Final Project

Christopher Pastor

Final Post

            Gender, a very controversial word today many would claim that there are only two genders and dismiss you if you say otherwise. Others would say gender is a social construct, and some people may just not care. In Judith Butler’s “Gender Trouble” he says this “The cultural associations of mind with masculinity and body with femininity are well documented within the field of philosophy and feminism” (Butler, Gender Trouble). When analyzing gender, this is an obvious observation that many do not think about or tend to dismiss. We see this in society in everyday life, from the beginning of the semester, of John Berger documentary, in advertisements that we still see to this very day. My project is made to open your eyes in a way, to recognize gender and femininity and masculinity and how its been as Butler put it, “Produced maintained and rationalized, because the “patriarchy” has enforced set rules or gender roles if you will, and negatively affects our society. In today’s day feminism has such a bad connotation, and referred to as “men hating”, I think many people tend to dismiss feminism texts when reading Bell Hooks “The Will to Change: Men Masculinity and Love” one of the first texts we read was Chapter 2: Understanding Patriarchy, and in the very first paragraph you get this sense of urgency and intense vibe. “Patriarchy is the single most life-threatening social disease assaulting the male body and spirit in our nation.” (Hooks, 17). You instantaneously get her disdain for the patriarchy, and a man might just stop reading and dismiss her as a “man hater” but when you read further into the chapter, she is very insightful, and she goes on to explain about her life and how the patriarchy has negatively affected it personally. In all 3 of my woman’s gender studies classes I’ve taken, I tend to focus on toxic masculinity specifically violence against women, and how gender norms and roles only hurt us. However, for my final project I decided to focus on masculinity, and in Jackson Katz’s documentary “Tough Guise” you really get a sense of this negative tone of how men are expected to act, Katz talks about the pressure to conform and be outcast, and in a very powerful scene you hear words that demean and emasculate men that do not conform, and men are usually brought up to be more violent and aggressive, and it shows in media news outlets and our stories and films. Which is why I had chosen my topic, gender, in every picture I am wearing nails and I focused on and took pictures with thins and places that I personally tend to associate with masculinity, as well as a few feminine ones. I think if we stop forcing men into these roles like “men don’t cry” or we also encourage women to go outside and do sports and say that they matter, allow them to embrace their sexuality as freely as men do, and stop this notion that men are more business driven and women have to be family orientated. I think my project is clear and conveys this and intertwines masculinity and femininity and blurs the line between them.

My tumblr: QTcles

Bibliography

Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble. Routledge, 2006.

Hooks, Bell. The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love. Washington Square Press, 2005.

Jhally, Sut, Susan Ericsson, Sanjay Talreja, Jackson Katz, and Jeremy Earp. Tough Guise:   Violence, Media, and the Crisis in Masculinity. Northampton, MA: Media Education Foundation, 1999.