Election Mudslinging

For the upcoming elections there have been many mudslinging campaigns on TV. This he said, she said and other childish sayings have unfortunately carried over into the debate forum in the form of sexist sayings. Now we often her sayings such as "be a man", "rub some dirt in it" or "man up" between friends in a joking forum. Lately, however, this language has apparently carried over to politics. Ruth Marcus talks about this in her article entitled "Manning Up". She addresses the fact that in our society having "cajones" is tough and not having them is wimpy and the fact that ideology like this leaves little room for women to work with when we automatically don't have them. What I found most interesting however was the fact that the people who were saying things like "man up" and "grow a pair" were women on the campaign trail. The fact that it was women promoting this type of mudslinging was weird to me, especially because biologically women cannot "man up" or "grow a pair" themselves. In an age where women are constantly fighting for equal rights why would they promote the other side of the spectrum, male stereotypes, when it inversely affects their cause as well. In light of all the bad talking I whole heartedly agree with Marcus, people, especially politicians, don't need to man up they need to grow up.

Redefining Masculinity

In the Newsweek article "Men's Lib", Tony Dokoupil talks about the need to redefine masculinity instead of resigning ourselves to the fact that our traditional view of the man is dying out. Dokoupil says that as a society we need to move past our notions of male and female jobs because there will soon be more "female" jobs available than "male" ones. If we don't get over our stereotypes we will be left with so many unemployed men that the stereotypes could change for the worse instead of the better. Dokoupil also stresses that we need to embrace the notion of men as equal parents and do more to make men comfortable with being a stay at home dad perhaps. As women enter more and more into the traditional male workforce, men have to make adjustments as well. Whether that is taking a less "manly" job or spending more time with the kids, an adjustment needs to be made for the good of our society.

Tough Guise

Last class we watched a movie called "Tough Guise". This movie attempted to look at pop culture and identify many of the reasons why "boys don't cry". In writing Valenti does just the same in her chapter called instead "Boys Do Cry". In one part of this chapter called Men Should Act Like Men, she references an add for the beer brand Milwaukee's Best. In this add when a man tries to soak up grease on his pizza with a napkin he is crushed by a giant beer can. Valenti then questions the moral of this story: "Act like 'a girl' and be killed by giant beer cans." Although the likelihood of a giant beer can dropping out of the sky to crush everyman who acts like "a girl" is highly unlikely, it does enforce a certain stereotype of men. Men must be tough all the time. But is it really unmanly of a man to wipe off his pizza because he is concerned for the effects it has on his health. I don't think so. This made me question, who actually does? Who is actually so concerned with criticizing another person's eating habits that they will condemn someone for trying to look out for their health by calling them a girl? Well I have concluded that the media is. Why is this, you ask? Because it is profitable. Although this ad is highly unrealistic and based on complete fallacy, I am sure that the beer company made a few dollars off of this one because no one wants to be unmanly. So my moral of the story: stop listening to what our society is trying to make you do and wipe some grease off of the pizza, its gross! After all, when was the last time someone you know got crushed by a giant beer can?

Marx and Feminism

One of the other feminist theories Tong addresses is Marxist feminism. This branch of feminism focuses on Marx's ideas surrounding class struggles. For this theory gender conflicts are based in these class struggles and the only way to end gender conflicts is to embrace Marxism and create a state free of a class system. In the work force the division of labor also keeps men and women separate because the division keeps women in the domestic sphere. Marxist feminists want to make domestic labor public so that a revolution will take place and make men and women more equal.
While there is validity in the want to abolish classes so that the genders are equal, there are many critiques of this as well. One is that revolution would not really make men and women equal. According to Tong, Mao Zedong was even quoted in saying that even in a completely equal communist society men and women would not be equal because the idea of women as inferior is too widely accepted. Even if a Marxist revolution were to occur there would still be two class men and women. Another critique is that this Marxist system of equality would undervalue the family. In a capitalist society the money and care from the parents go directly to their children, where as in a Marxist society the focus is taken off of the individual family and directed toward the community. What I found interesting about this critique was that according to Marx a communist society would do the exact opposite. For Marx in a capitalist society children are only seen as investments to gain the parents more money, where as in a Marxist society children are seen as parts of the family. It would be interesting to see what would actually happen to the family dynamic in a truly communist society.

Gender Psychology

In chapter 4 of "Feminist Thought," Tong lays out different psychological theories behind the development of male and female mentality. The first part of this chapter that I found interesting was her statement that psychoanalytic feminists hypothesize that "in a non patriarchal society, masculinity and femininity would be both differently constructed and valued." I thought this was quite an interesting idea to consider. How would our class be altered if we lived in a world dominated by the matriarch instead?
While I was thinking about this idea I was also trying to wrap my head around the Freudian ideas about sexuality. Seeing as I have never taken a psychology class in my life it was interesting to see how Freud applied the story of Oedipus, a story I am very familiar with, to men and women's sexuality. According to Freud, boys and girls both develop a hatred toward the mother either from their inability to have them (in the sexual way) or from competition for affection from the father, respectively. This was a very thought provoking application of the story and although I do not necessarily agree with it I think it is a valid argument to consider when analyzing man and female sexual development.

Theories on Gender

In class on Thursday we were talking about different theories on how men and women are socialized and affected by this socialization. One of the theories we were talking about was the biological theory that Dr. Widmann had come to our class and talked about previously. While discussing the biological argument vs. the cultural arguments Celia brought up a good point. She said feminism is seen as man bashing but in reality it is really the biology argument that beats up on men. The biology argument pretty much says that men are at a woman's disposal in picking which partner she wants to procreate with. While women get to choose who they mate with, men just have to take what they can get. Now the scientist who study this say it in much different terms, it boils down to the fact that women get to be picky and men just have to take it.