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Sarah Robins

Professor Granillo

English 103

7 November 2018

Side Effects of Forced Masculinity

For some individuals, feminist theory is foreign, and just by the name of this theory a

person can assume it is all about women, but that’s not true. Feminist theory reveals oppression

not only set on women but also men, along with an idea that masculinity is toxic to our society.

Men are portrayed in this society as having to be masculine with lack of emotions, while women

are portrayed as the opposite, exhibiting sensitivity with nurturing characteristics. In a typical

household structure of a family, men are the breadwinners and women are supposed to take that

bread and make turn it into a meal, along with cleaning and taking care of the family. Men and

women have always been bound to this traditional role that has led to the feminist movement

which challenges the stereotypes of men our society has once accepted by looking at different

factors; traditional gender roles, gender studies, and breaking free beyond patriarchy to reveal

how a sexist society has also affected men. In the song “Drugs,” by EDEN from the album I

think you think too much of me, shows how our society has implanted that men have to present a

strong masculine appearance that leads them into believing that expressing any sensitivity is

wrong, this then directs men to be emotionally distraught choosing irrational decisions that's

harmful to them and their loved ones.

In the music video of “Drugs,” by EDEN, a husband and a wife appear to be very happy

and in love in the first flashback. In the second scene, it shows him walking across town with

obvious signs of withdrawal and something weighing deep on him. As the video goes on it
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continues to show him wandering experiencing vivid flashbacks across town until he finally

shows up at a rundown apartment building where he then buys what we assumed are drugs. After

he leaves the building with the drugs, he walks to his own apartment where is wife lays in critical

condition. She has lost all of her hair and is hooked up to dozens of tubes that are connected to

multiple machines. She is most likely in the final stage of this a terminal illness and has chosen

to pass in her home where she would be most comfortable. Her husband loses it for a brief

moment before he walks through the door. Shortly before he enters he pulls himself back

together, and clears his face of any sadness in my opinion correlating with how masculinity is

portrayed in males. For a man to show any type of sensitive emotion, let alone see a male cry in

front of any person has been pronounced unacceptable by an anachronism society.

It is a somewhat rare occasion to see child of different sexes, being raised the same way.

If a little girl falls, usually a person would comfort her when she cries but when a little boy falls,

usually we tell him it’s nothing to cry about and for him to get back up. This is letting the

stereotype of men needing to be masculine or else they are weak protectors for women. We see

through in the music video that his wife is sick so this man has to be the strong. He is hurting

emotionally but his wife is hurting more so putting in a smile when he sees her helping her

(5:02). Raising our sons to be able to put emotions aside helps him when make hard decisions,

and it always protect them when crisis hit close to home. With women’s biologically being more

nurturing and men’s biologically being more muscular, it is a design for men to protect his

family, even though times have changed and we do not live in a world where men have to

physically protect women all the time. Men are like the columns in the household and to have a

house that last a long time, you need these columns to be strong for a house to be ready to

encounter anything. For masculinity can sometimes be a good thing in crisis, Michael Flood’s
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article, “Will Toxic Masculinity lead to Men's liberation?” he discussed some effects of toxic

masculinity, “In Narrow and stereotypical norms of masculinity constrain men’s physical and

emotional health, their relations with women, their parenting of children, and their relations with

other men.” This means if masculinity is bestowed heavily in men’s lives then the effects is

negativity impacted not only to them but with the people they surround themselves with.

With the feminist theory, the gender role for men is to not express their true feelings

because from birth they are taught that showing their more sensitive emotions is weak. These

men are taught what emotions are appropriate to their gender, determined by the prevailing

cultural norms. Lyrics in this song that are a good example of this toxic masculinity are, “I'll

never let you know. No, I can't tell you nothing,” (1:49) this correlated with the video because he

is supposed to be the strong one in the relationship because he is not sick and dying, his wife is.

He feels he must turn to drugs and is unable to tell her how he feels because what she is going

through is way worse than what he perceives he is going through. Along with repeating lyrics

throughout the song, “ ‘cause I'm a fucking mess sometimes but still I could always be whatever

you wanted but not what you needed,” (1:52), meaning he is not handling the ordeal well and

instead of expressing what he is going through he has decided to turn to drugs to numb his

emotions. She still wants him by her side but he can not mentally be there for her because his

own emotions are crippling at his existence. They were happy before she got sick so of course

she wanted him but now that she is sick he feels that he is not strong enough and she needs

someone who is but he refuses tell her anything that would hurt her more. His turns to drugs to

help cope with the mask the memories, pain, and emotions. In our current society, we don't have

a balance between women's and men's emotions or anything for that matter. He would be in a

much better mind state if it felt like it was okay to express and talk about his feelings. The way
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our society has shaped gender roles has oppressed not only women but men with showing a more

sensitive side of their personality.

Gender identities are not as simple as the words male and female but how a person

represents themselves. Gender study is an interdisciplinary study devoted to gender identity and

gendered defined in Lois Tyson in Critical theory today. In American culture, there has always

catered to the idea of girls get a pink doll and as a boy, he gets a blue truck. This supports the

standards for gender roles that leads to one sex being superior. Our society is feeding into gender

roles with standards set at birth, theorist Simone de Beauvoir, writes in her book Second Sex,

“The division of the sexes is a biological given, not a movement in human history” (9). This

means instead of the personality of a man being a deciding factor, the moment child is born with

the sex being male then he must take on the traits that match his sex. Most of society raises their

boys with gender stereotypes instead of letting the him decide what he wants and a majority of

parents continue to feed into traditions of the proper ways to raise boys. Different people feel

pain at different levels and should be able to express it regardless of being a male or female, but

in this case the male in the video keeps it to himself and turns to drugs to cope. As a man, he

feels he’s supposed to be strong and numb the pain, which in turns translates to that males are

not supposed to cry or show any emotion even to his wife, which contributes to a patriarchal

system.

Breaking free from patriarchy and masculinity which views characteristics of females

that are supposed to have like motherhood instincts, passivity, and nurture to be considered weak

and males being the opposite to women making them superior. Ann C. McGinley and Frank

Rudy Cooper discussed in, “Masculinities studies and multidimensional Masculinities.” on how

feminist theory shaped the theory of masculinity which posited the patriarchal systems that
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allows males to utilization power over women because of the damaging effects of forced

masculinity. In the song, she says that he is not himself when he goes down the path with drugs

but that’s what he wants, “You say, ‘You ain't you when you're like this, This ain't you and you

know it,’ But ain't that just the point?” (1:18). He doesn't know how to handle life without the

drugs, and the song explains the different routes he could take but it’s just the chemicals. It’s the

drugs affecting his chemical balance to try and help him forget and feel numb but when he

comes down, flashbacks overwhelm him so he continues to get high. His wife knows he using

drugs because he can’t handle seeing her in her worst state and slowly dying. He wants to be able

to get beyond patriarchy to better be able to express his emotions but since he can not do that, he

went down a dark path. Patriarchy has always been enforced straight from birth but leads men to

be raised to believe that they need to be emotionally strong, making them also believe that being

empathetic is unfeasible. If patriarchy did not exist and somehow men and women were seen as

equal especiality with showing their emotional, then the route this man took in the song would

probably not have been drugs because he would have never bottled his emotions in the first

place.

Men have almost always supposed to be masculine figures which are harmful to our

society because it is leading men to take extreme measures to suppress their emotions. As

illustrated in in the music video, “Drugs” by EDEN, from the album, I think you think too much

of me, we glimpse into one of the many possible scenarios of how suppressed emotions can steer

a person to irrational measures by using a feminist lens with the use of traditional gender roles,

gender studies, and trying to get beyond patriarchy with harmful effects masculinity to gaze at

the inequality between sexes. Feminist and masculinity are very much intertwined with

balancing on one another because as a society females have always been seen as lesser than men
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instead of equal, with men in the past having full control but not with emotions. Changing what

was considered a norm starts with awareness of of the inequality of both males and females.

Work Cited

Beauvoir, Simone de. The Second Sex. Paris Translation copyright, 1949, Pg. 4.

EDEN. “Drugs.” Youtube, 18 August 2016.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjZ75qI5BOk
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Flood, Michael. “Will Toxic Masculinity lead to Men's liberation?” Voice Male. Fall 2018, Vol.

22 Issue 75, p14-17. 4p. EBSCOhost Academic, Database. Pg

McGinley, Ann C. and Cooper, Frank Rudy. “Masculinities studies and multidimensional

Masculinities.” Nevada Law Journal Winter, Nevada Law Journal, 2013. LexisNexis

Academic, Database. Pg 1-2.

Tyson, Lois. Critical Theory Today. Third Edition, Routledge, 2015, Pg. 79-128.

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