My Son, His Father, and The Man Box

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.