

What is masculinity? Answers may vary depending on who you may ask, C.J. Pascoe’s ethnography titled Dude, You’re A Fag: Masculinity and Sexuality in High School targets high school as being the important location where the term masculinity is asserted, defended and defined by the students who roam the halls of River High. High school is a difficult time for anyone, especially when we bring up the ideals of sexuality and gender identity, all topics which are explored in this ethnography. Pascoe spent around eighteen months of fieldwork in the racially diverse working middle-class River High School. Dude You’re A Fag sheds a new light on masculinity as a meaning as well as a set of social practices. C. J. Pascoe 's unconventional approach examines masculinity as not only a gendered process but also a sexual one. Pascoe demonstrates how the threat of the word fag becomes a disciplinary mechanism for regulating heterosexual as well as homosexual boys and how the "fag discourse" is as much tied to gender as it is to sexuality.

Society has taken the very essential feature of being a man and taken it away creating a more feminine man. The term itself almost leaves us with an image of a castrated man. (explain more what is consider a real man)

that labels these things unmanly, feminine, womanly, and gay, and teaches boys to avoid them at all costs.” If these characteristics are things that men have, and make them a better person, why is it so merely reinforced by society that men shouldn’t have the qualities? If a guy is blocking these out because they’re not manly, there could be some serious repercussions. These characteristics that are generally associated with women are made fun of in men and they often feel their masculinity is becoming threatened. Due to this men may suppress certain emotional issues, especially around other men. An example of this is shown in the book Passing: When People Can’t Be Who They Are by Brooke Kroeger. In chapter one, Not Some Social Agenda Struggle, Kroeger tells the story of David Matthews, a young man who is caught between two races as he struggles to find his identity. David was raised in a single parent household with his father raising him. He brings up how he and his dad rarely talked about his mother or anything emotional saying, “We were just tough guys and it just didn’t seem like the kind of touchy-feely stuff I needed to know”. Here David shows that he and his dad both feel they are too tough to talk about touchy issues that he

Guy de Maupassant and Ambrose Bierce are linked through the ambiguity of the monster of their stories. “The Horla” and “The Damned Thing” involve a hunt of sorts. “The Horla” is a subtler hunt, where the creature does not seek out opportunities to harm the narrator. “The Damned Thing” is a tangible hunt, as the reader witnesses the recounting of Hugh Morgan’s death. While both stories are both plausible and implausible, “The Horla” is about a creation of the mind, which is inherently scarier, while “The Damned Thing” is, in fact, a tangible monster.

Jenifer Siebel Newsom’s documentary, The Mask You Live In, is about the struggles young men and boys face while they are figuring out their identity in a stereotyped America. The film highlights the negative psychological and sociological implications that stem from society’s expectations of “masculinity.” According to Dr. Caroline Heldman, masculinity is defined in the U.S. as a rejection of everything feminine. American culture has classified masculinity as a strong, hardened, domineering, powerful, and controlling state of being. There are typically three lies that boys learn at a young age that plant the idea that they have to be masculine. Those lies are 1) You must have superb athletic ability and be fast and buff, 2) in order to be a “true” man, you must have

Ghostly representations of “the other” imagine a social evil that has not been put to rest. These images reoccur in the Western canon, marking the persistence of slavery long after its abolition. Haunting, ghosts and skeletons in Benito Cereno act as a vehicle through which the suppressed return to the stage with a message. The ghosts carry with them all that the imperialists wanted to control, including emotions, and more precisely, the emotions of the oppressed. I argue that ghosts and skeletons comprise an area of tension in which the appearance of the “other” reveals that the dominant party’s control is incomplete. Yet, the presence is merely ghostly due to the constant policing and lack of respect for the Other. These ghosts also break through the boundaries of the dominant culture’s paradigms and identities (Harpham 17), signaling potential political crisis. This text signals the fear of the retaliation of the Other through ghostly representations by projecting on to the other, their own identities of brutality and irrationality. “Benito Cereno” by Herman Melville overturns the racist images of the colonized by relocating evil in the order of slavery. Hauntings carry the perspectives and powers of the slaves by preserving the dead amidst the living and the past amidst the present, they muddle up the concept of time and therefore defy the Western dream of complete control.

The story owl creek bridge is written by Ambrose Bierce. It is a short story about a man, Peyton Farquhar, who try’s to tarnish the bridge and is sentenced to be hanged. This story takes place during the civil war while he is standing on the edge of the plank Peyton starts to dream of this escape back to his family. The author tells us in the story how Peyton is dreaming through the whole story and then he is hanged.

In today’s society, it is completely common for a male to act feminine and female to act masculine and considered as “normal.” Men now wear female clothing and female wear male

What does it take to be defined as masculine or feminine? Since the dawn of time there has always been this huge culteral divide between men and women in terms of what they may or may not be categorized as. Over the past few centuries there has been a massive reconstruction on what it takes for a man to be masculine and for a woman to be feminine. Surely we can say that both men and women have a drive to succeed through hardwork and dedication.

inside. You could be a builder by day, and a drag queen on stage by

     The well-known concepts of masculinity and femininity run rampant in our society. We live in a world where men are told to be masculine, women are told to be feminine and those who do not do as they are told, will suffer the societal consequences.

In contemporary society, hegemonic masculinity is defined by physical strength and boldness, heterosexuality, economic independence, authority over women and other men, and an interest in sexual relationships. While most men do not embody all of these qualities, society supports hegemonic masculinity within all its institutions, including the educational institute, the religious institute and other institutes which form the ideological state apparatus.