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Gender Lesson 4: Masculinity in the binary

HOMEWORK: 

Who is most often a random school shooter and why?
Please read Adolescent Masculinity, Homophobia, and Violence Random School Shootings, 1982-2001.  It is a qualitative study in American Behavioral Scientist about who randomly shoots up schools and why.  It is also available from Scribd here.  It is a really interesting reading.  The author looks at who shoots up high schools and why.   The article was published in 2001 which was after a few major school shootings such as Columbine high school.

How does the binary affect males (and put them at risk)?

Now that you have learned how gender is socially constructed into a binary, we will examine one pole of the binary: masculinity.    


Getting started

Before we begin, please answer the following questions.  Answer each quickly with the first words that come to mind.  Please don't worry about foul language, just write the words that come to mind:

Here is the Google form for this lesson.

QUICKLY, without thinking, brainstorm, the first three words that come to mind:

1. What are three words that describe what it means to be a man?

2.  What are three words that describe someone who is not a real man?

CJ Pascoe's research 

One of the most important gender researchers is  CJ Pascoe, a University of Oregon sociology professor.  In a 2007 ethnography called "Dude You're a Fag", Pascoe studied high school peer groups and how they sanction gender norms. An excerpt is here.  Pascoe wrote about her research in an essay in Contexts here.   And, here is CJ Pascoe's micro lecture on bullying and masculinity.  Please watch the video below.

1.  What does Pascoe's research show about masculinity?

2.  Do you think Pascoe's research applies to SHS?

Males are at risk because of masculinity norms

Recall the chart below from our lesson on the gender binary.  Use the chart to assess each of the three areas below in which males are at-risk.

Males and School

• In school, boys are 30% more likely to flunk, 250% more likely to be suspended and 300% more likely to be diagnosed with learning and emotional disabilities.
• From the NIH, this article explains how boys manifest ADHD differently than girls due to the expectations of masculinity.
• Males are less likely than females to: go to college and earn a bachelor's degree, earn a master's degree or earn a PhD.

What is your hypothesis about why this is so?  How can these be related to the binary?  (Use the chart above to try and explain why traditional masculine traits might  lead to these educational outcomes.)

This article examines how males choose to be less involved at school and how that affects their ability to succeed.

Males and Health Risks

Young men are much more likely to die from accidental death than women:

Males 20-24 are 3 times more likely to to die as a result of accidents,

4 times more likely to die from suicide and

6 times more likely to be murdered than women. (Ferris and Stein pg 256)

 

3.  What is your hypothesis about why this is so?  How can these be related to the binary?  (Again - refer to the chart above.)

Researchers Sandra Nakagawa and Chloe Hart conducted a study examining how gender identity influences eating habits.  

"...in the United States, where men have higher rates of life-threatening health conditions than women — including uncontrolled high blood pressure and heart disease — changing eating habits may be important for their health."

3b. Why do you think males have difficulty changing their eating habits?

4.  Hypothesize why traditional masculine traits might lead men to eat unhealthier.

After your hypothesis, read the explanation for the study here in Contexts.  From the link,

"This study shows that masculinity does matter for how men maintain their health. Importantly, it is not masculinity itself that is the problem here, but the high standards men feel they must meet (pun intended?)— and eat."

5.  After reading the explanation above in Contexts, assess your hypothesis.  Was it correct?

Males and violence

Males are more likely to be both the perpetrator and the victim of violence.
From the Bureau of Justice Statistics (2010),

• 40% of teenage girls 14-17yrs say they know someone their age who has been hit or beaten by a boyfriend.
• 1 of 5 college females will experience some form of dating violence from their male partner.
• 1 in 3 High School students have been or will be in an abusive relationship.

These stats come from the Zacharias Foundation which is a local organization that will confidentially help individuals deal with sexual and domestic abuse.

6.  What is your hypothesis about why these stats might be connected to gender socialization?  How can these be related to the binary?


Males and work

Some jobs are genderized and males are limited by the sexist socialization messages about gender. 

It is ironic, but misogyny actually hurts males.  Below is evidence about how gender inequality is limiting the jobs that males will do and the feminizing whole industries.  Males don't want to take jobs that they label as feminine.  Because of this, males are passing on some of the fastest-growing industries, like home healthcare.

• Why Men Don’t Want the Jobs Done Mostly by Women (2017)
• Job Listings That Are Too ‘Feminine’ for Men (2017)
• Contexts, The Pushes and Pulls of Gendered Occupations (2018)

In Gender & Society, Latonya Trotter finds that it’s not just exclusion from men’s professions, but the inclusionary policies of women’s professions that maintain distinctly gendered fields.

•  Here is an article in Harvard Business Review written by Janette Dill, an assistant professor in the sociology department at The University of Akron in Ohio:

The Entry-Level Health Care Jobs Men Are (and Are Not) Taking (2017)

This all signals that men, and particularly white men who are able to gain additional training, may be defining some health care occupations as more technical and masculine, preserving the conventional understandings of masculinity within the health care sector. Unfortunately, this also means that women and minority men may continue to be clustered in lower-paying direct-care occupations, where the “dirty work” remains stigmatized as “women’s work.”

And supporting professor Dill's work is this research about gendered language in job postings.

This shows both the ratio of
males to females and gendered language
for the fastest growing jobs.

One example of the gendered language in job ads.

Washington Center for Equitable Growth provides this fact sheet (2017) about occupational segregation.

The genderization of jobs includes some of the following examples (Ferris and Stein 2018, 269-71):

Many jobs still highly genderized: nurses, early education (97%), dental hygenists, secretaries (94%), paralegals, housekeepers are highly female while pilots, carpenters, mechanics (98%), and firefighters (94%) are highly male.

Besides applicants self-selecting jobs based on gender, employers also select based on gender.  This research (2019) documented in Contexts shows that employers hire applicants by gender, based on their perception of what the gender of the job should be.

The Australian Men's Health Forum breaks down the research on jobs and gender discrimination here.

7.  Do you understand how the gender binary affects the jobs that males will take?

How does the binary affect males (and put them at risk)?

The Mask You Live In is a 2013 documentary about masculinity from the makers of Miss Representation.  Here is a trailer:

 

HOMEWORK: 
Please read Adolescent Masculinity, Homophobia, and Violence Random School Shootings, 1982-2001.  It is a qualitative study in American Behavioral Scientist about who randomly shoots up schools and why.  It is also available from Scribd here.