Issues of Gender, Essay Example

In her essay about the way the gender discourse is shaping nuclear and national security discourse, Carol Cohn notes that “as gender discourse assigns gender to human characteristics, we can think of the discourse as something we are positioned by…” (230). It is truly so in the modern times marked by the conventional representation of the world and all activities, events, subjects etc. from the dually opposed perspective of masculinity and femininity. There are certain stereotypical ideals which not all people necessarily fit, but which govern the human understanding of what a man and a woman should act and speak like. As Cohn marks, the humanity is applying the gender-based symbolic system that organizes the world in gender-associated opposites (229). It is the choice of men and women to conform to the stereotype or to break it, but all activities are still marked by a certain attitude to the system, deriving judgment about the propriety of words and behaviors from it.

A good example of how certain non-typical behaviors of men may be considered as a deviation from the norm: it is the case of a physicist who felt embarrassed because of understanding the scale of deaths and violence in a military conflict (Cohn 230-231). It is clear from the account of Cohn that the masculine behavior in these terms presupposes dry attitude to calculations and leaving out emotions and personal considerations from the military account. Being emotional and mixing the personal attitudes and opinions with professional activity is traditionally considered the choice of women, hence the behavior of a physicist in these terms seems feminine, though the individual has not marked any predisposition to resembling a female in any other way.

However, as Cohn (230) also notes, there is a possibility of human beings not only to be positioned by the gender discourse, but also to take some specific positions within it. As one may understand, the discourse is also heterogeneous and varied, so the human beings are able to reject some norms of their gender and move to the marginal expression of themselves or even choose the opposite sex’s traditional set of attitudes and behaviors. An example of such shift is clearly illustrated by the ability of women ‘to speak like a man’ (Cohn 230). It is possible to achieve in case a woman realizes what makes her argumentation feminine, to understand the masculine patterns of behavior, and to adopt them in her appeal and expression.

Deriving some conclusions on the gender shifts at the representational level (not necessarily in reality) is the way Bordo discusses the possibility of women’s harassment of men. The argumentation Bordo applies refers directly to the power relationships that have been traditionally emphasized as the privilege of men. However, harassment is the notion of pure power than nowadays can be exercised by both men and women, depending on their hierarchical position. Therefore, it is fully possible for a man to experience harassment, which will not look feminine but will only contain the women’s power drives and acts of humiliation and innerving commonly associated with harassment (Bordo 142).

Bordo speaks much about the reflection of harassment as a gender-biased concept in mass media sources. However, the author further continues to define representation versus reality, dealing with the evolution of masculinity in mass media allowing to deviate from the conventional norms of power relationships and roles of men as aggressive and powerful agents, and women as the objects of spectacle and passive agents in power relationships. The author states that the modern representation of men is highly feminine, thus differing from the previously adopted code of gender specificity. Some examples she gives are from the advertisements that appeared only a couple of decades ago and made men the objects of spectacle equally with women. The hypothesis of the traditional illustration of men in mass media as doers, not regarding the way they look, was ruined by the modern narcissi and feminine representation of men who worry how they look (Bordo 154). It is denoted as the gender reversal in the representation of men’s bodies, putting women on the place of spectators and making men spectacles (Bordo 151).

The hypothesis of Bordo can be proven with the analysis of two advertisements accessible through mass media in the modern times. The first image of a man is the one of the shop Faconnable – the man in an elegant suit is seated in the old-fashioned antique chair, posed against the wall with decorations of the 18^th century and near the classical painting. He carries gloves and sits with his legs crossed, which is naturally a women’s posture. Old books are piled picturesquely next to the man, and the whole image produces an impression of a rich man with a wonderful taste, having reading, antiquity and art as his deluxe hobbies. The image is itself made in the artificially old style, returning the spectator to the last century, the time of luxury and style. The image works definitely for the establishment of the different ‘ideology of masculinity’ because a man is represented as a spectacle, and he is not masculine in the traditional sense – he is tender and soft, narcissic and content with his looks.

One more advertisement has been made for the men’s shop Phat Premium. It represents a somewhat different picture compared to the first advertisement, which may be seen from the elegant black-and-white format of the picture, the man with dark skin (which is non-traditional, with advertisements commonly using the mainstream white men’s images). Secondly, the man at the advertisement has a large scar on his face, which makes him truly masculine and not only glamorous and elegant. These elements make the advertisement more similar to the conventional image of masculinity existing worldwide.

Hence, as one can see, the modern perceptions of masculinity and femininity are highly different from those the humanity used to have even several decades ago. The issues of gender reversal in representation and universality of access to power shape the modern shift. The perceptions are also affected by the underling principles of culture, religion and human experience, making the behaviors, attitudes and words labeled, compared and contrasted on the basis of gender issues.

Works Cited

Bordo, Susan. Can a Women Harass a Man? In Twilight zones: the hidden life of cultural images from Plato to O.J. Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1997. pp. 139-173.

Cohn, Carol. “Wars, Wimps, and Women: Talking Gender and Thinking War”. In Miriam Cooke and Angela Woollacott (Eds.). Gendering the War Talk. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993. pp. 225-246.