SW 3703: Gender Violence in Global Perspectives

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SW 3703 Gender Violence in Global Perspectives

• Session 4 / 12 Feb 2008

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Ill make a MAN out of you
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Session plan

• Masculinity Introduction
• Video I am a man
• Masculinity Discussion (Videos, Group
  discussions)
• Masculinity and violence
• Masculinity and media
• Womens issues or gender issues?

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Feedback

• Average score for last class session 4.2/5
• Confusion about sex and gender
• Definition of VAW/GBV which one are we following
  in this class?

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• As boys go, I wasnt much. I mean, I tried to be
  a boy and spent many childhood hours pummeling my
  hardly formed ego with failure at Cowboys and
  Indians, baseball, football, lying and sneaking
  out of the house. When our neighborhood gang
  raided a neighbors pear tree, I was the only one
  who got sick from the purloined fruit. I also
  failed at setting fire to our garage, an art at
  which any five-year old boy should be adept. I
  was, however, the neighborhood champion of
  getting beat up. That Julius can take it, man,
  the boys used to say, almost in admiration, after
  I emerged from another battle, tears brimming in
  my eyes but refusing to fall.
• - Julius Lester, 1973
  (Being a Boy)

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Masculinity

• Masculinity defines how boys/men should behave,
  dress, appear what attitudes and qualities they
  should have, how they should be treated
• Bhasin (2004)

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Masculinity

• Biological determinism and patriarchy (male
  violence or mens violence?)
• Are masculinity and femininity biological or
  social concepts?
• Hegemonic masculinity
• What does it mean to be a man?

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Masculinity violenceTough guise J. Katz
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Masculinity and the media
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Womens issues / Gender issues?Do womens issues
/ gender issues matter to men?If yes, how do
they matter?Why should/should not they
matter?Are these issues global?
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• For every woman who is tired of acting weak when
  she knows she is strong, there is a man who is
  tired of appearing strong when he feels
  vulnerable.
• For every woman who is tired of acting dumb,
  there is a man who is burdened with the constant
  expectation of "knowing everything."
• For every woman who is tired of being called "an
  emotional female," there is a man who is denied
  the right to weep and to be gentle.
• For every woman who is called unfeminine when she
  competes, there is a man for whom competition is
  the only way to prove his masculinity.
• For every woman who is tired of being a sex
  object, there is a man who must worry about his
  potency.
• For every woman who feels "tied down" by her
  children, there is a man who is denied the full
  pleasures of shared parenthood.
• For every woman who is denied meaningful
  employment or equal pay, there is a man who must
  bear full financial responsibility for another
  human being.
• For every woman who was not taught the
  intricacies of an automobile, there is a man who
  was not taught the satisfactions of cooking.
• For every woman who takes a step toward her own
  liberation, there is a man who finds the way to
  freedom has been made a little easier.
• Nancy Smith