Judging Masculinity Essay

2133 Words9 Pages
Homosexuals today have challenged our definition of the average male, making it hard to formulate our judgment upon what a man is supposed to look like. For centuries, woman have been displayed more as objects rather than focusing on real beliefs, traditions and morals they may possess but Bordo tries a different approach. We may come to our own conclusions but Susan Bordo explains her position on the topic in a well-constructed essay entitled, “Beauty (Re)discovers the Male Body”. It is not as usual for us to see the exposure of a male body in advertising as it is for a females. Throughout history, mainstream media has focused on the advertising of the female’s body. The outbreak in men’s fashion has been on the up-rise and this contradicts the point that Bordo is trying to make. She thinks that men are not supposed to have any idea on fashion or even care about what people where to think if they saw them. This is proved to be not true for some men but where is it safe for us to draw the line on male’s masculinity. Reading Bordo’s essay helps us to construct the boundaries in which we would consider male advertising as feminine or masculine. Bordo begins her essay very openly by stating, “It was spring of 1995, and I was sipping my first cup of morning coffee, when I had my first real taste of what it’s like to inhabit this visual creature as a man” (Bordo 189). The male “gaze” has been at the center of media attraction for decades now, but is a females gaze unheard of? Men are beginning to declare their independence in the fashion industry but a lot of times have no idea what to wear. Bordo offers several examples of this, with the best being Haggar’s advertisement, “Im damn well gonna wear what I want… Honey, what do I want” (Bordo 209)? This puts a big explanation point on men’s indecisiveness in fashion. This assumption proves to be true for most men but not
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