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How media influences gender roles
Gender and media representation
Gender and media representation
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The misguided perception of masculinity is the absence of anything remotely homosexual. In Michael Kimmel’s novel Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men he discusses the contradictions of masculinity and what it takes to be seen as a real men. In American, middle class white society, manhood is more than beards and sleeping around with women, it is being as far away from feminine as allowed. The most foreign idea to most would be to consider a gay man to be “manly.” This unfathomable idea is what spurs on homophobia and gives homosexuality a foul name. To be called a “sissy” or “faggot” is worse than being called a “bastard” or “dick.” Shaking a man of his masculinity and naming him a woman psychologically destroys a man. Guyland best describes this as, “Homophobia—the fear that people might misperceive you as gay—is the animating fear of American guys’ masculinity. It’s what lies underneath the crazy, risk-taking behaviors practiced by boys of all ages, what drives the fear that other guys will see you as weak, unmanly, frightened” (Guyland 50). This kind of methodology has been growing for generations, seen mostly in high schools as young boys get physically tortured or beaten for effeminate behavior. The lack of acceptance in culture is increasingly appalling for all age groups. It is a form of conformity of culture as psychologist Karen Franklin discusses:
Assaults on homosexuals and other individuals who deviate from sex role norms are viewed as a learned form of social control of deviance rather than a defensive response to personal threat ... in other words, through heterosexism, any male who refuses to accept the dominant culture's assignment of appropriate masculine behavior is labeled early on as a “sissy” ...
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...people from being considered masculine. All sexualities have the capability of masculinity, but just not all choose to follow the path of aggression and strength.
Works Cited
Franklin, Karen. "Inside the Mind of People Who Hate Gays." PBS. WGBH educational
foundation, n.d. Web. 11 Dec. 2011.
"Gay Men and Masculinity." MyOutSpirit. N.p., 19 Mar. 2006. Web. 10 Dec. 2011.
"Gay Teens Bear Burden of Homophobia." Lambda.org. American Society of Adolescent
Psychiatry, 2011. Web. 11 Dec. 2011.
Kimmell, Michael. Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men. New York City:
HarperCollins Publishers, 2008.
Kimmell, Michael. Manhood in America. New York City: Simon and Schuster, 1996. 284.
Stevens, Tom. "Fraternity Initiations - The Elephant Walk." Liberty Lion. N.p., 13 Jan. 2011.
Web. 10 Dec. 2011.
Beloved by Toni Morrison and A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry tackle issues of masculinity. On pages 125 to 138 and 147 to 149, Morrison illustrations in Beloved how white power structures and the sexual fetishism of the black man’s body, which were established by American slavery, emasculates the black man. On pages 143 to 144 in A Raisin in the Sun, which takes place between World War II and the present, portrays a peculiar mindset of a black man, and his fight to define his masculinity within a matriarchal family structure, a product of American slavery. The language in Beloved and A Raisin in the Sun, underlines the products of the societal structures of slavery effect on black masculinity.
In 1996, the Wachowskis wrote and directed the noir crime thriller, Bound. In this film, the directors turned some of the archetypes of film noir on its head. Most notably, the role of women in film. Film theorist, Laura Mulvey, claims that the main role of women in film is to function as a source of pleasure, to be objectified, to be passive and at the command of male fantasy. This relationship of looking and being looked at causes each gender to have a particular presence within film; the male is active and the female is passive (Mulvey, 1975). However, in Bound, the character Violet, who is obviously objectified by the gaze of the male characters, does not hold a passive role within the film itself. Violet is a force that acts upon the narrative, manipulating events and scenes to her favor, along with actively controlling male gaze and using it to her advantage. Film theorist, Tania Modleski argues that there are passive and active roles within films that have connotations with “femininity” and “masculinity”, but these roles do not have to apply to the gender or outward appearance of characters that they align with. Modleski focuses more on the actions, not the outward appearances, of the film
Stop for a moment and think what if homophobia didn’t really mean what we think it means. What if it really meant the opposite? Michael S. Kimmel’s essay “Masculinity as Homophobia” explains that homophobia is actually the fear of being perceived as gay. Yes, this might come as a shock to some people, but let’s see why this actually might make sense. This essay discusses that men in order to look as manly as possible, they act in very different ways, and sometimes they even exaggerate their behaviors (103). According to Kimmel men are afraid of being humiliated by other men and they would rather jeopardize their health just to preserve their masculinity (105). The author states that society has a great impact on how one should behave in order to be perceived e real men. That’s why I deeply agree with Kimmel’s general idea that homophobia is actually the fear of being
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.
...they can no longer be considered masculine even if they have all the other masculinity traits. Masculinity is a very touchy subject that requires a lot of attention. Many things that happen in the American society can be blamed by masculinity. It may take years to earn your masculinity, but only seconds to lose it.
People required strength in order to deflect the ignorance of things that do not conform to the norm. This is because anything abysmal can occur to a person. Everything appears to be at stake when there is deviation of the norm. Bullying aspect because these non-conforming things are viewed as “aberrant”. (Non-cisgender and transgender people are victims of discrimination and sixty-nine percent are homeless or were homeless, fifty to fifty-four percent were targets of harassment and insults, and multiracial along with Native American non-cisgender plus transgender person had the highest suicide rates; fifty-four percent of multiracial people and fifty-six Native Americans who are non-cisgender and/or transgender (Suicide Attempts Among Transgender and Gender Non-comforting Adults, 2).) The previous sentence outlined the isolation and melancholy and plus, with the majority of people being cisgender, people like me are casted out to the wilderness to defend ourselves, without any guidance. Straying away from the norm is gambling with your life and being seen as “void person” in
The way in which the ideal man, in terms of the male gender role, is portrayed is as hyper-masculine. The hyper masculine man is very muscular, violent, powerful, and has good self-control. While the ideal man is hyper masculine not all men feel as though they fit into that category. To counteract this a subgroup of men have formed a slightly different form of masculinity called Metrosexual. Metrosexuality is expressed differently than hyper masculinity but still holds the same core ideas. Modern masculinity "cling[s] ever more tenaciously to old ideals" (Kimmel 218) of masculinity, men being the breadwinners, and men being the leaders of the household . The old ideal of men, this being white men, being the breadwinners and being in control of the family is challenged as women and minorities make social gains and enter previously male exclusive circles of life, especially the workforce. Stresses related to social life and financial situations cause white men to feel insecure about their masculinity. In turn, men cope with this insecurity by viewing women and minorities as 'others, ' and they "just lash out at 'them, ' 'others, ' who now occupy the positions that once belonged to native-born middle-class white men" (Kimmel 220). In viewing women and minorities as 'others ' men create a dichotomy of 'us verses them. ' Hyper-masculinity promotes men to view women as others, which
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
Since the society is more accepting these days, “straight men are liberating themselves from homophobia, leaving themselves open to gay influence, and thus to a more expansive idea of what it means to be a man” (Nutter). Homosexual men taking masculinity concept to the next level where they actually do more things that extremely against the definition of masculinity. Instead of being just open up and express the feelings of themselves, they do things like women does. For example, the article written by Nutter had stated that “much more than a matter of heterosexual men simply working out, waxing, and wearing Prada.” The moment when homosexual was introduced, it was not welcome by the society, because men are expected to be highly strict, manly and masculine. The movement when the homophobia men tried to express and liberate themselves, according to Nutter “homosexuals were regularly thrown in jail, fired, kicked out of their homes, and given shock treatments as "cures,".” This changing concept of masculinity is effecting men a lot, because religious men are denied from churches. Young men were taught to look down at homosexuality and separate themselves from it to protect their sense of secure masculinity. Ayers later learned that homosexuality people still look for love and compassion just like everyone else (Ayers). Even though the concept of masculinity had changed enormous, from
Germaine Greer, The author of the article, is a very is inflammatory writer who is known very well around the world for her feminism. She is most famous for her book The Female Eunuch, noted as a key text of the feminist movement in the '70s. Germaine Greer is a feminist, she wrote this article in order to create an alternative female out look on a male tendency, but also to show society what was wrong with their thought about masculinity and that it is determined by biology. In the book The Female Eunuch, the last chapter was called Masculinity. There were several but the three main essential attributes of masculinity, according to the minutes off their career are that they need to be extremely strong, they also need to be in control come and they have to always feel better than women.
In this article, Shaw and Lee describe how the action of labels on being “feminine” or “masculine” affect society. Shaw and Lee describe how gender is, “the social organization of sexual difference” (124). In biology gender is what sex a person is and in culture gender is how a person should act and portray themselves. They mention how gender is what we were taught to do in our daily lives from a young age so that it can become natural(Shaw, Lee 126). They speak on the process of gender socialization that teaches us how to act and think in accordance to what sex a person is. Shaw and Lee state that many people identify themselves as being transgendered, which involves a person, “resisting the social construction of gender into two distinct, categories, masculinity and femininity and working to break down these constraining and polarized categories” ( 129). They write about how in mainstream America masculinity and femininity are described with the masculine trait being the more dominant of the two. They define how this contributes to putting a higher value of one gender over the other gender called gender ranking (Shaw, Lee 137). They also speak about how in order for femininity to be viewed that other systems of inequality also need to be looked at first(Shaw,Lee 139).
I think every man between 20 and 40 needs to read Elizabeth Gilbert's "The Last American Man". Without going into details (like I said, you should read the book), this is a biography/profile of Eustace Conway - a man who is, among other things, capable of and prefers to (or would prefer to) live the kind of frontier lifestyle we have read about: hunting and gathering his food, living in a house he built using his own hands, making his own clothes from the skins of animals he captured, etc. I suspect that for many people the story, at least initially, will arouse the sort of Romantic feelings that tend to come with fantasies of a "simple life" of rugged self-sufficiency. However, even for those who are quite certain that they prefer their modern urban lifestyle (air conditioning, direct deposit, grocery stores, ebay, cable TV, &c.), I think this book raises fundamental questions about what it means to be a man at the dawn of the twenty-first century.
Being tough and aggressive does not make you man enough because in today’s world, we have men who are exactly the opposite of society’s definition of masculine. I chose this topic because I feel I can have more information and resources to write this document set. As I was thinking about this work, I began asking myself questions- why does society expect men to act and behave autonomously and be in control and if they are not what society expects, they call them names such as gay, weak, timid or coward? Masculinity has affected every aspect of our lives including sports. There is a cliché that football is a game for “men” and therefore, if I am a football player, I have to be strong, aggressive and defensive. The media constantly shows videos and movies that depict strong and aggressive men as heroes and they forget that, encouraging male empowerment is another way of encouraging patriarchy. Some men also argues that, they are tough and aggressive by nature. They claim men produce testosterone which is a link to the violent lifestyle of men. I decided to look into these misconceptions and find out how true these could be so I read other literature that could be compared to my research.
Masculinity and femininity are two terms, which have been interpreted differently throughout history. Both the males and the females have responsibilities and duties but these duties differ based on one’s gender. Gender has played a prodigious role in the economy, politics, and the society. Everyone starts making interpretations of the strengths and weaknesses based on one’s gender. These interpretations are not always based on his or her ability but is usually based on his or her gender. Males tend to be judged as extremely strong and unfashionable in terms of appearance. Whereas, females are judged as expensive and very fashionable. Males and females both differ in their abilities and their enjoyments. Fashion, entertainment, and strength are three topics, which are used to define masculinity and femininity in the 21st century.
All can do assume as a matter of fact a nature of a man thus, making a negative output to a man. However, this could be a type desire that could help awaken and motivate the outlook or perspective we certainly have. This transitional process that everyone experiences should never be taken as a burden that would inhibit us from realizing the situations our society has. A man has the capacity to be successful without the need to follow the standard of how a man should be able to act in order to be considered as manly. No matter what we choose, as long as we believe positive results might fall into pieces. A true meaning and identification of being a manly doesn’t rely on traits and beliefs. It all fall under the factor of how we do things. A masculine wanting to be something often described to as feminine could be one without any hindrance. The obsession to be something is what makes a person a man, a whole new different standard that everyone would be able to adapt to. Eliminating the requirements and discriminative factors to what we know and what we try to believe. In general terms, a desire was never fuelled by masculinity and never was considered to be destructive to both genders. It is but driven by a human’s capacity to fail. Fail and be able to rise again. Different entities of gender concept that has no date, period, or age. A framework considered to have the aptitude to diminish substantial