In reality, nothing is made masculine or made feminine. Society makes a judgment based off of what it is, as to if it is masculine or feminine. In doing so society has created two boxes and everyone is expecting to either fit in one or the other. If a person is born a boy then they are expected to be in the masculine box. If a person is born a girl then they are expected to be in the feminine box. If either a guy or a girl is caught outside their respective box, possibly reaching towards the other, then they are harassed by society until they return to their "appropriate" box. When in actuality, there is no "appropriate" box. It is impossible to think that every guy is going to be the exact same or every girl is going to be exactly the same. I have known many guys throughout my lifetime who don't like sports, which society has generally attributed to be a masculine thing, and I have known girls who do. What ends up happening when society sees a man acting feminine or a woman acting masculine, they make the judgment person is a homosexual. Whether or not the person actually ends up being gay or lesbian is irrelevant when society judges them for it based off of a social construction such as masculinity and femininity.
Masculinity is the ideology of men having to think and act a certain way in order for them to be a proper man. For example, growing up in my life I have rarely seen my father cry. When something sad happens I am more likely to see my mother cry than my father. This is most likely due to the idea that men cannot show their emotions because if they do, then they are less of a man. In fact, the only real emotion a man is supposed to show is anger or aggression. In the Kimmel reading, he talks about how a man is truly judged by his willingness to get into a fight. A man is expected to be willing to drop everything and defend his honor by engaging in physical contact with another man, mainly to show his dominance. I could account more times in my life of my father being angry than I could of him being sad. He has told me that it was just the way he was raised and that he learned from watching his father. This doesn't mean that my father has never felt sad, or any man has never felt sad, it is just normally accepted that men don't show that emotion. If a man did happen to show sadness, their society could look at them and think that they are acting feminine. Sadness isn't a feminine reaction, rather it is a human one.
Femininity is seen as the weaker of the two. If you saw two people, one being physically strong and angry and the other being not as physically strong and they were crying, generally society would look at the crying one has feminine. It is partially due to this way of thinking that a guy or girl, who shows any form of emotion is looked at as weak. In the like a girl commercial when people were asked to do things like a girl, they responded with an over exaggerated response. It is assumed that all girls are always showing their emotions in every single movement they make. This leads to society labeling someone who shows their emotions as being feminine because it has become generally accepted by our culture that a "true" girl shows their emotions and a "true" guy doesn't.
There is no such thing as a true guy or girl though because every single person is different and has been raised differently. If a boy or girl was raised in a more open household he might be more common to show his emotions than per say a boy or girl that was raised in a household where showing their emotions was frowned upon. In the end no matter how a guy or girl acts should be accepted by their society, not because they are acting masculine or feminine, but because they are acting like their true selves.
Masculinity is the ideology of men having to think and act a certain way in order for them to be a proper man. For example, growing up in my life I have rarely seen my father cry. When something sad happens I am more likely to see my mother cry than my father. This is most likely due to the idea that men cannot show their emotions because if they do, then they are less of a man. In fact, the only real emotion a man is supposed to show is anger or aggression. In the Kimmel reading, he talks about how a man is truly judged by his willingness to get into a fight. A man is expected to be willing to drop everything and defend his honor by engaging in physical contact with another man, mainly to show his dominance. I could account more times in my life of my father being angry than I could of him being sad. He has told me that it was just the way he was raised and that he learned from watching his father. This doesn't mean that my father has never felt sad, or any man has never felt sad, it is just normally accepted that men don't show that emotion. If a man did happen to show sadness, their society could look at them and think that they are acting feminine. Sadness isn't a feminine reaction, rather it is a human one.
Femininity is seen as the weaker of the two. If you saw two people, one being physically strong and angry and the other being not as physically strong and they were crying, generally society would look at the crying one has feminine. It is partially due to this way of thinking that a guy or girl, who shows any form of emotion is looked at as weak. In the like a girl commercial when people were asked to do things like a girl, they responded with an over exaggerated response. It is assumed that all girls are always showing their emotions in every single movement they make. This leads to society labeling someone who shows their emotions as being feminine because it has become generally accepted by our culture that a "true" girl shows their emotions and a "true" guy doesn't.
There is no such thing as a true guy or girl though because every single person is different and has been raised differently. If a boy or girl was raised in a more open household he might be more common to show his emotions than per say a boy or girl that was raised in a household where showing their emotions was frowned upon. In the end no matter how a guy or girl acts should be accepted by their society, not because they are acting masculine or feminine, but because they are acting like their true selves.
