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aruanmaybe the song should be AK1200 - Drowning.
Professor Marsiglio,
I think the reason why I'm having so much trouble coming up with a new topic (or is that letting go of the old one?), and please don't take this as an affront, is that I've forgotten my original intent and purpose in taking this class. I'm trying to explore the masculinity issues manifest in my current real life, and I don't seem to be finding them as having been discussed in class. For example, we touched on the science fair winner vs. bully having different masculinities in the school setting, but that's as close as we came to discussing the masculinity that "effeminate" men express and its importance to them in their own daily lives. The men in my life are the kind who list intelligence (meaning literal and wit) as the foremost characteristic they're looking for in their ideal girlfriend. We seem to have focused solely on the features of hegemonic masculinity and the ways men are trying to go about attaining that - but what about boys in the white upper middle class category who don't fit in to that image, but at the same time have no desire to be and are perfectly happy with who they are, even if their fathers aren't? I can't say I much care for the traditional sort of masculinity myself - I find it oppressive and predictable. As it stands, men have been fairly well reduced to the stereotypes I came into this class already wielding about them. For example, the topic of gay men interests me immensely, yet that's a topic we've left untouched, a huge and complex area of masculinity rife with minefields and new research to be conducted. For all the talk of this class being about the myriad masculinities of men, I feel our scope has been fairly narrow in its breadth. I've lived the traditional meat and potatoes, father issues yet not succeeding to overcome them, midlife crises and feelings of failure and alternate exercising of control when work and body fail you kind of masculinity - he's called my stepfather, and I didn't much care for any of it then, nor do I take much stock in that being what makes the world turn now, because if that's the case I might as well save myself the trouble and give them up now before the cycle has a chance to repeat itself. However, I won't, because I love boys, guys, men, the whole bunch, I think they're fun, fascinating, and offer a completely different take on life than the women and girls I've encountered. I don't think they're all striving for this "elite masculinity," I think some of them have gone as far as to be happy in their daily, nontraditional lives as happy, well-adjusted people. I think most of our fathers weren't the products of a generation who knew what to even make of us, much less bring us up in this new world, and it is their masculinity, that of the thirties to fifties era that is dying, and what is emerging is bigger, broader, more insightful, tactful, creative and fluid than what was before. And that could just be the staunch idealist within that refuses to be jaded, but I believe it, and I feel it's gone unrecognized, and if anywhere, I think we should be looking towards the future in this class. Gay men represent a facet of this newly emerging variety of masculinities, a by necessity previously underground faction that has strived to gain acceptance and rights - it's the new feminism in a way, and the perspectives they have to offer are perhaps as invaluable. The class's focus reminds me of Napoleon's Old Guard, strong and fighting to the end, but inevitably surrounded and brought down by the new progression of ideas of the changing world all around them even as they futile tried to conquer it, keep it under control and ward off change in that way. People change. Values change. Perspectives change. And we seem to still be recognizant of what has come to pass and no longer offers a nice, neat cross-section of the whole. There is no one type of masculinity that defines today's men, and to keep generalizing them under yesterday's heading I think does a great disservice not only to them, but to us as well.
Sincerely,
-me
Professor Marsiglio,
I think the reason why I'm having so much trouble coming up with a new topic (or is that letting go of the old one?), and please don't take this as an affront, is that I've forgotten my original intent and purpose in taking this class. I'm trying to explore the masculinity issues manifest in my current real life, and I don't seem to be finding them as having been discussed in class. For example, we touched on the science fair winner vs. bully having different masculinities in the school setting, but that's as close as we came to discussing the masculinity that "effeminate" men express and its importance to them in their own daily lives. The men in my life are the kind who list intelligence (meaning literal and wit) as the foremost characteristic they're looking for in their ideal girlfriend. We seem to have focused solely on the features of hegemonic masculinity and the ways men are trying to go about attaining that - but what about boys in the white upper middle class category who don't fit in to that image, but at the same time have no desire to be and are perfectly happy with who they are, even if their fathers aren't? I can't say I much care for the traditional sort of masculinity myself - I find it oppressive and predictable. As it stands, men have been fairly well reduced to the stereotypes I came into this class already wielding about them. For example, the topic of gay men interests me immensely, yet that's a topic we've left untouched, a huge and complex area of masculinity rife with minefields and new research to be conducted. For all the talk of this class being about the myriad masculinities of men, I feel our scope has been fairly narrow in its breadth. I've lived the traditional meat and potatoes, father issues yet not succeeding to overcome them, midlife crises and feelings of failure and alternate exercising of control when work and body fail you kind of masculinity - he's called my stepfather, and I didn't much care for any of it then, nor do I take much stock in that being what makes the world turn now, because if that's the case I might as well save myself the trouble and give them up now before the cycle has a chance to repeat itself. However, I won't, because I love boys, guys, men, the whole bunch, I think they're fun, fascinating, and offer a completely different take on life than the women and girls I've encountered. I don't think they're all striving for this "elite masculinity," I think some of them have gone as far as to be happy in their daily, nontraditional lives as happy, well-adjusted people. I think most of our fathers weren't the products of a generation who knew what to even make of us, much less bring us up in this new world, and it is their masculinity, that of the thirties to fifties era that is dying, and what is emerging is bigger, broader, more insightful, tactful, creative and fluid than what was before. And that could just be the staunch idealist within that refuses to be jaded, but I believe it, and I feel it's gone unrecognized, and if anywhere, I think we should be looking towards the future in this class. Gay men represent a facet of this newly emerging variety of masculinities, a by necessity previously underground faction that has strived to gain acceptance and rights - it's the new feminism in a way, and the perspectives they have to offer are perhaps as invaluable. The class's focus reminds me of Napoleon's Old Guard, strong and fighting to the end, but inevitably surrounded and brought down by the new progression of ideas of the changing world all around them even as they futile tried to conquer it, keep it under control and ward off change in that way. People change. Values change. Perspectives change. And we seem to still be recognizant of what has come to pass and no longer offers a nice, neat cross-section of the whole. There is no one type of masculinity that defines today's men, and to keep generalizing them under yesterday's heading I think does a great disservice not only to them, but to us as well.
Sincerely,
-me
