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goals and accomplishments of goth subcultures
goths subculture essay
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Individuals in society are inherently subject to collaborative norms and values that have been instilled in humanity, with the consideration that this varies across cultures. The paradigm between collective action and individual desire results in the formation of what is deemed socially acceptable, such as gender roles, sexual orientation, gender performance etc. “It is social norms that provide the constraints by which the interaction between the basic dyad of self and other is governed…social norms also provide the source of identity between the individual action, the complete system and the overall social order itself resides in the identity between the action and the system” (Jinks, 2005; 78-79) Deviations form societal norms result in the formation of subcultures, cultural groups that have different beliefs, interests and values than that of the great society. This essay will focus on Goth culture and the extent to which it challenges the hegemonic norms of masculinity. “Hegemonic Masculinity refers to a culturally dominant set of ideas and practices about what it means to be a man and how men should behave” (Mansfield, 2007: 1). It is, in simpler terms the general perception of what it is to be masculine that dominants society and the way in which most people portray their masculinity. It is hoped that through the course of this essay we will be able to present a clearer picture into whether or not Goth culture truly challenges hegemonic norms of masculinity or whether it just flatters to deceive.
When examining subcultures such as the Goth culture it is evident that many serve not only as a means of identifying one’s self by membership in that subculture, but to defy the culturally dominant set of ideas, norms and iden...
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...gemonic masculinity, upon closer examination contradictions in Goth culture serve to undermine the extent to which it challenges this as well as heteronormativity.
Bibliography
• Brill, D. (2008) Goth Culture: Gender, Sexuality and Style. Berg Publishers: Oxford.
• Hodkinson, P. (2007) Youth Cultures: Scene, Subcultures and Tribes. Routledge: England
• Issitt, L M. (2011) Goths: A Guide to an American Subculture. ABC-CLIO: England
• Jinks, C (2005) Subculture: The Trangmintation of the Social. SAGE: England
• Kane, E. (2012) The Gender Trap: Parents and the Pitfalls of Raising Boys and Girls. NYU Press: USA
• Mansfield. (2007) Masculine Norms, Trauma Symptoms, Emotional Skilfulness and Aggression: Understanding the Connections. ProQuest: England
• Wilkins, A. (2008) Wannabes Goths and Christians: The Boundaries of Sex Style and Status. University of Chicago: USA
Realistically, when someone is more powerful, they have the ability to set the rules. Men have historically held power in society, which means that women did not have as much stance or freedoms as men have had in the past. For example, Canadian women did not have the right to vote until the year 1916. This factor has continued to trail into the present day, creating the ‘weak’ image towards women, overall forcing and pushing men to become the opposite of this factor. Thus, cultural ideals of masculinity rely on the ideas of femininity through patriarchy and gender binaries. The emphasis on characteristics of men are being exaggerated, as society is pressuring men with unattainable standards of masculinity such as being tough, muscular and buff. Men continue to conform to these characteristics, in the fear of being oppressed through exclusion, which only strengthens society’s standards even more. This leads to more societal pressures on men, thus leading men to experience more societal pressures in the fear of feeling excluded. These “systems of inclusion and exclusion are divisions or barriers that prevent people from joining and belonging.” (50). For example, if a man wears nail polish, they may be oppressed and excluded through facing ridicule and bullying, because wearing nail polish is considered “girly”, therefore this boy is rebelling against society’s socially
Munro, Alice ““Boys and Girls” Viewpoints 11. Ed, Amanda Joseph and Wendy Mathieu. Alexandria, VA: Prentice Hall, 2001. Print.
Men are allegedly competitive, aggressive, dominant, and strong and if these attributes are not acquired a man is not a man. When other men recognize a man failing in those four areas of “manliness” they compare him to a female with negative connotation as expressed in the following quote, “The worst insult one man can hurl at another-whether its boys on the playground or CEOs in the boardroom-is the accusation that a man is like a woman.” These actions create perceptions that women are unworthy and pitiful. Jensen mentions that because of masculinity men are thought to seek control over women resulting in an increase of physical violence towards women. However, masculinity has harsh effects on men as well. Men are constantly trying to prove their dominance to each other, while competing against one another for ultimate dominance. This creates a never ending cycle of competition and unease for
From a young age girls are taught how to act in society and how society wants girls to act. In the three stories by Jamacia Kincaid, Alice Munro, and Joyce Carol Oates, we see how the mothers teach and reinforce the gender roles placed on women by society. The daughters in Annie John, “Boys and Girls,” and “Shopping” are all subjects of a greater force while growing up, and they try not to conform to gender roles and the ideals of women that the mothers have.
Gerry Garibaldi, a high school teacher and Michael Kimmel, a professor of sociology both explain how the consequences of the feminism movement are harming boys in school and later in life. Kimmel and Garibaldi present their views on the gender education problems in their articles “How The Schools Shortchange Boys” and “A War Against Boys”. Both make passionate arguments and prove that boys are at a disadvantage in modern feminized classrooms. Kimmel’s arguments about the problems boys face in the American educational system are more convincing than Garibaldi’s, because his style of argumentation is more objective, supported by more statistics, and provides unbiased restatement of opposing views.
Aaron Devor’s essay “Becoming Members of Society: Learning the Social Meanings of Gender” describes how despite popular belief, gender and sex are not directly related and how social norms affect individual’s choice of gender. Devor‘s main argument is that gender is not determined by genitalia, but instead by the individual's own choices. Michael Kimmel’s essay “Masculinity as Homophobia” claims that gender equality is a positive thing for males and that social norms force men to act a certain way. Kimmel’s main argument is that men are always having to protect their masculinity in order to prevent themselves from appearing weak. Both authors present compelling arguments for both gender equality and for how social norms influence individuals’ gender choice. However, the two authors approach the same topic in different ways. Kimmel takes a more laid-back approach to the topic by using simple words and a conversational tone that relates to the casual gender sociologist. Devor writes a more sophisticated essay using complex terms and a more formal tone that relates to the serious sociologist that research gender studies.
The concept of masculinity is considered as the qualities and characteristics of a man, typical what is appropriate to a man. In this article, A Community Psychology of Men and Masculinity: Historical and Conceptual Review, The author Eric S. Mankowski and Kenneth I. Maton, analyze four main themes: "Men as gendered beings, the privilege and damage of being a masculine man, men as a privileged group, and men’s power and subjective powerlessness. The second and fourth themes are described as
Throughout the book Pollack encourages parents to take time with their sons in helping them express their feelings while showing them empathy and love. Pollack discusses the ways parents can help their boys escape from the gender straightjacket that is imposed upon them. Pollack exposes myths that negatively portray boys as macho creatures shaped by testosterone with no social skills. He instead presents examples of boys who are emphatic as a result of nurturing parents and educates the reader to be aware that boys express their love through action and work. Pollack includes chapters regarding the different but equally important role of mothers and fathers in bringing up their sons.
These two clusters of attributes are most commonly seen as mirror images of one another with masculinity usually characterized by dominance and aggression, and femininity by passivity and s...
So began my two-year ethnography on the American rave subculture. The scene described above was my initiation into the underground subculture where rave kids, typically under twenty-one years old, are given secret invitations to attend private warehouse parties with dancing, drugs, and thousands of their closest friends. Because of my youthful and unorthodox appearance, I was invited to join the then-highly-exclusive underground scene and attended numerous raves in several major cities in North Carolina. Although my chosen subculture was not typically examined by academia, I conducted an academic ethnography of what Maton (1993) describes as a "group whose world views, values and practices diverge from mainstream North American and social science cultures" (747). As a result, I received three graduate credit hours for "supervised research in ethnography" and conducted what may be the only academic ethnography on raves.
Wood, J. T. (2013). Gendered lives: communication, gender & and culture (10th ed.). Boston, MA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
The late seventies and early eighties saw the beginning emergence of the Goth subculture: a group of social misfits that appear to always find themselves on the outskirts of mainstream pop culture. It is a complex subculture with great depth and beauty where many of its citizens share a profound connection with the darker aesthetic, are predisposed to depression, and are often willing to explore interpersonal and sexual relationships with little inhibition or regard for societal norms.
In Alice Munro’s short story “Boys and Girls,” our narrator is a young farm girl on the verge of puberty who is learning what it means to be a “girl.” The story shows the differing gender roles of boys and girls – specifically that women are the weaker, more emotional sex – by showing how the adults of the story expect the children to grow into their respective roles as a girl and a boy, and how the children grow up and ultimately begin to fulfill these roles, making the transition from being “children” to being “young adults.”
“The Flight from the Feminine” explained by Kimmel demands separation between mother and son as the son develops the “fear of castration.” This meant that if a young adolescent male allowed his mother to show affection or nurture him growing up, he was going to be the splitting image of his mother and become dependent on her which went against the hegemonic masculinity theory that his father so importantly suggested because men were independent dominant beings. This resulted in the development of sexism which Kimmel describes to be the “systematic devaluation of women- in the efforts of the boy to separate from mother” (13) Men would risk the belittlement of women behavior which would represent sexism, to maintain their masculinity and keep themselves included in the male social circle. Sedgwick proposes that another form of masculinity was through femininity and explains how women who express any signs of masculine characteristics run the risk of being less feminine and therefore “butch.” This expresses how masculinity ideals are as well expressed in womanhood or the lack of which argues the patriarchy influence on women’s feminine
Two boys walk down the corridor of a friendly, residential, public high school. As they approach, the crowd slowly parts as its bystanders just stare at the boys. The boys walk with a certain aire about them, as their trench coats swing from side to side and their gloomy faces meet the eyes of the rest of the students. They are pointed at and called names such as fag or freak-- for they are members of the infamous trench coat mafia. These two boys can also be described as the murderers in the Columbine High School shootings. Somewhere across the country in another friendly, residential, public high school, a good looking boy of the same age walks down a similar hallway, and has a similar effect on the crowd. Instead of being laughed at or called a fag, this captain of the football team, Corey Johnson, gets a few " good job at the game yesterday" or hellos from people that have only heard of him and wished to actually know him personally, for he is notorious for being "cool". Rather than being called a fag as walks down the hallway no one even suspects or even contemplates the fact that he is a homosexual. These individuals are alike in various aspects; age, sex, surroundings, and others, but yet have managed to be labeled and categorized so differently and so harshly. So what are the social conditions that have allowed such opposing figures to take shape in our culture? What is it that forces youth to be successful at being normal or unsuccessful and weird? The answer is the confining and forceful methods that our society has used to produce its norms. These two particular cases are just representations of many types of kids who are forced into two very dist...