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Effects of gender stereotypes in society
Effects of gender stereotypes in society
The importance of masculinity in society
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In the United States, there are many problems that stem from one seemingly small problem; masculinity. In our country, and many others, men are expected to behave a certain way or they are considered invalid to their gender. The reason masculinity is toxic is because it leads to higher levels of violence and sexual assault. As a society, we need to redefine what masculinity means and how we can change it so it will be a positive thing in our country opposed to a negative thing. Michael Kimmel is a renowned sociologist who is knowledgeable in gender studies. In his video, “Boys Will Be Boys: Deconstructing Masculinity and Manhood at Dartmouth”, he talks about how gender has become an issue because women have made it an issue. Men never looked
They had a portion where they interviewed men and asked them what masculinity meant to them. They all responded with traits like tough, strong, independent, and respected. While those are good traits to have, it begs the question about how we treat men who don’t have these traits. Not every man is tough or muscular. When they aren’t either of those, they tend to be regarded as gay or interested in academics. What we see is that there is no middle ground for men. They are either tough and masculine or weak and gay. In our society, we don’t let men be weak. In the same video, a girl was interviewed about her guy friends. She said they would all put up a front about being strong and not caring what anyone thought of them, but in private, they would express their fears about their relationships or any problem. It makes me wonder how ingrained is this in our society. I read a story about a group of gorillas where all the males, who were aggressive and fought with each other, caught a disease, and died. The female gorillas all lived and went on to raise their young by themselves. Interestingly enough, all the male gorillas grew up to be non-aggressive and would sit around with each other. Obviously, this would never happen to humans, but if it did, how would our sons be raised? Would we have less violence and less sexual assault if there were only women raising their sons? In our book, we looked at the male sex-role identity paradigm. Two of the paradigms are that mothers make their boys masculine because men dislike their mothers for punishing them for femininity and the other is that mothers make their boys feminine because they are always around and men find this overwhelming and so they in turn try to control women. So, if all the fathers were to contract a disease, would the boys still grow up to be aggressive or would they become more
Jensen proposes three ideas on why masculinity must be terminated: masculinity is harmful for both men and women, men are surrendering their humanity by conforming to masculinity, and that all characteristics should simply be human characteristics, not male or female.
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
In Kimmel’s essay “’Bros Before Hos’: The Guy Code” he argues that the influence of society on masculinity is equal to or greater than biological influences on masculinity. In the essay, Kimmel uses various surveys and interviews to validate his argument. He points to peers, coaches, and family members as the people most likely to influence the development of a man’s masculinity. When a man has his manliness questioned, he immediately makes the decision never to say or do whatever caused him to be called a wimp, or unmanly. Kimmel’s argument is somewhat effective because the readers get firsthand accounts from the interviewees but the author does not provide any statistics to support his argument.
All over the world Masculinity has many different cultural definitions. Depending where someone is from, and what they were brought up to believe, defines what the term “masculinity” entails. Different Social institutions all over the United States, such as the military, sports, clubs, and fraternities, have been constructing their interpretation of masculinity. One major social institution that is active in thousands of Universities across the United States is campus fraternities. Campus fraternities create their own sense of masculinity by generating certain requirements and characteristics a man must hold in order to represent them as a part of their fraternity.
She taught at universities both in Australia and the United States. Connell highly disagreed that the ideas about what established masculinity are ethically definite. In other words, masculinity is important to whom is referred to. For example, “if women are seen as weak, passive and emotional, then men are supposed to be strong, aggressive, and rational” (Seidman, 221). Additionally, masculinity is based on how people interact with each other in which correlates with their race, class, and sexuality. With this said, Connell said, “to recognize diversity in masculinity: relations of alliance, dominance and subordination… This is a gender politics within masculinity” (Seidman, 223). To point out Connell’s theorizing masculinity, she believes that diversity defines masculinity has its own relationships with authorities. In our text, Seidman gave a brief example of how the roles carry out to the social authority such as President, Senator, CEO, General, media executive, or surgeon. It is stated that while there are many senators, executives, or CEOs who are women, it is definite identify as masculinity because people think those high authorities is only for a male role. In our text, Connell has mentioned that “every society has a dominant or a “hegemonic” type of masculinity” (223). This means that she believes men has the power or control type of their masculinity in the
Good afternoon, today I will be discussing the perceptions of masculinity and the need to take responsibility for one’s own actions.
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...
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
According to Kimmel, the earliest embodiments of American manhood were landowners, independent artisans, shopkeepers, and farmers. During the first decade of the nineteenth century, the industrial revolution started to influence the way, American men thought of themselves. Manhood was now defined as through the man’s economic success. This was the origin of the “Self-Made Man” ideology and the new concept of manhood that was more exciting, and potentially more rewarding for men themselves. The image of the Self-Made Man has far reaching effects on the notion of masculinity in America. Thus, the emergence of the Self-Made Man put men under pressure. As Kimmel states,
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
The topics that Joe Ehrmann uses as framework for his Building Men for Others program are quite intriguing and make you really question masculinity. The first topic, rejecting false masculinity, can be interpreted a few different ways. In the book, it states: “As young boys, we’re told to be men, or to act like men” soon followed with “we’ve got all these parents say ‘be a man’ to boys that have no concept of what that means. I completely agree with the statement of Joe Ehrmann and often question the definition of ‘being a man’. Many boys and men will reject the idea of a man being anything other than being big and strong or having power.
The media is a very influential aspect of our daily lives. The media is everywhere we look, everything we listen to, and everything we talk about, we cannot escape it. It only makes sense that the media would have an affect of the construction of how we view masculinity and femininity. The media has the ideals or standards of what it means to masculine or feminine which with our changing times do not represent a majority of people. These standards are set so high that no one can reach them, which makes people feel defeated since they do not meet these expectations. With many people not fitting into these generalized norms we set for a “man” or “woman” it is time we get rid of these norms, or at least update them to the times. People are changing
Masculinity is a subject that has been debated in our society for quite some time. Many wonder what it means to be masculine, as it is difficult to define this one –sided term. Pairing this already controversial term with “feminist studies” can bring about some thought - provoking conversation. Feminist studies of men have been around for many years with regards to the feminist movement. It seeks to create gradual improvements to society through its main principle of modifying the ways in which everyone views what it means to be a man. Feminist studies of men bring forth the discussion of hegemonic masculinity; how this contributes to the gender hierarchy, the radicalized glass escalator and ultimately the faults of this theory.
Phillips says that the future of men is women because women have a long standing battle or history of women’s movement and right protests. The study of masculinity is growing due to the influence of the successful feminist movements. Women and Men are compared to one another for the longest time, but men has always been the dominant during the early stages of humankind. It is said that male and female bodies were innate and suited for specifics roles in society. In the 18th century, male bodies were more superior, stronger, more able, suited to be leaders, roles in government, business, family and land. While the females we're fragile, weaker mentally, and physically, and better suited for childbearing and household roles (Phillips, 514) . Males have always had the upperhand, but no one ever talks about their insecurities and
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.