Tough Guise I

What does it mean to be a man? What it means to be masculine? What does been muscular mean? What does been tough mean? What have our society created? Though Guise I brings forth some of the reasons base on Jackson Katz studies of what it means to be a man, to be masculine, and how our society have been building a man. 

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Tough front had been put up and based on the examples portrait by gangster leaders, like Italian Mafia leaders, to mimic their pose, actions, and vocabulary, and so forth to depict a man and masculinity displays were taken by the African American men incorporating it into their music and after being public and portrait by celebrities it got followers from other cultures, backgrounds, and classes. Male were depicted as violent, muscular, mean, tough, and independent almost to the extreme of just me, myself, and I type.

The issue with this concept of tough=manly, violence=manhood, was that it affected and still affect not just the opposite gender but also the male population itself, since in the statistics shown violent crimes and violence against women was not as high as it was to men and the impact went off until today. The call in the video is not just to bring out some of the consequences of the tough guise but also invite the viewers to look for options to replace this issues, not just to the man but also to the system and to the opposite sex. We ought to do something together in order to stop this concept that have been paid dearly with lives and the lack of self and what it meant to be a human being holistically.

Tough Guise documentary strengthened my understanding of man and what society (us) has place on them. I always notice that something was off and wrong on my point of view not just the fact that to much aggression and violence was shown and embrace by the boys, but also seen in the same media channels how in diverse programs boys and man were shown as not so intelligent, tongue-tied, trouble maker, not able to succeed, always so angry or solitary. That is without going into the subject of how the minorities were portrait in shows and movies. It is so sad, victims of a system and programs creators that never thought about, what that would do to the person or persona they paint. Being in their shoes is painful and constraint.

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Views of Men, Women, Feminism, and Men Groups Impacting Culture.

The differences I noticed in some places in latin america when traveled were the fact that boys and girls through their adolescent years are thought to iron their clothes, to cook, to wash their clothes properly, and to do simple house repairs, so when going to the university, away from home they will take care of themselves. Women are expected to be more submissive and men are expected to treat women as they were roses, protect them, care for them, and love them for they to bloom. There is a said, hijo: las niñas son como las rosas delicadas, no se les maltrata se les cuida. - Son, girls are like roses there are not to be mistreated.

Now, what about how much percentage should we place on nature and how much on nurturing in regards of gender development and performance? I came across a book titled “Preparing Him for the Other Woman” by Shepherd 2006, there was a chapter that open my eyes and amplified, so I think, what my mother told me once. My actions tell him how grown women act in their everyday life and how grown women are and he will know how to treat her or at least that will be the first information to go. I do believe the same applies for girls when growing up, the way their grown ups (more importantly dad or grandpa) treat her and response to her is the same way she will thing adult males are and so it will act on it when becoming a grown woman.

On one hand we have the chapter of feminism.  I guess I could say that my views of feminism has given a turn for the better. I don’t remember paying much attention to it because in always want it to be like my mom. My mom was there with us all the time as we grow up. Seeing

her in our schools special programs and waving at us goodbye as we got into the school and having a big hug when returning from school still is a great happy memory. I just want it to be like her. So those movements as I vaguely recall brothers and sisters talking about in church seem to be too distant to catch my interest. As a matter of fact, based on there comments it became negative and not worthy of my time, even though I did not know what it meant. It took a lot of will power to even read this chapter and put aside my biases as much as I could, if that ever happen, to really see what every movement try to accomplish. 

When I get to the third wave, the contemporary view caught my attention and interest for the simple reason that they try to unify forces to join others with the same purpose that can result in accomplishing more because -united we are stronger- couple of proverbs sum it up that way, plus this movement try to target and go beyond the surface or symptoms. They search for the cause of the problem, even those unseen, subtle ways of showing and verbalizing discrimination and inequality across ages, classes, and even gender. 

On the other hand the emphasys was men groups existing. Ufff, that is a lot of groups, and I would say there is a mixed, rather than the least or the most consistent. 

From Men’s Anti Violence Group - the "prevention of violence trying to alleviate that societal sad reality toward women".

From Mentors in Violence Prevention - "the use of peers influence to educate regarding the violence in society link to masculinity and preventing violence with no more bystanders".

From Men’s Right - the "restore of the traditional role of men and women" because after those first movements too many families end up separated and in divorce, and so we were thought in my neighborhood.

From Misogyny - the concept so many have that it "is the woman's fault if something happens to them". Even though that same man intervenes and defend a woman.

As I grew up, my neighbors always told their boys to be a man of one woman, but if another looks for them to not let it pass. A lot of inconsistency, they will defend their neighborhood women and their families. They will teach the boys to be gentlemen. But, when in the morning paper there was news about a woman being bitten or raped, they will always blame the woman - what she might have done to provoke that incident.

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Dey on 2018 published article Nirbhaya gave us a time line of how IWM, Indian Women Movement stand up and develop since the late 19s how even though women were seen as part of the political parties they were not necessary the driven force or the one who's voice was taken into account, but the movements in their diverse development and input make possible the abolition of sati, the widow sacrifice at their husband funeral, the temple girls, the constitutional right of equality, among others but many of the accomplishments are on paper. Reality in their lives still the same, the system rules and favor the men and degrade women from the beginning of the process. Being a women seem to be a curse, they are treated as less than nothing, their value and wellbeing is not even thinkable. It is very sad and incomprehensible how a human being can be treated that way. The most unreal part is that age does not matter, a female child can be arrange in marriage before she can even be call baby. It seems like "a girl can dream" does not cross their mind. How to feel blessed without guilt after acknowledging the sad, unthinkable reality of a woman like me in India or any other place. 

Looking forward for a day where there will be no barriers and biasses, where a woman can dream and a man can be free.

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Credits: Wood, J. & Fixmer-Ortiz, N. (2017). Gendered Lives: Communication, gender, & culture (13th ed.).Chapters 1-4. Boston, MA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
Dey, A.(2018). Nirbhaya, new media and digital gender activism. Chapter 2: Brief History of the Indian Women's Movement and Tracing out the Sociopolitical and Media Environment. Retrieved from https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.ezproxy.andrews.edu.
Shepherd, Sheri Rose(2006). Preparing Him for the Other Woman. Colorado Springs, CO: Multnomah Publishers.