Chapter 26. Chapter 26. Gender

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26

Gender

Instructor's Notes

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Brent Staples

Black Men and Public Space

Brent Staples was born in 1951 in Chester, Pennsylvania, and earned a PhD in psychology from the University of Chicago. He wrote for the Chicago Sun-Times and Down Beat magazine before joining the New York Times in 1985, where he moved from metropolitan news to the New York Times Book Review. Since 1990, Staples has been a member of the Times editorial board, writing regular columns on politics and culture. His work also has appeared in such magazines as New York Woman, Ms., and Harper’s, and he is the author of the memoir Parallel Time: Growing Up in Black and White (1994), winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award. In the following essay, published in a slightly different version in Ms. magazine in September 1986, Staples considers how his presence affects other pedestrians at night.

AS YOU READ: Identify why other pedestrians respond to Staples with anxiety.

1

My first victim was a woman – white, well dressed, probably in her late twenties. I came upon her late one evening on a deserted street in Hyde Park, a relatively affluent neighborhood in an otherwise mean, impoverished section of Chicago. As I swung onto the avenue behind her, there seemed to be a discreet, uninflammatory distance between us. Not so. She cast back a worried glance. To her, the youngish black man – a broad six feet two inches with a beard and billowing hair, both hands shoved into the pockets of a bulky military jacket – seemed menacingly close. After a few more quick glimpses, she picked up her pace and was soon running in earnest. Within seconds, she disappeared into a cross street.

2

That was more than a decade ago. I was twenty-one years old, a graduate student newly arrived at the University of Chicago. It was in the echo of that terrified woman’s footfalls that I first began to know the unwieldy inheritance I’d come into – the ability to alter public space in ugly ways. It was clear that she thought herself the quarry of a mugger, a rapist, or worse. Suffering a bout of insomnia, however, I was stalking sleep, not defenseless wayfarers. As a softy who is scarcely able to take a knife to a raw chicken – let alone hold one to a person’s throat – I was surprised, embarrassed, and dismayed all at once. Her flight made me feel like an accomplice in tyranny.° It also made it clear that I was indistinguishable from the muggers who occasionally seeped into the area from the surrounding ghetto. The first encounter, and those that followed, signified that a vast, unnerving gulf lay between nighttime pedestrians – particularly women – and me. And I soon gathered that being perceived as dangerous is a hazard in itself. I only needed to turn a corner into a dicey situation, or crowd some frightened, armed person in a foyer somewhere, or make an errant move after being pulled over by a policeman. Where fear and weapons meet – and they often do in urban America – there is always the possibility of death.

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In that first year, my first away from my hometown, I was to become thoroughly familiar with the language of fear. At dark, shadowy intersections, I could cross in front of a car stopped at a traffic light and elicit the thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk of the driver – black, white, male, or female – hammering down the door locks. On less traveled streets after dark, I grew accustomed to but never comfortable with people crossing to the other side of the street rather than pass me. Then there were the standard unpleasantries with policemen, doormen, bouncers, cabdrivers, and others whose business it is to screen out troublesome individuals before there is any nastiness.

4

I moved to New York nearly two years ago and I have remained an avid night walker. In central Manhattan, the near-constant crowd cover minimizes tense one-on-one street encounters. Elsewhere – in SoHo, for example, where sidewalks are narrow and tightly spaced buildings shut out the sky – things can get very taut indeed.

5

After dark, on the warrenlike° streets of Brooklyn where I live, I often see women who fear the worst from me. They seem to have set their faces on neutral, and with their purse straps strung across their chests bandolier-style, they forge ahead as though bracing themselves against being tackled. I understand, of course, that the danger they perceive is not a hallucination. Women are particularly vulnerable to street violence, and young black males are drastically overrepresented among the perpetrators of that violence. Yet these truths are no solace against the kind of alienation that comes of being ever the suspect, a fearsome entity with whom pedestrians avoid making eye contact.

6

It is not altogether clear to me how I reached the ripe old age of twenty-two without being conscious of the lethality nighttime pedestrians attributed to me. Perhaps it was because in Chester, Pennsylvania, the small, angry industrial town where I came of age in the 1960s, I was scarcely noticeable against a backdrop of gang warfare, street knifings, and murders. I grew up one of the good boys, had perhaps a half-dozen fistfights. In retrospect, my shyness of combat has clear sources.

7

As a boy, I saw countless tough guys locked away; I have since buried several, too. They were babies, really – a teenage cousin, a brother of twenty-two, a childhood friend in his mid-twenties – all gone down in episodes of bravado played out in the streets. I came to doubt the virtues of intimidation early on. I chose, perhaps unconsciously, to remain a shadow – timid, but a survivor.

8

The fearsomeness mistakenly attributed to me in public places often has a perilous flavor. The most frightening of these confusions occurred in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when I worked as a journalist in Chicago. One day, rushing into the office of a magazine I was writing for with a deadline story in hand, I was mistaken for a burglar. The office manager called security and, with an ad hoc° posse, pursued me through the labyrinthine halls, nearly to my editor’s door. I had no way of proving who I was. I could only move briskly toward the company of someone who knew me.

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Another time I was on assignment for a local paper and killing time before an interview. I entered a jewelry store on the city’s affluent Near North Side. The proprietor excused herself and returned with an enormous red Doberman pinscher straining at the end of a leash. She stood, the dog extended toward me, silent to my questions, her eyes bulging nearly out of her head. I took a cursory look around, nodded, and bade her good night.

10

Relatively speaking, however, I never fared as badly as another black male journalist. He went to nearby Waukegan, Illinois, a couple of summers ago to work on a story about a murderer who was born there. Mistaking the reporter for the killer, police officers hauled him from his car at gunpoint and but for his press credentials would probably have tried to book him. Such episodes are not uncommon. Black men trade tales like this all the time.

11

Over the years, I learned to smother the rage I felt at so often being taken for a criminal. Not to do so would surely have led to madness. I now take precautions to make myself less threatening. I move about with care, particularly late in the evening. I give a wide berth° to nervous people on subway platforms during the wee hours, particularly when I have exchanged business clothes for jeans. If I happen to be entering a building behind some people who appear skittish, I may walk by, letting them clear the lobby before I return, so as not to seem to be following them. I have been calm and extremely congenial° on those rare occasions when I’ve been pulled over by the police.

12

And on late-evening constitutionals°. I employ what has proved to be an excellent tension-reducing measure: I whistle melodies from Beethoven and Vivaldi and the more popular classical composers. Even steely New Yorkers hunching toward nighttime destinations seem to relax, and occasionally they even join in the tune. Virtually everybody seems to sense that a mugger wouldn’t be warbling bright, sunny selections from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. It is my equivalent of the cowbell that hikers wear when they know they are in bear country.

Questions to Start You Thinking

Journal Prompts

Suggestions for Writing

Instructor's Notes

To assign the questions that follow this reading, click ”“Browse More Resources for this Unit,”“ or go to the Resources panel. To individually assign the Suggestions for Writing that follow this reading, click ”“Browse More Resources for this Unit,”“ or go to the Resources panel.”

Judy Brady

I Want a Wife

Judy Brady was born in 1937 in San Francisco, where she now makes her home. A graduate of the University of Iowa, Brady has contributed to various publications, including the Women’s Review of Books and Greenpeace magazine, and has traveled to Cuba to study class relationships and education. She edited the book 1 in 3: Women with Cancer Confront an Epidemic (1991), drawing on her own struggle with the disease, and she continues to write and speak about cancer and its possible environmental causes. In the following piece, reprinted frequently since it appeared in Ms. magazine in December 1971, Brady considers the role of the American housewife. While she has said that she is “not a ‘writer,’” this essay shows Brady to be a satirist adept at taking a stand and provoking attention.

AS YOU READ: Ask yourself why Brady says she wants a wife rather than a husband.

1

I belong to that classification of people known as wives. I am A Wife. And, not altogether incidentally,° I am a mother.

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2

Not too long ago a male friend of mine appeared on the scene fresh from a recent divorce. He had one child, who is, of course, with his ex-wife. He is looking for another wife. As I thought about him while I was ironing one evening, it suddenly occurred to me that I, too, would like to have a wife. Why do I want a wife?

3

I would like to go back to school so that I can become economically independent, support myself, and, if need be, support those dependent upon me. I want a wife who will work and send me to school. And while I am going to school I want a wife to take care of my children. I want a wife to keep track of the children’s doctor and dentist appointments. And to keep track of mine, too. I want a wife to make sure my children eat properly and are kept clean. I want a wife who will wash the children’s clothes and keep them mended. I want a wife who is a good nurturant° attendant to my children, who arranges for their schooling, makes sure that they have an adequate social life with their peers, takes them to the park, the zoo, etc. I want a wife who takes care of the children when they are sick, a wife who arranges to be around when the children need special care, because, of course, I cannot miss classes at school. My wife must arrange to lose time at work and not lose the job. It may mean a small cut in my wife’s income from time to time, but I guess I can tolerate that. Needless to say, my wife will arrange and pay for the care of the children while my wife is working.

4

I want a wife who will take care of my physical needs. I want a wife who will keep my house clean. A wife who will pick up after my children, a wife who will pick up after me. I want a wife who will keep my clothes clean, ironed, mended, replaced when need be, and who will see to it that my personal things are kept in their proper place so that I can find what I need the minute I need it. I want a wife who cooks the meals, a wife who is a good cook. I want a wife who will plan the menus, do the necessary grocery shopping, prepare the meals, serve them pleasantly, and then do the cleaning up while I do my studying. I want a wife who will care for me when I am sick and sympathize with my pain and loss of time from school. I want a wife to go along when our family takes a vacation so that someone can continue to care for me and my children when I need a rest and change of scene.

5

I want a wife who will not bother me with rambling complaints about a wife’s duties. But I want a wife who will listen to me when I feel the need to explain a rather difficult point I have come across in my course of studies.

6

I want a wife who will take care of the details of my social life. When my wife and I are invited out by my friends, I want a wife who will take care of the babysitting arrangements. When I meet people at school that I like and want to entertain, I want a wife who will have the house clean, will prepare a special meal, serve it to me and my friends, and not interrupt when I talk about things that interest me and my friends. I want a wife who will have arranged that the children are fed and ready for bed before my guests arrive so that the children do not bother us. I want a wife who takes care of the needs of my guests so that they feel comfortable, who makes sure that they have an ashtray, that they are passed the hors d’oeuvres, that they are offered a second helping of the food, that their wine glasses are replenished when necessary, that their coffee is served to them as they like it. And I want a wife who knows that sometimes I need a night out by myself.

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7

I want a wife who is sensitive to my sexual needs, a wife who makes love passionately and eagerly when I feel like it, a wife who makes sure that I am satisfied. And, of course, I want a wife who will not demand sexual attention when I am not in the mood for it. I want a wife who assumes the complete responsibility for birth control, because I do not want more children. I want a wife who will remain sexually faithful to me so that I do not have to clutter up my intellectual life with jealousies. And I want a wife who understands that my sexual needs may entail more than strict adherence to monogamy.° I must, after all, be able to relate to people as fully as possible.

8

If, by chance, I find another person more suitable as a wife than the wife I already have, I want the liberty to replace my present wife with another one. Naturally, I will expect a fresh, new life; my wife will take the children and be solely responsible for them so that I am left free.

9

When I am through with school and have a job, I want my wife to quit working and remain at home so that my wife can more fully and completely take care of a wife’s duties.

10

My God, who wouldn’t want a wife?

Questions to Start You Thinking

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Journal Prompts

Suggestions for Writing

Instructor's Notes

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Cindi May

The Problem with Female Superheroes

Cindi May is a professor of psychology at the College of Charleston. Her research focuses on cognitive function in students, the elderly, and those with special needs, and she currently directs a Department of Education TPSID grant studying intellectually disabled students in postsecondary education. May has published several articles in psychology journals including Aging, Neuropsychology, & Cognition; Psychonomic Bulletin and Review Journal of Policy; and Practice for Intellectual Disability, as well as Scientific American and Salon. In the following article, first published in Scientific American on June 23, 2015, May discusses the negative impact of the media’s depiction of female superheroes.

AS YOU READ: How do films depict female superheroes? How has this depiction evolved in the last thirty years?

1

What do you want to be when you grow up? When pondering this question, most kids have given at least passing consideration to one fantastical if improbable calling: superhero. There is an understandable allure to the superhero position – wearing a special uniform (possibly with powerful accessories), saving the world from evil, and let’s not forget possessing a wickedly cool special power like X-ray vision or the ability to fly.

2

But new research by Hillary Pennell and Elizabeth Behm-Morawitz at the University of Missouri suggests that, at least for women, the influence of superheroes is not always positive. Although women play a variety of roles in the superhero genre, including helpless maiden and powerful heroine, the female characters all tend to be hypersexualized, from their perfect, voluptuous° figures to their sexy, revealing attire. Exposure to this, they show, can impact beliefs about gender roles, body esteem, and self-objectification.°

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Consider, for example, superhero movies like Spider-Man or Superman. These action-packed films typically feature a strong, capable, intelligent man fighting a villainous force. The goal of course is to save humanity, but more often than not there is also an immediate need to rescue a damsel in distress. The female victim is typically delicate, naive, and defenseless, but at the same time sexy and beautiful. What she lacks in strength and cunning she makes up for in kindness and curves. It is not surprising (or insignificant) that she is often the object of the hero’s affections.

4

Pennell and Behm-Morawitz posited that exposure to these stereotypic female victims, whose primary appeal is sexual, may lower women’s body esteem, heighten the value they place on body image, and result in less egalitarian° gender role beliefs and expectations. However, female characters have come a long way in the superhero genre, and it’s possible that the antidote° to the helpless fair maiden is the competent, commanding superheroine. The X-Men films, for example, feature a number of empowering female characters like Storm, Jean Gray, and Dazzler, each of whom wields a unique special ability and displays impressive cognitive and physical competence. Perhaps exposure to this new generation of female heroines will result in more egalitarian gender beliefs, higher body esteem, and greater prioritization of physical competence over appearance.

5

Still, today’s superheroines, like their female victim counterparts, are often unrealistic, sexualized representations of female figures, with large chests, curvaceous backsides, and unattainable hourglass dimensions. Their skin-tight outfits accentuate their sexuality with plunging necklines and bare skin, and many of their names (e.g., Risque, Mystique, Ruby Summers) connote, shall we say, a slightly less respectable profession than superheroine.

6

Pennell and Behm-Morawitz thus speculated that while today’s powerful superheroines might elevate egalitarian beliefs about gender roles, their sexualized nature might simultaneously have destructive effects on body image and self-objectification.

7

To explore the effects of watching sexualized female victims and heroines, Pennell and Behm-Morawitz asked female college students to watch a thirteen-minute video montage of scenes that either featured female victims from the Spider-Man series or female heroines from the X-Men series. After watching one of these video montages, participants completed a survey that assessed gender role beliefs, body image, and self-objectification. A number of other measures (e.g., moviegoing habits, enjoyment of different film genres) were included to camouflage the purpose of the study, and in a control condition, participants simply completed the survey but did not watch either film montage.

8

Gender role beliefs were assessed via the Attitudes toward Women Scale, which evaluated participants’ views about men’s and women’s responsibilities at home and in the workplace, appropriate attire and appearance in public, rationality and problem-solving skills, and physical strength. Body image was measured using the Body Esteem Scale, which requires individuals to rate personal satisfaction with general appearance and specific body parts (e.g., face, chest, thighs). Finally, the Self-Objectification Questionnaire required participants to indicate the importance of their body image and body competence to their personal identity.

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Relative to participants in the control condition, those who viewed the sexualized-victim female character did indeed report less egalitarian gender beliefs. Thus, women who watched the Spider-Man montage were less likely to agree with statements such as, “Men and women should share household work equally,” and more likely to agree with statements such as, “Men are better at taking on mental challenges than women.” They did not, however, experience drops in body esteem or rate the importance of body appearance more highly. It seems that watching the beauty-in-need-of-rescue reinforced traditional gender roles, but did not create the desire to appear more like her physically.

10

What happened when women instead watched the agile and proficient superheroines? Did these characters serve to empower women? Sadly, no. The superheroine montage did nothing to improve egalitarian views about gender roles, though at least it did not lower those views. Pennell and Behm-Morawitz argue that the sexualization of the superheroine characters serves to reinforce rather than challenge stereotypical gender role beliefs, and this effect may overshadow any benefit derived from observing a strong, intelligent, capable female character.

11

Watch out, as these superheroines pack a bigger punch: Relative to control participants, women who watched the X-Men montage reported lower body esteem. They also ranked the importance of physical competence more highly. Pennell and Behm-Morawitz suggest that women may admire the power and status of superheroines and consequently desire to emulate° them. Because these sexualized superheroines have unattainable body dimensions and engage in unrealistic physical feats (e.g., saving the world in spiked heels), it’s not surprising that female viewers are left feeling dissatisfied with their own physical appearance and prowess.

12

Thus, while the roles for women in superhero movies have evolved from the helpless, easy mark to the commanding, mighty protector, the central appeal of these characters as sexual goddesses is the same. As a consequence, the superheroines, like their victim counterparts, are undermining rather than improving women’s perceptions of their own bodies and physical competence. And they are doing nothing to improve beliefs about women’s roles in society.

13

These new findings add to a growing literature demonstrating that the gender-related information conveyed in popular media can affect personal perceptions and cultural standards about gender. Expectations and attitudes about gender roles are shaped by a variety of entertainment media, from superhero movies and G-rated children’s films to music videos, advertisements, and video games. One recent study even found that regular viewers of a reality television show featuring pregnant teens had more favorable attitudes about teen pregnancy and believed that the benefits of teen pregnancy outweigh the risks. Clearly the things we watch, even if fantastical or sensationalized, affect our beliefs. Superhero movies and other forms of entertainment, which are often viewed as a temporary escape from reality, may in fact be shaping our realities in ways that are more harmful than heroic.

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Questions to Start You Thinking

Journal Prompts

Suggestions for Writing

Instructor's Notes

To assign the questions that follow this reading, click ”“Browse More Resources for this Unit,”“ or go to the Resources panel. To individually assign the Suggestions for Writing that follow this reading, click ”“Browse More Resources for this Unit,”“ or go to the Resources panel.”

Robert Jensen

The High Cost of Manliness

Robert Jensen was born in 1958 and grew up in Fargo, North Dakota. After earning a BA in social studies and secondary education from Moorhead State University and graduate degrees in journalism, Jensen started his career as a newspaper journalist. Now a professor of journalism at the University of Texas at Austin, he teaches courses on media law, ethics, and politics and also regularly contributes to a variety of publications. His recent books include The Heart of Whiteness: Confronting Race, Racism, and White Privilege (2005), Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity (2007), and Plain Radical: Living, Loving, and Learning to Leave the Planet Gracefully (2015). He also coproduced the documentary film Abe Osheroff: One Foot in the Grave, the Other Still Dancing (2008). In the following essay, which first appeared on Alternet.org in September 2006, Jensen calls for abandoning the prevailing definition of masculinity, arguing that it is “toxic” to both men and women.

AS YOU READ: Identify what Jensen sees as the dominant conception of masculinity in contemporary culture. What does he think of this conception?

1

It’s hard to be a man; hard to live up to the demands that come with the dominant conception of masculinity, of the tough guy.

2

So, guys, I have an idea – maybe it’s time we stop trying. Maybe this masculinity thing is a bad deal, not just for women but for us.

3

We need to get rid of the whole idea of masculinity. It’s time to abandon the claim that there are certain psychological or social traits that inherently come with being biologically male. If we can get past that, we have a chance to create a better world for men and women.

4

The dominant conception of masculinity in U.S. culture is easily summarized: men are assumed to be naturally competitive and aggressive, and being a real man is therefore marked by the struggle for control, conquest, and domination. A man looks at the world, sees what he wants, and takes it. Men who don’t measure up are wimps, sissies, fags, girls. The worst insult one man can hurl at another – whether it’s boys on the playground or CEOs in the boardroom – is the accusation that a man is like a woman. Although the culture acknowledges that men can in some situations have traits traditionally associated with women (caring, compassion, tenderness), in the end it is men’s strength-expressed-as-toughness that defines us and must trump any femalelike softness. Those aspects of masculinity must prevail° for a man to be a “real man.”

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That’s not to suggest, of course, that every man adopts that view of masculinity. But it is endorsed in key institutions and activities – most notably in business, the military, and athletics – and is reinforced through the mass media. It is particularly expressed in the way men – straight and gay alike – talk about sexuality and act sexually. And our culture’s male heroes reflect those characteristics: they most often are men who take charge rather than seek consensus,° seize power rather than look for ways to share it, and are willing to be violent to achieve their goals.

6

That view of masculinity is dangerous for women. It leads men to seek to control “their” women and define their own pleasure in that control, which leads to epidemic levels of rape and battery. But this view of masculinity is toxic for men as well.

7

If masculinity is defined as conquest, it means that men will always struggle with each other for dominance. In a system premised on hierarchy° and power, there can be only one king of the hill. Every other man must in some way be subordinated° to the king, and the king has to always be nervous about who is coming up that hill to get him. A friend who once worked on Wall Street – one of the preeminent° sites of masculine competition – described coming to work as like walking into a knife fight when all the good spots along the wall were taken. Masculinity like this is life lived as endless competition and threat.

8

No one man created this system, and perhaps none of us, if given a choice, would choose it. But we live our lives in that system, and it deforms men, narrowing our emotional range and depth. It keeps us from the rich connections with others – not just with women and children, but other men – that make life meaningful but require vulnerability.

9

This doesn’t mean that the negative consequences of this toxic masculinity are equally dangerous for men and women. As feminists have long pointed out, there’s a big difference between women dealing with the possibility of being raped, beaten, and killed by the men in their lives and men not being able to cry. But we can see that the short-term material gains that men get are not adequate compensation for what we men give up in the long haul – which is to surrender part of our humanity to the project of dominance.

10

Of course there are obvious physical differences between men and women – average body size, hormones, reproductive organs. There may be other differences rooted in our biology that we don’t yet understand. Yet it’s also true that men and women are more similar than we are different, and that given the pernicious° effects of centuries of patriarchy° and its relentless devaluing of things female, we should be skeptical of the perceived differences.

11

What we know is simple: in any human population, there is wide individual variation. While there’s no doubt that a large part of our behavior is rooted in our DNA, there’s also no doubt that our genetic endowment is highly influenced by culture. Beyond that, it’s difficult to say much with any certainty. It’s true that only women can bear children and breast-feed. That fact likely has some bearing on aspects of men’s and women’s personalities. But we don’t know much about what the effect is, and given the limits of our tools to understand human behavior, it’s possible we may never know much.

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At the moment, the culture seems obsessed with gender differences, in the context of a recurring intellectual fad (called “evolutionary psychology” this time around, and “sociobiology” in a previous incarnation) that wants to explain all complex behaviors as simple evolutionary adaptations – if a pattern of human behavior exists, it must be because it’s adaptive in some ways. In the long run, that’s true by definition. But in the short term it’s hardly a convincing argument to say, “Look at how men and women behave so differently; it must be because men and women are fundamentally different,” when a political system has been creating differences between men and women.

13

From there, the argument that we need to scrap masculinity is fairly simple. To illustrate it, remember back to right after 9/11. A number of commentators argued that criticisms of masculinity should be rethought. Cannot we now see – recognizing that male firefighters raced into burning buildings, risking and sometimes sacrificing their lives to save others – that masculinity can encompass a kind of strength that is rooted in caring and sacrifice? Of course men often exhibit such strength, just as do women. So, the obvious question arises: What makes these distinctly masculine characteristics? Are they not simply human characteristics?

14

We identify masculine tendencies toward competition, domination, and violence because we see patterns of differential behavior; men are more prone to such behavior in our culture. We can go on to observe and analyze the ways in which men are socialized to behave in those ways, toward the goal of changing those destructive behaviors. That analysis is different than saying that admirable human qualities present in both men and women are somehow primarily the domain of one gender. To assign them to a gender is misguided and demeaning° to the gender that is then assumed not to possess them to the same degree. Once we start saying “strength and courage are masculine traits,” it leads to the conclusion that woman are not as strong or courageous.

15

Of course, if we are going to jettison° masculinity, we have to scrap femininity along with it. We have to stop trying to define what men and women are going to be in the world based on extrapolations° from physical sex differences. That doesn’t mean we ignore those differences when they matter, but we have to stop assuming they matter everywhere.

16

I don’t think the planet can long survive if the current conception of masculinity endures. We face political and ecological challenges that can’t be met with this old model of what it means to be a man. At the more intimate level, the stakes are just as high. For those of us who are biologically male, we have a simple choice: we men can settle for being men, or we can strive to be human beings.

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Questions to Start You Thinking

Link to the Paired Essay

In paragraph 4, Jensen summarizes the “dominant conception of masculinity in U.S. culture.” Would Zeilinger (“Guys Suffer from Oppressive Gender Roles Too,” pp. 000–00) agree with his definition of masculinity? Consider where their definitions overlap and whether they differ on any points.

Journal Prompts

Suggestions for Writing

Instructor's Notes

To assign the questions that follow this reading, click ”“Browse More Resources for this Unit,”“ or go to the Resources panel. To individually assign the Suggestions for Writing that follow this reading, click ”“Browse More Resources for this Unit,”“ or go to the Resources panel.”

Julie Zeilinger

Guys Suffer from Oppressive Gender Roles Too

Julie Zeilinger founded The F Bomb, a critically acclaimed feminist blog that focuses on women’s rights, and has published articles in the Huffington Post, Feminist.com, and Skirt Magazine. In 2012, her book A Little F’d Up: Why Feminism Is Not a Dirty Word was published. She was named one of the 2016 Forbes 30 Under 30 (“the brightest young entrepreneurs, breakout talents, and change agents”). In the following selection, Zeilinger insists that men should be allowed to express their emotions.

AS YOU READ: How does Zeilinger contrast internal pressures and external expectations?

1

Guys are supposed to be rocks, inside and out. They are supposed to be defined more by their muscles and brute force than by any complex or unique personality trait. Ideally, they should physically be so steely and impervious° that they could plausibly be cast in a Transformers film. . . as an actual alien Transformer. If we were to look inside these ideal men, we’d find a tangled mess of barbed wire encapsulating° a ravenous° lion decapitating a tiny bunny. There would probably be a camouflage color scheme thrown in there too. Guys certainly aren’t allowed to let the world see that they do in fact have emotions. No, they throw those feelings to the feral° beast within.

2

But here’s the problem: Guys do have emotions. Guys live an external reality that is in complete contradiction with their internal reality. So what can guys do when they experience real honest-to-god feelings? Well, for those who try to adhere° to these masculinity standards to their utmost ability, they have to disconnect. They must detach themselves from their emotions. And it’s not just emotions like “sad” or “ecstatic.” It’s emotions like “empathy” and “sympathy,” which, when you think about it, is pretty damn scary. So guys can either detach and live a life numb to a true range of human emotion, or live in a state of contradiction. Not the greatest options.

3

The woes of men don’t end there. Oh no. On top of embodying° various types of metals inside and out, guys must also be “successful.” But the definition of male success is quite elusive.° It doesn’t necessarily mean having a great, loving family and friends who care about you. It’s probably not about becoming an abstract painter, or being the type of passionate, energetic high school teacher who inspires a group of jaded and self-defeating inner-city kids to want more for themselves via the power of the pen and self-expression. No. In order to be successful, guys must be cunning.° They must get ahead of others in order to obtain success, which is usually defined by two things: money and power. In fact, though I kind of hate to use the word “winning” (Charlie Sheen connotations abound), it has become kind of synonymous with “masculinity.”

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4

Men feel as much competition and pressure as women do. They have to be strong. They must conceal their emotions. They need to obtain wealth and power. But while we ladies generally deal with this pressure internally, forcing ourselves to get excellent grades and taking out our issues on our bodies, guys are far more external in their expression of the same pressures and competition.

5

Why do guys like violent video games so much? Why do they feel the need to physically fight (or at least threaten to), even over the stupidest stuff, in a way girls rarely do? Why do they put younger guys through ridiculous hazing, which ranges from gross and uncomfortable (I’ve heard of senior athletes forcing underclassmen players to eat ten Big Macs in less than ten minutes) to the seriously violent and dangerous (being beaten with two-by-fours)? Better yet, why do they subject themselves to such degrading° abuse at all?

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Guys engage in violent activities (whether simulated or real) as a way to release the pressure, but also, circuitously,° as a way to prove their masculinity – as a way to make that competition with other guys an actuality. Guys strictly monitor each other to sniff out and point out “weaknesses” in other guys, which gives them some illusion of feeling stronger and more masculine.

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I’ve always suspected that’s why guys love telling jokes about women and gay guys. Even if a guy swears up and down he’s not sexist or homophobic, by telling these jokes he is, at the very least, reminding the world he’s a straight dude – clearly not the alternatives, which he so disdains.°

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And what about guys who dare to take on qualities that could be considered feminine? Like, for instance, guys who care about their appearance, who wear tight clothes, or who are just generally considered “effeminate”? Well, those men are threats. For guys clinging to masculinity standards for dear life, who use those guidelines as a complete roadmap for how to exist in the world, they’re terrifying. For some guys, it’s a seriously deep terror rooted in the threat of losing their own identity. They see other guys rejecting what has been prescribed of them based on their gender, and they’re terrified of the consequences of doing the same. Because if they were to really examine themselves, if they were to reject the masculinity standards that shape their entire identity and personality, then they might just find that they never actually had an identity to begin with. And really, what’s scarier than that?

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But forget the implications for jerks who give any guy who refuses to live up to masculinity standards a hard time. Let’s consider how this actually affects the guys who reject traditional masculinity standards. Specifically, let’s consider gay men. I asked a young gay friend of mine about his experience, and he had some pretty eloquent things to say.

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“Being a gay man has instilled a sense of displacement, no matter where I may be, or who I’m with,” he said. As a man, he explained, he feels the pressure to meet masculinity standards – which he (and other gay men) may manifest° by engaging in and promoting promiscuity. But he also feels a kinship with women, as he understands what it’s like to be marginalized.° “Being a gay man [means] trying to overcome both male and female stigmas,” he said. “Gay men and feminists have similar ambitions, but it’s hard, because gay men are ultimately men, so they have to strive to promote a sense of masculinity that works for them and goes hand-in-hand with the feminist doctrine° of personal pride and worth.”

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And that’s how a gay man feels in the context of an overall peaceful and unbothered state. That’s not even considering what happens when bullying, violent hate crimes, and homophobia at large get thrown into the mix.

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In this society, adhering to the standards imposed by masculinity means never developing your true identity, never taking the opportunity to find out who you really are. Expressing feelings and exploring interests – including things that aren’t strictly “manly” – are part of being human. But if you want to be the stereotypical man, you have to forget about those things. Just like we girls have to forget about enjoying food and having interests outside of shopping and boys.

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Sometimes when I look around and see all of my peers, guys and girls alike, desperately trying to live up to their prescribed gender roles, often at the expense of their own well-being, I feel like I’m crazy. I wonder, Am I the only one who didn’t get the memo? Should I be more preoccupied with how many calories are in my food than the fact that it’s buttery and delicious and my stomach is so happy it’s as if there is a wild conga line proceeding through it? Should I be spending more time trying to get a boyfriend? Is that what life is about?

14

And I’m sure there are guys who wonder these things too. Who look around and see how they’re expected to put as many hours into ESPN and the weight room as they do into basic functions like sleeping and eating, all so that they can talk the talk and walk the walk. Is this really it? they must think. Is this all we’re supposed to care about? Things like sex, sports, and food? Of all the things available to us in this world, even if those things are great, are these the only things we’re able to come away with?

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Questions to Start You Thinking

Link to the Paired Essay

In the paired essay, Robert Jensen (“The High Cost of Manliness,” pp. 000–00) makes an argument similar to Zeilinger’s about the harm that comes from rigid notions of masculinity, but he makes his case from a man’s point of view. How does the gender of the author affect each essay? How does Zeilinger’s perspective differ from Jensen’s?

Journal Prompts

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Suggestions for Writing