User:Cjbristow/Masculinity hard and soft

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Intro

Masculinity is the trait of behaving in ways considered typical for men. It is a set of qualities, characteristics or roles generally considered typical of, or appropriate to, a man. It can have degrees of comparison: “hard masculinity”, “more masculine”, “most masculine”. The opposite can be expressed by terms such as “soft masculinity” or “unmanly” Masculinity, in her article Marika argues, that masculinity can be viewed as being both hard and soft, with each needed the other model. When people talk about masculinity they use words like “wildness” being bad but a “wild man” is a good description of his personal performance. Robert Bly's said he had watched men dance around with masks close to a camp fire. This observation shows the lines between acting and reality, masculinity and femininity are begin to look blurrier than before. Wild man are wimps and vice versa; like the protagonist of Fight Club, all current displays of masculinity is bipolar. They are no ways for a man to show his masculinity in just one way. They is always a combination of being both “hard” and “soft” together.

Soft Masculinity

People say that men used to be real men but now they are soft and weak. Others say that they see masculinity as a pendulum that can swing from hard to soft masculinity. There was a big move in the early 90s where men were to reclaim their lost masculinity. Robert Bly wanted to work with the men and doing what he thought of as masculine things like “dancing with masks around a campfire.” Bly had thought that these men had lost their manliness and had been feminized. Peberdy showed that this fear of lost masculinity had started back when the frontier had disappeared and how could men be men with no wild nature to take and conquer.

Men have also be viewed as soft with the use of them trying to sell ice cream in print ads. These ad used feminine values that were attached to men thus making masculinity softer. One of the pictures show a lumber jack, which is a manly job braiding another man’s hair. Showing he has a softer side. The man whose hair is being braided is eating ice cream which is a feminine indulgence.

Although corrupt or weak figures in the action genre are also usually male — women typically being relegated to the role of victim or romantic interlude — they are set apart from the hard-bodied hero because of their lack of these clearly defined male qualities, or simply because, as "foreigners," they are naturally against the interests of the United States as embodied by the protagonist

Hard Masculinity

Hollywood has lays been a place of extreme masculinity, the majority of plots revolve around masculine themes. Think of how the stars act with physical strength, stamina, no emotion, and violence, these do not match how real-life men act. Susan Jefford relates to the themes in the 8s action films which used hard fit male bodies and American patriotic values to characterize the Reagan’s presidency. With these qualities Reagan assured his popularity and the American people equated him on scene as an action hero as strength, masculinity, virility, conservative values and family stability.

For Americans there has been a need to make masculinity whole again. The use of photos like the ones in A Photo History, The War in Iraq are nothing if not competent, strong and manly. This is what the people want to see and not the war itself. War has always been a particularly effective way for men to claim their masculinity and show it.

The American military is all about men, with the military ideology being the center of our cultures definitions about manhood, masculinity is about militarization. We teach men how to be manly from an early age laying the groundwork for military service as a young adult. The way that Americans have constructed masculinity where a man being violent is accepted and thought of as being normal behavior. Masculine aggressions and even violence are expected and sometimes even encouraged. The difference of race and what manliness is accepted as far as violence is also radicalized. While males have been found to have tamed their base instincts, while African American men are the opposite. They are viewed as being irrepressible, erratic, and violent, and this is how they are repeatedly represented.