The Outcomes of Threatened Masculinity

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“A four-year-old boy had a big dilemma: he loved butterflies. He also loved being a boy. His teacher’s unfortunate statement about ‘butterflies are for girls and cars are for boys’ was the source of his internal conflict” (Ozkaleli 567). When a child is born, we as a society, decide how they should dress, what they should like and more importantly how they should act. Without any knowledge of what this child wants or needs we decide to control their feelings and shape them in a way that seems acceptable in our society. Our society tells our girls to be pretty and like butterflies and it tells our boys that to be strong and to like cars. Liking or wanting anything else besides what we are told is considered to be normal is not appropriate and often causes children to become outcasts. We divide actions and preferences into two categories: girly and manly.

In this paper I will be discussing what it means to be a man and what happens when that masculinity is threatened. Firstly, I will be looking at what a man is supposed to be, how he is supposed to act and what his role in society is. How a male goes from being a boy and then turning into a man. Then, I will be looking at two age groups teenage boys mostly high school boys and grown men somewhere between 30’s to late 60’s. I will be covering how teenage boys react to bullying, gay baiting and their masculinity being threatened. Why these teenage boys respond with violence and what does being violent have to do with being a man. I will also be looking at older man and how they view what a man’s role is in society. Also, what is it about guns that make them feel like a man, as they get older? “Jeff felt proud that his officemate feared him. Though he is older now, and not able to d...

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... Journal of Emotional Abuse 7.4 (2007): 43-67. Print.

• Willis, Danny G., and Catherine A. Griffith. "Healing Patterns Revealed in Middle School Boys' Experiences of Being Bullied Using Roger's Science of Unitary Human Beings (SUHB)." Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Nursing 23.3 (2010): 125-32. Print.

• Feder, Lynette. "Bullying as a Public Health Issue." International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology 51.5 (2007): 491-94. Print.

• Reuter-Rice, Karin. "Male Adolescent Bullying and the School Shooter." The Journal of School Nursing 24.10 (2008): 350

• Klein, Jessica. "Book Review: The Bully Society: School Shootings and the Crisis of Bullying in America's Schools." Rev. of The Bully Society: School Shootings and the Crisis of Bullying in America's Schools, by Mark Cohan. Gender & Society 27.10 (2013): 438-40. Print. -59. Print.

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