Masculinities

This week in lecture we focused on Connell's Masculinities. After reading the book, I was still unclear on all the topics Connell mentioned, however, we were able to extrapolate the essential information from the first part of the book in lecture. We focused a lot of the physical appearance of a man, and what that means to be masculine. As long as the man is not "trying" to be masculine, he therefore is masculine. Many times, the topic of puppies being an accessory for men to pick up women was brought up in class. I found this interesting, because though men need to appeal to their feminine side to pick up a puppy, the fact that they are "picking up women" creates the entire event to be masculine.

We watched Pumping Iron clips in lecture. I found it really interesting how similar the body building comepetitions are to Miss America, or Miss World pagents. In both cases, the contestants are showing off their masculinity or femininity through their physical body. However, one big difference is that the audience for both contests happen to be men. In the Miss America pagents, men are showing their sexual power, rather than in the body building competition, which is more related to admiring hegemonic masculinity.