American Masculinity

In American culture, society has views about how males and females should behave. Males are viewed as independent, rough, and tough while females are viewed as social, emotional, and delicate. Starting in 1792 with the publication of Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, women began to advocate for changes in how society viewed them (“History of Women’s Suffrage”). American women made additional positive changes to the women’s rights movement when they gained the right to vote in 1920. Since these beginnings, women have continued to push for change. American women now have the right to wear pants, work, take on male occupations, and decide to remain single. Despite the advances made for females, males are still bound to a rigid set of societal standards. In the introduction to Real Boys’ Voices, a series of interviews and research for the book Real Boys, William Pollack, a clinical psychologist and co-director of the Center for Men and McLean Hospital/Harvard Medical School, notes that American males are expected to be stoic, without weakness or vulnerability (xix). In these interviews, Pollack found that a constricted view of masculinity is part of contemporary American culture. In Real Boys, Pollack describes the findings of these interviews and research. Pollack shares that “the outdated and constricting assumptions, models, and rules about boys that our society has used since the nineteenth century” are still operating in force (6).

American males are exposed to society’s rules, stereotypes, and expectations on a daily basis. Books, television, radio, movies, and music all carry messages about gender. In “Night to his Day”: The Social Construction of Gender, Judith Lorber describes how gender...

... middle of paper ...

...“A Boy Who Would Rather Write Poetry Than Throw Rocks at Cats Is Also Considered to Be Wanting in Masculinity: Poetry, Masculinity, and Baiting Boys.” Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education 30.1 (2009) : 91-105.

Hiatt, Brian. “Why Can’t Adam Duritz Get Any Respect?” Rolling Stone 1049 (2008) : 53-54. Print.

“History of Women’s Suffrage.” Scholastic. Web. 21 Aug 2011.

Lorber, Judith. “‘Night to His Day’:The Social Construction of Gender.” 1994. Web. 21 Aug 2011.

Oransky, Matthew, and Jeanne Marecek. “‘I’m Not Going to Be a Girl’: Masculinity and Emotions in Boys’ Friendships and Peer Groups.” Journal Of Adolescent Research 24.2 (2009) : 218-241. Print.

Pollack, William. Real Boys : Rescuing Our Sons from the Myths of Boyhood. Later Printing. Owl Books, 1999. Print.

Pollack, William S., and Todd Shuster. Real Boys’ Voices. Reprint. 2008. Print.