Double Standard Essay Research Paper Masculinity is free essay sample

Double Standard Essay, Research Paper Masculinity is a subject that has been debated in our society extensively, through research every bit good as in informal scenes. Many wonder what it means to be masculine, and if we can truly delegate a definition to such a term. After all, shouldn # 8217 ; t 1s ain perceptual experience determine what is masculine. This would be ideal in our society, but unluckily, it isn # 8217 ; t. Masculinity has certain features assigned to it by our civilization. In this paper I will research maleness and show how certain beliefs refering to it are in our society. Work forces are chiefly and secondarily socialized into believing certain features are unequivocal in finding their manfulness and maleness ( Witt, 76 ) . These features range from non shouting when they get hurt to playing violently. The thought of maleness in our society begins every bit early as the first phases of babyhood. A kid # 8217 ; s sense of ego or self-concept is a consequence of the battalion of thoughts, attitudes, behaviours, and beliefs to which he is exposed ( Witt, 76 ) . From the start of a boys life he is socialized into the belief that he should be # 8220 ; tough # 8221 ; . Often when male childs get hurt or come wailing to their female parent or male parent, the doomed words, # 8221 ; Little boys wear # 8217 ; t call # 8221 ; , are said. Children internalize parental messages sing gender at an early age, with consciousness of grownup sex function differences being found in two-year-old kids. One survey found that kids at two and half old ages of age usage gender stereotypes in negociating their universe and are likely to generalise gender stereotypes to a assortment of activities, objects, and businesss ( Witt, 76 ) . This teaches males that male childs and work forces are non allowed to shout. There besides exists the belief that male childs are frequently required to make work forces # 8217 ; s work outside of the place such as cut downing the lawn, cleaning the garage, ect. , and non effeminate adult females # 8217 ; s work such as cooke ry and cleansing, etc. Other factors help to make certain criterions expected of work forces and male childs. The force male child # 8217 ; s informant on telecasting farther legitimates this. Katz explains that advertisement imagination equates maleness with force. For male child this means aggression is instrumental in that it enables them to set up their maleness ( Katz, 91 ) . Lee Bowker researched the influence advertizements have on young person. He asserts that plaything advertizements having merely boys depict aggressive behaviour. Queerly, the aggressive behaviour by and large consequences in positive effects more frequently than negative. Bowker besides looked at commercials with male childs that contain mentions to domination. The consequences of all the commercials indicate that 68.6 % of the commercials positioned toward male childs contain incidents of verbal and physical aggression ( Bowker, 119 ) . There was no cross gender show of aggressive behaviour. Interestingly, non one single-sex commercial having misss demoing any act of aggression. This research helps explicate that it is non merely the support of parents to the kid that legitimate maleness but society as a whole. Another illustration of how this can be reinforce even by adult females who may or may non be seeking to advance such belief is with an experience I had turning up. When I would acquire a cut or a contusion, I would rally up all the strength I had to non shout. I feared that if I cried I wouldn # 8217 ; t be worthy of being a tough child. On one juncture I had a terrible cut in my articulatio genus that required several stitches. When I took a expression at the lesion after turn overing up my pants. , my first idea was to interrupt out shouting. However, at that minute my instructor told me what a brace male child I was and how astonied she was that I was non shouting. She likely did non recognize that she was directing a message to me that if I cried I would non be tough plenty, and hence I would non go a existent adult male. Sports is another type of legitimation that reinforces society # 8217 ; s definition of maleness ( Stearns, 211 ) . Boys watch how their male parents get so interested in the game whether it is football, hoops, or any other athletics that enforces maleness. Children notice that the work forces on Television impress pa and they want to be like that. This initial reinforcing stimulus is a major influence for male childs desiring to larn sports ( Stearns, 211 ) . It may non be merely that pa watches sports on Television, but besides in talking with his boy, he may promote him to develop his athletic art. He can make this in ways such as purchasing him a baseball baseball mitt so they can pass clip playing gimmick, or purchasing him other masculine athletic equipment such as guns. All these factors serve as primary socializs in transfusing within boys the desire to stand out physically. Similarly, how frequently are immature male childs seen viing with each other in motorcycle races, Ac ts of the Apostless of physical strength or even in something every bit simple as # 8220 ; my pa can crush up your dad. # 8221 ; Little male childs are taught to see physical art as the ideal signifier of maleness ( Stearns, 212 ) . An interesting facet of maleness is that we are non taught so much to be manfully but instead to non b e feminine. Most of what a immature male child learns about what it means to be masculine is presented to him at such an early phase that he accepts it as an inevitable truth ( Buss, 45 ) . Often immature male childs can be found twit and even actuating each other with phrases like â€Å"don’t e a effeminate girl† or † merely misss do that.† It seems that there is a permeant fright among all males that the worst possible abuse is to be labeled a female. David Buss says that some societies take this construct to an extreme. He talks of the induction rites of the Sambia of New Guinea stating, â€Å"Initiation rites begin when male childs are seven to ten old ages old and include unwritten consumption of older male childs seeds and painful hemorrhage by lodging grass reeds up their olfactory organ. The hemorrhage is a opposite number of menses and seeds is ingested alternatively of female parents mild† ( Buss, 213 ) . Although these actions seek to tag t he male child as â€Å"not a woman† , ironically they incorporate basic feminine biologic maps that work forces lack. Secondary socialisation so acts in the ulterior phases of a boys life to reaffirm society’s beliefs about maleness ( Buss, 213 ) . As male childs grow older, their organic structures develop and they enter junior high and high school. At this point they begin to truly understand that physical power and breadth are the ideal demands for maleness. To see how this is done, we can merely look at the accent given to sports versus the accent given to faculty members in public schools. Intelligibly, how schools emphasize sports over faculty members is traveling to hold some influence over the manner immature work forces think and visualize the importance of physical strength, but the true factor is how jocks are seen by the pupil organic structure of the school. Pep mass meetings are thrown to back up the jocks, the stars of the school. Girls drove over the masculine hunks. As immature male childs move into maturity they are told to be work forces when confronted with a challenge or when they face some kind of torment. The deduction in this phrase is that work forces should be immune to trouble and non demo any emotion . To demo emotion would be mark of failing and society would see them as abnormal or inferior ( Gwartney, 23 ) . This procedure, nevertheless, does non stop in high school. As work forces move into their mid-twentiess and mid-thirtiess, wellness and fittingness become issues of concern. To see how wellness and fittingness are socially defined as excessively muscular work forces, one demand merely pick up a comp of Men # 8217 ; s Health. You will happen on the screen, work forces flashing their toned, muscular organic structures, and frequently you will happen them with a deductively beautiful and toned adult female by their side. These toned and muscled work forces are seen and depicted by society as the ideal masculine object. They may non be the healthy persons and likely are non. However, they are deemed as the ideal work forces of our society. Along with the accent on wellness and fittingness comes the continued coming of athletic art ( Gwartney, 24 ) . How frequently are work forces asked # 8220 ; did you see the game last dark? # 8221 ; or # 8220 ; How about them Rams? # 8221 ; In th e work topographic point and societal groupings, work forces frequently turn the subject of conversation to athletic events. From the beginning of male life to the really end, society has determined that work forces must be strong, tough, distant, and powerful to be considered masculine and non weak or effeminate ( Gwartney, 24 ) . Is this all that society ( and adult females ) want in work forces? Do they desire simple-minded hunks of musculus that are tough. IT is no longer sufficient for work forces to merely be tough physically. They must besides show competency intellectually, spiritually and emotionally ( Gwartney, 25 ) . This statement is non to state that being physically fit and healthy is a negative feature, but instead it is merely seeking to indicate out that what society is specifying as the ideal is subsequently revoked by that same society, or at the really least cast-off and seen as secondary to the truly of import mental art, sensitiveness and intelligence. This is where the dual criterion becomes apparent. Is there a dual criterion in maleness? It is evident through my statements that sociey expects work forces to be both tough and soft while some might reason that genetic sciences, inherent aptitudes and their animalistic nature for work forces to move more tough than soft. The paradox is apparent, the beginning equivocal. Regardless, maleness is an unrealistic outlook of work forces. Who or what are they supposed to be? Plants Cited Bowker, Lee H. Masculinities and Violence. Thousand Oaks, CA. Sage Publications Inc. , 1998. Buss, David. The Development of Desire. New York, NY. St. Martin # 8217 ; s Press, 1994. Gwartney, Debra. # 8220 ; Double bind of male childs concerns psychologists. # 8221 ; Oregon Times, October 17, 1998. Katz, Jackson. # 8220 ; Advertising and the building of violent white masculinity. # 8221 ; Newsweek, February, 1998. Stearns, Peter N. Be a Man! Males in Modern Society. New York, NY. Holmes A ; Meier Publishers, Inc. 1990. Witt, Susan D. # 8220 ; Parental influence on kids # 8217 ; s socialisation to gender roles. # 8221 ; Adolescence. 1997.