Analysis Of Michael Kimmel's Short Story 'A War Against Boys?'

Soldier Boys was written by Dean Hughes. The book was published in 2001. The setting starts off with a couple of young boys who want to sign up for the war but their to young to sign up on their own so they have to have their parents permission to sign up. The book goes back an d forth between the americans and the germans because the book talks about both sides of the war. The book is fiction.

Pascoe splits this chapter into two factions – The Basketball Girls and the Gay/Straight Alliance Girls. The Basketball Girls section starts off with a review of tomboy pasts: young girls that behaved like boys. This state of mind is often reviewed upon as revered, while the opposite (boys who behave like girls) is usually met with shame. These girls embody masculinity like straight white boys do: “taking up space, teasing girls, and positioning themselves as sexually powerful.” (133) The GSA Girls played with the line between masculine and feminine identities through gender maneuvering. “Gender maneuvering refers to the way groups act to manipulate the relations between masculinity and femininity as others commonly understand them.” (116) These girls were politically active in their approach to masculinity and sexuality, something that caused friction with school administration. An example was when the Homecoming Pep Rally fell on National Coming Out Day. The GSA wanted to wear shirts reading “Nobody Knows I’m a Lesbian” for a prep dance. Upon the event, the principal forced the girls to cover up these shirts during their dance. For contrast, one condoned dance included a female student grinding her pelvis against a male student’s face. “Mr. Hobart [the principal] had effectively set up a two-tiered system in which explicit expressions of heterosexuality such as sensual dance moves, skits that told stories about heterosexual

In nearly all historical societies, sexism was prevalent. Power struggles between genders mostly ended in men being the dominant force in society, leaving women on a lower rung of the social ladder. However, this does not always mean that women have a harder existence in society. Scott Russell Sanders faces a moral dilemma in “The Men We Carry in Our Minds.” In the beginning, Sanders feels that women have a harder time in society today than men do. As the story progresses, he begins to understand why he thinks in the manner that he does. Sanders does an excellent job of showing how his thinking changes as the text progresses. He does this through his brilliant use of interior monologue and personal anecdotes.

Resolutions are vehemently being sought to protect schools from possible attacks and to objectively eradicate deadly school shootings altogether. Commonly, security officers are placed in schools in hopes that increased surveillance will inhibit violent outbreaks (Crawford and Burns 2016). Mixed evaluations have been found in association with security officers, while some benefits reportedly transpire, experiences of disparaging consequences remain a regrettable reality as well (Crawford and Burns 2016). Additionally, active shooter drills routinely occur at schools across the nation, however, as Jillian Peterson and James Densley report in their CNN article titled, “The Usual Approach to School Security Isn’t Working,” studies indicate that

History has repeatedly given men privilege due to their physical advantages; yet it is these same advantages that have developed into “rules” or expectations that all men should conform to in order to prove their manhood. Michael Kimmel’s essay, “‘Bros Before Hos': The Guy Code” outlines the “rules” where men are expected to never show any emotions, be brave, act knowledgeable, be risk takers, be in control, act reliable, and be competitive, otherwise they would be showing weakness which is analogous to women. It is humiliating that men associate weakness with women; they should focus on the potential of the individual rather than their gender. Most insults toward men attack their masculinity because society finds it shameful for men to be

¨Girl¨ by Jamaica Kincaid is a short story, definitely is not a usual short story. Some of the most outstanding features of this story are that only have 2 characters. Commonly, the stories are written in first or third perspective, ¨Girl¨ is written in second person perspective. Therefore, the reader is involved in the story and takes a role in the play. Consequently, the reader is able to experience the feelings of the characters. Jamaica Kincaid does not establish the relationship of the character, but it can interpret as a mom and daughter relationship. I have chosen to analyze the structure and some interesting and controversial topic written in the story ¨Girl.¨

Today girls are more privileged than back years ago. Several women still expect that they are treated the same as women were back at that time, which causes several women believe that boys are still the dominate sex. Explained by a woman named, Christina Hoff Sommers, as she wrote “The War Against Boys,” who argues that girls have been increasing ahead of boys, which has resulted in boys languishing academically and socially. However argues that this statement is untrue. Beginning to build her credibility, Sommers states a few of the accomplishments of women and also saying that countless women complain about being the less dominant sex.

As women’s rights and treatment have become a significant concern in today’s society, there has been a specific interest in how accepted behavior evolves in the modern era. This concern is also relevant for the youth population, specifically seen in younger boys. Lisa Senecal believes that parenting has a major role in how men learn to treat women. In an effort to shed some light on the disrespect controversy, Senecal wrote an opinion piece titled, “Men must confront men who disrespect women. That’s the fight we really need.” Published in USA Today, Lisa Senecal (2017, Sept. 25) is hopeful of targeting an audience of mostly men and women in their 50s with a college degree. Fortunately, men comprise over 65% of the reader population. (2011)

In the essay What Does “Boys Will Be Boys” Really Mean, the author Deborah Roffman explains how people perceive and classify boys to be extremely messy in their actions and continuously receive passes for their unacceptable behavior. In the essay How Boys Become Men, the statement “Boys Will Be Boys” expresses how the rules boys set for themselves in their childhood unintentionally effects the decisions they make in their adulthood. The two essays focus on different situations but they come together with the same opinion about men and boys; of whom they focus on the most. One essay focuses mainly on how boys behave and the reason why people classify them the way they do, whereas, the other essay focuses on the effects of how boys learn to behave a certain way and grows into adolescents with the same behavior. While some similarities between What Does “Boys Will Be Boys” Really Mean? and How Boys Become Men are evident in their attention to stress how society sets standards and forces a stereotype upon the men and boys, they have different interpretations.

The Mask You Live In begins with a George Orwell quote "He wears a mask and his face grows to fit it". The use of this quote in the documentary is to explain how men and young boys create a façade in which they live their lives behind. They put on a show for the world, while living behind this falsely created persona of happiness and security. The mask is the hard shell that young men are expected to face the world with. They are expected to show only their best selves and hide their insecurities and worries.

And on the other hand, these boys are all taught the “Guy Code” a set of crude command s, or you might say a set of unwritten rules such as, “boys don’t cry, don’t get mad, get even, bros before hoes, size matters and so on. Chapter three goes on to examine the “Guy Code” that is drilled into a child’s head as a youth and the affects guy code has on man today. Nancy Chodorow is a feminist sociologist and psychoanalyst. She has written a number of influential books, and is widely regarded as a leading psychoanalytic feminist theorist. Nancy Chodorow indirectly refers to the “Guys Code” in her article “The Sexual Sociology of the Adult Life.” She describes learned masculinity and the roles that boys must follow in order to become men, likewise when it comes to females and their roles (Chodorow, p.

I was raised in a home with no gender roles. Both of my parents cooked meals, did laundry, did their farm chores, and cleaned the house. They both thought that everyone needed to pull their own weight despite their gender. That’s the reason why I would be out on the farm, until the day I left for college, stacking bales of hay, herding cattle, and driving the tractor. That is why I believe in gender equality. My father never thought that my ability to do work was hindered by my gender. In fact, he thought the exact opposite. So, that’s why, during the summer before fifth grade, I didn’t know how to respond when a boy told me, “Girls can’t play football.” My ten year old brain could not wrap itself around the words coming out of his mouth.

The documentary talks about the numerous ways throughout time in which women are mistreated in society. It seems as though as time progresses women become more of sexual objects than human beings. Certain people in society assume it is acceptable to demean or devalue women and to think of women as second class citizens that exist to tend to their needs. This documentary depicts the deriding ways the media and society see and treat women.

Gender is it a concept or is it made apparent by our DNA when you are born or does it change as you grow older? Often gender is something that society defines at birth. According to society certain gender roles are pre established when we are born. The majority of society believes that if you are born to a specific gender you should adhere to the gender roles while other people believe that instead we may be born to a gender but it does not always decide if you are that gender. Science has proven that just because you are born a male or female does not mean that you mentally see yourself as that gender.

This thought has never crossed my mind before because I, myself, took ‘gender’ as a natural phenomenon. Gender is a product of socialization. It is cultural roles and personality characteristics that are labeled appropriate for men and women (lecture). Gender facilitates normative accountability: “structures that are in place to “correct” people’s gender non-conforming behaviours” (Johnson). Normative accountability and gender expectations were big issues children in the film faced. These children were expected to perform certain actions and display specific personality traits based on their natal sex. Daniel’s mother says during her interview that “as soon as Daniel was able to express his preferences, he was gravitating towards boys’ sections, wanting to wear just boy t-shirts”. When I first watched the movie, I did not find anything extraordinary from her line. The second time, I became more critical. What defines “boy t-shirts”? What pieces of clothing are for boys and for girls? Alex and his friends also talk about how being a guy is “working out”, “not showing any emotions” and “not playing with gender”. Why are these traits correlated with masculinity? It is perceived odd for girls to display these characteristics. They are followed with labels such as lesbian, or tomboys. These traits should not be associated with one specific gender as these traits is as likely to be shown by