When one thinks of gender issues, only women’s struggles generally come to mind. Yet, males experience many societal tensions brought about by their gender, as well; however, unlike women, men’s issues largely go unnoticed. Whereas women are held back by the opposite sex in most regards, men seem to be the source of their own undoing. The outdated concept of masculinity, perpetuated by men for thousands of years, has somehow crept its way through into the modern world, wreaking havoc in societies where men are equals with women. For millenia, traditional thinking in most societies has held that women are less intelligent than men, most likely to perpetuate the maternal role of women in the household. However, now that women have been liberated
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Reading and writing are also inherently passive activities, and are therefore inherently unmanly activities, at least in the eyes of society. This stigma against boys reading has manifested itself in quite an alarming way: in their 2005 Washington Post column Why Johnny Won’t Read, National Assessment of Educational Progress researchers Mark Bauerlein and Sandra Stotsky found that, from 1992 to 2002, “in overall book reading, young women slipped from 63 percent to 59 percent, while young men plummeted from 55 percent to 43 percent.” Sadly, as Bauerlein and Stotsky found, “when given choices, boys do not choose stories that feature girls, while girls frequently select stories that appeal to boys” (576). Undoubtedly, young men’s refusal to read feminine literature stems partly from a self-destructive devotion to their masculinity; reading is already a “girly” enough activity, and if a boy were to read a book with a female protagonist, he could safely assure himself that, in the eyes of society, he has already lost his “man card.” Boys’ dedication to detach themselves from female literature—arising from the fact that, as travel writer Paul Theroux puts it in his essay Being a Man, “the masculine ideal is effectively separated from women”—will have dire consequences in the future. Since “textbooks and literature assigned in the elementary grades do not reflect the dispositions …show more content…
Along with the rough exterior that masculine men are supposed to possess should come a coarse interior—that is, a lack of emotions. However, this expectation of emotionlessness in young men manifests itself in the exact opposite way of its intent: whereas girls are allowed to, if not expected to, be emotional and share their feelings, boys are expected to repress their emotions, leaving them to fester in their minds’ darkest recesses. Even though men are nearly 41% less likely to be diagnosed with depression than women (Albert), nearly four times more men commit suicide each year (Emory). This phenomenon may seem strange at first, yet it is understandable in the context of masculinity’s harmful effect on men—where women feel emboldened to tell someone of their mental illnesses, men “bottle up” their emotional problems from the world for fear of being “unmanly.” However, many men’s emotions, contrary to society’s wishes, cannot be suppressed forever and boil over, leading to the sorrowful result of
Reading and writing are also inherently passive activities, and are therefore inherently unmanly activities, at least in the eyes of society. This stigma against boys reading has manifested itself in quite an alarming way: in their 2005 Washington Post column Why Johnny Won’t Read, National Assessment of Educational Progress researchers Mark Bauerlein and Sandra Stotsky found that, from 1992 to 2002, “in overall book reading, young women slipped from 63 percent to 59 percent, while young men plummeted from 55 percent to 43 percent.” Sadly, as Bauerlein and Stotsky found, “when given choices, boys do not choose stories that feature girls, while girls frequently select stories that appeal to boys” (576). Undoubtedly, young men’s refusal to read feminine literature stems partly from a self-destructive devotion to their masculinity; reading is already a “girly” enough activity, and if a boy were to read a book with a female protagonist, he could safely assure himself that, in the eyes of society, he has already lost his “man card.” Boys’ dedication to detach themselves from female literature—arising from the fact that, as travel writer Paul Theroux puts it in his essay Being a Man, “the masculine ideal is effectively separated from women”—will have dire consequences in the future. Since “textbooks and literature assigned in the elementary grades do not reflect the dispositions …show more content…
Along with the rough exterior that masculine men are supposed to possess should come a coarse interior—that is, a lack of emotions. However, this expectation of emotionlessness in young men manifests itself in the exact opposite way of its intent: whereas girls are allowed to, if not expected to, be emotional and share their feelings, boys are expected to repress their emotions, leaving them to fester in their minds’ darkest recesses. Even though men are nearly 41% less likely to be diagnosed with depression than women (Albert), nearly four times more men commit suicide each year (Emory). This phenomenon may seem strange at first, yet it is understandable in the context of masculinity’s harmful effect on men—where women feel emboldened to tell someone of their mental illnesses, men “bottle up” their emotional problems from the world for fear of being “unmanly.” However, many men’s emotions, contrary to society’s wishes, cannot be suppressed forever and boil over, leading to the sorrowful result of