Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Free from Masculinity: A Rant

On Thursday of last week, I got my hair did. As Kristal pointed out, hair has a lot do with the way you feel and the way you act. I wanted to look good, hell I look good okay, so I wanted to look damn good and I wanted to feel good. I decided when I walked into the salon that I was going to do something that I had been wanting to do for the longest time, two words, blonde highlights. I sat down in my chair, told my cousin what I wanted (she’s amazing with hair by the way) and watched some of my hair become devirginized. I had only wanted highlights around the area where I wanted to go for a pompadour/fohawk type thing, so it was very little. Here is the end result:



I really like it and I feel so confident and have great friends/co-workers who lie to me and say it looks good so whatever. I couldn’t help but notice something after my cousin started the process of highlighting my hair. I was being looked at. Women across the room and women sitting next to me stared as my hair went from pure dark brown to cool crisp blonde. The expression on their faces didn’t seem to say that they were at all curious about the dying of hair process but rather stated clearly that they were confused. I pondered for a while at what they might be confused about and it didn’t hit me until after we watched the documentary Tough Guise 2: Violence, Manhood and American Culture in my Sociology class that I was a boy getting highlights and in their eyes that was something to be very confused about.
I then started to think about some bigger questions, what defines femininity and masculinity? What are actions that define manhood today? What are actions that are not considered manly or macho? Why are we so tied up in setting standards for the sexes and why the fuck do we expect each and every person to follow them?
Growing up in a pre-dominantly Hispanic and Christian cultured city and also being openly gay has been tough in itself. However, I never thought about the fact that from day one we are categorized into classifications that we have coined as sex. Even before birth, parents are able to find out whether or not their baby is going to be male or female and what they are told automatically defines the expectations that they, our families and the surrounding society will have for us. Times are changing and so are the attitudes of people but we still place so many expectations on individuals based on their gender. By analyzing my childhood and the society I have grown up in thus far, being male means some of these expectations:
·        Emotions are for sissies
Keep it in, take it like a man and move on.
·        Your eyes are meant for the Ladies
Though this can have a lot to do with the bordering cultures/beliefs in a society, most people expect their kid whether male or female to be heterosexual. I am very fortunate to have loving and accepting parents but still I am looked at as an outsider because I’m male and I like other males.
·        Get a job, any job, settle down and start a family
Because of economic circumstances, many males in my society are taught that making money is way more important and primary over going to college/getting a degree. They are also taught that heterosexuality is key because procreation is mandatory.
·        Women should please you, that is all.
This one makes me cringe but so many males are taught to look at women as objects and that they are their property.
·        Violence and talking shit is a good way of proving you’re a man
If someone talks bad about you or tries to de-masculinize you, prove that you are a man by means of fighting and by showing how great you are at cussing and chastising another human being.
·        There are things that are meant for women and if you take part in them, then you’re so gay.
Don’t dye your hair, don’t care about fashion, like women not men, you can’t wear certain things, don’t get mani’s or pedi’s, don’t like the color pink or purple or teal, blah blah blah…




               I’m not excusing any man for his actions of violence or saying that all men are taught this but I am telling you to think about the fact that the notion of masculinity and what defines it exists and whether you believe it or not, it’s a lot of pressure. Often people define feminism as having to do with a cult filled with women who hate men and want to be in full control but that is not the case. Feminism is thinking about things like this: How has sex formed over time and what attributes to the way people act that we end up at a standstill of inequality? We have to think about the fact that there are so many standards for what it means to be a man and what it means to be a woman but ultimately we forget that we are all just fucking people with the same emotions and the same colored blood. What it comes down to is underneath all the layers of skin and tissue there is a plethora of bones forming what we know as a skeleton and the amount of bones and the color of those bones are for the most part the same. Often we forget to look past the sexuality, the ethnicity and the gender of one another and forget that we are all just humans figuring it out.

No comments:

Post a Comment