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| Genius |
The Women’s & Gender Studies at the University of North Texas had Dr. Michael Kimmel, a sociology professor at Stony Brook University in New York, NY.
Dr. Michael Kimmel came to discuss masculinity with us students at UNT. He shared many great thoughts that I didn’t know would make me think as much as it actually did. Dr. Michael Kimmel has written the book Guyland. This book discusses how men that go off to college are constantly trying to prove their masculinity to each other. He mentioned a lot of these ideas why young men do this and he said without grown-ups there, young men are eager to prove their masculinity.
Other interesting points that Dr. Kimmel pointed out:
- balance of work and family has changed
- women don’t/can’t have it all, because men do
- women’s expectations have changed in the last 3 decades
- “privilege” is invisible to those who have it
- we have to make gender visible to young boys
Dr. Kimmel didn’t only discuss the extremes that young men go into proving their masculinity to all other guys, he also discussed what role women play in society. He gave many reasons as to why women have been absolutely fundamental in the last few years. One of those reasons is how women made gender visible. Today, gender is something that is completely invisible to men. Men can have it all, while women can’t achieve that. I believe that women can have it all but there are very little examples of it.
I think that Dr. Kimmel had some really good points in his lecture. I personally have not looked much into gender roles from many years before to where they are now. I have noticed that women do have more freedom when choosing what they want to pursue in life, but there is still so much inequality between men and women. I believe that privilege plays a big part in gender roles as it does in race. This we have definitely discussed in class before and it’s interesting to hear from young college students where their beliefs are.
Just like Dr. Kimmel addressed, I also believe it is important to teach young boys what gender is at a very young age. It all begins with our young generations and if we are teaching them that they are superiority to women, we aren’t doing any good for them and future generations.
Citations:
Dr. Michael Kimmel’s Lecture at UNT
Gender Role Image. Genuis. Genuis Media Group, 2015. Web. 23 April 2015. http://genius.com/2597275/Beyonce-if-i-were-a-boy/Verse-1
