The cultural belief of hegemonic masculinity essay

The cultural belief of hegemonic masculinity essay What is hegemonic masculinity? Hegemonic masculinity makes men as superior human and sees women as submissive and weak objects that should live according as the man says. According to the male dominance, they always should subordinate and contribute the womens position because women are not so great, perfect and brave as men. The theory of hegemonic masculinity was reviewed by many sociologists and scientists during all periods. Hegemony is a total winning and holding of power over other social groups. Masculinity sets men as the highest class of society and maintains their domination over women. Men are considered to have hegemonic masculinity if they exhibit the features of traditional masculinity. There is a certain set of qualities that a man should have, such as power, dominance, heterosexuality, leadership, rationality, control of their emotions. The traditional masculinity harms gender equality and sets men higher and much more important than women. Masculinity definition by various sociologists If to trace back to the Middle Ages, the philosopher Aristotle from Greece assumed that masculinity is equal to the rationality and strength of men, when women are marked by such things as emotions, sexuality and their bodies. The Australian sociologist R.W. Connell says that masculinity doesnt exist as an unchanged and single form. Connell presumes that a man of the modern society shouldnt have the qualities that considered masculine. She also insists that homosexuality is also a form of masculinity, despite on those facts that a lot of people define homosexuality as the opposite thing to the masculinity. Thanks to the Connells theory, people could study the history of masculinity. Her work showed that masculinity is a concept that can change. David Iacuone in his book “Real Men and Tough Guys” (2005) views masculinity as a blueprint that defines the real mans behavior and describes qualities he must have. According to Iacuone, hegemonic masculinity defines women as an object, gives them mostly domestic duties and notes their value for men only as sexual objects. But some men groups try to avoid hegemonic masculine culture, mostly when they want to improve their women welfare and try to change the traditional relations where patriarchy is dominating. Sociologists Michael S. Kimmel and Amy Aronson (2008) made a pattern of a real man; they defined him as a young, heterosexual, white, married, urban, with college education, employed, and with defined weight and height. They assumed that any man who doesnt fit this pattern, should be defined as unworthy. Ross Haenfler (2006) defines advantages and disadvantages of masculinity. He says this concept has got good benefits to set men higher than women but in the same way they should pay price for this with shorter life, lack of emotions in relationship and poor health. Haenfler noticed that men who lose control over relationship and work, become strict in self-control. They start to control thoroughly their sexual appetites, personal lives, and fitness because of the crisis, and as a result, try to avoid womens influence. According to Haenfler theory, since late 19th century, the base of masculinity was broken and modern men dont understand how to be a man. The traditional male role of breadwinner was destabilized a lot and taken by women, and apart from this, feminists make a challenge to men with changing gender inequality. Other critics and scientists who made researches on hegemonic masculinity says that the definition of this concept do not reflect the actual life of men, so the entire theory gives an imprecise report about male identities in society. Due to increasing and development of industrialization in our world, hegemonic masculinity started to lose its real meaning in modern society. Nowadays, a lot of women take leadership positions at work and assume the main role of breadwinners because a lot of young men try to avoid responsibilities that are dictated by masculinity. In our society women work as hard as men, and there are no differences between genders in this sense. Earlier women should mostly listen to their men, sit at home, raise children. Modern world totally changed this view with active position of feminization that lead to the current situation when gender is equal.