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.