Manliness Definition Essay

My community has been taught the wrong way when it comes to the definition of what it means to be a man. According to psychology today, “most boys associate masculinity with physical appearance. People have been lied to about the definition of masculinity” (Jaffe). It's harder to be a man today, more than ever before. Up until the late 1970s men’s and women’s roles were fairly well-defined. Men grappled with difficult undertakings such as wars, unemployment, and taxes. Women dealt with daily menu selections, such as cooking, diaper changes, and many other activities around the house. Recent years show the line between male and female roles is becoming blurred. Sadly, the new definition of manliness is killing more than 70,000 men per year. According to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, since about 2013 “men die by suicide 3.5x more often than women”. They also mentioned that “ In
It's amazing that the kids who normally struggle financially have a “much lower and roughly similar rates were found among Hispanics (6.3), Asians and Pacific Islanders (5.9), and Blacks (5.5)” (Harkavy). This definition of manliness is not just affecting kids who struggle with life but everyone. There has always been a definition of what it means to be man. But there has never been a definition of what it means to be a “ real man”. As community we should introduce a new definition explaining what a real man is because what we have so far is wrong. If we were to truly work on a new definition, being a man would have nothing to do with traditional notions of masculinity. Rather, to be man would simply mean to be human, and to treat everyone else, regardless of sex, race, religion, age or sexual orientation, as such. We would just need to try and be strong enough to accept people for who they really are. Our goal as a community should be to work towards a society of gender respect, adopting new languages, throwing out stereotypes, and helping boys to share their true