Alan Duncan

Being Brought up as a Man

From Boyhood to Manhood
Let me tell you a story about a boy who is soon to become a
man. He has always been happy and good to everyone, yet he is approaching his teens
and is getting close to when young boys are expected to achieve manhood. So he has
been expected to start getting tough, never cry, be a man. This has been forced onto him
over his recent teenage years, and he is breaking. He is no longer this happy and kind boy
that was everyone once knew, He has become the man that society wanted him to be, but
is he happy? What does it mean to be a man? Why are boys told to be strong and manly
from the start? I have been expected to be strong and tall when I grow up, and I have fit
into that, but I still ask myself these questions whenever the thought of gender roles
comes in. To be a man means to be powerful, it means to get the girl, and be the man of
the house. When someone sees a tall, buff man, they will probably more likely than not
assume that he is a tough guy who means strictly business. This could very well be true,
but because of how we have been socialized into assuming such things, we may not
consider that he may identify as a woman, be gay, or have another orientation that isnt
known as manly. How does teaching our children this with each and every generation
damage our society? Negative gender socialization ripples through American society in
many ways, and this is an example of the surging through young boys with the endless
socialization to give them their place in society as men.
Being a man means to be rugged, strong, and able to get women.
Ever since I was very young, I have been socialized into the gender role of being a man.
While I have fit into this role and continue to follow such standards happily, and I have
reflected on the matter about how other boys have been turned into men and if they are
truly happy. Some men may not be attracted to girls, or they may even identify as a
woman, but have been put into this male role because of the sex that they were born with.
Young boys may not know whom they are interested in until they reach an older age,
which by then they are socialized into their role more heavily than ever. If this boy
realizes that they are actually interested in other men rather than women or even decides
that he wants to identify as a woman, anyone and everyone may cast them out because
this boy broke the norms that those people follow. This includes classmates, family,
friends, and any person they meet who learns about their orientation. Because of the way
that this young boy found out he would lead his life, many people may not even consider
them a human at that point. Their friends and family may still include them, but too many
people abhor such thoughts of a man deciding hes a woman or not interested in women,
so this will cause consequences such as bullying and death threats by others. The
consequences of having male genitalia but not quite fitting into the role of manliness are
extremely bad, as this boy has been turned into an outcast by our society. An exact
example of this happened late last year when a boy named Ronin Coleman committed

suicide at the age of 12 due to bullying. He loved cheerleading, but because of how odd it
is to most people to see a boy in such an activity, he was relentlessly bullied by his
classmates for being, as they saw him, being gay. This finally got to the point where he
decided to commit suicide so he could escape the torture. There are ripples gong through
our societys youth that are made of endless bullying and exclusion that cause depression,
suicide, and hate among our children that never ends, and it has no end in sight.
Most young boys today are told, Man up. Dont be a sissy. Dont cry.
Talk like a man. Act like a man. Be a man. There was a study that took place at Stony
Brook University earlier this year that talked about what it means to be a man. Dr.
Kimmel, a professor at the university, has a program which studies masculinity that,
Would look at the effects of race and sexuality on masculine identity and the influence
of the media and pop culture. The article primarily speaks of the introduction to this
study and shows how students reacted to the question, What does it mean to be a real
man? Their answers werent all too surprising, considering how men are often viewed in
a stereotypical light. The responses included: It means to be suppressing of any kind of
weakness I think for me being a real man meant talk like a man. Walk like a man.
Never cry. Take risks All of these students answered this question genuinely, and that
says something about what both women and men think of manliness.1 While, of course,
not everyone is going to answer the question quite like this, most people will generally
tell these things to their children and say this to those who may ask a similar question. We
need to stop teaching our future generations to hold boys to this standard and allow them
to hold themselves to their own standards, and the Mask Project has allowed us to bring
these problems into perspective and do something about it.
The Mask Project exists so that we can voice something about being
socialized and learn what it means to be socialized into a certain role. For example, we
can push back on negative socialization such as assuming a white girl finds many foods
too spicy or a black man being seen as intimidating and untrustworthy. The masks made
during this project show what being socialized as a certain gender, race, class, nationality,
and other topics means to the artists. My mask shows my perspective on what it means to
be put into the male gender role. On my mask, you can see some spots on it that reflect
on specific examples of manliness and unmanliness. The cracks represent the breaking
that can be caused by being forced into, but not fitting into, manhood. The demonic red
eye and normal blue eye shows how changing from a boy to a man can change this boy
depending when they are brought into manhood, thus affecting who they become: The
boy is optimistic, happy, and perhaps doesnt fit into the manly roles. But then he is
turned into a man, and is ultimately being killed from the inside by fear, as he simply
cannot find it in himself to fit into manliness. The tear reflects on how the boy turned into
a man is depressed from how they have been broken down on the inside to be the man
everyone wants him to be. Whenever any guy who finds himself in a situation involving
1 http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/09/10/what-does-it-mean-to-be-a-real-man/?
_r=0

his own identity, they are either accepted into society or treated terribly depending on
how they turn out. To be a man, one has to follow the norms of manhood and never break
from them, or you will be part of a counterculture for the male sex. I personally believe
that this shouldnt be the case, yet the cycle has proven to be endless. If you do not follow
the normal life of a man, you are sanctioned, cast out, and utterly abhorred by society. If
we are to build a better society, we must raise our children to decide who they want to be
independently, whether it is gender identity or attraction to the same or another sex.