What is the meaning of strong and weak? It varies in different regions and nations. The film "Tough Guise" discusses how this idea came about and how masculinity is often depicted in the media as physical and mental strength, or power over
others, and even violence when we saw on organized sports game or movies.
In American society, a man needs to be tough, independent, strong and respected. This is interesting but where or who gave this certain definition to be a man? In fact, not only the medias, such as TV, movies, commercials, play an influential role on that, but also the dominant culture gave the definitions on how man should behave instead of being emotional is a trait of weak or sissy.
There is a change of meaning of being a man. I like movies and I have seen many old movies about war, mafia, etc. You would find that most of the men hold a pistol instead of women in the movies. Whenever a man take out the gun and shoot someone, everything seems normal. But when a woman has a gun in her hand and killed someone by that, it shocks all the audiences. In "Tough Guise", it mentioned a research on commercial goods also have a remarkably shift from 1970s to 1990s.
There is no "natural" image for masculinity. The meaning of masculinity is differed from the past due to gender socialization. Gender socialization refers to the learning of behavior and attitudes
considered appropriate for a given sex. Boys learn to be boys and girls
learn to be girls.
In my opinion, when I looked back one of the videos we watched talking about the "man-box" in socialization chapter. We found many males are living under a great pressure due to the man-box and the norms of being a man.
Yes, men are not born with a certain perception of masculinity, but the way we, including girls, socialize from childhood to adulthood puts violence into the masculinity. Throughout our lifetime, we are socialized or forced to act like a man or woman. Basically, that is almost norms in our society. We don’t talk about it, and we don’t have any written legal document about it. However, if people found someone is different from what we think she/he should be like, we point her/him behind their back.
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