By taking Pyschology of Gender last year, I have already been exposed to this film. Last year, I watched it and focused on the biology-related topics. This time around, I took it from a different angle. Jackson Katz kind of questions what really makes manhood. He uses strong adjectives, like dominance, power, and control. According to Katz, masculinity and violence go hand-in-hand. They exude a confidence to put on a front. The documentary uses the analogy of the curtain in "The Wizard of Oz." Behind this big, intimidating force is a small not-so-scary man. Men hide their true feelings through violence, because it is not socially acceptable to express those emotions. A really interesting point Katz made was this idea of the invisibility of masculinity. When you read in the newspapers, woman raped... not once will it state in the article a man did it. Same for tragedies like Columbine; the boys are referred to as "students." Of course they give details on the perp but they never specifically say a male committed said crime. If you look at any crimes women committ, the headline will read something like Woman castrates husband or Teen girls killing spree. When you remove the gender from something, it shows a negative assumption for that group of people--in this case males. So, if a gender is not mentioned, society has programmed us to assume that the perpatrator was a male. And who could blame us for such an assuption when the statistics for male crimes are out of this world. 90% of the child abuse in the US is by men, 95%-rape, 85%-murder..you get the picture.
Last year, in that Psychology of Gender class, my semester-long project focused on the genderization of children's toys. We came up with some similar data to this film (and no, we did not take anything from the film; in fact, we watched it after our presentation). A big thing we noticed was the use of color in genderized vs gender-neutral toys. I bet you can guess what color the girls' toys were. Most supposed gender neutral toys were the primary colors (just like the boys toys). Without reanalyzing the entire project, we came to the conclusion that gender neutral toys were actually boy toys that just happened to be acceptable for girls to play with too. How nice of them to let us into the club. The use of space was very interesting as well. Girls toys literally take up less space which is symboic of real life. Women are meant to be petite, submissive, all those things that are quite the opposite of big and intimidating. Look at male toys: the action figures are big and muscular and the racetrack/truck toys can literally take up the entire living room. When we use the projection of power and body intimidation in children's toys ages 5+, what do you expect? Its all about social learning, and when the games you play when you are a toddler suggest masculinity, of course it is going to influence how we look at masculinity later on in life. It makes it seem culturally natural to let boys play with guns and fight when they are kids. What makes us expect that they are just going to one day grow out of that and turn on their emotions?
Another huge issue this documentary highlights is the acceptance of women/homosexual haters. Personalities such as Rush Limbaugh and TV shows such as Family Guy only encourage the negative behavior. It makes these groups of people into the laughing stalk; it doesn't make light of a situation. It is even in the movies...and we laugh right along with all those snide remarks. Box offices are makin bank on the degradation of women or "the not normal male." Like in the movies, it occurs in real life too where one gains power and respect by disrespecting others. And how is any of this ok? How come there are more Limbaughs in the world than Jackson Katz? He makes such good points in this film, but who is his audience? I would assume the feminists and those who work for social justice have seen this, but it needs to reach the unattainable audience. The bad boys and the tough guys need to see this. I am not saying that it is not beneficial for anyone who cares about these issues to watch this, but it needs to break out of that circle and be exposed to those that need to change in order for social change to occur. Idealistic? Just a tad.
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