Double Standard Of Masculinity In Gender Role Socialization Essay
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Masculinity is a topic that has been debated
in our society extensively, through research as well as in informal settings.
Many wonder what it means to be masculine, and if we can really assign
a definition to such a subjective term. After all, shouldn't one's own
perception be the determinant of what constitutes masculinity? This self-construction
would be the ideal in our society, but unfortunately, it represents a false
belief. Masculinity has certain characteristics assigned to it by our culture.
In this paper I will explore the many facets of masculinity and demonstrate
how certain beliefs pertaining to it are perpetuated in our society. I
will also uncover many of the contradictions between society's assigned
definition of masculinity and the expectation that males will somehow learn
how to act contrary to that assigned and learned meaning.
Definition of Masculinity
Men are primarily and secondarily socialized
into believing certain characteristics are definitive in determining their
manliness and masculinity. These characteristics range from not crying
when they get hurt to being and playing violently. The socialization of
masculinity in our society begins as early as the first stages of infancy.
A child's burgeoning sense of self or self-concept is a result of the multitude
of ideas, attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs to which he is exposed (Witt
1997). Later in this paper the question of whether there are genetic factors
will be discussed. However, to further my argument at this point, I will
discuss masculinity as it is socially defined. From the outset of a boy's
life he is socialized into the belief that he should be 'tough'. Often
when boys get hurt, 'scrape their knee', or come whimpering to their mother
or father, the fated words, "Little boys don't cry", issue forth. Children
internalize parental messages regarding gender at an early age, with awareness
of adult sex role differences being found in two-year-old children. One
study found that children at two and a half years of age use gender stereotypes
in negotiating their world and are likely to generalize gender stereotypes
to a variety of activities, objects, and occupations (Witt 1997). This
legitimization teaches males that boys and men are not allowed to cry.
There also exists the belief that boys are often required to do 'men's
work' outside of the home such as mowing the lawn, cleaning the garage,
etc., and not 'sissy women's work' such as cooking and cleaning, etc. Other
factors help to perpetuate certain standards expected of men and boys (Stearns
1990).
The violence boy's witness on television
further legitimates this belief. Katz explains that advertising imagery
equates masculinity with violence. For boys this means aggression is instrumental
in that it enables them to establish their masculinity (Katz 1995). Lee
Bowker researched the influence advertisements have on youth. He asserts
that toy advertisements featuring only boys depict aggressive behavior.
Strangely, the aggressive behavior generally results in positive consequences
more often than negative. Bowker also looked at commercials with boys that
contain references to domination. The results of all the commercials indicate
that 68.6% of the commercials positioned toward boys contain incidents
of verbal and physical aggression. There was no cross?gender display of
aggressive behavior. Interestingly, not one single-sex commercial featuring
girls shows any act of aggression (Bowker 1998). This research helps explain
that it is not just the reinforcement of close caretakers to the child
that legitimate masculinity but society as a whole (using the television
as a symbol of society and it's desires).
Another example of how this can be reinforced
even by women who may or may not be trying to promulgate such a belief
is with an experience I had growing up:
When I would get a cut or a bruise, I
would muster up all the strength I had to not cry. I feared that if I cried
I wouldn't be worthy of being a tough kid. On one occasion I had a severe
cut in my knee that required several stitches. When I took a look at the
wound after rolling up my pant leg, my first inclination was to break out
crying. However, at that moment my teacher told me what a brave boy I was
and how amazed she was that I was not crying. She probably did not realize
that she was sending a message to me that if I cried I would not be tough
enough, and therefore I would not become a real man.
Athletics is another type of legitimation
that reinforces society's definition of masculinity. Boys watch how their
fathers dote and fawn over 'the game', whether it is football, basketball,
or any other sport that epitomizes masculinity. Children notice that the
'men' on TV impress dad and they want to be like that. This initial reinforcer
is a major impetus for boys wanting to learn athletics (Thompson 1995).
It may not be just that dad watches athletics on TV, but also in speaking
with his son, he may encourage him to develop his athletic prowess. He
can do this in ways such as buying him a baseball glove so they can spend
time playing catch, or buying him other 'masculine' athletic equipment
such as guns. All of these factors serve as primary socializers in instilling
within boys the desire to excel physically. Similarly, how often are young
boys seen competing with each other in bike races, acts of physical strength
or even in something as simple as "My dad can beat up your dad?" Little
boys are taught to see physical prowess as the ideal. An interesting aspect
of masculinity is that we are not taught so much to be "manly" but rather
to not be feminine. Most of what a young boy learns about what it means
to be masculine is presented to him at such an early stage that he accepts
it as an inevitable truth. Often young boys can be found taunting and even
motivating each other with phrases like "Don't be a (sissy) girl" or "Only
girls do that." It seems that there is a pervasive fear among all males
that the worst possible insult is to be labeled a female. William Betcher
reports that some societies take this concept to an extreme. He talks of
the initiation rites of the Sambia of New Guinea saying, "Initiation rites
begin when boys are seven to ten years old and include oral ingestion of
older boys' semen and painful bleeding by sticking grass reeds up the nose.
The bleeding is a counterpart of menstruation and semen is ingested instead
of mother's milk" (Betcher 1993). Although these actions seek to mark the
boy as "not a woman", ironically they incorporate basic feminine biologic
functions that men lack.
Secondary socialization then acts in the
later stages of a boy's life to reaffirm society's beliefs about masculinity.
As boys grow older, their bodies develop and they enter junior high and
high school. At this point they begin to really understand that physical
prowess and largess are the ideal. To see how this is done, we can simply
look at the emphasis given to athletics versus the emphasis given to academics
in public schools. Understandably, how schools emphasize athletics over
academics is going to have some influence over the way young men think
and visualize the importance of physical prowess, but the true legitimator
is how athletes are seen by...
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