What Is Masculinity?

Masculinity is a quality of a man, a man who empowers strength and expertise to achieve goals easier. The essence of being masculine, illustrates powerful behavior, such as courage, and audacity. Stephen, fifteen-year-old pulp-cutter trying to fit into an environment, feeling extremely honored, as his father modeled, "become a man", impels a decent reputation in his father’s

Masculinity can be defined as the behaviours, social roles, and relations of men within a given society in addition to the meanings that are attributed to them. The term masculinity stresses gender, unlike male, which stresses biological sex. Despite, this we often times see masculinity being represented as directly correlating to men with an inability to adhere to this is shown making you less of a "man". As put by Katz (1999) there is an expectation that men on screen must be void of emotion, not backing down from a fight, tough and an embodiment of the male gaze. Katz (1999) argues that essentially what

Masculinity can be described as a set of attitudes, roles or traits related to men. It develops by the social and biological parameters and factors. However, it could be exhibited by males as well as females, depending upon the development of masculine traits in them. The main characteristics of masculinity include bravery, impartiality, freedom, and firmness which depend upon the locality and background of the individual, as well as the community and traditions. An extremism of negative traits of masculinity is disregarded in the society. This concept changes according to the history and traditions of a locality. Usually, the manhood norms include strength, non- emotional behavior, the struggle for attainment of success and status,

As described in the dictionary, masculinity is to, “have qualities appropriate to or usually associated with a man.” (Merriam-Webster Inc. 2004) Masculinity is defined more as a social than a biological convention. For example, society defines masculinity as a set of traits within behaviors and roles generally associated with boys or men. This is where the stereotypes of

Masculinity versus

With life being as challenging as it is, it seems to be that it is only revolving around the challenges that women face, but you can’t forget that men also go through the same challenges. With everything on the news and current media being about feminism people often forget that men also have problems and deal with hardships like anyone else. This leads me to say that one of the main troubles that young men have today is how society defines masculinity. Society plays a huge role in a young man’s life due to all the social media outputs so how all these outputs portray masculinity is a huge problem for the young men of today.

In western patriarchal society, hegemonic masculinity is still a social norm. *****Heterosexuality and homophobia are the bedrock of hegemonic masculinity and any understanding of its nature and meaning is predicated on the feminist insight that in general the relationship of men to women is oppressive.****** To be important and respected, you must live up to the standards of being a “real man”. Within this culture, men are pressured into conforming to “manly” behavioural traits, and when they bare to “come out of the box”, they are forced back into it and ridiculed. Social constructionists believe that we become who we are, and are shaped by our environment. Moreover, they believe sex and gender are different, and often, gender is based on

“Masculinity (MAS) focuses on the degree the society reinforces or does not reinforce, the traditional masculine work role model of male achievement, control, and power.” (Murdoch, 2006). Masculinity represents a preference in society for achievement, heroism, assertiveness and material rewards for success. (Hofstede Centre, n.d).

R.W. Connell’s (1995) concept of hegemonic masculinity is the most significant theoretical device for understanding the masculinity hierarchy. Demetriou (2001) states how hegemonic masculinity expresses two different social practices, from a social constructivist view. The first is that men benefit from the patriarchal system of society. The second process is that there is an “intramasculine hierarchy” by which the social order of men is created and maintained. Connell (1995) argues that this is the reason for the societal gender order where not only do men uphold power over women, but also certain men are dominant over other men. Demetriou (2001) criticises Connell’s term of hegemonic masculinity for being too broad, as the main focus is usually placed on the intramasculine process. He therefore believes this process to be “internal hegemony” (ibid).

Masculinity or “relating to a man” is a term used to gender characteristics of the male sex. Individuals that are perceived masculine have instrumental attributes that include being independent, dominant, aggressive, and non-emotional. Femininity or “relating to a woman” describes gender characteristics of the female sex. Those that are perceived feminine have expressive traits. These traits can include being dependent, emotional, passive, and nurturing.

Scholars of Masculinity Studies analyse the emotional lives of men using various theories to show how masculinities are socially constructed and how men are expected even compelled, to behave in specific situations. Social conditioning, which encourages women to adopt certain codes of conduct, also compels men to behave in certain ways, such as, being the breadwinners of the family or accepting the taboo against emotional expressions of sorrow, love or tenderness. Male experiences of these taboos are not uniform but diverse and can produce different outcomes. The male characters as extensions of the broader social, political and cultural concerns of their particular context become sites for complex constructions of masculine identity especially

Men and Masculinity (2001) is a collection of works that demonstrates how men’s actions and traits are constructed and influenced by cultural perceptions of masculinity and structures of gender. The selections are able to enumerate on the various roles and that men are given and the relationships that they partake in.

Masculinity is described as possessing the qualities traditionally associated with men; like strength, fighting, dominance, breadwinner, male sexual organs, Sexual aggressiveness ect. The concept of what being masculine meant began to change mostly over the last 40 years

Men and masculinities also called men studies, which was a critique to the rising men’s rights movement. It is a sub study of gender studies which gave the definition to masculinities by R.W. Connell.*** A lot of people believe feminism is what put gender in the mainstream. Years in the past we always saw men as leaders to led international relations but as times are changing females are getting in power. We tend to stereotype and automatically think this image of a man is the higher authority who is masculine and the aggressor. Women we see as like content, shy and as a victim. As times changed we saw women stand up for their rights and achieve that so-called masculine role. Feminists as always asked for equal gender rights but this raises the question about men getting equal rights as well. Men deserve equal rights like women so as a society we need to move away from the typical stereotype’s of men and just focus on the whole of a gender.

To understand the concrete basis of ‘hegemonic masculinity’ more easily, the terms ‘hegemonic’ and ‘masculinity’ will be deconstructed. ‘Hegemonic’ represents what is dominant and most powerful in a societal or political context (Merriman-Webster, n.d.). ‘Masculinity’ is a socially constructed term that represents behaviour that is socially acceptable for men (Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005; Lynch, 2009). Therefore, ‘hegemonic masculinity’ refers to a set of norms and practices that are deemed as the dominant norm for men (Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005; Lynch, 2009). Although the term is tied with men, hegemonic masculinity is not tied to the biological form of men. Alternatively, it is a gendered performance which means that its associated