The High Cost Of Masculinity Essay

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Bilal Adem Professor Boyle English 111 18 January 2012 Response to the high cost of manliness Robert Jensen writes in his essay “The High Cost of Manliness” that our culture defines the idea of masculinity in a way that it creates certain expectations that have to be fulfilled. Jensen talks about the aspects biology and culture that affect our view of humanity. Jensen says that masculinity is associated with traits such as seeking control, aggression, and competition. Jensen also talks about the consequences such as rape and vulnerability that are connected to the fact that men and women are different, but Jensen later counters that argument by mentioning that men and women are more alike than they are different. Most importantly men can also be associated with the ideals of caring and sacrifice. Jensen ends his overall argument by reaching a concrete observation that we have to stop trying to define what men and women have to be based on prediction and we have…show more content…
Jensen mentions that “… we live our lives in that system and it deforms men narrowing our emotional range and depth” (533).For example, when two people decide to be in a relationship they are both vulnerable to getting hurt both emotionally and physically, but most men tend to be conservative while women get very attached to things so we are affected on different levels. Even though masculinity has varies ways of shaping our lives, we came part of the system in which masculinity can flourish, and we fail to see how it has taken over our lives to the point that we struggle to make a connection with our environment. If this view of masculinity was somehow to be replaced or somehow forgotten it will direct us to the ideal understanding of humanity and enable it to shape our lives in a way that we can gain back control of who we are and what we strive to be. Ideally it’s a world where no tendencies are embedded within
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