Manly Men

This week’s readings provided an interesting look into the mind of advertisers focusing on males in the media and how we have recently begun to portray men in more feminine ways in typically manly situations. The idea of man has changed recently, with the stoic, hardened, emotionless guy left behind and the “new man” with his soft and sentimental side ready to take over with full force. Diane Barthel’s Men, Media, and the Gender Order focuses on just this as well as several other issues in the changing gender roles of men and women.

Men today are not the men many of us grew up watching on TV. Today he is sensitive, takes an interest in developing lasting relationships with his family, and isn’t necessarily the sole breadwinner. It’s as if every televised dad strives to be the Danny Tanner of the 2000’s, making each family just like Full House from the ABC Family channel. The new man is encouraged to move away from attachments to his mother and instead strive for closeness with his father. As Barthel says, “While the young man must still maintain distance between himself and his mother, he proves his New Man status by breaking down the distance between himself and his father.”

This transition to the new man from the old man has resulted for some, in the death of masculinity. It is fascinating to watch the gender roles in our society shift at a barely perceptible rate only to suddenly spring them upon us, showering the world with bi-sexuality, homosexuality and trans-gender aspects of life. It seems as if everything we know of how the world “should be” is falling down around us, and frankly I don’t think it’s a bad thing. It is peculiar, however, that despite these changes in gender, we still operate within the confines of femininity and masculinity, although some would say it were dead (O’Sullivan, Dead Man Walking).

O’Sullivan’s reaction to this change in gender roles is particularly interesting to me because he makes a valid point regarding the loss of masculinity in our society and what that may mean for the future. He says that if people can’t tell boys from girls the “whole society would come to a screeching halt” (O’Sullivan, Dead Man Walking). After reading that I began to think about it. It seems that he may be right. Our society is so patriarchal that to even being to fathom a culture based on anything else is intimidating. Many people, many of them being women, are striving for such a change, but I often wonder if we’re ready to accept the burden of that change. I know I want equality for everyone but sometimes it feels like the rest of the world isn’t ready and it’s depressing.

It’s the same sort of thing that we have to deal with when we talk about abortion. Everyone says they want women to have reproductive rights—OK, a lot of people, not all—but the fact of the matter is that we as a society cannot settle down and decide on the issue when it should be long buried by now. But then again, maybe that’s just me. In Allison Crew’s essay So I Chose we see a fifteen-year-old girl go into Planned Parenthood to have an abortion only to be screamed at by pro-lifers. I know it doesn’t relate to the concept of masculinity and how society has changed what the ideal boy or man should be like, but for me both of these issues are similar in that they are growing ever larger and being fought all the way.

It’s a shame that in the rise of feminism boys have been left by the wayside so that girls can feel important again. It’s about equality people. You’ve got to love your children the same all around. It seems as if feminism has begun to take over in areas that we neglect, and has adverse affects on some of what it touches.

Here are some manly links:
http://www.arthurshall.com/x_manly_men.shtml
http://manlyjokes.tripod.com/

~Paige