Masculinity

Our readings on men’s health, body image, masculinity and sexuality have really opened my eyes on men’s issues. I believe men can experience and suffer from oppression under the patriarchal system just as women do. Patriarchy assigns a list of characteristics according to gender where women should be nurturing, in-touch with their feelings, passive and her role is to be supportive of her man, bear children and tend to domesticated duties. Men are viewed as far superior and should be productive, competitive, dominant and the sole provider of their family. Even though men have more privilege under patriarchy, it does not mean that they agree with the system or want to conform to heteronormative attitudes and beliefs. Many men will agree with the feminist definition of patriarchy in that it is an unjust social system that is oppressive, stigmatizing and marginalizing to women. Still, there are men who live within this structure who know that it can be just as damaging to them.

In a way, men are forced to assume the roles that the patriarchal society has laid out for them. Historically, society has accepted and not questioned the behavior of men. Society may disagree with the structure of the system and the advantages of the male preserve, but excuse it to the degree that this is how it has always been and men are who they inherently are because of it. But, what people fail to realize is that not all men assume or want to assume these roles and they often endure a great deal of stress, pressure and harassment from other males that many of us do not see or recognize within a patriarchal system.

Chris Kilmartin has done a great job in explaining how the demands of traditional masculinity present a number of characteristic problems and conflicts. In our discussions in class, we tackled a few that I found quite interesting and helped me understand where men face difficult challenges. We discussed how men never seem to fit the supposed “ideal” perfectly and they...