Masculinity - Why do men enlist in military

I recently read an excerpt form a book by Alan G. Johnson, The Gender Knot: Unraveling our Patriarchal Legacy, which he dispels the ideal that warfare is justified and essential “to understanding the ‘natural’ gender order” (Johnson).  On November 11^th many of us, myself included, paid tribute to members of our military.  I am supportive of people who choose to serve in the military.  However, a question I use to ask my fellow soldiers in 1975 was, why did you join up? 

According to philosopher and author, Sam Keen, the reason many men participate in warfare is to uphold the principles of the patriarchal system and in doing so men would go into battle to ensure the safety of those they held close and to fight against tyranny.  This idea is further supported in the recruiting advertisements throughout the years which specifically target ideals as deemed by society as being masculine; protecting the family and keeping the chaos and evil from reaching our shores.  Men are depicted as heroes - defenders of our cultural morals and values.  While these lofty ideals may be why some join, it couldn’t be further from the truth for a large number of military personnel.

 

As the article points out, if the epitome of being masculine is to be self-sacrificing and ready to go to war to protect their country and loved ones, then, we should see more of a cross section of our male society in the military.  Instead, in the enlisted ranks, what we usually see are young men who hail from middle and lower class families versus those privileged white males who are educated and financially secure.  Patriarchy is definitely at play however it is the hierarchy systems that usually defines who will most often join. 

To circle back to what I often heard when asking, why did you enlist?  The answers were often, education, learn a trade/skill, to provide for family and structure.  I never heard the answer, go to war overseas and defend my country – maybe it was just the era although I doubt it.

Johnson, Alan

http://www.agjohnson.us/essays/manhood/

Sexy Shoulders?

Firstly, I would like to say that I think that schools, and workplaces should have a dress code, but also think the dress codes need to be appropriate towards both males and females and also within reason.

I recently came across an article about how a group of high school underclassmen girls were taking a stand against their school dress code. Their argument was that their dress code was gender-biased against females, creating a very strict set of rules for what they can and cannot wear; the main argument was they should be allowed to show their shoulders. The group of girls believe that the dress code unfair because it is aimed towards the girls for creating a distracting learning environment because they are showing their shoulders. They went on to say that the school is “body shaming” females.

            I think the message that they are trying to spread here does not and should not have to stop with a school dress code. The school systems as well as society reinforces these ideas that females are nothing more than sexual objects, and that they need to be reprimanded for that. I don’t understand how we can make a girl feel bad for the way her body looks, and make her go cover herself up. If schools are so worried about a “distracted learning environment” shouldn’t they start with the source of the problem? Boys in our society are not being taught that girls need to be treated with respect and that they are not objects. With the role of media such as the internet, porn, video games, movies; it is constantly reinforcing the sexualization and objectification of women. 

Challenging Masculinity

Today I typed "Masculine Female/She Male" into Google to see what would come up on my search engine. Sure enough not to my surprise the following images popped up. In America, masculinity is measured by the amount of muscles you have. This is ridiculous. I was in the gym the other day and I was the only female in the weights section. A guy asked me what I was doing there. Society has conditioned us to believe that men and women should look a certain way. Women with muscles challenge gender roles and masculinity. I find that men are intimated by females with muscles. Could this be a result of internal insecurities? Masculinity is defined through an ideology that is the opposite from femininity. Women are not allowed to act or dress like men because it challenges social norms and the very concept of masculinity.

 

Girlie....or Manly?

Girlie Man or Manly Man

I came across this article while actually looking for something completely different.  It is a prime example of conflicting desires of women, male objectification and homophobia all wrapped into one.  I find it very interesting that there seems to be an invisible line across which men cannot cross and still be considered a man. 

For my whole life, I thought that it was okay to put societal boundaries on what was considered a man.  I now understand that gender and sex are not the same thing and they sometimes don't agree.

"Totally Straight"

An article published on November 5^th by the BBC dovetails nicely with the video Venus Boyz.  The University of Essex studied the level of sexual arousal that 345 women had towards the gender they identified with being attracted to.  While studies have been done in the past on this, it has never been conducted with women who identify as lesbian. 

Here is where the study gets interesting, researchers overwhelmingly found that women who were attracted to the same sex had “sexual arousal patterns … similar to men…” (Therrien).  While not fully understanding why 68% of the gay women react like men, it was suggested by Dr. Rieger that perhaps these females received more testosterone while “in the womb” (Therrien).  This theory had been corroborated in studies using animals.

Of the straight women who were tested, the results show only 28% of the women who identified as straight were aroused by only images of men.  The remaining straight women were aroused by both sexes, in varying degrees.  So, while the larger proportion of women identified as being straight they really travel a sexual spectrum or bridge and we can no longer “ignore the shades of gray in favor of binarism” (Reeser; 153). 

Reeser, Todd W. Masculinities in Theory: An Introduction. West Sussex: Wiley- Blackwell, 2010

Therrien, Alex.  Nov. 2105. BBC News, Health.  No Woman ‘totally straight’, study says.  http://www.bbc.com/news/health-34744903  Web. 11 November, 15

Terry Crews Explains Why Men Should Embrace Their Emotions

I saw a video where Terry Crews was being interviewed on the Huffington Post and was talking about men, sensitivity, and sadness. Crews says "Guys all the time blink past sad moments, depressing moments. Not everything should be funny, and I do a lot of that processing at home: today is a sad day, ingest it, work with it, and then go on, but if you don't, it comes out another way." Men are taught that being masculine means that you should not show sadness since it is a sign of weakness and that is feminine or girly. You do not want to show the world that you are a weak man because men are not supposed to be weak. You do not want to show your potential partner that you are weak because then they are going to think that you are not a suitable protector. It is not only harmful in regards to social stigma but as a human being it is harmful to let all of your emotions boil inside you without any form of getting it out. Averse effect are negative feelings that you want to release in order to feel better about yourself but social constrains does not allow you to. That's why we need feminism because we need to alter a society where anyone regardless of gender are allowed to express how they feel in order to keep their own sanity and emotional stability. 

It's On Us and College Humor Call Out College Masculinity

Recently, the It's On Us campaign teamed up with the popular YouTube Channel, College Humor, to create a PSA that would bring awareness to violence against women on college campuses; an issue that, while not new, has recently been given more attention and concern by the media. The It's On Us initiative was launched in 2014 by President Obama in order to spread awareness and try to prevent sexual assaults on college campuses. The initiative urges individuals to take the pledge to:

1. Recognize that non-consensual sex is sexual assault.
2. Identify situations in which sexual assault may occur 
3. Intervene in situations where consent has not or cannot be given 
4. Create an environment in which sexual assault is unacceptable and survivors are supported

The initiative has recently gained momentum, and has done a relatively good job of reaching its target audience; a task that could be daunting and difficult seeing as we live in a time in which young individuals have so much entertainment to choose from. What I liked about this particular video is that I believe it does a really good job of poking fun and deconstructing the idea of the typical college male, or expected college masculinity and behavior. The group of friends are hanging out in what is staged as a stereotypical 'man cave' drinking alcohol, watching sports and joking around, but this quickly falters as they address the killer bear in the house. The bear is a literal manifestation of the statistic that states that 1 in 5 women will be sexually assaulted by the time they finish college. Instead one of the men state that the bear will 'statistically' only kill 1 in 5 people, but not them. He goes on to state that whatever happens is none of his business, further mocking how many men treat the prevalence of sexual assault by taking the path of least resistance. Like the A Call To Men campaign, It's On Us and this particular PSA are calling for men to take responsibility for violence against women.

I feel as though the PSA was very relatable for the target audience and did a good job of putting it in a way that will make many college males realize that it does concern them, and can even happen to them. While it's not perfect, I hope to see more PSAs like it and hopefully even commercials that could potentially make it to television. 

Learning to Understand Bisexuality through my Mother

    I vividly remember standing next to my mother in the kitchen while we were cooking together and saying, "I understand that some people are straight and some people are gay. But bisexuals don't make sense, they need to decide!" An extremely ignorant statement, yes, but I try to give myself a small break considering I was only twelve years old. This seemingly innocent, yet ignorant, statement would later serve to haunt me when my mother came out as lesbian later that year. My mother had been in a relationship with my father and had me, but they soon separated and she had been single ever since. My mother's lack of a relationship wasn't something that struck me as odd since it was the norm during my childhood, so I never questioned it. When I was twelve, my mom sat me down and told me that she had fallen in love with our next door neighbor, a woman. I had a hard time accepting the relationship immediately, but whether that was directly because my mom was dating a woman or that I now had to share her with another person is beyond me. It wasn't until much later that my mom explained her perception of love and sexuality that I came to realize that she was not the lesbian that she had claimed to be, but in fact bisexual.
    My mother explained that she sees sexual orientation as a scale with women and men on either side. She said she's somewhere in the middle, and her scale goes more to one side than the other depending on life events and the person she's attracted to. She said that she falls for the individual, not the gender, when she chose a partner. This explanation made a lot of sense to me, and it is a basic understanding that I still follow. As a child, it explained to me why I had always identified as heterosexual, and yet could feel attraction towards other girls, but in an almost jealous sense. I didn't want to date the girls, but I could understand why boys were attracted to them, and sometimes yearned for some of their attractive physical or personality traits myself.
  After some research, I found the Klein Sexual Orientation Grid (or KSOG), a system for describing a person's sexual proclivities. I found this grid particularly interesting because it looks into multiple variables of sexual orientation and preference. 
   Now, my mom is divorced from her ex-wife. We joke together and make bets on whether her next partner will be a man or a woman. Either way, her view on love and relationships has helped me better understand a world that I am not fully apart of, but wholly support.

Why Does He Hit Me?

When I was 4 years old one of the boys on the playground always made fun of my hair. I would tell my teacher and she said “he’s just teasing you because he likes you.” I tried my best to ignore him but one day I just couldn’t take it anymore. I told him to “leave me alone.” He ran up to me and hit me in the face. I was only 4 and he was 6 years old. I started to cry. My mother took me to the hospital so that I could get stitches. When we got to the front desk the male receptionist asked me what happened. When I told him, he smiled and said “he probably likes you.” At that moment I finally understood why boys “teased” me. 

I remember the night my boyfriend hit me. It was the first time he had ever put his hands on me. I know he loves me because he tells me this all of the time. I am only 16 and this is my first relationship. I am so confused. Why did he hit me? Is love supposed to hurt?

How many times have you been teased by a boy at school as a child? How many boys did you have to fight on the playground because they hit you or "teased" you?  How many adults told you "he teases you because he likes you?"

 What kind of message are we sending our young daughters into the world with? I am so tired of hearing parents or teachers tell their young girls that they are being "teased" by a young boy because the young boy "likes" them. This is conditioning our young boys to believe that it is acceptable to mistreat women. Domestic violence is associated with a psyche that is developed at a young age. It is not okay to teach young girls that boys hit them because they like them.  

Disclaimer: If you ever find yourself in a situation where you wonder “why does he hit me? Is it because he loves me?” Remember: LOVE DOES NOT HURT! 

Are we censoring the wrong images?

Recently I came across a story about a young woman named Rupi Kaur, who is a college student in Toronto, Canada. She is an artist who was working on a photograph series focusing on women's menstruation for one of her classes. On Instagram she posted one of the photos from her series, the subject matter: a fully clothed woman, laying on her side facing away from the camera, with a blood stain on her both the back of her sweatpants and the sheets of her bed. Apparently Instagram deleted this photo off their sit because it "violated community guidelines". Kaur posted the photo again, only to have it deleted the next day for the same exact reason. She then proceeded to write and post an open letter to Instagram:

 "thank you @instagram for providing me with the exact response my work was created to critique. you deleted a photo of a woman who is fully covered and menstruating stating that it goes against community guidelines when your guidelines outline that it is nothing but acceptable. the girl is fully clothed. the photo is mine. it is not attacking a certain group. nor is it spam. and because it does not break those guidelines i will repost it again. i will not apologize for not feeding the ego and pride of misogynist society that will have my body in an underwear but not be okay with a small leak. when your pages are filled with countless photos/accounts where women (so many who are underage) are objectified. pornified. and treated less than human. thank you."

I think that this is such an important topic to talk about. Kaur makes an excellent point how Instagram allows so many inappropriate photos of women who are being viewed as, and feeding society’s role for them to be nothing more than sexual objects. I think society needs to stop rejecting and tip-toeing around the beauty of the human body and the part of being a woman that we cannot change. I don’t understand why as a society we reject what defines us, and we are so taken aback by this natural bodily process, but we are not taken aback by the media and pop-culture filled with violence, unobtainable body images, the sexualization and objectification of women, and pornography. As a society we need to start embracing what makes us human and not using it to degrade one another. For example, just because women have breasts does not make us objects, and does not give us the right to be treated as less than. Just because Kaur posted a picture of a woman embracing her monthly gift does not give social media the right to shun her.

Zhang, Michael. "Instagram Censors Photo of Fully Clothed Woman on Period, Causes Uproar." PetaPixel RSS. 28 Mar. 2015. Web. 7 Nov. 2015. 

The proliferation of sexism in 'fit' spaces and homoeroticism on the weight floor

Let me begin by saying I spend a lot of time trying to stay active. I work at the UCF RWC in the fitness department, organizing programs, instructing group exercise classes, and personal training. I love working out, moving my body, and teaching other people how to do so. However, the passion for staying active I’ve fostered over the years does not blind me to the rampant sexism, ableism, and exclusion in the fitness industry. Like any industry, gyms, magazines, diet companies, etc. all try to sell us an image of what we need to be and look like. More insidious than most industries, fitness uses nebulous terms like “health” and “fit” to shame people under the guise of improving their lives. The individuality of things like physical fitness and health is widely ignored, and these very important issues are treated with a one-size-fits-all approach. In tragic irony, the ubiquitous presence of outlets telling us to be healthy lead to body image issues, eating disorders, and physical injuries. Yet I digress. In my time working at a gym, I’ve become fascinated with the hyper masculinity, homoeroticism, and vanity on the weight floor. Physical fitness for men has become synonymous with lifting big and heavy, exhibiting impressive feats of strength, and being in peak physical condition. The same notions that prove a manly man’s manliness are simultaneously counterintuitive. In all other social discourses, men are not supposed to pay attention to what they look like. They aren’t supposed to gaze in mirrors as they walk past, nor are they supposed to fixate on what their bodies look like as women do. In addition, a man is most certainly are not supposed to touch a fellow bro, let alone whilst sweating and moving their bodies. Yet take a trip to any weight floor and you’ll see men stepping out of the man box in very deliberate ways. Flexing in the mirror, spotting another man, etc. Regardless of how weight floor behavior goes against traditional man box rules, this behavior is still seen as strong and ‘manly.’ I’m reminded of the homoeroticism in hip hop that we learned about in our last module. Not only does the current state of the fitness world inevitably lead to body image issues and an ignoring of the inaccessibility of “healthy” lifestyles, but it reinforces the man box in counterintuitive ways.

"Meninism" and Redefining Feminism

     My first complaint about "meninists" occurred a few weeks ago. While completing my daily (or, let's be honest, hourly) scrolling through Facebook, I noticed my boss had shared a photo that came from the page "Meninists Unite." I had heard the term "meninist" before, but thought it was simply an exaggerated joke about feminism. In doing more research, I found that many people - a vast majority of them being men - refer to themselves as "meninists," who believe in equal rights for men. Later, I had a conversation with my boss about something unrelated when he brought up the term "meninist." He said, "I hate feminists! Women want the ability to have equal rights, but don't actually want to be equal. And what about men? That's why I believe in 'meninism.'" There were so many things wrong with what he said; I thought to myself, "Wow, has this man not read a dictionary?" I have been mulling this over in my head for a few days and would like to share a list of reasons why I despise this word "meninist."*
     1. "Feminism" is just a word! Yes, it is called "feminism" because women originally sought out equality, but like most words in the English language, we adapt to the current issues and needs of our people. Feminism is defined as "the social, economic, and political equality of the sexes"(1); nowhere in the definition does it say that feminists want women to be better than men or that men don't suffer!

     2. By separating women's issues into "feminism" and men's issues into "meninism," people are furthering the point that equality is needed. Everyone is suffering from equality issues here, and instead of worrying about the word used, we should focus on makes the sexes equal. In fact, I think that this actually belittles women's issues by implying that men don't want to be categorized with women.

     3. Why are men so afraid of a "female-rooted word"? Masculinity is so over-exaggerated in this country that men are afraid to even associate themselves with a word that has a "female" root. Could this be because men are aware of how feminists - regardless of sex - are treated, and are afraid of this happening to them?

     4. Feminists are not without blame here. Today, many people see feminism as a "woman's issue" and that we need to fight to rise women up. Again, this goes against the true definition of the word.  How about we rise everyone up to the same levels? For example, we should raise the salaries of women, but bring awareness to domestic violence against men. As feminists, we need to be aware that men suffer from issues too and that no one's battles are unimportant.

     So let's take a stand. Let's get back to the basics and use the word "feminist" for its intended purpose. We should be focusing on the thoughts and ideas behind equality of the sexes and feminism and not on the "labels" associated with them.

Works Cited:
1. http://www.britannica.com/topic/feminism

*I'd like to add that some of the "meninist" posts I've seen are funny and actually bring up good points. I like that young people are bringing a sense of humor into the issue of equality. However, my feelings still stand at using "feminist" for its intended use.

Last night, I got lost in the internet. I was watching the newest episode of American Horror Story, and then looked something up (I think it was Richard Ramirez) and somehow I ended up on Clint Eastwood's Wikipedia. It said he was the 'cultural icon of masculinity'. Eastwood is known for his western movies, where he is a gun-toting cowboy. He is now very famous, and he also directs. Eastwood is known for his toughness and lawlessness, and I suppose that is where he becomes the epitome of masculinity. He played emotionally detached very well, which is what a lot of people think men should be like. Obviously there is no one way for a man to be, but the perception that there is still prevails.

19 Heartbreaking Confessions From Men Suffering From Emotional Abuse

When we think of abuse we automatically think of women. Women are always the victims. This is what I learned growing up. Men can never be the victims, and men are often portrayed as the perpetrator. So this is an interesting article that includes some confession that men made about emotional abuse. One of the confessions mentioned that when one man told someone about what he was going through they told him to “man up,” which is sad because we are taught as a society that men can’t show any emotions. There are so many resources provided for women who have been abused, but for men there aren’t as many. We don't typically talk about men who are abused. It's as if it’s some sort of taboo. We need to bring awareness that abuse works both ways. No one deserves to be mistreated.   

Read the article here: Confessions from Men Suffering from Emotional Abuse