WGST 1808 Lecture 9: LECTURE 9 - Men & Masculinities
10 Feb 2017
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Document Summary
By the mid-1980s, research on masculinities had exploded. Science is often relied on to explain gendered behaviors as biologically determined. Masculinity & femininity are naturalized as the behaviors of men and women. We tend to believe this as scientifically true. We hear/read that men are biologically hardwired to cheat on their partners, do better at math, gawk at pretty women, or not ask for directions. Much of what we know about men and masculinities, we learn from popular culture. Media tell us how boys and men should act, look, and think, what it means to be a real man : male professional athletes, entrepreneurs, celebrities, politicians, soldiers, policemen, and criminals. Popular ideas about masculinity seem to be fixed and constructed in opposition to femininity to be masculine is not to be feminine. The dominant model of masculinity: white, middle-class, heterosexual, and able-bodied.
