The contributor Leigh Shoemaker examines feminist male identification which results from the fact that “second wave feminism had taught me that, as a girl, I could do anything I wanted to do, but the backlash let me know that this was possible only as long as I wasn’t a girl — as long as I wasn’t soft and feminine and weak” (115). In addition, Jennifer Reed discusses the identification with characters in media in order to create feminist identities using the example of Roseanne. Moreover, Carolyn Sorisio addresses the need to include feminist history in contemporary culture in order to appeal to a wider feminist community. In conclusion, the contributors to this section defined the influence of media on the creation of feminist identities and feminist…
he idea of gender roles in society can be traced back to hundreds of years ago. Traditional gender roles are typically defined as a set of societal norms in regards to male and female behaviors. Over the past decade talk about these gender roles has caused questions among the public on identity, and sexual orientation to arise. Journalist Andrew Romano, offers a new perspective on what constitutes being a true masculine persona in his article, “Why We Need to Reimagine Masculinity.” His counterpart Marissa Meltzer’s article “Where Have All the Tomboys gone?”…
The author, Christina Hoff Sommers, 2003 article entitle “Men-It’s in Their Nature” vividly discusses cultural rearing and social assumptions regarding semi-outdated preconceived notions of stereotypical male masculinity and its impact on an ever evolving modern society. She uses several types of rhetorical elements which are hyperbole, comparison/contrast, and paradox in this article.…
Connell early on argues for the need of a broad-enough analysis that can describe and examine the larger sociopolitical structure that masculinities is a part of. Is this work successful of that? And what are the theoretical/action-based implications of re-visioning masculinities as a particular product of a particularizing gender system (especially one…
The crisis of masculinity in the 1950s led to a series of ingénues, or non-threatening, innocent, young women, appearing in popular culture. As the men felt less important and felt their masculinity dwindling, the lesser women became because in society men are always held above women.“This alteration reflected the social values of postwar society, with its emphasis on marriage and he home as the defining components of a happy American life,” (Nash, pg. 169) After all, concerns about men’s loss of authority to women who were in the nation’s workforce while the men were at war in the late 1940s led to the crisis of masculinity. During this time, popular entertainment took on the masculinity crisis by taking teen film stars out of the spot light…
Exploring the construction of hegemonic masculinity, we go through a contradicting state of the definition of manhood. Although contradictions appear, it is socially adapted and able to reside without conflict. Take manhood as this, “We think of manhood as a transcendent tangible property that each man must manifest in the world” (Kimmel, 1994). Meaning that manhood is merely an idea which is drilled into a man’s head by society, “Gender, we said, was an achieved status” (West and Zimmerman, 2015) in other terms, manhood is a socially agreed upon idealization of how men should act or who they should be. In West and Zimmerman’s “Doing Gender”, Hegemonic masculinity is accomplished by the unavoidable categories of sex and gender and ways we act upon them; collaborating together in a socially constructed standard of how to be.…
Patriarchy is such a common misconception by the public, it is perceived as a female’s liberation. Females are not the only ones affected by this patriarchal system, it is males as well. I believe it is critical to get to the bottom of why patriarchy is becoming a bigger crisis that needs to be stopped. bell hooks also suggests that both males and females have to acknowledge that the problem is patriarchy and work to end patriarchy. hooks’ starts off her article with the definition of patriarchy, which is a single most life-threatening social disease assaulting the male body and spirit in our nation.…
Media, like television has conveyed what role a male and female should play in society. For example, television show like “I Love Lucy” demonstrated that a male should be the breadwinner of the house by going to work while the female should stay home so that she can take care of their home and to wait on the husband for authority. That idea has been established way back when and has not changed too much over the years. The author of the essay “Becoming Members of Society: Learning The Social Meanings Of Gender”, By Aaron H. Devor agrees by stating, “These two clusters of attributes are commonly seen as mirror images of one another with masculinity usually characterized by dominance and aggression, and femininity by passivity and submission”(390). Even modern day television shows like “Malcom in the Middle” and “The Simpsons” portray these qualities in a man and women. Not only does television secretly manipulate our thoughts of gender identity, but so does music.…
1. Describe and critically evaluate dominant notions of masculinity and femininity in US society. How are masculinity and femininity constructed and maintained? Provide examples from two of the following spheres of influence: school, work, family, and popular culture. (1-2 pages)…
Hollywood is amongst the top in power of the media empire in the United States, the productions that come out, become believed representations of the audiences that watch them, bringing down many that are shown in those productions. With audiences that are more than majority a darker color, than what are represented in Hollywood films, it brings to attention just how much of a problem it comes be. Minorities should be just part of the Hollywood creation, holding a social responsibility to derail from creating unrealistic stereotypes of ethnic characters that pigeonhole them, due to reasons of not having enough diversity in films and TV shows, create unwelcome clichés, and whitewashing over others cultures.…
What images come to mind when you hear the words masculinity and femininity? According to Michael S. Kimmel (2000), an American sociologist, specializing in gender studies, “… the concept of masculinity is produced within the institutions of society and through our daily interactions” (p 110). From all the advertisements we see on television to the models that appear on the magazines we read, in recent years there has been much discussion on how women feel as though they have a particular stereotype to live up to. Despite this being true, according to Jackson Katz, women are not alone in feeling pressure to fit a certain gender mold. San Jose State University is often celebrated for the rich diversity in the campus community. The meanings of…
While women have broken into fields once dominated by men, such as business, medicine and law, men have been slower…
The cultures present in today’s society stem from ancient traditions where there was the perception that women were belongings who were owned by their father and then their husbands. This created a sense of entitlement that is still present today- the idea that women are there for men’s desires and are to obey them for their pleasure only. A prime example of which is the public’s response to a rape victim Tatiana Andreeva’s self-defence saying “there is nothing wrong with a man wanting to have sex with a girl.” It is perpetuated through the use of pop culture and glorified in lyrics such as “tried to domesticate you, but you’re an animal, baby it’s in your nature” and “What? You don’t like…
Stereotypes are evident throughout all forms of media. Television shows and movies in particular use stereotypes to eliminate the details of a character, this allows the audience to know them without needing to spend vast amounts of time developing the character. However, stereotypes often create characters that poke fun or marginalize the group the stereotype represents. Since media stereotypes are used so often, the same stereotype being repeated over and over again, they become the only way an audience views the marginalized group. Stereotypes can have many different effects on the ways the real being marginalized in the stereotype live: they may feel ashamed to branch out from activities defined by their stereotype, they may be forced…
Gender roles are constantly changing, but there is not enough progress in the gender identity chosen by society for women. A woman being depicted in the media as weak or lesser than a man is not tolerable. Just because these femininity performances have been repeated for so long in history does not make it natural that women should act and be represented in that way. (Alberts, 2007) It is the twenty-first century and women should be considered strong, independent and equal to men. This is still not the case as women are often also over sexualized in the media, which causes real world…