This week's discussions and topics all seemed to revolve around the changing world of Social Media. In the age of social media, new ways to incorporate technology with sex have come about. Social media and other tech advances has enhanced the movement. Today you can find legal ways to embrace sexual encounters such as Tinder or Grindr or even Craiglist ads for companionship. Then we can also see how sex workers can use these technologies to enhance their business, legal or not.
In an age where sex sells and sex is everywhere, none of us are surprised that sex invaded the internet. Like in the documentary we watched, Hot Girls Wanted, the internet was absolutely key in their advertising, finding girls, and customers. The sex workers were then required to keep up an online presence that attracts other customers. This is a common marketing tactic for any kind of sex worker or similar. Most workers like cam girls, brothel workers, or porn stars are all supposed to keep a successful online presence. This is to attract more customers and gain followers that in turn will become future customers. Because of this social media access, the online marketplace for sex has grown dramatically. Everyone looks online for sex now, whether that be encounters or just porn. But the girls involved are always involved in social media, by their pseudo names of course, to attract and maintain customers.
This is part of social media etiquette given to girls as a guideline to their social media sites. There are given rules to their social media accounts in order to gain the most attention from followers and customers.
Connecting people is what the internet and social media are all about. And customer acquisition is much easier online when you have sites that promote you as an object for them to purchase. Because sex workers are objectified as a purchasable item, selling themselves online is a safer alternative than walking the red light district. The online community is much safer than the real community of sex workers and their clients. But, with the internet being vast and unending, you really have to market yourself in order to gain enough attention to stay in the business successfully. We saw an example of this in Hot Girls Wanted, where the brand new girl is getting edged out of the business after only a couple of months. It seems the competition is rising with more options out their for customers. This competition comes from the customers ability to control the market. Customers decide by viewership who is popular and what sites are popular. So marketing to the customer on a more personal level in order to gain and retain customers isn't such a far stretch.
There are sites out there such as this one here that work to help any kind of sex worker with support for themselves and not for their business. This site is for any Sex Worker or ally who is looking for tips on safety, legal help, or any other advice. Any and all in the industry can gather and give or receive real advice that helps the person. There is a huge distinction between how the internet and social media sites can help a sex worker. Many sites may help their respective careers and gain clients and followers that makes more money for them. But the real sites that matter are the ones that exists for the sex workers, by the sex workers, for themselves to help each other emotionally or physically. The difference is that social media can work in a range of ways depending on its usage. For sex workers, the importance of a gathering place for safety and intel to be spread around is limitless. While the career boosting ideals from social media help them in a different way. Yet both circumstances include helping the worker's career in a way that is unfathomable in real life.
This week I was really drawn to our discussion on how professional kitchens are gendered. Although cooking is see as a traditionally feminine role, in the professional world of cooking it is heavily dominated by men. Women have to fight really hard to get a role in kitchens and they are even harder to find in films or on TV. When we watched the movie Chef, I was taken aback by the complete absence of any female chefs at all.
While that was horrible, I thought about the times that they are shown and how they are portrayed. That is what I wanted to explore deeper. When women chefs are shown, they are all depicted in very similar ways and I wanted to find a movie that illustrate the way they are portrayed. The movie that I immediately thought of is No Reservations, it is one of my favorite movies but when I took a closer look at it I realized that there are some problematic aspects of it.
No Reservations is about an upscale chef, Kate, who is suddenly thrust into motherhood when her sister dies and leaves her in charge of a ten year old girl. One of the themes of this movie is highlighting how horrible she is at motherhood until her male chef replacement comes into her life and essentially “fixes” her.
This movie also fits in nicely with some of our discussions on hegemony, because while it allows for a break in the status quo by giving us a female chef as the star; it also upholds common beliefs and ideas of gender, especially within the kitchen. When we look at the two chefs side by side it really highlights exactly how women chefs are supposed to seem and how they are not as good as their male chef counter parts.
From the outset of the movie Kate is seen as an uptight control freak who rules her kitchen with an iron fist. Those are the words that we have been programed to assign to her behavior, because when we see her trying to make sure every last detail of her food is perfect she is supposed to be seen as a control freak not as a chef who wants to make her food perfect for her guests. When a customer complains that their foie gars is under cooked and Kate comes out and tells that it is perfectly cooked she is supposed to be seen as a know it all. However if it had been the male chef that had acted that way he would have been seen as assertive and sure of himself. And when a steak is sent back over and over again for being over cooked (when it was clearly extremely rare), Kate takes a completely raw steak and slaps it down on the table. In this scene she is seen as dramatic and emotional, a trope that is all to common for female leads.
Kate is shown as being extremely job centric and is made to feel bad about loving her work. She is not allowed to have any friends, which is illustrated when she checks her voice mail everyday and never has any messages waiting for her. That leaves us to believe that she doesn’t have any friends, because her whole life is taken up by work. She doesn’t like to date and has very specific rules to keep her away from being even some what romantically involved with anyone. She is almost demonized for having rules that she puts up to protect herself, like when her incredibly pushy neighbor keeps showing up, even though she has told him that she isn’t interested, we are supposed to feel bad for him and think of her as a prude who won’t let anyone in.
Even the way that she dresses hints at her uptight nature. Her hair is always pulled up into a tight bun or in a hat. She is always dressed in black clothes when she is out of the kitchen and then when she is in the kitchen her chef’s attire is pristine white and always perfectly straight. It isn’t until she and Nick get romantically involved that we see her hair down out of its bun and her become a bit more carefree with how she looks. However, the entire movie Nick wears clothes that reflect his fun and laid back manner. From his crazy print chef pants to his bright orange crocs. He never has to prove his professionalism to anyone, which allows him to be more of himself the entire movie.
Kate is seen as emotionally unavailable from the first few minutes of the movie when she spends her whole therapy session talking about quail instead of her own problems. The few times that do we see her be emotionally vulnerable during therapy sessions are when she talks about some of her rules regarding men. She never wants to give up her own apartment or move in with another guy because she assumes that it will always end in disaster. This highlights the problem that a lot of female chefs face, the idea that they can’t be both a great chef and also have a family.
Women in a professional workplace always have the problem of trying to juggle a demanding career and a family. Many female chefs either choose one or the other, but this movie was all about how Kate learned to do both. But, it isn’t until Nick comes along that she actually becomes a good mother figure, even though she was trying incredibly hard from the beginning. When she is first thrust into the role of a mother, she sucks. She doesn’t know how to relate to her niece at all and she also doesn’t know the basic rules of child-rearing. Kate often leaves her niece alone or with questionable baby sitters. She also has no idea how to feed a younger child, meaning that for a part of the movie Zoe, her niece, is essentially starved.
That all changes when Kate starts to take Zoe to the restaurant and she meets Nick. Nick immediately knows what to feed her and how to make her laugh. The reason this is problematic is because it says that men are able to juggle being a chef and having a healthy family. It also says that Kate needs a man in order to have a family which both upholds the notions that female chefs can’t do both by themselves, but it also upholds the nuclear family structure. That family structure says that there needs to be a man and a woman in order to raise a healthy child. The movie doesn’t allow Kate to learn how to be a mom on her own.
How would this movie be different if Kate’s character had been portrayed as a male chef? I think that if Kate had been a male character we would talk about him in a much different way. The actual language that we would use would be incredibly different, he wouldn't be uptight and controlling, but powerful and commanding. And when a male character struggled to connect to their niece we would feel sympathetic towards him and proud that he was at least attempting to connect. But we aren’t supposed to feel that way towards Kate in the movie, we assume that she should automatically be able to take care of Zoe (because she is a woman) and that she is a failure when she needs Nick to show her how to have fun. So overall even though I love this movie it does continue to promote the struggles that female chefs face, and it is important that we start to recognize how harmful some of those ideas are in reality.
In society, people are expected to act and dress a certain way depending on who they are and where they fit in terms of class. When someone does not do as they are expected, or tries to intermingle within another class, they are judged for it. This means that the lower class must dress in "poor people's clothing" and are to stay out of expensive places and refrain from mingling with the "rich folk". This also works for those with money. They are to dress like they come from money in classy attire and stay away from the poor who are seen as not good enough. But when these people cross the line, people cannot wrap their heads around the idea of someone with money dressing down, or someone without dressing and acting with class. In Pretty Woman, Vivian and Edward cross the lines, and are judged very harshly for it. Vivian is a prostitute, an Edward, a rich man, hires her for a week to be there for him and also to accompany him to high class affairs. To attend these high class events, Vivian must drop the look of prostitute and start to look like the date of a rich man. This means changing her entire look and act, starting with her wardrobe. How are low class citizens, particularly prostitutes, viewed by the other class in Pretty Woman, and what does this judgement do in the way that they are treated?
In this scene, Vivian dresses in her own outfit looking very immodest, but shopping with a lot of money and looking for expensive items of clothing to class up. When she is walking down the streets, she feels comfortable in her own skin and is having fun, excited by the idea of shopping. Upon walking into an expensive store, the woman working inside are repulsed by her look, and give an instant judgement. This judgement is that of a low class hooker that could not possibly afford the clothes they are selling. They start by asking if Vivian needs any help in the store, and if she is looking for anything in particular. When Vivian says she is looking for something conservative, the sales woman agrees and looks at her clothing with a look of distaste. Vivian is being very kind to these women, complementing their clothes and acting "like a lady". But when she asks for the price of something, this is not good enough for the sales women.
The sales women have already decided that Vivian does no belong in their store because of her look, and tell Vivian that this piece of clothing will not fit her. Vivian, having been treated like this before in her normal life, instantly recognizes what is going on. She tells the women that is not what she asked, and asks for the price again. When told it is very expensive, Vivian warns these women that she has a lot of money to spend in this store. The sales women do not listen to a word Vivian is saying, and proceed to kick her out of the store based on her ensemble.
Later, Vivian goes to a store with Edward, who was appalled at the way the women treated her. He gets the staff to wait on her hand and foot, like a woman from money. When she has completed her high class look, Vivian returns to the original store with a new wave of confidence. She walks in and blows of the first woman, as she was blown off before. She then goes up to the woman that kicked her out of the store and asks if she remembers her. When she says no, Vivian rubs it in her face how much commission she missed out on, and strolls out of the store with satisfaction after showing the women up. The women are taken aback and have no words while their jaws drop.
The way the sales women treat Vivian is a good representation for how other wealthy people treat her throughout the film when they either see her dressed in her own clothes or find out that she is a prostitute. She suddenly becomes less than human to them, and is treated as such. When she is dressed in fancy clothes and jewelry with her hair done, Vivian is seen for the fun loving and outgoing person she is, with no judgement passed on her by others. At one point in the movie, a man finds out she is a prostitute and tries to rape her. He sees this as a right because of what she does for a living, and that he deserves her body on the way she dresses for her job. Even when she says no and screams for him to get off, this has no effect on the man, and he hits her and continues with what he is trying to do. It is only when Edward gets the man off Vivian and kicks him out that Vivian is safe from the man. The way he sees Vivian is just a body for him to do with as he pleases. When she was a high class woman, he treated her with respect, but upon learning she is a prostitute, that all goes out the window.
By the end of the movie, Vivian is tired of being treated like a no class person, and leaves to return to her own life. She dresses in her own clothes, but much less revealing than before. She quits prostitution and decides to start a new life for herself. This is when Edward realizes he loves Vivian for the person that she is, and not for her class, rich or poor. Vivian stayed true to herself through all the makeovers and put downs. This was the only way that Edward could see her as more than a prostitute, and was able to treat her as such.
Vivian and Edward were the only characters in this movie to realize that those outside of their class were people too, and should be treated with all of the respect that one deserves. This idea took Edward a while to figure out, and even Vivian had an idea of what she thought rich people were like. But after getting to know the other based on qualities rather than status, the two were able to cross the boundaries of their social expectations and not only see the good the other class has to offer, but fall in love. This concept was not understood by the other wealthy people in the film, but was seen by Vivian's best friend, another prostitute. Prostitutes are people too, and have a right to their body, and the right to say no. Vivian never let these judgments affect her as a person, but certainly felt the sting from those passing it. The characters needed to learn what it was to be a person and earn respect, and the answer to that is to just be human. All of these characters were taught a lesson in not jumping to conclusions about people based on clothes and job choices, and hopefully will strive not to make the same mistakes again.
Pornography has escalated with the advent of
photography, video film-making and the digital age of media. It’s become a part
of mainstream media to the point that it’s starting to have a lasting impact on
the objectification of women. In the past, women have been objectified, hurt,
raped or beaten in passages of texts or drawings, but now it’s being digitally
recorded in pornography and it's what will continue a cycle of
re-victimizing women. When we’re watching pornography we are literally watching
the historical exploitation of the violence and rape done so on women that has
been recycled to a format for today’s culture. Not to mention that it’s also
protected by first amendment rights, so if you think it’s going away soon,
think again. The porn industry requires the lack of women’s freedom and it’s
where sex is represented by power, where the harm inflicted on women becomes the
pleasure for men.
Women are then turned into things that can be consumed and pornography
is constructed around prompting sexual arousal. People learn to be receptive
of it though; we’re not just passive recipients of media, we actually do become
socialized by the media we consume. Things like attraction and desire are
socially constructed and are impacted by the sort of messages we see or hear.
So in porn (which is controlled by elite interests) it’s constantly training us
as a society to react and view these vulnerable populations of women as
consumable objects. Objectification is an important concept to understand about
sexism with the commodification of women. Women are de-personalized and become
objects so that people no longer have to feel guilty about consuming them. It’s
no longer someone; it’s something.
And it is usually necessary for the
violence in porn to become invisible or hidden, so that it can further facilitate the
consumption of women in porn where people don’t have to think about the oppression
that’s involved. It makes the consumption of porn more pleasurable without that
guilt, so it makes it easier to consume. However, this is not the case with
a few porn categories as pointed out in the documentary produced by Ann Perkins–I
mean Rashida Jones, called “Hot Girls Wanted,” where the violence and abuse
become the central focus. The “forced blowjob” style of abuse porn have women
subjugated into extremely mortifying and subservient roles; all for the
pleasure of men.
What is pornography, but the ultimate consumption of the
sexualization and objectification of the female body? It reduces women to processed
meat, where they are no longer seen as a person, but they’re butchered into
fragmented body parts. Women are no longer whole persons, but viewed as body
parts for the consumer’s pleasure. Today women in the porn industry tend to be
interchangeable, where we're given only certain types of women being commodified.
In the documentary we watched in class, “Hot Girls Wanted,” we have a focus on what is called the
“teenie-bopper” and this type of women embodies physical characteristics of youth
and innocence.
One of the porn-stars the documentary follows is named Lucy
Tyler and she explains how she plays a persona or character named Karly. She
mentions how she must tuck in her nose ring and wear pigtails and pretends to
have a spunky personality in front of the camera. There are other versions
of the commodified women, usually they are tan, hairless, sometimes blonde, but they all adhere to certain body types. In pornography, it really comes down to
these objectified body parts and not about the person anymore. It’s where the men are
in control and women are performing submissive roles and what this does over
time is it naturalizes sexual dominance over women. We see this throughout all
pornography, save a few reverse niches and fetishes that are few and far
between.
Pornography also has in it an explicit script that teaches
us how we’re supposed to behave according to the gender we’ve identified with
by again naturalizing the interaction between men and women. It consists of the
male dominance asserting power over feminized and subservient women. We see in
pornography that men want sex and women are there to get sex or have it taken from them. The message
in pornography is advertising “man-to-man” language, where a fraternity of men
are being nurtured. This leads men to experience superiority towards women and
entitlement to them; making sex all about the power.
The public sphere is
inundated with these constant reminders that women are to serve in distinct gender
roles, especially in porn. It isn’t just about sexual gratification, because sexual
attraction (or just sex in general) is being socially constructed so that getting
“turned on” becomes about power; it’s about being able to dominant others and making
them subservient. So porn has essentially made sex become power. It’s not
just about biological reactions or expressing the intimate bonds we share, but
it’s being socially constructed to normalize power relations, thus linking sexuality
with dominance. And so if we see pornography from this perspective we can draw a line to the ramifications indicated in consuming porn. We can apply it to not just how we treat women, but also to other
feminized groups in our society, which would be people of color or gay and lesbian
people, we can examine this dichotomy between women and men in porn to assume that it’s not just about men
vs. women, it’s masculinity vs. femininity.
Women have traditionally been associated with
caring/nurturing roles in society and in pornography it is all about degrading women and
humiliating women and demonstrating power over them. One of the porn-stars the
documentary focuses on mentions how one of her very first scenes involved a
company called “Latina Abuse,” which the documentary showed portions of a scene
she was in that made up one of the most disturbing parts of the documentary,
where you can see and hear her being dragged and forced into sexual submission.
So again, sex is about power and in the pornography industry it’s where men are
the ones in power, the ones who profit most
from it and the ones who consume it. The women themselves are victims to
pornography, because this is definitely not a women’s industry; it’s a male’s
industry. And with that thought, it brings me to the subject of Belle Knox, who
was also highlighted briefly in the documentary for being a Duke University
student famous for her porn background and for publicly advocating women’s
right for sexual empowerment and “autonomy”.
I will be using a clip of Piers Morgan interviewing Belle Knox asking
her questions regarding her involvement with the porn industry as an artifact
for explaining the objectification of women in porn.
While Knox seems to look like she is both socially and
physically “free” to do porn and we may see her as a free agent to do with her
body as she sees fit, she is still acting accordingly to the institutional
discriminations women have undergone for centuries past. Here is a quote from
the interview where Knox states her reasons for doing porn:
“For me, shooting pornography brings me unimaginable joy.
When I finish a scene, I know that I have done so and completed an honest day’s
work. It is my artistic outlet: my love, my happiness, my home. I can say
definitively that I have never felt more empowered or happy doing anything
else. In a world where women are so often robbed of their choice, I am
completely in control of my sexuality…It is freeing, it is empowering, it is
wonderful, it is how the world should be.”
What this message says though is it helps justify the system
of patriarchy our society revolves around and this makes us see the degradation
and consumption from porn seem harmless and okay if women are willingly accepting of it. We see this also in advertisements (see
Carl’s Jr. commercials) where women want to be the subject of sexual
objectification and where women appear to be happy to oblige in the sexual arousal of
men.
Not to discredit Knox, but in my opinion, I don’t think women exactly go into porn due
to rationale thoughts of thinking “oh this going to be a thrilling and fulfilling career
to get into,” because c’mon! I mean, thinking about the criteria mentioned in
the documentary for instance, pornography seems like it is a very, very, very, very poorly
paid career choice for women. The average career in porn is most likely less
than 2 years (3 months and onwards becomes more and more difficult for
newcomers to book jobs), it disproportionately attracts women from lower social
statuses, who most likely don’t have any other option and it also has a fairly
high disease rate with expensive medical bills attached to it. Not only that, but when you do get out of the industry, you are labeled a nympho and try finding a job where you don't get classified like a sex offender. Yeah, no thank
you. It’s not a glamorous industry at all. Most of the women only make a few
hundred dollars for every scene that they shoot and they can only hope to keep
on getting more and more. It’s not at all a transparent decision that many of these women make, so I'm not convinced they recognize porn as this "empowering" career choice that Knox makes it out to be.
But the argument that Knox has about for being a women
who chooses to be in porn has a lot
of meaning behind it and says much about the kind of world we live in. For a
lot of aspects of pornography that wasn’t covered in the documentary, there’s a
heavy involvement with sex trafficking, where there are a many cases of women
coming out of abusive relationships who most likely have had a history with
domestic violence, child abuse, drug addiction or child molestation.These women usually come from low brackets of
social classes, so for a majority of those women, it’s really difficult to say
there’s much of a choice there. Especially
with the sex trafficking that goes on with prostitution, where there’s literally
not much of a choice at all for them. But excuse my rambling, this analysis is still based solely off
the documentary and the interview. I will stay the course and focus on the
women who do look like they are making a rationale choice in pursuing careers
in porn, or at least they think they're making one.
Which leads me to my question that perpetrates from this artefact and what is structuring
the choice behind Knox’s words? Especially the reason for why she feels so “empowered” while doing porn?
The rationale that goes behind Knox’s argument to go off
into porn and one that I imagine goes for many of the other women in the documentary who chose to go
into porn, is that it is a choice that is one based off of a patriarchal conception,
where women’s only value is seen in their sexual availabilities. They've lived their whole lives where it’s
really the only validation they’ve been granted to accrue any status for
themselves. Piers Morgan and most likely every other news anchor that has
interviewed Knox have positioned themselves into a stance of victim blaming as
seen in the interview. Morgan mentions how he refuses to take up a moral
standpoint, yet he also admits from the perspective of a parent how upset he
would be if his 2-year-old daughter eventually decided to do porn at her age. He sort of
shuns and shames Knox by the end of the interview when he brings in the subject of her parents and their reaction (or lack thereof), indicating that they don't approve or support her choice to work in porn.
We see this sort of shunning in the media towards women (especially
in porn) all the time and for what? We’re blaming them for institutional
constraints that have long preceded them before they were even born. I do think porn has a negative influence on our society but Belle Knox
shouldn't be blamed for doing porn (although she shouldn't be praising it either); none of the women in the documentary deserve
to be blamed for doing porn, because it’s not their fault they were raised in a
culture that salutes and glorifies the hierarchy of domination (on a side note, the
scene where Tressa or 'Stella' and her boyfriend are at a party and you literally see a guy
riding someone in a dinosaur costume hilariously comes to mind).
Women live in a world of sexual objectification just as much
as a fish lives in water; it’s all around us and everywhere we turn our heads. Advertisements
depict women happily ready to cook or clean
the house or as props for sexual arousal. Movies have men pursuing women, where women are the reward for a man's aggression to win her over with the most over-the-top romantic gestures. And of
course pornography represents the sexualized culture of domination and women being
perceived as inferior to men. It's practically inescapable. These are just a few ways of how we internalize the ideas of what it
means to be a man or what it means to be a women and how we've defined sex into cultural
norms. We’ve grown up in it, we’re raised by it, it’s instilled
in our history, embedded in our culture and it’ll most likely stick around in
our future. Men or women; we’re all just people trying to live life with the
cards we’ve been dealt, so let’s not point fingers at anyone for being "young and
dumb," just because it’s easier to explain that way. It’s more complicated than
just being ignorant and it really is on us to help change the perception of how
masculinity and femininity are portrayed in society. As bad as it seems, porn is just a small cog in a machine that's been running for quite some time.
This week's discussion of male masculinity really sparked my interest in understanding more about the damaging stereotypes men can face in the media. The most common link to masculinity is violence. Violence, sports, and things that make loud noises are stereotypical male obsessions. Why is this the case? And why does it seem to get more violent, more gory, or more "masculine" as time goes on? These are questions that came to mind this week that have unsimplified answers. But as we look into this, we also begin to answer the question of what it means to be a man in America today. In a study done by Children Now, they found that in a national poll from the study, almost three fourths of children aged 10-17 describe males on television as violent. More than two thirds describe them as angry. This is more than male dominance being portrayed if kids think that the media portrayal is angry or violent. The study also found that speed, aggression, deception, and danger are typical male characteristics that boys can identify. This causes problematic teachings of what men are supposed to be. More information regarding the Children Now study may be found here Children Now Today, movies about war or destruction are just the most current box office hit. Movies like Furious 7, where the men chose again and again (7 times in fact) to go towards a known violent path in order to receive glory of some sort. In said movie, the main character deserts his family in order to get revenge, or have a overly violent racing contest, or something along those lines. But in every case, violence is portrayed as a necessary thing to be carried out, like fighting with giant iron poles for 10 minutes instead of using the gun in your car. It's not even pertinent to the plot usually, but it is included in every other scene. Fighting to save your family, or fighting to save your girlfriend, or whatever the patriarchal ideal reason is. Usually the fighting ensues because the producer wanted a lot of fighting to prove it is a mans movie for real men.
In this clip, the Fast and Furious team is hijacking a motorcade and bus in order to get a captured hacker. In this fight, the bus is basically derailed and on its way off of a cliff, but these two guys still have it in them to fight each other. Amazing that they can ignore the impending death for them both in order to carry on this fight scene with each other.
With most violent type of movies such as this one, the plot is omitted for the fighting. What we end up with is a lot of movies that are mostly about being a bad ass masculine guy who can fight and take a beating with dignity, who also maybe saves his family at the end or something (but who cares about that?).
This idea that fighting and violence and things that blow up are all male characteristics of being a man is damaging. Obviously not all men are built like Vin Diesel or Dwayne Johnson, and they don't find themselves fighting for their honor a whole lot either. But yet, the majority of testosterone-filled films are all about a big manly man fighting and blowing shit up until he has earned his honor back. This is damaging to young boys who fantasize about one day being just like these superhero-like characters.
Violence in movies is just one example in a multitude of issues regarding masculinity in the media today. Problematic ideals such as aggression, sexualizing women, violence or anger, excessive drinking, etc. are all pushed onto men in this era. That is the current definition of what a man should be, and its absolutely wrong. There is no model man that accurately represents all of mankind, nor is there a test of manhood that determines how manly you are. Contrary to popular belief that fighting or aggression or sexual activity made you into a man. This ideology has gotten out of control within our society when you see the hyped up masculine characteristics used as the norm and men are punished for being outside of that norm.
The idea that there is a tell-all sign of manliness is absurd and proves that the construct of manliness is fragile. For starters, men are not all the same and don't have to be. Significant differences in anger management to sexual preference all make up different types of manliness. By making one archetype of man that is the correct form of manliness is damaging to young boys and men who aren't violent or overtly sexual because anything outside of the archetype is ridiculed. We saw this take place in the movie the 40 Year Old Virgin. Where the man wasn't considered a 'Man' until he had sex. Not only that, but he was ridiculed and something was considered wrong with him, because he wasn't following the masculinity archetype. In my experience, men or boys who haven't had sex by a certain age are considered not men. In some cases, they were ridiculed or regarded as 'Gay'. Which is entirely problematic to use homosexuality as an insult to express or explain why someone hasn't had sex with a women yet. In other circumstances, guys of a certain age (usually high school aged) haven't had sex yet, they were regarded as ugly or "had no game", basically that something is wrong with them.
I think that men are constantly trying to "out-man" one another. This probably stems from another common stereotype of masculinity that is rooted in competitiveness. Just like how women don't wear makeup for men, men don't put on the mask of masculinity for women, but to compete with other men. In the past, going off to war was considered the tell all sign of a man and his worth as a man. After that trend died out with the shiftiness in morality of the Vietnam war, sports were the new way to show your aggression and manliness. In today's world of virtual worlds and technology running everything, our idea of masculine aggression is harder to define with a single act, like we had before. Now, the closest thing we have is masculine initiation of drinking and getting women to have sex with you. But with competitiveness engrained in society as being a necessary trait of men, there has to be a way to weed out the non conforming men out there. Today, we ridicule men who don't like action movies, who wear skirts instead of pants, who like men instead of women, and who decide to have sex at a more mature age. Reclaiming what it means to be manly is the only way to solve this issue. And in this generation, we sure are trying.
The usual visual representation of manliness that currently exists. Sports loving, smoking, muscle toting, tattooed man.
Nothing short of man in this video. Although it may be for laughs, these guys show that men can wear heels and dance in them better than I can. All while still being a man and amazingly, none of their masculinity was drained or anything. word count: 1231
Masculinity: "pertaining to or characteristic of man or men" (dictionary.com). With such a simple definition, masculinity seem to be simple, but it is quite the opposite. This definition does not tell us what kind of characteristics a man must posses or achieve in order to be masculine. Even though there is no set characteristic, the media has set its own standards on what a man must do to be masculine, and not only that, but have shown that men are not "real men" unless they are masculine. How can men and boys make their own set of standards for masculinity, and what are the negative effects of the standards set by the media?
When I typed in the word "masculine" on google, this was one of the first images to pop up on my screen. It is also a great representation of the other images that came up. Most of these men were clearly ripped,white with tanned skin, brown hair, good looking face, stern look, making fists, and wearing only bottoms. This shows men they need to not only be fit and tough, but show no emotion while doing so. This photo also comes with a caption, showing a masculine contest. This is telling men that not only should they look like this, but they need to compete to be the best. This was also a recurrence in the other pictures on google.
To see if it was possible to get a body like the one shown above, I went to google to do a little research. I first typed in "how to get ripped", and got many suggestions on diet and exercise. The diet suggestions did not seem impossible, but the time and effort needed to exercise your way into fitness seemed a little out there. Most real men are in school, have jobs, a family, and many other activities. So how is it they are going to put in hours each day at the gym? Many people would say just get up earlier. But according to Dr. Oz, the extra hour of sleep you get is going to be much healthier for your body than that extra time at the gym. You can read the article here. At a certain point, exercising so much can actually start to undo what you have accomplished so far. In other words, working out so much is unhealthy for your body. This is shown here. So while men may want to look this way, they can actually do more harm to their body than good, just to achieve the masculine look.
In media, men are expected to be successful at work, sex, and being tough. They are simple creatures that do not show emotion, but rather can fight their way out of anything. The only acceptable emotion is anger. Most masculine men can play sports well, have money, a "hot wife", and have a ripped body. But most of all, they are not feminine. This is not just shown to grown men, but starts at a very young age for boys. The meaning of masculinity and what it means to be a man can start as early as when you start watching movies. And what did many of us watch? Disney. And when Disney defines masculinity, we have characters like, Gaston, Li Shang, and Tarzan.
In Beauty and the Beast, Gaston is shown as the manliest of men. He is quite masculine in his size and strength, his anger, the way women fall all over him, how he is mean to others, and is good at hunting. Boys are shown just what it means to be masculine.
In Mulan, Li Shang is a character that also possesses masculinity. He is fit, tough, emotionless, telling others how to be a man, is good with fishing and the bow and arrow, can fight well, and is mean.
Tarzan is another masculine Disney man. As a boy, he can be playful, but he also knows how to take care of himself. He can climb trees, swing from vines, has a manly body, has a stern face, provides shelter to his mother, and wrestles with dangerous animals.
All of these Disney men show boys at a young age how to be masculine, and not in the best ways. While there is a moral to these stories on how to act, the appearance and athleticism of these men does not change.
Growing up, boys and men have men in the media like The Hulk, Barney Stinson, and Magic Mike. These men are much more grown up than those in Disney films, and their masculinity shows that.
The Hulk is an example of one of the manliest and masculine characters there is. As a man, he says he is always angry. This is an acceptable emotion for men. He is also fit, good looking, and women like him. When turning into the Hulk, he becomes so aggressive and angry that he cannot be stopped, he destroys anything around him. This is a superhero, someone that people look up to, yet is showing not very many levels other than anger and a hot body.
Barney Stinson is a man that degrades women, dresses well, is fit, tells men what it is to be a "bro", parties, and comes up with new ways to get with women. This shows men that it is ok to use women for sex, how to be a bro, and that dressing a certain way gets you what you want.
Magic Mike is a man that is good looking, ripped, good with his hands, can dance, and gets his way with women, fortune, and fame. This shows men that in order to get money and women, you need to look like this, have a manly skill, and sleep with many women.
So what are the negative effects of all of this media reference to what a man really is in terms of masculinity? To name a few, men will harm themselves in the gym, take steroids if they are not getting the body they desire in a healthy way, degrade women, lack emotion, and fight to show who is the best. These images lead to low self esteem, discrimination to those that choose another path, and violence. Men are taught from a young age that violence is ok through the media, and they take this into their everyday lives. They are exposed to tv, movies, video games, the internet, billboards, magazines, the news, and more. With all of this around them, it's no wonder they feel the pressures to conform to a certain set of standards of masculinity.
If you do not think this is a problem in terms of violence, look at headlines such as "Connecticut Shooting linked to Media Violence", "Media Violence Linked to Aggression", School Shooting Connected to Media Violence", and much more. Studies show that men are more likely to commit acts of violence than women, and many of these ideas come through violence in the media. For more information on violence in video games and how to deal with it for children, click here.
But men are not doomed. How can they ignore these images and make their own standards for masculinity? First, men and boys need to understand these images and characters are not real. The way these men are portrayed is not based on real life, and the stories they have are not possible. Once boys have a firm understanding, they can start to stray away from these behaviors. They also need to know it is ok show emotions of all kinds. This "boys don't cry" message is damaging. When emotions are held inside for so long, the top will pop off and that is when anger and rage come to the surface, and men do something they will regret later. We need to work together to give the message that men and emotions are a good thing. Then men will be less likely to explode. The standards men need to have for themselves are good emotional and physical health, a respect for all people, including women, and that being the best at everything simply isn't possible, so letting someone else have a "trophy" is acceptable. Once men realize that masculinity and masculinity in the media are two very different things, then they can start to incorporate their own standards of what it is to be a man.
Masculinity has been proven time and time again to be incredibly fragile. Masculinity is programed into the minds of boys from even before they are born. Their clothes, toys and lives are gendered in a very harmful way. Most people think that they way their children play will in any way effect the way that they grow up, however they hyper masculine ways that kids are parented can lead to long term problems. These problems not only effect men but also effect women as well.
The documentary “The Mask You Live In”, unpacks the issues that masculinity causes. This documentary draws the connection between our ideals surrounding masculinity and problems like sexual assault, substance abuse, and gun violence (or violence in general). A lot of this can be trace back to the ways that boys that commit these crimes were parented. Parenting styles that encourage boys to reject femininity or be afraid of being associated as being a girl are the problem. These parenting styles often teach their children to uphold the stereotypes of masculinity, and one stereotype that is talked about is that of male stoicism. Boys are taught that good men don’t have or show emotions, or that the only emotion that they are supposed to have is that of anger. This anger and bottled up emotions is what many attribute to the violence that this country sees committed everyday at the hands of men.
But how do we even get from a little boy to a violent man? What influences encourage this aggression? I think a lot of it has to do with the media and the gendered products that we are given. Because its not just what the child sees and internalizes, but it is also what parents watch and internalize as well. This means that not only is the child watching or seeing what masculinity should look like but also the parents are constantly reminded of what masculinity looks like and how they should shape their own child. And this begins from the time they are given their first toy.
Its shouldn't be news to anyone that men and women are treated very differently by the media and by advertisers. Parents are taught to buy their sons very masculine toys that in absolutely no way resemble something feminine. Boys are told to play with monster trucks, action figures (however no one has really ever been able to tell me the difference between an action figure and a barbie), and weapon like toys. Even when they are allowed to do “girly” things like dress up they are told they are supposed to be a doctor, fire fighter, or police officer. Jobs that scream manliness and power. So as boys grow up they are taught that there is a clear division between them and girls, between right and wrong.
This continues into male adult hood as well male products are still extremely gendered. Products that have no business being gendered are made as such. This keeps the idea that there is something inherently different between men and women; and there can be no crossing over. They serve to make men ashamed of seeming even the slightest bit feminine.
Because candles are for girls, unless they are bacon scented.
Tv shows obviously do this is as well. An example that I always think of is on Friends when Ross is freaked out that his son extremely young son Ben wants to play with a barbie instead of a G.I. Joe. One of the things that he is afraid of is what most parents are afraid of when their children try to operate outside of their genders, especially when its a boy. They are afraid that their son is going to be girly (which is apparently the worst thing a boy could ever be called) or for some parents there is a strong fear that their son will be gay. Shows like friends say that if a boy likes a barbie instead of a G.I. Joe then they are gay, and gayness is the same thing as being a girl.
Ross from friends trying to get his son, Ben, to play with the manly G.I. Joe instead of the Barbie that Ben likes the play with.
But one of the most harmful side effects of masculinity is that it breeds a scary level of violence. Gun violence, in particular, can easily be linked back to products that we consume. Think about how often gun and little boys are paired together, its as if parents believe that a boy can’t be a boy unless he is familiar with a gun from the time he can hold a toy one. This pairing of boys and guns isn’t new; however before the 1900 hundreds these toys were usually wooden and could do little harm. When toy companies began to make more and more realistic toy guns that when I think there became a major problem.
Right now science and parents are split on wether or not toy guns lead to violence and aggression, some say it does and others say it has no effect. But I find it every hard to believe that it has absolutely no effect on how young boys see the world and react to it. There are plenty of studies that show a connection between violent video games and gun crime, and so I have a hard time believing that there are no consequences when boys are taught to run around physically shooting at people albeit with water, foam nerf pellets or BBs, but there is still that very real and physical part to it. When kids get comfortable shooting at people and are taught that its cool to shoot a gun, I think that has to carry over into how they see real life guns as well.
Think about how many times you have read about a child getting a hold of their parents gun and accidentally shooting themselves or someone else. It is pretty high compared to what other countries endure, however a lot of that can be linked back to their guns laws. But I think that there is a connection that can be drawn between the hyper realistic appearances of guns and shootings. “Boy” guns are extremely realistic and often the only difference is an orange plastic tip that can easily be removed or painted.
This makes boys who play with these guns much more unaware of how different a toy gun and a real gun are. Toy guns now make me think of Tamir Rice who was waving around a very realistic looking black gun with the orange tip missing, this gun looked so real that people called the cops and were scared of the “gun” waving 12 year old. It ended up with him being shot and killed by police.
Whereas with “girl” guns they are liberally covered in pink and sparkles that it would be almost impossible for people to mistake it with a real gun. It would also take a lot more time and effort into hiding the fact that it is a toy and not real.
So how do we change the nature of gendered products like toy guns that can lead to real world violence? Because I don’t think we can ban them, but maybe we can start educating parents that they should make a clear distinction between real guns and toy ones. The problem with consumer products is that the companies make money off of upholding gender differences within their products, meaning that companies won’t want to change no matter how much better it would make our country.
