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Summary Of Talking To Boys The Way We Talk To Girls By Andrew Reiner

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“Talking to Boys the Way We Talk to Girls” by Andrew Reiner argues that boys are being taught a message of masculinity that is becoming detrimental for their emotional development. Andrew Reiner says that, contrary to how we are raised, men are actually more emotional than women. This contradicts society's portrayal of men, which says men need to be tough due to the harshness of society. Reiner shows how this message of masculinity is perpetuated by our parents. Fathers focus on achievement driven words of theirs sons, which is contrary to mothers and their daughters. Andrew Reiner proposed solutions are to strengthen emotional communication with men and allow them to express themselves without being scrutinized as being weak. Men are raised …show more content…

In his research, Andrew Reiner shows that fathers, early on in their son's life, focus on achievement based words with their sons. I agree that parents are a part of the problem, not the solution. With society, we do not change what we are taught. It is difficult to be a part of the solution when parents do not even recognize what they are doing is wrong. Society has taught us that women and men should be treated differently. While both sexes are genetically and emotionally different, we cannot force society's gender roles on our children. Inhibiting man's emotional development only inhibits the individual. The language we use to converse with our offspring can change our relative perspective of how we show emotions. This duty lies with the parents to create functioning adults that can operate within society. His solution into this problem is that we have to strengthen our emotional communication with males. I believe that this is a difficulty that reaches far beyond this singular problem. As a society, we have digressed in communicating our feelings. Whether it is a problem with men feeling vulnerable or our uncanny ability to suppress our emotions. We have become stifled to fit into categories of what is masculine and feminine. Our sons need to know that communicating their emotions is a positive pursuit into being healthy adults. Talking is the foundations of which can create change in a positive

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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

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