The history of …show more content…
Stereotypes, “a generalization about an entire class of phenomena based on some knowledge of some members of a class.” (Wood, 2014), paint men as dominant, unemotional and aggressive and create an idealized manhood that is unattainable. These rigid stereotypes create a small box of what acceptable male behavior is, and marginalises anything that doesn’t fit. Much of what our sexist society expects of men come from men defining themselves against women. This is because of the sexist idea that men are inferior to women, and to have feminine traits or characteristics makes you like a woman and thus, inferior to other men. This plays along with homophobia and transphobia, as men who are gay or trans face prejudice and discrimination because they are ‘too much like women’. These stereotypes also create a ‘script’ for men to follow for example, the script that men always want sex. This problematic script shows itself in our legal system, as “many definitions of rape in the legal realm solidly fix women as the only possible subjects who may be targeted. (Bulmiller 2008). Thus, in the repeated iterations of sexual violation by women and silences by men, sexual assault is discursively positioned as a feminine or effeminizing experience” (McKinnon, 2014). The script that ‘men always want sex’ silences male victims of sexual assault and thus, “provides little opportunity for interrogation or transformation” (Tracey & Rivera, 2014) . Feminism realizes that gendered stereotypes have almost no benefit and cause a great deal of harm to all genders. Feminism is necessary in order to build a society where everyone can express both traditionally masculine and feminine traits and characteristics without fear of prejudice, discrimination, violence or