Masculinity

What does it take to be a man?

Concept of masculinity – describe the complexities of male social positions, identity and experience

Jackson Katz – the class structure and gender order produce ideas of masculinity which are stratified by socioeconomic class, racial and ethnic differences and social orientation

In a patriarchal culture, violent behaviour is considered masculine

Males are usually engaged with an ongoing process of creating and maintaining their own masculine identity



Males in contemporary advertisements

-Contemporary adverts usually contain dominant, violent and dangerous looking men
-Shows confidence, decisiveness, power etc
-How men use their bodies as instruments of power, dominance and control
-The male’s physical body provides the means of achieving and asserting “manhood”
-Signs of insecurities, as not being able to hold power would somehow make them less manly
-Historically, use of gender in advertising has stressed differences implicitly and even explicitly reconfirmed the “natural” dissimilarity of males and females
-By stressing gender differences through the media, it will continually reinforces the idea of what is masculine/feminine
-Using the image system, men are usually associated to violence (active) while women are usually associated with passivity
-Violent male icons would exploit consumers’ feelings by making them less manly



1) Violence as genetically programmed male behaviour
-Use of male icons or types from popular history
-Associate the product with manly needs and pursuits that have existed from the past
-Men’s aggressiveness and brutality and their dominance over women are biologically based

2) Use of military sports symbolism to enhance the masculine identification and appeal of product
- Military and sports: two key subsets in the symbolic image system of violent masculinity
-Features uniformed soldiers/players with their weapons/gears
-Military/sports actions promote leadership, respect and pride; visions of masculinities
-Providing a standard form of “manhood” for all classes
-The use of violent male athletes can also help sell products that are feminine based
-Will not lose their masculinity due to their violent nature

3) The association of muscularity with ideal masculinity
-The male body – the ideal male body
-Men regardless of class and race might feel insecure with their masculinity due to their socioeconomic position
-Their uncertainties on how to respond to the challenges of women in many areas of social relations
-But males continue to have an advantage over the females in the area of physical size and strength
-Besides the functional ability to defend and perform manual labor, muscles are also markers that separate men from each other and from women
-Size and strength are valued by men across class and racial boundaries

4) The equation of historic masculinity with violent masculinity
-The cultural power in constructing violent masculinity is not limited to the movies but also in advertising
-Violence often more glamorized than heroic and perpetuated overwhelmingly by males



IDEOLOGIES OF MASCULINITY (O’Shaughnessy and Stadler)

• WE LIVE IN A PATRIARCHAL SOCIETY – LAW OF THE FATHER
• - LINEAGE (FATHER’S FAMILY NAME)
• - LEGAL AND POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS HAVE DEVELOPED AS MALE INSTITUTIONS
• MOST CULTURES HAVE PRIVILEGED MEN WITH GREATER RIGHTS THAN WOMEN.
• DOMINANT VALUES OF PATRIARCHAL SOCIETY ARE LINKED TO VALUES ENCOURAGED IN MEN AND MASCULINITY – WARFARE IS THE ULTIMATE PROBLEM-SOLVING DEVICE OF PATRIARCHY



MASCULINITY IN CRISIS

• - FEMINISM
• - GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENTS



GENDER: MEN v WOMEN
• - ESSENTIALLY (INEVITABLY) DIFFERENT IN THEIR BIOLOGICAL AND EMOTIONAL MAKE-UP, AND THAT THIS DETERMINES HOW THEY FEEL AND ACT (Essentialism)

• - GENDER AS PURELY A CONSEQUENCE OF HOW PEOPLE ARE SOCIALIZED. (Social Constructionism)



MASCULINITY IS NOT ONLY IN CRISIS BUT IS ALSO A PROBLEM FOR OUR SOCIETY.

• - MEN ARE SEXIST AND OPPRESS WOMEN
• - MEN TOO SUFFERED UNDER PATRIARCHY




MEDIA AND MASCULINITY (O’Shaughnessy and Stadler)

MEN AND WOMEN TOGETHER
• MASCULINITY DEFINES ITSELF IN RELATION TO FEMININITY.
• POWER – KEY SIGNIFIER AND DEFINER OF MASCULINITY
• OVER WOMEN
• OVER MEN
• OVER ENVIRONMENT
• OVER THEMSELVES


MEN TOGETHER
THEMES: STRUGGLE AND FRIENDSHIP BETWEEN MALE BUDDIES
• MALE RIVALRY TURNS TO MALE FRIENDSHIP
• HEROES IN STORIES UNDERGO THE PROCESS OF TESTING INITIATING THEM INTO MASCULINITY
• AMERICAN BEAUTY – revels in moments of male aggression and male power, show how futile and destructive, to self and others, such masculinity is.
• Both a celebration and critique of masculinity.
Buddy Films – depicts intimacy between men in certain situations
• Validate male friendship but reject any homosexual possibilities
• Male bonding = male misogyny
• Critics argue that buddy films suggest strong love and erotic attraction between men


MEN AND FEELINGS
• - Rationality over feelings
• - Boys Don’t Cry
• - Anger and Aggression


MALE VIOLENCE
• - Destruction of Others
• - Self-Destruction



MEN IN FROCKS
• -BLURS NORMAL GENDER DEFINITIONS
• - HUMOROUS
• - TRANSGRESSIVE



GAY REPRESENTATIONS
• FILMS TENDED TO PATHOLOGISE GAY CHARACTERS AS SICK OR CRIMINAL
• UNHAPPY NARRATIVE RESOULUTIONS
• (1980s) GAY MEN AND WOMEN OPTIMISTIC RESOLUTIONS



MEN ADVERTISING COSMETICS
• MAKING MEN OBJECTS OF DESIRE
• STILL PROJECTS TRADITIONAL MASCULINITY AND VIRILITY



MALE PIN-UPS
• MALE BODY AS OBJECT OF DESIRE (SINCE MID 1970s)
• LINKED TO GAY CULTURE
• FUNNY OR SEXUAL



LET’S HEAR IT FROM THE BOYS
How men are not presented stereotypically?







IDEOLOGY OF FEMININITY(O’Shaughnessy and Stadler)


TRADITIONAL
“IT STARTS WHEN YOU SINK IN HIS ARMS AND ENDS WITH YOUR ARMS IN HIS SINK”
(A FEMINIST, 1970)


SOFT PORN
WOMEN ARE ENCOURAGED TO TAKE ON THE TRADITIONALLY MALE PLEASURES OF PORNOGRAPHY

FOREGROUNDING AND CELEBRATION OF WOMEN’S SEXUALITY


SEXUAL POWER OVER MEN (J. WOOD)
• POSITIVE – acknowledges female sexuality
• NEGATIVE – reduces women to their sexuality – sex objects that denies women other forms of power. It devalues women who are not stereotypically sexy.


ACTIVE FEMALE SEXUALITY
TAKING SEXUAL PLEASURE IN OBJECTIFYING THE MAN

IF PEOPLE WERE SEXUALLY HAPPY, THESE ADS, WHICH SEEM TO BE OFFERING US SEXUAL SATISFACTION THROUGH PURCHASE OF GOODS, WOULD NOT WORK.



FASHION VICTIM
• - FASHION IS IN THE BLOOD OR UNDER YOUR SKIN
• IMAGE OF HARM
• PLASTIC SURGERY
• AUGMENTATION
• OTHER FORMS OF SELF-WOUNDING
AN ATTACK ON THE HEART OF FEMININITY


• ARE WOMEN PRIMARILY SEXUAL BEINGS RATHER THAN AS SOCIAL BEINGS?

• ARE WOMEN TAKEN ON A MALE PLEASURE THEREBY DEFINING PLEASURE IN MALE TERMS AND LEGITIMIZING THE PORNOGRAHY INDUSTRY?



Images of femininity

What makes you feminine?
- Possessing qualities or characteristics considered typical or appropriate to a woman
-Opposite of masculine


Women’s identities:
-Achieving the ideal image has become an obsession
-Beauty important in a male dominated culture
-Females with dominant characteristics are often considered undesirable
-Male culture has silenced women by categorising them
-Culture stereotypes women to fit into the beauty myth
-They fall in two categories – beauty without intelligence or intelligence without beauty
-Mass culture perpetuates the idea of the pretty-plain pairing
-There can be one winner and one loser
-Judith Butler in Gender Trouble referred to “women” as the subject of feminism
-Feminism is a doctrine or movement that advocates equal rights for women


Feminism
n The modern women’s movement emerged from the late 1950s onwards
n Involved the analysis and critique of how and why popular culture has represented women in an unfair, unjust and exploitative manner
n Looked at within the context of framework of gender inequality and oppression


3 strands of feminism

Liberal feminism
-Criticizes the unequal and exploitative employment and representation of women in the media and popular culture
-Advocates for equal opportunities

Radical feminism
-Sees the interests of men and women as being fundamentally different
-Regards patriarchy or the control and repression of women by men as the most crucial historical form of social division and oppression
-Argues for female separation
-Butler believed that studying women as “political representation” is complicated and controversial
-Representation serves as the operative term within a political process that seeks to extend visibility and legitimacy to women as political subjects
-Women are only recognized through power struggles


Socialist feminism
-Accepts the idea of patriarchy but incorporates it into an analysis of capitalism
-Argues that the emergence of a socialist society necessary to transform the relations between the genders
-Women are represented by equal rights – not putting them into an oppressed position
-Representation is the normative term which can either reveal or distort what is assumed to be true of women
-What that is supposedly being represented may or may not be true
-It is important to develop a theory that could adequately represent women
-Women often misrepresented and sometimes, not represented at all
-Feminism these days more liberal
-Looks at inequalities between the sexes as socially and culturally constructed phenomena
-Attempting to develop feminist analysis that involves both a less dismissive conception of the female audiences for popular culture, together with a theoretical framework which incorporates class, race, ethnicity and other important social divisions