Personal Theory & Reflection ESSAY
prissjimenez
masculinity.pptxWhat is a “man”?
Q & A
If both men and women are constrained by a binary gender system, why is it more women than men find this system unfair?
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The political activism aimed at changing gender relations has been called feminism and the women’s movement because women have been at the forefront of this movement. Even now it is women, more than men, who object to the way their lives are gendered. Why do you think men haven’t been in the forefront of a movement to challenge the gender binary?
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Inequality: Men and Masculinities
Men and women are both forced by society to do gender, but the consequences and benefits of doing so are not symmetrical.
This is because the gender binary is hierarchical.
The hierarchy places men above women and values representation of masculinity above femininity.
This narrows the range of life experiences that seem acceptable and right.
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This means that women routinely are positioned as helpers and caretakers to men while men are positioned as protectors and breadwinners. For women more than men, it results in reduced social status, lower financial rewards, and an expectation that men’s needs and interests should take priority.
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The Gender of Cheerleading
Cheerleading was an all-male sport equivalent in prestige and masculinity to football.
Women were first allowed to join cheer squads in World War I, after the war there was an effort to end women cheerleading.
Cheerleading became less about leadership and more about support and sexiness.
As professions and activities become more female, their value and prestige decline.
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Male cheer squads had prestige and were seen as leaders. Its athletes projected “force and grace.” The idea of women being involved in the sport was ridiculous, as cheerleading was considered too masculine for women.
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Patriarchal Power
Patriarchy is “the rule of the father.” It refers to the control of female and younger male family members by select adult men.
The patriarch is “the king of his castle,” so his word is law at home.
Men own all property, including the bodies of their wives and children and any earnings or inheritance.
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Well into the 1900s many European and American societies operated as patriarchs in which women and children had no rights.
In this environment, men own all property, including the bodies of their wives and children (or other unmarried female relatives in their care) and any earnings or inheritance of these women or children. A patriarch may have social and legal permission to punish his wife and his children physically, brutally if he chooses.
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Patriarchy: Then
In patriarchal societies, women:
cannot vote
serve on juries
use birth control
work after marriage
keep their own wages
attain a divorce
have custody of their children
enlist in the military
own property
hold political office
sue for discrimination
among many other restrictions
Men alone have legal and civil rights
Only men are entitled to act freely in the outside world, where they may—or may not—choose to represent the interests of their wives and children.
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Life really was like this for a long time, but as democracies replaced monarchies, the relationship among citizens changed. It changed first among men, but eventually women’s freedoms expanded as well.
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Modified Patriarchy
Men’s identity as men is often invisible, even to themselves, while women’s identity as women is usually centrally important.
All too often, in other words, men are people and women are women.
One sign we still live in a modified patriarchy, then, is the persistent centering of men as normal or neutral and the marginalizing of women as a modified, nonneutral type of person.
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Can you think of some parts of the world where women are still not allowed to leave the home without male escorts or only recently gained the right to vote, or even the right to drive a vehicle? There are still approximately eighteen countries where a woman cannot work outside the home without the permission of her father or her husband.
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Relations of Inequality
Sexism is the favoring of male-bodied over female-bodied people, both ideologically and in practice.
Androcentrism is gender-based prejudice favoring whatever is seen as masculine compared to what is seen as feminine.
Subordination is the placing of women into positions that make them subservient or dependent on men.
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Our legacy of patriarchal gender relations tilts people’s preferences toward men, putting a thumb on the scale in favor of male-bodied people.
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Metaphor for Power
Synonyms for the word “power” include male, manlike, manly, and masculine
Synonyms for the word “weakness” include effeminate, emasculate, and womanly.
Likewise, the word “femininity” is said to be synonymous with docility, delicacy, and softness, whereas “masculinity” is taken as synonymous with courageous, hardy, muscular, potent, robust, strong, and vigorous.
These associations reveal that gender is a metaphor for power.
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To be seen as less masculine is to be seen as less powerful, even feminine. Conversely, to be powerful is to represent masculinity. For example, if we want to tell someone to stop being weak and grasp power, we tell them to “man up.” Can you think of some other phrases or metaphors that we use for masculinity?
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Gendered Media Representations
The media also center on men and marginalize women.
A study of the top-grossing 200 nonanimated films in 2015 found that only 17 percent were headlined by women without a male co-lead.
Male characters received almost twice as much screen time as women and had more than twice as many lines.
Bechdel Test: 1) Are there 2 named females? 2) Who speak to each other? 3) About something other than a man?
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The Bechdel Test asks that three questions be used to evaluate all movies: (1) Are there two named females (2) who speak to each other in at least one scene and (3) do they speak to each other about something other than a man? Even when playing named female characters in a movie, the actresses tend to have less screen time than the actors unless they are the star.
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Gender for Men
Parents’ negative reaction to boys’ “feminine side” reflects androcentrism and the stigmatizing nature of femininity for men.
Studies in the early 2000s found that parents were concerned that feminine interests and behaviors in boys were inappropriate and worried that it suggested something was wrong.
Even parents who were tolerant of gender deviance sought to protect their sons from social disapproval by discouraging the public display of behavior associated with femininity.
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This research was conducted in the early 2000s, so it suggests that today’s young men were socialized in ways that discouraged interests, behaviors, and emotional displays that were considered feminizing.
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“Act Like A Man”
Boys tend to grow up learning to avoid femininity.
Boys & men are subjected to violence & slurs if they are not “manly” enough
Message that being feminine or homosexual makes you a girl and being a girl is worse than being a boy or man.
This is gender policing
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Because of androcentrism, anything a woman does can become off-limits for men, which limits and constrains men’s exploration of their inner lives and creative and caretaking choices. What are some ways this can happen?
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Male Flight
Male flight is a phenomenon in which men abandon feminizing arenas of life.
Male flight accelerates trends toward feminization, quickly ramping up the pace at which a given domain starts to seem inappropriate for men.
Men will even flee valuable arenas, like education, to avoid femininity.
As girls and women have come to excel in school, boys and men have increasingly associated education with femininity.
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Women are now outperforming men at all levels of schooling. Underachievement is seen as cool for men, especially if they pretend not to care. Therefore, men have become less interested in education than women, especially if they’ve internalized the rules of masculinity, even though education would benefit them.
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Hegemony Defined
Hegemony
This term refers to a state of collective consent to inequality secured by the idea that it is inevitable, natural, or desirable.
Hegemony, then, means widespread consent to relations of systematic social disadvantage.
Hegemonic Masculinity
This term refers to a type of masculine performance, idealized by men and women alike, that functions to justify and naturalize gender inequality.
Hegemonic masculinity, then, assures widespread consent to the social disadvantage of most women and some men.
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Hegemonic Masculinity
The practice of hegemonic masculinity creates the “real man” in our collective imagination, who theoretically embodies all the most positive traits on the masculine side of the gender binary.
Not all men have or want these traits, but by membership in the category, they get to identify with the characteristics we attribute to men in general.
All men can lay a socially valid claim to advantage by virtue of the traits attributed to their sex.
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In this way, men benefit from the hegemony of masculinity at the same time that they may suffer from it.
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The Danger of Masculinity
Extreme conformity to the more aggressive rules of masculinity, or hypermasculinity, is glorified.
Men account for a majority of crimes committed incl murder, nonnegligent manslaughter, and rape, to drug abuse violations and driving under the influence.
The gendered nature of violence often remains invisible because we tend to believe that men are naturally violent. Despite the prevalence of hypermasculinity, men are not naturally violent.
Men are significantly more likely to disregard their own safety and tend to take less care of their mental and physical health.
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These performances naturalize male violence, aggression, and anger.
Although we share cultural messages that suggest that men are naturally more angry, aggressive, and violent, these behaviors are no more natural for men than they are for women. Men must be trained to resist the sensation of empathy and encouraged to enter dangerous situations enthusiastically as part of the rules of masculinity.
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Patriarchal Bargains
Men make strategic choices.
Sometimes they have to choose between following the rules or being seen as a failure; at other times masculine privilege may feel like the only kind of advantage they have.
Along the hierarchy of masculinity, men make patriarchal bargains, which are deals in which an individual or group accepts or even legitimizes some of the costs of patriarchy in exchange for receiving some of its rewards.
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Men also may think that the costs of getting too close to femininity are too high.
Masculinity is one of the things that make men feel good about themselves, but it’s also a substantial form of oppression. In many ways, it hurts men.
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Can Masculinity Be Good?
In America today, some men are actively trying to find new ways of being men, ways that don’t hold up patriarchy, reward hypermasculinity, or oppress women or other men.
These men are inventing and adopting what are called hybrid masculinities, versions of masculinity that selectively incorporate symbols, performances, and identities that society associates with women or low-status men.
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But many men try to “stay in control,” “conquer,” and “call the shots”; they try to “tough it out, provide, and achieve” and, in the meantime, they have to repress the things about them that conflict with hegemonic masculinity.
Can you think of some examples of hybrid masculinities?
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Hybrid Masculinities
Hybrid masculinities can potentially:
Undermine the importance of gender distinction
Give femininity value
De-gender hierarchical relationships
Deconstruct the hierarchy of masculinity
Men sometimes find the rules of masculinity to be strict, arbitrary, and even painful.
Many men, though, follow gender rules and press others to do so too because upholding the hierarchical gender binary means preserving the privileges that come with maleness.
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If we were able to excise from masculinity the dominating, toxic, and compensatory behaviors, alongside all the other bad things like being afraid to express emotions, then what is left is a series of wonderful traits: duty, honor, hard work, sacrifice, leadership, and the like.
But for these to be traits of men, we must also say that women are not these things. Is that true? Is it fair?
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