My Son, His Father, and The Man Box
The concept of the "man box" is very interesting
to me and before I started taking any type of gender studies courses I had not
heard of this topic. The "man box" is described in many different
ways, one example is from a Ted Talk with Tony Porter who introduces the image of the "man
box" which he describes as a real box which holds different roles, ideas,
and constructs about what a real man has to be. The man box is what society
expects men to be or young boys to grow up to be. The concept of men having to
be muscular and strong in order to count as a "man" is an issue. Boys
are told to be strong and not to cry or be emotional, and in order to deal with
their problems they must resort to violence. Why is it that even at a young age
our parents and society push their own agendas and gender roles onto us? In the
video, "The Mask You Live In", men who are inmates in a prison
discuss what they were taught growing up in regards to what made them a man.
These men said things like, "everything was surrounded around money and
having money" and that it "was okay to be a womanizer" which all
show the stereotypes and roles that are forced onto boys and men. In regards to
this my own son has had to deal with this being pushed onto him by his father.
We are no longer married so my son goes to stay with his dad for 2 nights every
other week which gives him the opportunity to push certain ideals and behaviors
onto him. His dad will call him a man (he is only 5) and tell him to stop
acting like a baby or that men do not cry so he needs to suck it up. Before our
son was even born, before we even knew he was a boy, his father said that he
must have his name in some way to carry
on the family name and he would not be allowed to play any other sport other
than basketball. Last year when my son was 4 he was watching his aunt and
myself paint our fingernails red and wanted his done so we did his toes. This
caused a huge uproar with his father because I was making our son a girl. He
said that it would turn him gay or like "girl" things and he was a
man so I needed to remove the color ASAP. I refused and fought for my son to
have his rights over his own body and his choice to like what he wanted. I have
taught my son that it does not matter what anyone thinks or says and he is
allowed to like whatever he wants. He thankfully is only affected by his father's
ignorance a little bit and is free to express himself how he chooses. As the
textbook "Men Speak Out" says, "Genetics may explain a lot, and
biological arguments about how men and women's behaviors and traits are
'hardwired' are in vogue..but we also know that culture has deep effects on the
social construction of gender and masculinity" (Tarrant 12). Children
really need these positive influences in their lives because so many of them
are forced into their set gender roles and unable to grow into the person they
truly are regardless of societies pressures.
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