Gender makes up a huge part of American culture. Gender divisions are everywhere and the war of the sexes rages on. Men and women battle it out on every imaginable front. What does it mean to be male in this culture? What is the ideal male persona?
This is a question faced by every male living in America. From birth they are presented with conflicting views of what is right and wrong. They are taught to act and behave in one way and then told that these actions and behaviors are wrong. They are caught up in a competitive world in which they must compete to survive but they are condemned to ridicule if they do. The world of man has gone into a freefall and no one seems to know how to bring it back under control.
The problem begins in viewing males and females as two opposite types of human beings. The opposite sex, imposes the view that the sexes are in opposition of one another and that they have contradictory views on life. Men and women once worked together and complemented each other’s roles in life. This is no longer the case. Men and women have been enemies for what has been the longest war in American history. The war rages on, but men lost the battle long ago.
Women have been fighting for their rights for equality. Some men oppose them and try to prevent change. If men had all the power and were so dominant of women then why did they let women take it this far? If men didn’t want women to have equality why then did they allow them to acquire legal and political rights? If they indeed had all the power and were interested only in preserving the state of inequality that benefited them so much why would they let it slip through their fingers when they could have simply said “No.”?
The answer is that the majority of men are not the evil tyrants that wreaked so much havoc upon history. Men wanted women to feel more equal. They pushed for change. Perhaps this change came too slowly for women. Perhaps it came too quickly for men. Whatever the case may be the change is not completed and it shows little sign of slowing down.
Many men are eager to facilitate this change. They go out of their way to learn what women want from them and strive to meet these demands. However, men also must compete with one another. The rules of that competition are usually to be more male than the other men. This presents a problem. Doing what a man feels is right and competing with other men often lead to two very different outcomes. To further complicate this matter women often favor the most masculine men.
To emphasize these points a survey was conducted by randomly selecting several members of both the male and female genders and asking them questions. These questions were designed to ascertain what the individuals felt were the ideal characteristics of an American man. Interestingly enough most of the male responses were very similar. They felt that they were expected to match traditional core values of masculine qualities while being physically fit, well groomed, and possessing of a successful career. Women seem ready to read off a grocery list of qualities that they would like in a man. Out of these qualities there is produced an eclectic individual who is kind and caring while being confident and non-possessive. They are responsible with a decent career and show an interest in children and animals. When asked if women felt that most men matched this ideal they were quick to respond negatively.
Further questioning reveals that most women feel that many men will act as if they are possessing of these traits in order to become involved with women only to later show a much less ideal reality. It is felt by the vast majority of the women surveyed that there are very few men who fit the “good one” category. When asked how they felt these men came to be different from the rest they suspected that it was due to having grown up in a household in which there was an abused or neglected mother at which point the child learned how not to act.
Men are less forthcoming with productive speculations. The ideal of competition with other males seems to be a major force in their lives. They don’t readily imply that it weighs that heavily on them but they are quick to use it to their advantage. It becomes apparent that men are not certain what is ideal as long as they are more of it than other guys are. In this way it is obvious to see that men have lost direction in their gender roles. They know that they are supposed to be men but they don’t seem to know exactly what that means.
So why don’t men know what it means to be men? It would seem that men should know more than anyone what it means to be male. Instead the women seem to be the ones with all the answers. This reveals another problem in American culture today. The average male is seeking approval from females. This often becomes such an ingrained pattern that many males will not openly challenge a female opinion for fear that they may be ridiculed for having the audacity to think that a woman is wrong. The upcoming generation of men in America has been conditioned to be compliant to challenges placed forth by women. Take for example a sex and gender class in which both male and female students are present. It can be found that many times none of the male students will speak on behalf of males. The females on the other hand are more than willing to state what they obviously know to be factual concrete information. Regardless of whether their opinions have any merit or not, men are going to be hesitant to argue with them. They know they can’t win. They already lost long before they stepped into the room.
So what is man to do with no identity norms to fall back on? They live in a gendered system in which they are told to compete for the attentions of the female complement. The female complement sets up criteria for them to follow in order to win their affections. Men are taught to compete with one another. They then attempt to meet the criteria given by females while competing with other men to be the exact opposite of those criteria. Women often show favor upon those that oppose their criteria while simultaneously bemoaning the fact that they don’t fit the criteria. It would seem that most men, are lost in the dark and tend to gravitate towards whatever concrete ideas they can gather on their own. This is most often to be as male as possible and this is seen as being as not female as possible because they don’t have definitions lain out for them.
“Malekind” is in a serious amount of trouble. They have lost their way. Men have no unification. They have little idea of what it even means to be men. Can a gendered social structure function efficiently when one side of the gender aspect is without direction? If the male side of the gendered social structure falls apart what is there to govern the structure of the female gender. Will it, too, fall to pieces? If men hope to survive as a gender they need some form of structured identity that does not consist simply of being better at being a male than other men.
