Masculinity and Gender Policing

Masculinity.  The word masculine as defined by Webster’s dictionary means having qualities appropriate to or usually associated with a man. In fact, it’s easy to assume that when most people hear the word masculine, they think of men, or qualities that men have such as strength, boldness, and power. In an everyday general sense, this is the appropriate and most simple explanation. However, understanding and applying the concept of masculinity is much more complex. Masculinity for men is not just a word, it’s a system of rules and behaviors attributed to being “manly”. Masculinity establishes and restores manhood and provides a code to which boys and men can conform, or to some, must conform.

Some examples of this systematic socialization can be seen as early as childhood. I can vaguely remember incidents in elementary school where boys encouraged each other to act out or do risky

things such as pulling the fire alarm,

jumping from swing sets, prank calling 911 or avoiding girls because those were the cool things to do as boys. If a boy backed away from a dare or risky task, they were called babies or wimps by other boys. In the seventh grade, it was trendy and acceptable for a boy to lose his virginity as way of proving his masculinity, in fact, it was even cooler to date multiple girls within a week. Then, in high-school, masculinity became even more organized. Masculine boys channeled their energy into sports, fighting (not boxing or wrestling, actual physical fights),hurting small animals, dressing appropriately, cracking jokes and, of course, belonging to a pack of other boys.

Boys who were more artsy, had lots of friends who were girls but didn’t date any of them, boys who didn’t hunt or liked anime were called “fags”, “bitches” or the ultimate insult, “girls”.  

While there may have been different groups according to interest, codes of masculinity applied to each type. In the documentary “Tough Guise”, Katz discusses The Cool Pose,

in which white middle class men emulate poor urban black males to fit their ideas of masculinity and toughness.

This is something I often noticed at my high school. Boys who were white and sometimes native American would often listen to hip hop music or rap music by black artists and indulge in weed smoking because it was what cool black people did-because acting “black” was cool, too. It seems as though the duration from childhood through young adulthood which boys learn the ways of masculinity are the foundation for perpetuating masculinity in the adult world.  Messages of masculinity are constantly being thrown at young boys and men, not just from peers and family, but the media. Katz also discusses this topic by stating that video games, sports, advertising and politics contribute to the standards of masculinity. Most of these translate to boys and men that violence and sexual aggression are acceptable ways of channeling masculine energy.

To break it down even further, violence and aggression in the media are geared towards men as answers. As if men lead life full of questioning and need guidance on how to direct their testosterone fueled passions. As if men are destined to be physically incapable of controlling their masculinity without being aggressive. Not only are these ideas provided by the media considered by some to be harmful for all genders, they also happen to be a way of controlling and preserving masculinity out of fear.

Doing Gender

Sexes, such as male and female, are biological factors. But gender is a social construct. Based on anatomy, men and women are expected to act, say, and dress according to certain standards and ideals placed by society. For example, if a person is born with a vagina, then that must mean they are a woman. They do “feminine” things, or things that a woman does.

They wear women’s clothes like dresses, frilly blouses and flat, use women’s products like make-up, floral fragrances, vanilla body wash or strawberry shampoo, they speak like a woman with a soft tone, but they don’t talk too much. They are delicate, gentle and sweet.

And if they have a penis, then they are a man. A tough, burly, manly man who hunts on the weekends, who wears suits and ties, or maybe baseball caps.

A man who drinks beer and watches sports, or drives a big truck. If someone has a penis they don’t do the things that people with vaginas do. How we as a society practice these expectations, or rather, how people do gender, is even more interesting.

For example, every morning, I wake at approximately 5:45 to get ready for a class that starts at 8:00 a.m. I don’t get up that early so that I can make it to class on time. Don’t get me wrong, punctuality reduces my morning anxiety by a large percentage, but I wake up early so I can put on makeup and do my hair. Yes, I do other things like drink coffee, brush my teeth, eat breakfast, etc. But most of my morning energy goes towards my appearance.

As much as I enjoy caking my face, I do find it to be a burden. And it’s not as if I don’t have a choice. But it feels that way. It’s like I have to put on make-up and fix my hair, otherwise I feel naked. It feels like an expectation to an extent, or pressure. I feel pressured to cover my blemishes. I feel pressured to wear something feminine. I describe my style as flirty/soft, because that’s what girls are supposed to be, right? Then I ponder: how amazing would it feel to not wake up that early: to just roll out of bed, throw on whatever, place my hair into a bun and leave the house. How cool would it be to care less? Care less about what? The answer is simple. As a person who identifies as woman, I therefore am creating the image of what I think a woman should represent by wearing make-up, certain clothes, etc. But that’s me.

I’ve recently come to realize gender is a spectrum, and wherever a person falls, that becomes their identity. That becomes the person they introduce to the world. And there are so many different identities from which people can express themselves. Believe it or not, someone who happens to have a penis, can identify as a man, but express themselves in a way that society deems as “feminine”, even though they aren’t. A person born with a vagina may physically look” masculine” due to hormonal differences, and society will call her “manly” even though she personally identifies as a woman. Transsexuals, in particular, face struggles with gender expressions and gender identities—and, unfortunately, society struggles with expressing transsexuals, or not expressing them.