Discussing Tough Guise with My Grandmother

The Thanksgiving Holiday allows families come together and discuss the many topics throughout their daily lives. This is shown within my family well, since the tradition in my family is to exchange stories about the year. During my story exchange I began a discussion about the documentary seen within Gender and Society titled, Tough Guise. I explained that the main purpose of this documentary was to show masculinity within today’s society through stereotypes, body images and violence. My grandmother, who has always been interested with Sociology, became the main person I spoke with about the topic. This allowed the discussion to be more in depth and informational.

As my grandmother and I moved from the loud family filled room to the quiet living room I continued the discussion with a few facts from the documentary such as, men and women within today’s society feel the need to live up to the stereotypes explained throughout Tough Guise. These stereotypes for men and women differ although they seem to be polar opposites. Men tend to feel the need to be strong, independent and in control of their emotions, while the stereotypes for women tend to show more dependency. I gave the example of men never asking for direction; since we had always laughed at the grandfather for the same reason. I explained that men tend to not ask for direction because it shows dependency, a feminine trait, causing a less masculine appearance. My grandmother then asked the question, “who creates these stereotypes?” I was shocked to hear this question since I had planned for almost every possible question except this one. Tough Guise alone could not answer this question so I added in other class assignments such as Killing Us Softly and Guyland to answer th...

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...ng is the first step. Tough guise, Killing Us Softly and Guyland are all great education pieces with a purpose to expose these topics to today’s society. Once, individuals know about the topics, I have discovered throughout Gender and Society, they can choose to follow or abandon the societal norms.

As I finished the discussion I began to notice the facial expressions of my grandmother and cousin had changed since the beginning of the conversation. My grandmother seemed to be more confident in what I had just explained; while my cousin seemed to be intrigued with the topics. I felt accomplished after explaining the major points throughout Tough Guise and even more proud that I had tied in other information from precious assignments. The discussion with my family allowed the changes within stereotypes, body image and violence to be seen throughout today’s society.