How is masculinity defined?
When it comes to talking about masculinity, people, regardless of gender, race, or age, associate men with similar physical attributes. Modern standards of masculinity can be represented with certain words: tall, muscular, tan, and great body proportions. These are standards that the majority of men cannot meet. Models that appear in magazine advertisements and television commercials strive to attain such characteristics in order to meet standards that the modern society has established for them.
Even the dictionary associates masculinity, or being men, with specific physical characteristics. Those who fail to achieve the standards the modern society has set up for them are often considered weak, feeble, or even feminine for ridiculous reasons. Masculinity is no longer an individual preference but a fixed definition in which all men strive to achieve and also is a long-running question for many men. The search for an identity and finding one's own definition of what it means to be a man is an important port of maturity for young men. The question of the role and meaning of masculinity is especially strong in teenagers and men their 20s as they strike out to find their own place in the world. With the ubiquity of mass media, whether it be magazines, newspapers, movies, television or the Internet – it’s not surprising that many men look to popular culture for sources of information what male behavior is supposed to be and how we’re supposed to display it.
What made people think about men in certain ways? I believe that the media played a critical role in shaping the modern view of masculinity, and that it is necessary to explore how the media was successful in doing so. Through this hyper essay, I will discuss how the media, especially advertisements and commercials, shaped the modern view of men. I will also talk about the consequences of portraying men in such ways, and how some people took the society's standards to an extreme and made irreversible mistakes in life. The media is to be blamed for giving people false perceptions on what men should look like. However, the real problem arises when unrealistic portrayals of the male identity harm people's perceptions of masculinity and lead to serious health issues like supplement overdose and illegal steroids. Furthermore, some people feel that they must take steroids or do something extraordinary to distinguish themselves among others. I don't mean that taking bodybuilding supplements such as whey protein are bad. I mean that when supplementation, or bodybuilding taken to extreme can lead to some serious concerns.
When it comes to talking about masculinity, people, regardless of gender, race, or age, associate men with similar physical attributes. Modern standards of masculinity can be represented with certain words: tall, muscular, tan, and great body proportions. These are standards that the majority of men cannot meet. Models that appear in magazine advertisements and television commercials strive to attain such characteristics in order to meet standards that the modern society has established for them.
Even the dictionary associates masculinity, or being men, with specific physical characteristics. Those who fail to achieve the standards the modern society has set up for them are often considered weak, feeble, or even feminine for ridiculous reasons. Masculinity is no longer an individual preference but a fixed definition in which all men strive to achieve and also is a long-running question for many men. The search for an identity and finding one's own definition of what it means to be a man is an important port of maturity for young men. The question of the role and meaning of masculinity is especially strong in teenagers and men their 20s as they strike out to find their own place in the world. With the ubiquity of mass media, whether it be magazines, newspapers, movies, television or the Internet – it’s not surprising that many men look to popular culture for sources of information what male behavior is supposed to be and how we’re supposed to display it.
What made people think about men in certain ways? I believe that the media played a critical role in shaping the modern view of masculinity, and that it is necessary to explore how the media was successful in doing so. Through this hyper essay, I will discuss how the media, especially advertisements and commercials, shaped the modern view of men. I will also talk about the consequences of portraying men in such ways, and how some people took the society's standards to an extreme and made irreversible mistakes in life. The media is to be blamed for giving people false perceptions on what men should look like. However, the real problem arises when unrealistic portrayals of the male identity harm people's perceptions of masculinity and lead to serious health issues like supplement overdose and illegal steroids. Furthermore, some people feel that they must take steroids or do something extraordinary to distinguish themselves among others. I don't mean that taking bodybuilding supplements such as whey protein are bad. I mean that when supplementation, or bodybuilding taken to extreme can lead to some serious concerns.