Oppression and Depression: The Effects of White Masculinity

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Oppression and Depression: The Effects of White Masculinity

In Peter N. Stearns’ book Be a Man! he cites Nichols, Pleck and Sawyer as he makes the assertion that “Macho man, artificially and oppressively virile, asserts himself over hapless women and in fields of aggression ranging from big business to war, from raising of sons to the domestic cloistering of wives” (Nichols, Pleck and Sawyer). White men in America throughout history have guided themselves according to a particular set of social norms which defines their masculinity. Society embraces these defining characteristics and therefore sets standards for the men to live by and be judged by. John Steinbeck comments on the irony of these standards as he said “Men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling, are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest, are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second.” In this statement Steinbeck recognizes the double standard of society’s expectations, being that men should be honest and true to their morals, while at the same time rewarding them for the undesirable qualities. Although on the surface society emphasizes these positive traits, it defines men by the exact opposite, the cunning and unemotional ones. White masculinity is a set of expectations that have been instilled in every child as they mature, and therefore they come to expect this model to be achieved by every man. When these expectations become unreal, not only do the victims of white masculinity themselves suffer, but so do their spouses and wives as they are unable to restore...

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...sister. Those statements are made for him by his surroundings and the other non-white male characters in the novel.

White masculinity is the ideal that has young boys dreaming of becoming firefighters, teenagers idolizing Bruce Willis, and middle aged men dyeing their hair and getting gym memberships. Whether it is through the appreciation of the ideals of white masculinity, or the desire for the fulfillment of these ideals, society as a whole has embraced it and continues to encourage its existence. In recent years, indications have appeared of a regression in the application of white masculinity through the popularity of movie stars such as Leonardo DiCaprio playing sensitive roles (Malin 239). However, extreme cases of white masculinity have also appeared, in such acts as hate crimes, against races as well as gays, and exposure of sexual harassment cases.

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