David Gutierrez

Professor Beadle
English 115
10/28/16
Progression 2 Essay
When we talk about gender construction, we are talking about the socially constructed
way men and women have been categorized. Today we live in a world where we are identified
by clothing, mannerism, feminine or muscularity, parenting, gender roles and many more. As far
as Men in todays era, they have been portrayed and stereotyped as criminals and bad human
beings that are always up to no good. Men are looked at as people who always hold guns and
shoot at people. Since the beginning of time men have been always looked at as more masculine
and a leader than women and people have portrayed them to be aggressive or over powering.
And this has happen to be proven that men do commit these crimes. The poster for the film 2
guns reinforces negative stereotypes of violent aggressive men.
In the visual text you see two grown men holding guns and money everywhere and nice
jewelry and etc. First of all and more important we see these two men holding guns and one can
quickly make an assumption that they are aiming at someone because why else would they be
holding a gun. This picture is a movie cover for 2 guns. Its a film and its important to mention
too that the film industry decided to put too men as the front cover because they were being
stereotypical about what gender holds the gun. This ties back to the whole thing of men being
looked at as criminals as thats what they are portrayed to be. The guns in the picture represent a
powerful symbol of power and dominance that men have and a sense of fear towards men

because they are holding a lethal weapon that can end someones life and its dangerous. The
guns in the picture promote violence and murder because that is what guns ultimately do, is that
they kill people. So just the guns alone in the image is powerful as it sends a strong message that
men are out there killing people. According to the article Name the Problem: Male Violence
they state how males commit 91.3% of all homicides involving a gun... This statistic is
significant because the visual text properly pick the right gender in the picture as the men are
holding the guns and in real life men are typically the one holding the gun.
Another way that this image reinforces negative stereotype is by promoted exaggerated
masculinity. In the visual text we see two extremely fit men and look very strong and muscular.
And while it's true a lot of men look like these men in the visual text, but also a lot of men don't
look like that so the visual image is hyping up men to be very masculine and that's what the
image is also promoting. In the article
Now looking even deeper in the picture we also can see sense of violence in the movie.
Without one watching the movie, one can easily predict that this movie based on the cover photo
is about violence. And that whole violence act is always being looked at as men creating the
violence. The statistics dont lie as men have religiously been in the middle of violent acts and
are the ones committing the murder and they are mainly killing other men. According to Men
and mass murder: What gender tells us about Americas epidemic of gun violence, they mention
how Murder is an overwhelmingly male act, with the offender proving to be a man 90 percent of
the time the person's gender is known. When it comes to mass shootings, the gender disparity is
even greater, with something like 98 percent of them perpetrated by men. This statistic backs up
the fact that men do commit all these murders and act very violent.

In the picture we also that there is money flying around the two grown men. What the
money could represent in the picture is the power that the men have. Men are the ones that have
all the money and are the owners and CEOs of many major companies and branches of
government and all that power is associated with men because of their masculinity. The money in
this visual text can also represent the things that men chase and thats why they commit all these
violent crimes. They are paper chasing and would do anything that it takes. The money is very
symbolic because they are saying that if you're violent you get money. And the way they get the
money is usually through stealing and not worked for. And in the article by Judith Lorber Night
to His Day it mentions how Gender inequality- the devaluation of women and the social
domination of men has social functions and a social history. This here ties back to the whole
men being overpowering and they literally have it good and are the head of everything and in
charge of everything and overpower with their masculinity.
Now why does all this matter. The reason why it matters s because it reinforces the
stereotypes that men are the people who do all these violent acts not just in the visual text and
movies, but also in real life. One thing that we got to look into is that men are created different
than women and grew up being treated differently than how women grow up. This ties back to
parenting and how that has also been gendered according to sex. In the article by Renzetti and
Curran From Women, Men, and Society they mention how Research indicates that parents
tend to engage in rougher, more physical play with infant sons than with infant daughters. And
because of this fact that baby boys are treated more aggressively it only makes sense that these
young boys grow up to be what they are because of how they grew up being treated and they
dont know any better. So most likely the two men in the image probably grew up being treated
aggressively. Also young boys in today's era are influenced to later be violent because of the

video games that are out there in the market today. Games like Call of Duty and Gears of war
play a huge role in kids wanting to be violent as that's what the games are.
To counter argument the fact that men are violent is that men are actually doing good
things with their tactical physical skills. They are serving in the military and are sacrificing their
life for the country. If they werent at war who would be? Women? No, they wouldnt want that
so they need to in some way accept the fact men are born to be physical and a little violent at
times. Most men in fact nowadays have manners and respect women more than before. But even
then men can still be overly aggressive and too violent and that overwrites the positives about
men,
Men are portrayed as criminals and as people that need to be feared because of the
stereotypical picture that society has painted. Despite all the good actions and efforts that men
make towards other people they can still be viewed as criminals. This visual text does not help
the efforts to change this stereotype. In the other hand it makes it worse as the film industry is
promoting male aggression and that will only make the problem of stereotypes and gender
worse. Society can change their perspective of how they look at men. But at this rate that will not
happen as men continue to do things that stereotypes them and it is only their fault.