The Selling of Masculinity -like the exploitation of women, it’s an advertising game —$$$
We’ve read and seen much about the way women are portrayed for profit. Yet, what about men? Our husbands, sons and fathers? There needs to be outrage on both sides of this is we are going to make any change. It’s not a one sided issue. We are on this Planet Together.
Vodka Penis?
Manhood For Sale
Amanda Hess’ article in Slate Magazine alerted me to a study examining just how masculinity is pitched to young men. In the most recent issue of the journal Sex Roles, psychologists from the University of Manitoba examined the prevalence of hypermasculinity - the ideology of exaggerated male traits as the epitome of masculine identity - in advertisements in popular men’s magazines including Maxim, Playboy, Game Informer, Fortune, Esquire and Wired.
Hypermasculinity portrays violence and physical aggression as manly ideals; it promotes a world where all of male life is a struggle of dominance of others, where sex is a matter of power and female submission rather than one of intimacy and mutual pleasure and that any “feminine” emotions are to be repressed.
…Man Card
Over half of ads in men’s magazines presented over-the-top imagery from hypermasculine ideology – upwards of 90% in some magazines like Game Informer.
Moreover, hypermasculine imagery was predominantly aimed at two audiences: younger men (adolescents and men in their early 20s) and older working-class men without college educations.
These two groups were, in many ways, the most easily influenced. Neither have much in the way of disposable income; in fact, a higher income level of the magazine’s target audience correlated with fewer ads depicting exaggerated male behavior.
Younger men are more often the ones seeking out their identity. They are more likely to look to others for ideas of gender presentation, and thus they are the ones whose behavior is more likely to be influenced by media and reinforced by their peer group.
Meanwhile, the blue-collar workers tend to be ones who feel disempowered and disenfranchised by society; they are more likely to lack popular indicators of social value such as financial success or social influence.
Metrosexual
. .
The vision of manhood perpetuated by the hyper-masculine ideology is one where men are little better than chimps.The world of hyper-masculinity is one where life is brutish, stupid and short. All male interactions are a forms of aggression and dominance display; “toughness” masquerades as discipline and male friendships cannot exist because emotional intimacy are frowned upon for fear of being too feminine.
Men in this ideology are disconnected from their emotions – love does not exist except in the desire for material goods (a man’s love for his truck) or one’s pet (a man’s love for his dog).
Women are not equals; they are measuring sticks for one’s worth – except for when they become dominant over men, at which point they become threats to masculinity.
A man in this ideology has next to no control over his impulses. He is ruled by his genitals and his need to gain the respect of others through violence and the pursuit of danger. He is utterly at the mercy of his base instincts: the need to fuck, the need to eat, the need to accumulate goods.
No Suits
He is powerless to resist them and logic, restraint, and rational thought all fall by the wayside. If these are the values that you think define what it means to be a man… well, you are sad, strange little beings and you have my pity.
