Why Women Control Men

Freedom, opportunities, and information are some features of this modern society. Clearly, humans are now having a very different life compared to the past. Along with this well-developed world, people get more chances to express how they think, do what they want, and love who they love. Especially young people, they become more independent and are capable of living their own lives. However, while society provides people a lot of benefits, it actually makes their lives even more complex at the same time by leaving them pressures and confusions of who they really are. In her essay, “Selections from Hard to Get:Twenty-Something Women and the Paradox of Sexual Freedom,” Leslie Bell mentions that while in this new-in between developmental period American twenty-something women have more freedom and opportunities about their sexual lives than previous generations, they are struggling with the paradoxes of their relationships and desires. Bell suggests that social expectations and culture guidelines, which are conventions of female sexuality and stereotypes of being a good girl, prevent these young women from pursuing their sexual desires and limiting their relationships with men. However, even these women have chosen the way they live and what kind of sexual life they want in order to be bad girls to break those old rules, they ended with losing their identities. In general, female sexuality is impacted more by establishing a women’s identity rather than clinging on

To begin with, marriage is a celebration of love, instead of an obligation. The world has transformed into a more open-minded. In bygone days,

In “About Love”, by Danielle Crittenden, she argues that women can only be happy in a marriage, if they set aside what she sees as misleading feminist ideas about having equal rights like man do, yet still being married to a man. I agree with the author that misleading ideas of feminism can cause a doubt about getting married too early or too late. A few reason that women are not sure about being married and still claim to be feminist is due to the worrying about being lonely, feeling that she will be looked down upon by her peers, and are trying to do things that could have been done far too later in her life.

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

Carrie Miles offers an explanation in her book What's Love Got to Do with It. She says that some women, "desire access to men that they believe can raise them to godhood in the afterlife over other men who cannot offer this power (Howlett, 2012)." Certain women state that these marriages are about gaining "salvific capital" which in other words is redemptive power that women wish to earn.

Overall, society constructs masculinity verbally and visually. It begins early in the adolescent stage with toy images and advertisement to appeal to boys. It defines masculinity and constructs their key role and body image. The components to influence masculinity are strongly implied by the meaning of masculinity to be strong, stern, and independent. Children’s toys carry small masculinity, but as the child ages the definition will be more

Sammons (2007) states that “In early intrauterine development male and female external genitalia (visible sex organs) are identical” and exposure to dihydrotestosterone the male genitalia will develop and its absence female genitalia will. Society then tells the child how he should act. Brenbaum (1999) “has shown clear differences in activities and job interests between adolescent boys and girls. But gender role behaviours[sic] may be influenced by the media.” Male adolescent gender role activities according to Berenbaum (1999) include working with engines and electronics, playing or liking football, hunting, washing or waxing the car, playing sports, fishing, and basketball. Female adolescent gender role activities such as thinking about becoming a secretary, needlepoint, going to slumber parties, collecting dolls, trying out for cheerleading, playing dress-up, and playing with make-up. These activities are not programmed into males and females at conception but by the society and the mass media. Parents tell boys to be tough and brave, not to cry or play with dolls; girls are told to be gentle and lady-like, not to play with trucks or play rough sports. Hollywood also perpetuates this idea but making movies with helpless women and tough guys though there are some cross-over changes but they show the men and women negatively accepted by their peers.

In many cultures, women are forced to abide by the rules of the dominant, typically male, figures in their life. Mariam, the main protagonist in Khaled Hosseini’s novel A Thousand Splendid Suns, is married to the domineering husband Rasheed who controls her life and is verbally and physically abusive toward her. She later feels betrayed when he marries a new woman Laila. Mariam's storyline is similar to that of Medea, the main protagonist of Euripides Medea, who is vengeful after her husband divorces her and marries a younger princess leaving her to mother their two sons on her own in exile. Jason, Medea's ex-husband, is mentally abusive towards Medea.

These rules foster a certain type of man. One who takes charge and leads, one whose primary concern is, “Being a Man Among Men,” (Kimmel 464). However, it also creates a person who suppresses his feelings in fear of being labeled as effeminate. The stigma dictates that attributes typically associated with women are unmasculine, so as boys turn to men, “Along the way they suppress all the feelings they associate with the maternal--compassion, nurturance, vulnerability, dependency,” (Kimmel 469). This pattern of suppression has not changed much in recent years. Society still enforces the idea that men should be strong and stoic, when these traits are no longer what are needed to be successful in the workforce.

Freedom, opportunities, and information are some features of this modern society. Clearly, humans are now having a very different life compared to the past. Along with this well-developed world, people get more chances to express how they think, do what they want, and love who they love. Especially young people, they become more independent and are capable of living their own lives. However, while society provides people a lot of benefits, it actually makes their lives even more complex at the same time by leaving them pressures and confusions of who they really are. In her essay, “Selections from Hard to Get:Twenty-Something Women and the Paradox of Sexual Freedom,” Leslie Bell mentions that while in this new-in between developmental period American twenty-something women have more freedom and opportunities about their sexual lives than previous generations, they are struggling with the paradoxes of their relationships and desires. Bell suggests that social expectations and culture guidelines, which are conventions of female sexuality and stereotypes of being a good girl, prevent these young women from pursuing their sexual desires and limiting their relationships with men. However, even these women have chosen the way they live and what kind of sexual life they want in order to be bad girls to break those old rules, they ended with losing their identities. In general, female sexuality is impacted more by establishing a

Tina Turner once sang, “What’s love got to do with it?” Within the song, Turner’s answer to this question is to focus only on her feelings of attraction, thus rejecting any romantic feelings. The same question can be posed to the concept of marriage. Marriage might seem easily definable: a legal union of two people. However, the motivations behind marriage differ across cultures. In America marriage is often linked with the idea of love. However, the idea of marriage as a bond of love is specific to Western culture. Additionally, marrying for love is a fairly new idea. Historically various cultures, many European, used marriage as a political tool. In this way, marriage was about gaining

They want to fall in love with the man or women of their dreams. For many people marriage is the most important choice they have to make in their life time. Which makes since because they are going to be there for you throughout the good and the bad. Some people say that your occupancy is the most important decision in a person’s lifetime. Which I do not agree with, because what if that job gets taken away from you. Then that person has their spouse to lean on, because ideally they will never leave. In everyone’s American dream there is a little love in the midst of it

A quote from a famous American author, Mark Twain says “Love seems the swiftest but it is the slowest of all growths. No man or woman really knows what perfect love is until they have been married a quarter of a century.” The definition of marriage varies with cultures and views. The most popular and idealistic notion is that it’s a result from the unconditional love of two people wanting to share it for the rest of their life, in a committed and long bonding way. For some, however, marriage is more of an economical arrangement, a pact for two people to help and catch each other when the other one fall. And for others, it is just a paper that one can throw away if not needed, or by simple

During this week we have discussed the differences of how we describe masculine and feminine based on biological and cultural assessments of gender, while also looking at how media depicts these gender roles, and how it influences our understanding of sex and sexuality. Gender roles are drawn upon normative rules and standards that “society” create. When we distinguish between these roles, the Masculine role is more self-oriented or agentic, while the feminine role is communal. Males are understood of having a standard of being strong, aggressive, dominant, and most importantly being the provider. Females are thought of having the standard of being weak, fragile, submissive, nurturing, and subordinate. This gender socialization begins at birth starting when a girl is placed in a pink hat, while a boy is placed in a blue cap.

The assumption is that girl babies really are different from boy babies and the difference ought to be displayed. This different treatment continues throughout life, therefore a sex difference at birth become amplified into gender difference as people mature (Schwartz 4). Gendered experiences have a great deal of influence on sexual desire. As a boy enters adolescence, he hears jokes about boys’ uncontainable desire. Girls are told the same thing and told that their job is to resist. These gender messages have power not only over attitudes and behavior, such as, whether a person grows up to prefer sex with a lover rather than a stranger, but also over physical and biological experience. For example, a girl may be discouraged from vigorous competitive activity, which will subsequently influence how she develops physically, how she feels about her body, and even how she relates to the adrenaline rush associated with physical competition. Hypothetically, a person who is accustomed to adrenaline responses experiences sexual attraction differently from one who is not (Schwartz 5).