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Social Construction Of Gender In 'The Mask You Live In'

2083 Words9 Pages

Part One: Social Construction of Gender (~2 pages)
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. The mask is incredibly relatable to the social construction of gender, because it was created through the social construction of gender. Young males would not need to create a mask and live behind it if society didn 't force them too. We teach boys to man up, and we teach them not to show emotions. (CITE) As (NAME) said, we feminize things like relationships, emotions, and expressing oneself. Then we devalue the things we feminize. This not only sends an extremely negative message to boys being told to "man up", but we also allow for a hierarchy between genders to grow. Not only is this idea of masculinity toxic- it 's also unachievable. Men are constantly needing to prove themselves to society. This feeling of incompleteness can lead to many issues throughout their lives. Young boys don 't develop the kinds of relationships or emotional capabilities that they once had. They don 't get the opportunity to express

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