Issues of Masculinity
A Short Explanation: I am taking a Gender Issues this term, and we are required to write response papers to the themes we are learning in class. For this response paper, I decided to write about the problems with masculinity, specifically how it is outdated and creates problems for modern day society. The original paper had footnotes in it, but obviously I can’t include footnotes in a blog post. I did, however, include a reference section so that you can see for yourself where the quotes come from.
Femininity and masculinity are the two polar ends of gender definitions; females are expected to be feminine, while males are expected to be masculine. Femininity has typically been defined as dainty, submissive, dependent, pretty, and etc. Masculinity, on the other hand, is constructed of dominance, strength, stability, and an ability to provide and protect. While femininity has been constantly changing, with the feminist movement challenging traditional ideas of femininity, masculinity still retains many of its traditional stereotypes. These traditional views of masculinity, however, do not coincide with modern society; definitions of masculinity contradict with the changing views of femininity, the modern day requirements of men in regards to work and family, and the growing role of females in leadership positions.
Howard Zinn, through his illustrations of the struggles of women, also brought to light how traditional views of masculinity conflict with changing views of femininity in his book A Peoples History of the United States. The chapter “The Intimately Oppressed” describes the early struggles of women to start gaining equal rights to white men. This chapter illustrates women’s fight for equality during the Industrial Revolution, which is when many women left the duties of the home and entered into the working world. According to Zinn, “women were being pulled out of the house and into industrial life, while at the same time there was pressure for women to stay home where they were more easily controlled”. This need to “control” women illustrates a submissiveness attributed to femininity, which comes from the dominance associated with masculinity. These contradicting pulls can be attributed to this traditional dominance associated with men; while ideas of femininity were changing and become more independent, the ideas of masculinity were staying the same – masculine men were supposed to be in charge and in control. Women entering the work force threatened this traditional masculinity, which “created fears and tensions in the dominant male world”.
The work force was not the only area that women began to challenge traditional femininity. Women also began to question traditional ideas of sexuality. Traditionally, women were blamed for all sexual misconducts: “for a woman to have a child out of wedlock was a crime” and the woman would be punished, however, “the father of the child untouched by the law and on the loose”. When women questioned these beliefs, masculinity was used as the justification, because “as the economy developed . . . aggressiveness became more and more defined as a mail trait,” which meant that “sexual purity was to be the special virtue of a woman” and women “were told to be passive”. In other words, as women began to question the ideas of feminism in regards to sexuality, masculinity was used as the validation to keep the traditional views of femininity.
The struggle for equality described by Zinn illustrated how definitions and expectations of masculinity repressed the development of new ideas of femininity. While ideas of femininity began to change and grow, ideas of masculinity stayed constant, which created a societal conflict; as long as ideas of masculinity remained the same, reforming the ideas of femininity would be a battle. Zinn depicts this through his description of “control,” “aggressiveness,” and “logical” as typical masculine qualities, causing femininity to be viewed as “submissive” and “passive.”
While Zinn described how masculinity caused problems for women, Gail Bederman described how masculinity became a problem for men as well in her book Manliness and Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the U.S. 1880-1917. In the chapter “Theodore Roosevelt: Manhood, Nation, and ‘Civilization,’” Bederman uses Theodore Roosevelt to illustrate the masculinity crisis that arose during the early 1900’s. During the early 1900s, many aspects of culture and society were changing: there was an increase of people and culture in urban areas, technology was rapidly advancing (with the invention of things like technology), capitalism became a major part of American society, and even leisure activities were changing. Despite all of these huge changes in American society, the ideas of masculinity remained untouched. As a result, many middle class white men found themselves in a crisis, which is described by Bederman and Roosevelt. Once again, dominance plays a large role in Theodore Roosevelt’s definition of manliness. Roosevelt’s descriptions of masculinity often revolve around the idea of being “the best”; Bederman explains these ideas of dominance when she says that masculinity required the “ability to outsavage the savages” and the ability to use violence to “establish which race had the strongest, most powerful men”. While the important theme with these two ideas was dominance, it is also important to notice how this dominance was acquired. This idea of “civilized manliness” required the ability to both be physically stronger, but also more mentally capable (e.g. more clever and/or intelligent). Ideas of masculinity involving control also remained constant: “Imperialist control over primitive races thus became a matter of manhood”.
While Roosevelt strongly advocated for these ideas of masculinity, it was becoming clear that his modern society did not properly allow for the portrayal of such “manliness,” and thus Roosevelt had to set out to prove himself. In order to hold true to these ideas of masculinity, Roosevelt wrote the book The Winning of the West to depict these defininitions of masculinity and also relate himself to them; his book describes that “the manly white American race, proves its manhood by winning a series of violent battles with inferior, savage Indians”. Since there was no readily available way to prove manliness, Roosevelt says that men must go out and prove themselves by defeating not only the Indians, but all “inferior” races. Roosevelt also attempts to prove his manliness by going on a series of hunting trips, because “as TR saw it, nature was brutal and primitive – a proving ground of manly prowess”.[8] These forced ideas of masculinity, requiring that men go out of their way to prove their “manliness,” root from the crisis that many men faced where the changing of the times was creating less of a need for masculinity. The world was becoming more civilized, so these brute definitions of masculinity were in danger of becoming obsolete.
Even though all these questions of masculinity were being brought forth in the early 1900s, masculinity has still managed to stay consistent through current day ideology. In the article “Masculinity Ideology and Psychological Strain: Considering Men’s Social Stressors in Female-Dominated Occupations” by Sonja Sobiraj, Daniela Weseler, Thomas Rigotti, and Gisela Mohr, they illustrate that ideas of masculinity has remained constant since the early 1900s when they say, “In general, masculinity ideology includes behavior such as avoiding appearing feminine, demonstrating heterosexuality, gaining status and respect through work and money, showing invulnerability, gaining a reputation for violence or adventure, and not displaying strong emotions”. Sobiraj and colleagues conducted a study to examine the effects of men adhering to this traditional masculine ideology on the social stress they experienced. To test this, they performed their experiment with men that worked in a female-dominated work environment and compared them to men that worked in a male-dominated environment. Their results “provide evidence for the assumption that men’s adherence to masculinity ideology is positively related to social stressors at work for men in female-dominated occupations”. This means that men that held onto traditional ideas of masculinity felt significantly more stressed when they were working in environments that were dominated by females. Sobiraj and colleagues suggest that this may be a result of men “avoiding feminine tasks” or avoiding masculine behaviors “such as driving for status or being dominant” because it might “threaten superiors’ authority”.
Overall, the study done by Sobiraj and colleagues further proves that traditional ideas of masculinity are outdated. In modern day society, females are holding more power in the public and political world, due to the feminist movement creating new ideas of femininity. However, since ideas of masculinity have not changed, ideas of masculinity and femininity no longer work together; instead, these ideas contradict each other. While it is acceptable to females to be in these dominant positions, such as holding jobs that put them in charge of other employees, it is not acceptable for a man to be in a submissive position, because this threatens their traditional ideas of masculinity.
Since the early 1900s, traditional ideas of masculinity have started becoming outdated or even superfluous. The Feminist Movement has caused ideas of femininity to grow and change, while ideas of masculinity has remained constant, being defined through traits like dominance and control. Instead of these ideas of masculinity contributing to society, they are actually preventing and/or hindering change: the Feminist Movement has been slowed down due to the resistance of individuals who uphold traditional masculinity, middle class men have gone into crisis and feel as if they are being forced to prove their masculinity, and men who uphold traditional masculinity in their work environment are experiencing significantly more stress. These proofs of outdated ideas of masculinity call for a change; society needs to reevaluate its masculine ideology.
Bibliography
Bederman, Gail. Manliness and Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the US
1880-1917. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995.
Sobiraj, Sonja, Weseler, Daniela, Rigotti, Thomas and Mohr, Gisela. “Masculinity Ideology and
Psychological Strain: Considering Men’s Social Stressors in Female-Dominated
Occupations” Journal of Men and Masculinity 16, no.1 (2014): 54-66, accessed February
15, 2015, http://www.jstor.org/.
Zinn, Howard. A People’s History of the United States. Harper Collins: New York, 2003.
I Don’t Want to Live on this Planet
Prepare yourself, because this is going to be a very long rant about many different things.
This week has been extremely frustrating for me. I feel like at every turn I’m greeted by something that causes me to face palm and wish I didn’t live on this planet. As a precursor, I’m going to start my rant talking about stupid people, because they seem to be the root cause of a lot of these issues. By stupid, I mean ignorant, or self-centered; those people that just don’t think things through. They will pop up throughout this entire rant. I also want to say that none of this is personal; I’m not bashing on anyone. I’m friends with people that hold some opposite opinions to me, even on this topic, and I get it; people have different opinions. I’m also not trying to label anything as “bad”; I’m pointing out specific issues, not slamming overall institutions.
Let’s start with religion, because that’s definitely an area where people flaunt their stupidity. First, I became frustrated about a conversation about religion in my gender issues class. We read an article about sexual violence during the Spanish conquest of California. The author wrote this article from a sociological perspective, pointing out that patriarchal society, war mentality, and social constructions of gender are what led to this sexual violence. However, one man in my discussion group ignored all this, and blamed the sexual violence on the beliefs of Catholicism. His basis for this was that there were missions during the Spanish conquest, meant to convert First Nations (ie Native Americans, but First Nations is a more PC term) to Catholicism. While these missions were indeed there, and Catholicism was the leading religion of Spain at the time, it was not the variable that the author was using to explain the sexual violence. For at least thirty minutes, I had to listen to this guy completely rag on Catholicism, even when other members of the group and I tried to politely explain to him that that was not the point of the article. While it is true that he may have just misinterpreted the reading, I think another thing is at play here; when people hear anything about religion (specifically Western religions), they jump to the defensive. Oh, Christianity? Bad. Catholicism? Bad. Mormonism? Bad. All bad. They perpetuate bad morals. That is wrong. There are people that perpetuate bad morals and blame it on their religion, or interpret their religious doctrines in ways that do not flatter humanity, but that does not mean the religion as a whole is bad, and it does not mean you should immediately jump on the band wagon of bashing it. If anything, by jumping on that band wagon of bashing religions, you’re doing the same thing that those “bible thumpers” are doing; you’re bashing on something because of a stereotypical belief. There should almost be a whole new word for the hate of religion; we’ve got racism and sexism, and there seems to be a whole new wave of “religionism”. It’s the people you’re mad at: the people that are holding picket signs saying “God hates fags” (a lie, of course).
This leads nicely into my next rant about religion. While reading my human sexuality book, there was an entire section analyzing the Bible’s views on sex and sexuality. Their analysis confirmed my already existing beliefs. When examining Jesus’s words and actions only, the Bible has a fairly liberal view on sex and sexuality. One of Jesus’s best friends, Mary Magdalene, was most likely a prostitute, and she was just one of the many that he hung out with. When people presented Jesus with someone who had committed adultery, his response was “if any of you are without sin, let him be the first to throw stones.” Never once does Jesus condemn homosexuality. In fact, when asked what commandments are most important, Jesus answered to love the Lord your God and love your neighbor. Essentially I believe he was saying “stop worrying about all of these rules, and worry about love”, because to Jesus, love was what was important; whatever you do, do it in LOVE. It isn’t until the books written by Paul that this negative view on sex and sexuality comes into play, which really makes sense, given Paul’s situation; he was a very corrupt person before he found Jesus. So of course he’s going to preach that sex distracts from God, because for him it did. But people take that and they run with it. Shouldn’t the most important parts of the Bible come from what Jesus said and did, since his words are the only exact words we get from God? Everything else is filtered through the writings of man. Jesus preached love. That’s what Christians should be focusing on. If people want to preach against things like homosexuality or judge people based on premarital sex, they are doing it by their own standards. I’m sick of people saying all these hurtful, judgmental things, and then trying to stand behind their religion. You’re on your on two feet, guys. If you feel like you need to hide behind your religion to say something, you might want to rethink what you’re saying.
Thus concludes my religion rant, and now onto my next rant: foodstamps. If I could punch everyone on Facebook that I’ve seen say something dumb or ignorant about food stamps, I’d have a fucking strong upper body. I get that people are upset about the abuse of foodstamps. But guess what? Not that many people abuse foodstamps. Yes, it happens, but that is absolutely not the majority. Being on foodstamps does not mean you’re lazy, it means you’re fucking hungry. I saw one woman on Facebook say that she would rather starve than get foodstamps. Have you ever been starving? Have you ever even been hungry? Because I have, and foodstamps saved me from that. I think this negative association with foodstamps and this bashing of foodstamps is just another form of classism. “Hey, let’s hate on poor people because they can’t feed themselves, while I eat some more food, even though I was full two hours ago” is what I see every time I see one of those stupid comments. That is absolute ignorance. And even if you are upset about foodstamps, think about what you’re upset about. Most likely you’re upset that these people on foodstamps are able to buy things like Papa Murphy’s while you bust your ass to eat Progresso soup. That’s a fair thing to be mad about, but are foodstamps really the problem there? No. The problem is that there’s an uneven distribution of wealth, leaving you with just enough money to get buy after a long week/month/year of hard work. People on foodstamps are just trying to get by, just like you. By getting mad at them or foodstamps, you’re just getting mad at a program that’s stopping people from starving.
Now let’s talk about feminism. Half of you people reading this just rolled your eyes, and that’s the problem. Feminism has gotten such a bad rep. And why? Yes, there’s some crazy, man hating outliers, but is that what feminism is? No…. So why is it such a negative thing? Feminism is the desire for equality between genders. What’s wrong with that? I’ve seen a lot of women say that they’re not feminists, for various reasons. One of the most common reasons I’ve seen is that sexism isn’t really prevalent today. To that, I have to say “are you fucking serious?” There is most definitely a gender divide, even in this day and age. Let me illustrate a few instances to help you out:
- Calling a man a “pussy”. That is not a compliment, it’s a derogatory form to make fun of a guy when they’re doing something feminine. And while we’re on the subject of words, what is the male equivalent for the word “cunt”? There isn’t one. There is no euphemism for male genitalia that is as offensive or shocking as the word “cunt”. Yes, these seem like small things, but they perpetuate this belief that femininity is lesser, and also that by being feminine, a man is lesser. Let’s talk about words a little bit more. Think about every euphemism you’ve heard for “sexual intercourse”. I’ll give you some examples: banging, boning, screwing, porking, etc. What perspective are these from? The male’s. Which also perpetuates that sex is for men, causing women to be called “sluts” or “easy” when they engage in the same behavior as men. One more word example. Think of euphemisms for homosexuality (yes, most of them are offensive): queen, fairy, flamboyant, etc. Not only are these offensive to homosexuals, but they’re also rooted in femininity. Which leads me to believe that the “issue” with homosexuality isn’t the act of being gay in and of itself, it’s the feminine associations with being gay.
- Here’s one for the guys, because feminism isn’t only for women. When a couple gets divorced, who usually gets full custody of the kids? The mom. Who has to buy child support and alimony? The dad. Why? Because supposedly, women are better parents; they’re the caregivers. Courts typically don’t actually evaluate the parenting skills of each parent, they just allow moms full custody, and dads get to see their kids every other weekend. Men aren’t supposed to be good parents; they’re supposed to be stern, hard working, unemotional, etc etc. I hope you see that that’s a big pile of bullshit. Now think about when you go to a public restroom. Where’s the baby changing table? Usually, in the women’s restroom. There are some places that have one in the men’s restroom, but even the fact that this is not always the case should be upsetting. Now imagine for me two different situations: one where a single mom is taking care of her kids, and one where a single dad is. How much more impressed is society with men for raising kids alone? While it is true that most people are sympathetic and impressed by both circumstances, a single dad is guaranteed to be admired and respected. Because, according to this gender divide, it’s impressive that he can take care of that kid without a woman.
- One more. I’m sure you’ve all heard about the differences in pay between men and women; women make 70 cents for every dollar a man makes. If you’re like me, you’ve questioned that. I used to think “Well, does that mean they’re getting paid less for the same work, or just working jobs that pay less?” Both, but the latter is what I’ll focus on, because that’s the one that people don’t typically realize. Women typically work jobs that pay less, because typical “feminine” jobs don’t pay very well, the biggest examples being teachers and nurses. Women are supposedly caregivers, remember? So they have these care-giving jobs. Are their jobs any easier than a typically masculine job? No. In fact, a lot of people argue that they’re harder. So why is it that these jobs pay so little? Because historically, women’s work has not been valued as much as men’s, and that belief is still lying underneath society norms, whether you’re aware of it or not.
So now tell me what’s so bad about feminism. What’s so bad about wanting equality.
I believe this concludes my rant for today, and let me tell you, I feel a lot better getting it all out.
That One Diabetic Girl 