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Role of society in gender identity construction
Role of society in gender identity construction
Societal impacts on gender identity in men
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Boys to Men In the essay What Does “Boys Will Be Boys” Really Mean, the author Deborah Roffman explains how people perceive and classify boys to be extremely messy in their actions and continuously receive passes for their unacceptable behavior. In the essay How Boys Become Men, the statement “Boys Will Be Boys” expresses how the rules boys set for themselves in their childhood unintentionally effects the decisions they make in their adulthood. The two essays focus on different situations but they come together with the same opinion about men and boys; of whom they focus on the most. One essay focuses mainly on how boys behave and the reason why people classify them the way they do, whereas, the other essay focuses on the effects of how boys learn to behave a certain way and grows into adolescents with the same behavior.
Society should not base masculinity with these traits since it is learned by observation and demonstration, and this leads men to disconnect their emotions. The author is trying to take away the blindfold on society's eyes because there is an injustice towards men and woman. These aspects of masculinity are how men are taught to be, but if we remove, eliminate, or ignore those aspects and misconceptions men will express their emotions openly without having to restrict themselves and be able to fit in society or at least feel like they are a part of the society. As you can see these views make men disconnect with their emotional side Jensen mentions this when he gives the example of his friend that worked on Wall Street and his friend described it as “coming to work as like walking into a knife fight when all the good spots along the wall were taken” (131). If we stop identifying masculinity as conquest, men would stop trying to be competitive, dominant, and even violent men might not need to always be on their guard to keep this appearance all the
The essay “Where have the good men gone” is altered from a book written by Kay S. Hymowitz called “Manning up: How the rise of women has turned men into boys”. The title provides an accurate preview to its content. Hymowitz is an editor of City Journal that writes about childhood, family issues, poverty, and cultural change in America. In this piece, Hymowitz argues that according to many studies and the opinion of young women, men are just not the way that they used to be. Hymowitz asserts that over the years, men have devolved from being men in early adulthood to boys.
Unfortunately, toxic masculinity plays a role in every society, therefore many people, mostly men, put on a “mask” to hide behind in order to make a false impression of their best selves. No matter who it is, everyone has a way that they want people to know them by, which is why it plays such an important role. The book Lord of the Flies is a fiction text about a group of young boys whose plane crashes after it was shot down during a war. The boys turn from civilized to savages on their long journey on the island as they become less and less of a society. Toxic masculinity affects society in more ways than one and often is used to get ahead or to be seen as superior.
In a male-centric society, everything revolves around the predominant definition of maleness or manhood. It is what everything else hinges on. If the definition of manhood changed, everything else would change and paradoxically, it can only change when everything else changes. It will only change when the definition of manhood has to change for some reason.
History has repeatedly given men privilege due to their physical advantages; yet it is these same advantages that have developed into “rules” or expectations that all men should conform to in order to prove their manhood. Michael Kimmel’s essay, “‘Bros Before Hos': The Guy Code” outlines the “rules” where men are expected to never show any emotions, be brave, act knowledgeable, be risk takers, be in control, act reliable, and be competitive, otherwise they would be showing weakness which is analogous to women. It is humiliating that men associate weakness with women; they should focus on the potential of the individual rather than their gender. Most insults toward men attack their masculinity because society finds it shameful for men to be
The videos “Tough Guise 2” and Jackson Katz’s TEDTallk are both extremely similar in that they both discuss the masculinity of males and how it is being used negatively in society today. There are many reasons and theory’s for why men do what they do but one factor that always seems to occur is trying to prove one’s masculinity. Whether proving it through strength, gender norms, personality, and sometimes even violence, it seems to be prevalent among every male. Victim blaming then happens after these incidents occur and women or children are looked at for causing these actions to happen to them. Both these videos were very informational and eye opening to the issues of male masculinity and “women’s issues”.
It is doubtful that there are any human beings on Earth that have not donned a mask of some sort. Some masks come in the form of the very clothes we wear, while others may be as intangible as our self-presentation. William Golding’s Lord of the Flies details the story of how one group of British boys establishes a civilization on a desert island only to watch it fall apart due to infighting and savagery; it is essentially a study of masks and how they influence human behavior and identity, ultimately resulting in a cautionary tale about letting emotions fester. Other works, such as Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “We Wear the Mask” and Edwin Arlington Robinson’s “Richard Cory,” provide insights as to what masks are worn by humans every day; while Dunbar’s perspective as a post-emancipation African-American reflects the need for dignity in the midst of post-war persecution and prejudice, Robinson’s perspective as a middle-class American distorts the American Dream through the suicide of its title character. In Golding’s Lord of the Flies, the portrayal of masks’ functions aligns with their presentation in Dunbar’s poem “We Wear the Mask” and Robinson’s poem
Because many of the ideals in the man box are mostly about "not being like a girl", men can break free of the man box and feel free to live their own lives without being held down by a set of standards. In addition, women would no longer be stereotyped because while the man box is targeted towards men, it also indirectly targets women and stereotypes how women behave in society. If I were to make changes in socializing children, I would try to encourage boys and girls that it is fine to express emotions and that not everyone has to be strong or aggressive. Some people choose to be that way, but that should not mean everyone has to follow a set example. Another way for children to develop healthy qualities would be to not stereotype gender roles since they will always meet different people who live by different standards and not just one set
He also explains how the world can change men and how values and ideas change men. People fear these changes are affecting the society and lives of other people that they show a bad image to what manhood looks like. Some men do not mind these changes while men do. In some parts of the article, the author talks about the changes in men and how it is
The Mask You Live In, show all the pressure from the media, their friends, and the grown people’s life. All the boys and man faced with some messages provide them to hide their real emotions, built up the idea that women are only for sexual conquest instead viewing women are friends, and allow men to communicate anger with other by violence. All the controversial about gender associate with race, class, their situation, creating a confusing of problems all men and boy must to be a man.
This data shows how much disadvantages such as, poverty and lack of male role models can have detrimental effects on a boy’s life. Both genders can have the same disadvantages, but why does this affect boys more than girls? There is an image that Jeff Knoblich describes about “girls entering kindergarten sitting still and using a pencil, while boys have trouble listening to adults and controlling their impulses” (as cited in Miller, 2015, para 9) that becomes a normal depiction of how girls and boys act at a young age. Through essentialism, people think that it is common for boys to be late on maturity since it has, supposedly, been proven by scientific studies that it is due to biological differences. Therefore, people will not see this as a problem.
Metrosexuality challenges this by society becoming more accepting and open to new ideas and change. Men who were once depicted as masculine are more than ever able to express themselves rather than hide in fear of society 's judgement. Overall the more masculinity is challenged the easier it will be for society to begin to diminish the use of gender stereotypes in the future. Additionally, modern day man consecutively aids towards the depreciation of the male gender stereotypes by challenging them against female stereotypes.
Being a man today can be tough. The society a boy grows up in has a wide variety of ideals of what it is to be a man. A boy may see many contradictions of what it takes to be a man depending on the digital media he sees or the company he keeps. It can be difficult to make any sense out what it means to be a man. One avenue shows boys they can grow up to wear makeup and dress like women.
The Mask Within Me As Kofi Annan stated, “Knowledge is power. Information is liberating. Education is the premise of progress, in every society, in every family.” Initially, masks are utilized in several different ways.
