WOMENST 1A03 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Gender Studies, Masculinity, Caster Semenya
24 Aug 2016
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Document Summary
Our language around male sexuality and/or male sexual performance reveals our expectations for men as human beings. Expectations are in a way disempowering of men. Performance is the sole indicator of male power/potency. Potency is a diffuse term, not only implying potency but overall effectiveness. We expect the personality to perform like a machine. Penis slang = armoured, machine like, sometimes militaristic. Portrayal of men"s bodies and men"s sexuality as rock hard and aggressive extracts a toll from men. No part of a man (body or psyche) should ever be soft or sensuous. No part od a man is sexual besides the penis. Feminism and women"s studies focuses on the constructedness of femininity and the ideal woman . Gender studies = a shift towards acknowledging that both masculinity and femininity are social constructions. The constructedness of masculinity is just as damaging to men as the constructedness of femininity as docile and self-sacrificing was damaging to women.
