Roles Of Masculinity In Society

What is ‘masculinity’ and where did it come from? When did we decide what roles men should have? At what point do these become harmful – how do we know? Many countries’ gender roles are quite similar to one another. There’s almost a general rule of thumb that gender roles are harmful when it comes to women, and when it comes to men, there’s a clear double standard. This is evident in societies where men aren’t privileged, and even where they are. To a certain extent, culture negatively impacts the roles of men in certain societies. The values of different countries will vary, resulting in a sort of backwards misandrist patriarchy- glorifying men’s masculinity, while at the same time bringing them down for it.
Research shows that culture, in …show more content…
While sounding like it would be a way for men to end their often unwanted duty of being the breadwinners, it actually creates an arguably more dangerous situation. The rise of matriarchy makes for a flip-flop of the roles. A prime example of this is in Morocco, which was a strict patriarchal society in years past, but has become (too) progressive and has now fallen to the other extreme end of the spectrum. The Islamic society strictly follows the Quran and its teachings: men protect women because they are fragile, wives listen to the husbands who provide for the family, and so on. Recently, it has become nearly the opposite. Moundir Al Amrani of MWN reported on this change, saying “[society] ha[s] reversed the balance of power. The change has occurred so fast and in such a short period of time that it has enabled women…to subvert male power, [and] to surpass it, leaving men lagging behind in their efforts to adjust to the tremendous and speedy change.” (Amrani). What this shows is how, with any sudden change in cultural values, one group will be left behind. For many years, it was women, and now it is men. Al Amrani says it in terms of “stripping men of their historical superiority,” (Amrani). The difference is that men are seen through society’s eyes to be the more capable sex- so this sudden shift shouldn’t be anything they can’t handle. If it were women, many would be rushing to their …show more content…
In a way, culture has a very neutral impact on men’s gender roles: they are entitled, but they have a perception of being discriminated against. The Harvard Business review talks about the increasing number of men who believe this, asking, “[w]hy would men believe that they are facing gender discrimination is society where there is no real evidence of it?” (Cassino). This rhetorical question poses for a discussion about privilege. Like in many traditional patriarchal societies, men are entitled in America. They often do not see their entitlement due to the fact that they see others, who are less-entitled, as being catered to, while they themselves are not. This “catering” is due to the lack of policies or protection that the group has, for example, women. Men feel threatened by these “misandrist” policies, while they themselves have many policies in their favor due to culture; simply because they were born a man, they are entitled to/worth more than women. “[R]esearchers have found that men are prone to seeing discrimination as a zero-sum game. That is, they believe that discrimination against one group necessarily benefits another group and vice versa, so any policy that benefits women amounts to discrimination against men.” (Cassino). Here, Cassino of the Harvard Business Review explains this principal. When one group raised to the level at which men are at, men