Through hierarchical standing and expectation for men to be dominant and superior, institutional pressures placed on men by media and schools to follow unobtainable masculine standards, and male privilege which constantly favors men and male gender performance, our society breads and conceals men’s sexual violence against women. These hierarchies, institutions, and privileges not only perpetuate the cycle of men’s violence against women, but also continue to mask men’s overwhelming contribution to the issue of sexual violence against women.
Hierarchies of difference play a pivotal role in how our society and media reacts to sexual violence. Jackson Katz, in his documentary Tough Guise 2, focuses on how the dominant group in these hierarchies …show more content…
In C.J. Pascoe’s experience at River High, she describes the specific situation and use of the term “fag” to describe a boy not fitting the heterosexual, masculine expectation. Part of her explanation I concur with analyzes how being a “fag” is a fluid identity in contrast with a fixed one. Young men must strive daily to not be caught being unmasculine or what would be considered homosexual behavior. This social restraint ties directly into why men overwhelmingly commit violence against women. Men are taught at a young age that they must prove themselves every day in order to fit in with the socially desired masculine identity. As a society we are not only raising young men to feel obligated to constantly prove their masculinity, but also that acts of aggression and dominance are the best way to establish their masculinity. Promotion of this violent form of masculinity can lead some men to grow up using violence, particularly against women, in order to justify their masculinity and sexual dominance to themselves and their peers. I argue that societal and institutional influence on the preferred form of masculinity contributes to why men perpetrate the astonishing majority of sexual violence …show more content…
Many people in the media and scientific organizations will look to take blame off of men and place it on biology instead. In Michael Kimmel’s book Guyland, he references writers specifically asserting “Roiphe, Young, and Paglia all argue that boys will be boys, and that to constrain male sexuality is to do a disservice to young men” (Kimmel, CP 377). While biology plays a role in sexuality, attributing rape and other forms of sexual assault to biology is simply taking the blame off of the perpetrators and putting on the victim. Institutions like the media privilege men by taking the blame from them and putting it on some uncontrollable genetic factor. We are taking the focus off of the roots of the issue, and putting our attention on the victim and their role in sexual violence. Male privilege is what makes this issue “violence against women” as opposed to “men’s violence against women”, because the prior takes focus off of the vast majority of perpetrators thus completely bypassing the core issues of gender and socially applauded
Hierarchies of difference play a pivotal role in how our society and media reacts to sexual violence. Jackson Katz, in his documentary Tough Guise 2, focuses on how the dominant group in these hierarchies …show more content…
In C.J. Pascoe’s experience at River High, she describes the specific situation and use of the term “fag” to describe a boy not fitting the heterosexual, masculine expectation. Part of her explanation I concur with analyzes how being a “fag” is a fluid identity in contrast with a fixed one. Young men must strive daily to not be caught being unmasculine or what would be considered homosexual behavior. This social restraint ties directly into why men overwhelmingly commit violence against women. Men are taught at a young age that they must prove themselves every day in order to fit in with the socially desired masculine identity. As a society we are not only raising young men to feel obligated to constantly prove their masculinity, but also that acts of aggression and dominance are the best way to establish their masculinity. Promotion of this violent form of masculinity can lead some men to grow up using violence, particularly against women, in order to justify their masculinity and sexual dominance to themselves and their peers. I argue that societal and institutional influence on the preferred form of masculinity contributes to why men perpetrate the astonishing majority of sexual violence …show more content…
Many people in the media and scientific organizations will look to take blame off of men and place it on biology instead. In Michael Kimmel’s book Guyland, he references writers specifically asserting “Roiphe, Young, and Paglia all argue that boys will be boys, and that to constrain male sexuality is to do a disservice to young men” (Kimmel, CP 377). While biology plays a role in sexuality, attributing rape and other forms of sexual assault to biology is simply taking the blame off of the perpetrators and putting on the victim. Institutions like the media privilege men by taking the blame from them and putting it on some uncontrollable genetic factor. We are taking the focus off of the roots of the issue, and putting our attention on the victim and their role in sexual violence. Male privilege is what makes this issue “violence against women” as opposed to “men’s violence against women”, because the prior takes focus off of the vast majority of perpetrators thus completely bypassing the core issues of gender and socially applauded