How the Pressure to Prove Masculinity Harms Everyone

  The reading that we did this semester that changed my mind and broadened my view of gender discrimination was For the Love of Men by Liz Plank. This reading really made me realize just how many men feel pressure to reinforce their gender identity because of small things in our society that I tend to overlook. These pressures alone are not what make men become violent against women, but they do push the boundaries of existing beliefs those men might have. It made me realize that these societal pressures on men affect all genders in some shape or form.

The reading also made me think about how societal expectations of women are often reversed and enforced almost as harshly onto men. For example, in For the Love of Men, Plank talks about how men feel the pressure to overeat to prove something to the people around them about their masculinity. It’s interesting that in society, women are taught to eat less to be more feminine and men are taught to eat more to be more masculine. Neither of these things make any sense, and they both reinforce gender roles in a harmful way, but we tend to talk about one a lot more than the other.

One quote that also really struck me from that reading was, “the gap left by the absence of a conversation or identity around positive masculinity has been filled by hate groups who offer men a missing sense of belonging and sense of identity.” This quote really emphasized to me how important it is that we talk about toxic masculinity. Especially because with the internet, it’s incredibly easy for men who might not otherwise become violent to be sucked down a hole of toxic masculinity and hate groups, without any positive masculine role models to pull them out.

Overall this reading changed my mind about how much help men needed in terms of gender issues. I realize now that there’s not a finite amount of activism that can be done, and people of all genders can benefit from having support and learning about gender in a positive way.