River High School Fag Analysis

I have heard guys call each other ‘fags’ since I was in middle school and hearing Pascoe’s claim that using the word ‘fag’ is used to threaten adolescents masculinity makes sense from my understanding (Pascoe 333). Men use the term “faggot” for a number of reasons such as using the word as an insult, jokingly, etc. Even in Pascoe’s article, it mentions how “boys discipline themselves and each other through joking relationships” (Pascoe 330). The fag discourse comes into play as name calling jokingly helps with social situations, but in high school, it is used to label men if they are too feminine and weak similar to homosexuals (Pascoe 330). Pascoe’s ethnographic experiment in River High School helps demonstrate theses situations as one-third …show more content…
There will be many situations where we will want to shut down from all the threats and harassment, but that is the worse thing we can do to help ourselves. Bottling up our emotions may look like a great idea at the time, but it is only temporary as all those feeling we suppress will start causing problems for us because every emotional situation we will have to deal with causes more harm since we do not know how to deal with our own emotions. Kimmel states boys who were unathletic, dressed nicely or were bookish and shy were targeted for not being a real man (Kimmel 77). Just because they do not follow the hegemonic masculinity does not make them any less of a man. There are plenty of gay men who are successful in their careers and have a family of their own and others such as the story of my princess boy. My princess boy is the story of an African American mother raising her son who loves playing with dolls and dressing like a princess. However, the mother was not okay with his choices at first but came around to accept her son for who he was. Acceptance in the key regardless if men are not the perfect specimen according to hegemonic