Blog Post #1

One term that we primarily focused on this week is masculinity. Before taking this class, I believed that masculinity simply meant the characteristics of a man. Upon reading the documents, I have realized that masculinity can be defined in many ways and can have a negative connotation in certain aspects. Sex and the City is one of my favorite shows, however I have never examined the specific traits of the male characters in the series. The series demonstrates the “masculine ideal.” The show ranks men based on “money, class, race, physicality, sexuality, and sexual prowess, and [demonstrates] the ways in which they fail to live up to the masculine ideal.” Two of the main characters, Big and Steve, “open up extremely complex issues of men’s changing gender roles.” Big and Steve’s differing roles create a “crisis of masculinity.” Big is seen as a sexual conqueror and “a man from the past” while Steve is seen as a caring and emotional “man of the future.” Despite the women’s differing ideas of desire, masculinity is represented in the show as a “lack and failure to live up to its ideal form.” What really is the masculine ideal? Is it a bad thing that we have different types of men in our society? 

Masculinity is also represented in the post titled “Why don’t we talk about violence and masculinity in America?” In the article, masculinity is paired with violence. Guns are extremely available in our society and are mainly owned by men. I was shocked to learn that 46% of American men own guns. As stated in the article, “There is, sadly, nothing unique about men with guns in this country killing people everyday.” In our society, unstable boys believe that they will become “men” by using violence. When thinking about this, I have come to realize that boys are introduced to violence at such an early age. Boys are taught to be tough from the start and possess control. A boy will resort to violence whereas a girl will become emotional. A boy believes that getting into a fight is more “manly” or “masculine” than crying to their mother. From the lecture, I learned that our society usually categorizes the white man as a hero and the black man as a criminal. However, this article also focused on the aspect of the angry white man. Adam Lanza, the shooter in Newtown, Connecticut, “shifted his propensity into violent activity.” Lanza killed his mother and then “[went] into a school where women overwhelmingly have control and nurture and kills small children before they grow up.” Was Lanza trying to express his masculinity and control over women? Our society needs to address the issue of male violence or else incidents like this will continue occurring. 

Deviating away from masculinity, I also have a new understanding of the term oppression. Oppression involves disadvantages in society that affect certain groups of people. Oppression usually occurs due to race, class, sexuality, gender etc. I think it’s extremely unfortunate that our society treats people poorly based on certain aspects. According to the article “Latino Stereotypes Thrive in the Media, Negative Attitudes Dominate,” our society categorizes Latinos as illegal and/or gangsters and criminals. This dehumanizes Latinos and encourages people to treat them unjustly. As evident, our society is still filled with racial inequities and injustice. We need to stop judging people and treating people unfairly due to aspects like race, class, sexuality, gender etc.