A helping hand for a masculine man

A few years ago I had a male friend who i have always known to be quite masculine and macho that was having a hard time. He was having issues in his love life. He had been dating the same girl for a long time and had never really dated much before her. He was getting to a point where he was wondering what else was out there. He ended the relationship to live as a young single guy for a while. But only a few months later he found himself missing his girlfriend terribly. He tried to get her back, but she was not having it. She was mad at him for leaving her and had started dating someone else. He did not know what to do, so I suggested that he see a counselor because i had never seen him so emotionally upset before. I did not think this was something that he would do, because he always acts like a very stereotypical man's man, and therapy is typically looked at as something that manly men don't need to do. Surprisingly enough he did go to a counselor and worked out some of his issues and was able to win back his girlfriend. I think that going to therapy and reaching out for help in his life was a big part of why she took him back, because doing so showed that he was willing to really work on problems and go out of his comfort zone to do it.

In the chapter we read this week in Gauntlett, "Men's magazines and Modern Masculinities" the author talked about the content of modern men's lifestyle magazines. One of the sections the author talked about was "Men need help", where the author identified the types of advice content in modern men's lifestyle magazines. The author stated "men are advised on relationships... how to avoid alcoholism.... choose the ideal suit, massage a woman's foot and/or be a good father" (Gauntlett 172). I think that the idea that to be masculine means that you never need help or advice for anything is an idea that is less prevalent. I think this is a good thing because everyone needs help and advice for many aspects of life because life it hard! I think that it is better for society overall that it is more accepted for men to seek help for questions they have about how to be a good father, or a good partner, or anything else.

I wonder if males still feel that it is less acceptable to ask for the advice of others for social and emotional problems in their lives? I do not think there was ever as big of a deal for a guy to ask his friend's opinion about what brand of oil to put in their car, or something more technical like that, but talking about social and emotional problems has been seen as taboo for men in the past.

Not a binary

When I was young I was what some people would have called a tom-boy. I was more interested in building a fort in the woods with my guy friends than playing dress up with my girl friends. My dad taught me how to throw a football and baseball, swing a golf club, and play poker. While my mom tried to get me into doing arts and crafts with her, and I was much less receptive to that. The type of activities that girls liked I found to be too sedate and boring. It seemed like guys got to have all the fun and action. It was for this reason that when I was little I sometimes wished that I had been born a boy. Although I had never been one for foo foo dresses and heels, I never tried to come off as uber masculine either. I liked jewelry, pretty decorations, relaxed feminine clothes, the colors pink and purple, and other girl things. So I sometimes felt stuck in the middle as a child. I did not want to be super delicate, reserved, and domesticated like I felt were the expectations of being a girl, but I did not was to be quite as ruff and wild as I thought were the expectations for boys.

The chapter on Queer Theory and Fluid Identities reaffirmed what I had learned and accepted about my perception of gender. The text states "The binary divide between masculinity and femininity is a social construction built on the binary divide between men and women - which is also a social construction" (Gauntlett 147).  This is how I look at my gender identity now that I am older. I do not feel out of place because I do not identify as a girly girl, or as a tom-boy. I feel that I am somewhere in between. Though now that I am older I do feel more feminine than I did when I was younger, I will never be a girly girl. I would rather wear jeans, a tee shirt, and skate shoes rather than a dress and high heels any day. But that doesn't mean that I can't polish up a little bit with some jewelry or a cute purse.

I wonder if some people feel the same way that I do about "doing gender" but have the idea that you have to present yourself as one way or the other that they just perform one end of the gender binary?

An artist that came to my mind when thinking about this topic was Pink. I feel like she is a good representation of how I feel about balancing masculinity and femininity in a way that works for you. She can dress up or be casual, have platinum blond or pink hair, but she is always inked and fierce.

Voice

The other day I was riding home in my boyfriend's truck and a Shinedown song came on the radio. I turned  it up because I love Shinedown, especially because of the lead singer's voice. I commented on how much I love his voice, and how before I had seen any of their videos, I had a very different image in my head of what he would look like. I thought he would be very handsome and masculine. When I did see one of their videos, he did not look as I had expected. I don't think he is necessarily ugly, he just did not look the way I thought that he would. We continued on with this conversation and discussed some better examples of this idea of the how people may expect a male singer to look  in relation to how masculine their voice is. Some examples we discussed were the lead singers for Lamb of God and Coheed and Cambria. Lamb of God is a metal band and their singer's voice is very deep and growly and would lead most to believe that he is big and burly, yet he is not that big of a guy. I have seen them in concert in the 3rd row, and he is probably about 5'7" and on the skinnier side. While Coheed and Cambria is a alternative/emo (emotional) band and the singer has a very high pitched voice. This would lead most to believe that he is of smaller statute and more feminine looking, when in reality he is a decent sized guy with big unruly hair.

Coheed and Cambria - The Suffering        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnABRPS37hk

Lamb of God - Ruin                                   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFm9v0wvEnw

In our text Media, Gender and Identity the author talks about how the media constructs these and other such expectations of masculinity, "TV shows and movies - are full of information about being a man in the here-and now" (Gauntlett 9).  These couple of bands go against the norms that are set for expectations of masculinity by traditional media. I think part of the reason for this is that these bands are from the rock genre, which is not as popular as rap or pop music. Many of the male artists in more popular genres are made by producers around the image they want to portray. But even in the rock genre there are bands that meet these expectations for appearance of masculinity, like the band Disturbed.     http://musicwalls.org/thumbs/band_disturbed_wallpaper-t2.jpg

I wonder if the men who are the singers for these bands care about the way they look, and how they may not meet the expectations of appearance for their audience. I also wonder if seeing the singers of these bands could alter the opinion of the fans of their music if their expectations of appearance are not met.

Women's work

Over spring break my boyfriend and I moved into our first house together. We had a lot of help from my younger brother and friends. But all of our friends that helped move were male. The only people who were involved with the move that were female was myself and one female friend. The guys did all the heavy lifting and us girls did all the cleaning of the new place before hand. We did do some moving, but mostly of things like clothes and smaller boxes and bags. I forgot what exactly it was that I asked my boyfriend to do as we have started to unpack and get settled (something to do with cleaning I imagine), and he told me he would not do it because it was "women's work". He said this in a quasi joking manner, but proceeded to go into the garage and ignore my request. Now when it came to the heavy lifting I was willing to play the "that is man's work" card, but when it was turned on me I did not like it. I think of this as being an odd double standard. Sometimes I think men take pride in what is considered to be "man's work" and when it is something I do not want to do I will let men go around saying that and excluding me. But if it is something that I want to I will challenge them to allow me to try. I also don't have a problem doing some "women's work" because when I have seen the men in my life attempt it they don't do the job up to my standards. But sometimes I just want them to quit being such a neanderthal and clean the frickin bathroom, or something along those lines.

In the movie we watched in class last week "Kick Like A Girl" the best girl soccer team was moved into the boy's league to give them a greater challenge. This was something the girls were up to doing and showed the boys what they were made of. It was interesting to see the reactions of the little boys versus the boy's parents. The boys were accepting of the girls in their league and gave them credit where credit was due, while their parents made excuses as to why the girls were beating their boys.

I wonder if men use the men's/women's work standards to get out of doing dirty or repetitive tasks like cleaning like how I sometimes look over the prejudice of men's work when I do not want to do something like heavy lifting. I also wonder if guys who have grown up in a world where responsibilities and work would be able to embrace women into what they would consider their fields of work like the boys in the movie did, or if they tend to make excuses like the parents of the boys. The movie made me think that to better have males and females get along throughout life, they should not be separated at young ages in things like sports. This practice teaches boys that they are better than girls, and teaches girls that boys are better than them. This is not a good message to send to children, as this is how gender stereotypes about the abilities of both sexes get replicated from generation to generation.

Baby Talk

I have lived in the midwest my entire life. Actually,  I spent my childhood in the same house and have only recently moved out. Having been raised in a decently small town in northern Illinois, I grew up with certain expectations about motherhood. One is to get married in her early to mid 20's and start having children soon after. But while growing up in your teenage years, having a child is taboo. This at least has been what I have observed as being communicated to me. Growing up I did have quite a few friends who got pregnant young. Either they got married at 16, or had an unplanned pregnancy young. During this time I had a lot of preaching from my family. I was told that if I was to get pregnant while living at my parent's house, then the guy better be willing to take care of me because I would not be having a baby as a teenager out of wedlock in their house. It was also a blunt topic of conversation at larger family dinners that you get married first, then have a baby. Anyone who did things out of order would be shamed. I was fine with this, as I had no intention of having a child young. I saw the limitations it put on my friends who did this, and I did not want to be held back by that kind of responsibility so young.

I am now 24 and a senior in college, and I have been dating the same guy for seven and a half years. All but one of my friends from high school have children, most of them are on their 2nd or 3rd already. And now the rhetoric is starting to change. "So when do I get to be a grandmother?" my mom asked me one day while I was home visiting. I was in shock. I have gone for years of being threatened with all the terrible things that will happen to me if I got pregnant, and now I'm being asked when I am planning to do just that? My mom's best friend has a daughter who was in the same year as me in high school, and she is now pregnant. "All my friends are getting grand babies".  This conversation happened last spring when I was 23. That seemed to be the magic number. Now everyone; friends, family, co-workers, are asking "when are you guys getting married?" "when are you going to start your family?". It is just all so strange, it is like a switch was flipped. As a young girl 21 and under, to be a mother was a disgrace, but after that it seems to become an expectation. But my boyfriend does not seem to get the same pressure that I do. Maybe it is because he is not a close with his mother as I am with mine, or that it would be odd if his guy friends and co-workers to ask him about such things. In our reading An Odd Break with the Human Heart the author addresses this social pressure to become a mother, "now that I am in my late twenties everyone wants to extol to me the glory of babies" (Mitchell 55). She talks about how her mother, uncle, even children in her family are asking her about the subject.

Though I do intend to have children someday, I do not feel that I should be having so much pressure to get started now. I have not even finished school yet! I wonder, how do women who do not want children at all feel about this social pressure to become mothers?

Dishwasher

Over the past couple of months my boyfriend and I have been viewing houses to move to. While we were being shown the first house by the would be land lord, we were walking through the newly refinished kitchen. In this house the kitchen was the largest, grandest part of the house. I was happy to see that it had a new dishwasher included, and mentioned it as a plus to my boyfriend, as we do not have a dishwasher in our current place. The landlord chimed in by saying "Hey, now there are two dishwashers in the kitchen". I looked confused, and he nudged my boyfriend with his elbow laughing and looking at me, implying that I was the second dishwasher. We all got the joke and they guys laughed about it a bit. I played along to be pleasant, but did not find it that funny myself. We did not end up choosing that house.

Though I am the one who washes the dishes in our relationship, it is done out of circumstance. I did not like the idea that because I am the female, that "dishwasher" is part of my assumed duties. The joke was referring to the idea that it is part of a woman's role to do the housework like washing the dishes. The reading on Foucault talks a lot about his views on power. In this exchange it seemed to me that the potential land lord was trying to impose his power as a man over me as a woman, and even upon my boyfriend as an elder male over a younger male. Unfortunately my boyfriend saw the humor in the joke and laughed, and I did not protest the statement. In those ways we were allowing the potential land lord to create power in the exchange. But as Foucault was quoted as saying in the chapter "Where there is power, there is resistance" (1998: 95). We resisted any power he could of held over us by deciding not to do business with him.

Sometimes I wonder if women let men exercise power over them in a conversation when the man is in a position of authority or has leverage because the other person is a man, because of their position, or both?

just for kicks,
http://imgur.com/oGSwI 

Ah! A Spider!

I work as a pharmacy technician, and the staff at my pharmacy is made up of all females. The other day while at work I was talking to another tech and one of the store managers. I was telling him that I am going to be moving at the end of next month, and asking him to hold some of the big cardboard boxes with handles that product is shipped to the store in from the liquor department. He said that he would, but he also suggested that I ask someone in the farm stand department to hold some banana boxes for me as well, as they are quite large. I told him that there was no way I wanted anything to do with those boxes because one time I was talking to a guy who worked in that department and he said that they often find large (usually dead) tropical spiders in those boxes. Another tech overheard me say something about spiders and got nervously asked us if there was a spider around. I told her what we had been talking about, and then the manager said to her that he had seen one a few minutes ago in our bathroom (the pharmacy has its own bathroom in it). She asked him if he killed it, and he said no. She asked him to go in there to find and kill it (she hates spiders). He said one of us could do it if it bothered us, and she replied by saying "but we're all girls, and thats what men are for! to kill spiders!"

While doing the reading assignment for this week the connection from the reading to the personal experience that I drew was from chapter one in Media, Gender and Identity. On pages 2-3 the author talks about media influences on our expectations of human behavior. One thing the author observes is that "domestic or romantic dramas (including soap operas) show us how neighbors, friends and lovers interact" (Gauntlett 3). I would be willing to be that my co-worker had at some time in her life seen in a movie or on a TV show an interaction where a female was frightened by spider and demanded that a man kill it for her. The killing of spiders and other creepy crawlies are part of the stereotypical roles of a man, to defend and comfort women. I wonder how men who are afraid of spiders deal with this social expectation of them to be the exterminators?