Garrett Spencer

ENGL 1102
April 15, 2014
Round Table Paper
Have you ever noticed how things change overtime with culture changes and media? I am
researching about masculinity in United States society and how the American people view
someone as masculine. Based off of the research I have done, I have found that the main
voices on this topic are parents, women, and men. Men state their views as to how masculinity is
seen in American society as well as women and parents. These different voices will show what
they all believe what masculinity means today in American society.
For all the men out there, do you remember growing up playing football in the backyard
in the middle of the summer at a family cookout? That is generally considered something
masculine to do. Most men grow up exposed to all of these activities and ideas that are masculine
and usually take on this role. Boys growing up do not all think the same. Some may think if they
arent masculine you will be judged to no end, especially by other boys. Judgment might happen
if you do not act masculine such as acting gay. In an article called Redefining Masculinity a
man named Hector Torres has a Doctorate in Psychology and says, being called gay is often the
worst possible insult among adolescent boys (Clay, 2012). Growing up as a boy can be very
difficult and during the adolescent period is when most of the gender identity is developed.
Women have an influence of men believe it or not. Women can have an influence on
boys/men at a young age or at an older age. Womens influence on this issue is that women are
obviously not masculine generally. If boys spend a lot of time with their mothers they are going
to pick up on the different roles the women take on and in return act in some sort of that way. In
fact, a woman named Raewyn Connell who researches gender in society mentions the Chicago
Womens Liberation Union (Connell, 2010). This is significant because the movement was
about ending gender inequality, which effects men and masculinity. Of course back in the 1960s
and 1970s masculinity was looked at in a more traditional way than it is today (Gender
Spectrum). By more traditional I mean labor intensive working men, muscular, and head of the
household.
Gender Spectrum talks about masculinity and gender roles being more biological rather
than being learned. This source talks about masculinity way back in the 1950s compared to how
masculinity is viewed now. These facts go well with the different types of masculinity viewed
today. Mentioning that women have an influence on boys at a young age leads me to my next
voice; parents. Parents have a strong influence from when the children are born. The babies are
basically assigned their gender by their parents until the children understand what gender they
are. For example, since the 1950s boys have been associated with blue and girls have been
associated with pink (Gender Spectrum). As children grow up they are assigned their gender
from the toys and gifts that they receive (Gender Spectrum). In an article a woman talks about
her two sons and them growing up with dinosaurs and the one son really resembles traits of
masculinity playing with the dinosaur. Her son (toddler age) acted as such, Oh, he loved
dinosaurs, all right, but only the blood-swilling carnivores. Plant-eaters were wimps and losers,
and he refused to wear a T-shirt marred by a picture of a stegosaur (Blum, 1998). Deborah
Blum (the parent of these children) was interested by what she saw and only proved that how a
child acts and parental influence has a lot to do with gender assignment in the younger years of
age.
Masculinity in United States society and how the people view someone as masculine
has a lot to do with the voices of parents, women, and men. Each of those voices impact how
masculine someone is or how someone may view masculinity. All of these impacts are different
but are continuously changing in society today. In the United States we are seeing more and
more change every year.














References:
Clay, Rebecca. "Redefining Masculinity." apa.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 Apr 2014.
"Raewyn Connell" : Masculinities. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Mar. 2014.
"The Gender Blur". Utne N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Mar. 2014.
"Understanding Gender." Understanding Gender. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Mar. 2014.