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?

QUOTE OF THE DAY:

"The day will come when man will recognize woman as his peer, not only at the fireside but in the councils of the nation. Then, and not until then, will there be the perfect comradeship, the ideal union, between the sexes that shall result in the highest development of the race." -Susan B. Anthony 

It has been over a century since Susan B. Anthony hoped for this. Men and women have since then fought incredibly hard for progress; and it would be a lie to say that things are not more equal than they were in the 1800s. However, we are FAR from equal. Some stats from Facebook's COO Sheryl Sandberg's feminist book "Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead" (more on this later. In the meantime, a must read!) --

"Of the 195 independent countries in the world, only 17 are led by women."

"Women hold just 20 percent of seats in parliaments globally"

"The percentage of women at the top of corporate America has barely budged over the past decade."

"A meager twenty-one of the Fortune 500 CEOs are women"

"Women hold about 14 percent of executive officer positions, 17 percent of board seats, and constitute 18 percent of our elected congressional officials"

The above is "even worse for women of color, who hold just 4 percent of top corporate jobs, 3 percent of board seats, and 5 percent of congressional seats"

In 2010, average women's compensation in comparison to men was 77 cents to a dollar, as compared to 59 cents to a dollar in 1970. She cites activist Marlo Thomas as joking "Forty years and eighteen cents. A dozen eggs have gone up ten times that amount."

Clearly, there is a problem. As females are actually surpassing males in terms of college graduates, this gender disparity in the workplace and positions of power can not be due to educational differences. Hopefully, by acknowledging this, we can begin to expand our awareness of this negative influences and begin to change them. As Susan B. Anthony suggests, we can only hope to achieve our fullest potential as a company, nation, or even human species, when both men and women are both able to contribute fully. 

A Must Watch: The TedxTalk that Inspired the Title of this Blog

In this TedxTalk, Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie discusses why all people, including men, should be feminists. She gives the definition that is the basis for this blog, that men and women should be equal. Additionally, she touches on some of the inequalities that females experience in their everyday lives. Many females will find her discussion extremely relatable, and hopefully, it serves as an eye opener to both males and females who do not see these inequalities taking place around them. 

Some discussion points:

On the negative associations with the word and concept of "feminist" --  "Feminist is so heavy with negative baggage; we hate men, we hate bras." This is precisely why it is so important to define the words "feminism" and "feminist" in today's society. Negative and misinformed stereotypes prevent the open-mindedness required for any real discussion. 

On the possible biological roots of modern gender inequalities -- The speaker notes that "men and women are biologically different," and that generally, men are physically stronger than women. Additionally, she suggests that in ancient times, perhaps men were suitable to lead, as the best leaders in society would be stronger, and thus more capable of defending their families and communities. This purely physical method of selecting for societies' leaders may have been suitable then. However, physical strength is no longer the determining characteristic of the best leader. Today's leaders need to be the most creative, intelligent, business-minded, etc., and these characteristics are not determined by gender. 

**On raising our boys and girls differently -- The speaker suggests that raising our children differently is the primary method of changing gender inequality for the future (Side note: I very much agree with this. Hasn't this always been a method of social change? It reminds me of diminishing racism over generations. What do you think?) The restrictive definitions we give our children of masculinity and femininity drive the gender inequality they experience in the future. We "stifle the humanity of boys" by teaching them to be afraid of fear and vulnerability. We constantly insist that boys prove their masculinity; we tell them to "be a man" or "man up." We associate money with proving their masculinity. The speaker suggests a better way: why don’t we teach kids it is not boys who should pay, but whoever has more money that should pay? Our restrictive definitions of femininity go hand in hand with our definitions of masculinity. "We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls, 'You can have ambition, but not too much.'" We encourage them to avoid being the breadwinner in a relationship, and that they should especially avoid making it public if they are. We teach girls that in a relationship, compromise is just what females should do. The worst thing we do to girls, the speaker asserts, is we encourage them to be women for whom "pretending is an art form." Finally, "What if in raising children we focused on ability instead of gender. What if in raising children we raised them based on interest instead of gender."

**On talking about gender inequality -- The speaker addresses that one of the biggest obstacles feminists face is that many men don't actively think about gender. She notes how a person faced with another inequality, for example, an African man, can be blind to the inequalities faced by women. She touches on the many "cop outs" people use in talking about gender inequality: it's evolutionary (the apes do it!) or it's culture (she says, "If full humanity of women is not part of our culture, we must make it our culture"). These excuses need to be discarded; the first step is acknowledging that there is a problem. We must say "yes, there’s a problem with gender as it is today. And we must fix it, and we must do better.”