The Other Half of the Story: Negative Male Stereotypes

Hopefully many of you have heard of the organization The Representation Project (if not, here's a link to their mission statement on their website). This organization is most known for its striking documentary Miss Representation, which reveals just how much the media influences and contributes to negative gender stereotyping and gender inequality. The emphasis in this documentary is on the negative depiction of females. I have to say, after watching this film, I truly realized the extent to which the media bombards us with negative female images and stereotypes, and how disgusting this depiction can be.

Anyways, the creator of Miss Representation understood that challenging limiting female stereotypes is only one half of the gender inequality problem; and that in order to move toward real change, we need to challenge limiting male stereotypes as well. As mentioned in the post on the TedxTalk by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, we need to raise our sons and daughters differently. Just like we need to stop limiting our daughters, we need to stop limiting our sons. We must stop limiting our sons by rigid and deleterious definitions of masculinity. In doing so, we will begin to knock down the walls keeping our children from reaching their true potential. Hopefully, doing this will also encourage better relationships between males and females. If we stop telling our boys that they must disregard empathy and emotion, perhaps they will begin to be more involved in creating a gender equal society.

What do you think? Do we place too much or not enough emphasis on negative male stereotypes?