When will it end?

Much like my last post I will be talking about male stereotypes and what the media has portrayed as masculine and non-masculine. Another episode that interested me was season three, episode four of friends. In this episode Ross's son Ben is seen playing with a Barbie doll. The show starts off with Ross's ex-wife bringing Ben over to the apartment while tightly holding onto a Barbie doll. When Ross see's this he immediately states "What's my boy doing with a Barbie" to which his ex-wife replies "He loves it" "he picked it out”. Throughout society men hate even remotely being close to feminine or being a sissy. Men will do whatever it takes to get that masculinity characteristic with them and making them seem manly to others especially other men. The show Friends shows a lot of examples of masculinity.

 The fear of being called a sissy or wimp starts out at a young age for males.  Kids will watch commercials, TV shows, movies, and even play games that portray the stereotype that all men need to be manly, big, strong, feared, show no emotions, and can work hard. From commercials for toys usually a male will be the voice over for toy trucks, action figures, race cars, sports games, and more while females voice the commercials for Barbie dolls, easy bake ovens, and other toys that the media classifies as only toys girls can play with. Kids then take that aspect into life and try to stay away from anything seen as feminine. They don't want to "loose their masculinity" being seen doing something like playing with Barbies.

Things then transform over to teens and clothes. The mainstream media has boys wearing colors from white, blue, red, orange, black, grey, and green while women wear pink, purple and light blue. Colors don't have any generalization to them but the media acts like it does. You won't walk down a street and see a buff guy wearing a purple shirt ever. Why? Because the media portrays certain colors as masculine and certain colors as feminine. Guys again don't want their masculinity to be stripped of them so they follow what's called the social protocol.

 Other things the media has put into our heads are activities. Activities like LuLaRoe parties, knitting, getting a spa, and painting your nails are classified as only females can do them. If a man is seen doing any of those you might as well take their man card away. Throughout media and for the past couple decades men will not do anything that could potentially take away their masculinity.

What counts as being Masculine?

The show Friends was a popular show that aired between September of 1994 and May of 2004 on NBC. The show still appears on TV with reruns on TBS. The show was featured around six adults, three men and three women, who went about their lives everyday involving each other. In the beginning seasons Joey and chandler lived together, Monica was living across the hall, with Rachel, and Phoebe and Ross had their own apartments.From the show and this episode masculinity is defined as men need to strictly do men things and women do girly things. It tells the audience that doing anything remotely feminine will take away any masculinity.

  The episode shows two perfectly good examples of stereotypes in men and women. It shows that men can't doing anything feminine like knitting or doing makeup unless they want to be seen as feminine. Women are seen as them having to to be portrayed as feminine.

 

Another one would be men showing their emotions. For so long men have been taught to always suck it up. Being told don't cry its for babies, or don't be a wimp take it like a man. Shows like friends and in this particular episode like in the picture above showing your emotions is considered feminine and can take away a guys masculinity. Guys also will leave the inside work to women. Like doing laundry, cleaning inside, cooking, things that according to men are feminine. Men will stick to the outside work like repairs, cutting grass, things that can get a man dirty so he can say he was masculine.

 It lets us know what is considered only a women's thing like doing makeup and inside work. This show is just one of many shows, movies, and even commercials that portray the fact that if a man does anything feminine that his manhood is gone. With that said then fathers take that and try to teach their kids to be socially normal and so on and so forth. The media is a great source that really teaches people stereotypes and the apparent social norm and that anyone who does something different is abnormal to society.Masculinity is seen all over the media with men doing things like drinking beer, driving fast cars, play sports,watch sports games, anything that shows masculinity.