Man Up!
A kid falls on the ground off of the swing, his palms and knees are scraped up and have wood chips all over them. One of his friends laughs at the fall and so the injured kid just shrugs it off and continues to play. When someone says to "man up", it means that they are telling you to be tougher, to be less emotional. Men are generally considered tougher than women because through evolution, men have adapted to hunt while women adapted to nurture and gather. As a hunter, a man has to have a greater focus on his surroundings and not worry about emotions or harmless scratches that could distract him from catching his prey. His family relies on him to be tough, control his emotions, and stay focused. Even though our society is rapidly evolving in front of our eyes, we still use phrases like, "be a man" and "man up". With such a great movement towards gender equality, do phrases like this hold society back or are they just harmless sayings that do not affect how gender equality is perceived?
Sayings that promote the image of male toughness or dominance are ultimately slowing the movement to reach gender equality down. Whether someone is male or female, they are still human and should be treated equally. These sayings hold on to the outdated notion that women cannot be proficient in anything other than taking care of the home. Today, women compete in sports and have an important role in the current culture outside of their households.It is time for our society to drop these archaic sayings so we can continue to evolve and advance our society.
Ryan,
ReplyDeleteI just want to confirm that this is what you're looking at as far as the topic of your research paper. You weren't quite clear in that this is what it is you'll be writing about. Assuming that this is the topic that you'll be looking at, there are a wealth of resources out there as pertaining to what it means to be a man. One of my favorite blogs is called "The Art of Manliness", and it discusses what it means to be a "man" (more relating back the the ethics of honor, duty, courage and strength). You can find a reading list on there that include books discussing manhood and the history of what it means to be a man. Books such as "The Decline of Males", "Manliness", and "The Code of Man" might be of particular interest. I suspect that you'll find a lot of value from this website, not only from the articles, but from the sources that they site and the books they recommend to read.
http://theartofmanliness.com/
http://www.artofmanliness.com/2011/04/19/mens-reading-list/
No, this is not my research project topic. This is just my first blog post that finally was able to be uploaded (due to absences and technical issues). Thank you for the sources though, I will be sure to read through them.
Delete