Gender roles and stereotypes affect us, as they are adopted early in life and shape who we are as individuals. They dictate how we should behave, how to dress, and what is considered appropriate, and desirable. This begins at birth, where infants are dressed in blue or pink to differentiate their gender. In early childhood, young girls and boys are even given different toys to play with, based on societal views of what masculinity and femininity is defined by. With slight variations across cultures, when thinking about gender roles, we tend to think about how they affect women. Women are generally categorized with qualities such as being sensitive, emotional, passive, motherly, delicate and most importantly, interdependent. These traits that are viewed as being uniquely characteristic of women affect what masculinity is defined by. As a group of four women, when we sat down to write about gender, we automatically assumed we’d be writing about women. However, as we delved further into the topic, we realized that gender does not only apply to females. There is a whole other side to the gender spectrum, and so we present “Gender: A Study of Man”.

In thinking about the other side of the spectrum, men’s gender roles are shaped by women, as men’s independent qualities stem from women being interdependent on them. Masculinity and what “makes a man” today is shaped by these gender roles set by society and by external forces whilst growing up. Society molds these gender roles by the way society treats women and the invisible standards that are created in which women are expected to behave by in order to be considered “normal” or fitting in with societal constructs. For example, in an article called “Who’s Cheap?” by Adair Lara, a San Francisco Chronicle columnist, she states, “As a woman, you are so genetically precious that you deserve attention just because you grace the planet. So, of course, he should buy you drinks. He should also drive the car, open the door, ask you to dance, coax you to bed. And then when you feel properly pampered, you can let out that little whine about he doesn’t treat you as an equal.” It is evident that masculinity is shaped by the way in which we, society, put women into a mold.

Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein further confirms this thesis. The women of the Frankenstein family enter through a contract of interdependence. When Caroline’s father dies she is married to Alphonse, likewise when Elizabeth’s father dies, she is adopted into the family with the intention of eventually marrying Victor. The women of the novel cannot take care of themselves, and must enter the care of another man. In turn, the men of Frankenstein take on the responsibility of these women’s safety. But when a potentially threatening female begins to end the story line as the creation’s mate, Frankenstein destroys her, because she would possibly have the murderous free will of the creation. Frankenstein’s societal instinct to protect overtakes him and he destroys the threatening being. Not only did the female creation break the mold of what women should be, but it prompted a violent reaction from Frankenstein’s own societal molding.

“Manhood and Music” delves into the topic of what makes a man and how one’s manhood is shaped by society. Using S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders as a backdrop, it explores masculinity by comparing the two gangs in the novel to Elvis and The Beatles, the two biggest pop culture influences of the era. This paper aims to prove that even within gender, there are subgroups, and Elvis and The Beatles represent two distinct types of men. Gender is not as clear-cut a topic as it appears to be. You are not simply male or female. Each of those labels implies a specific set of behaviors, beliefs, and values, as dictated by society.  As society and the world around us changes, the scope of gender changes as well.

“Cake for Breakfast: The Nontraditional Curtis Brothers” focuses on the juggling of gender roles that form a flexible gender identity. This close reading paper utilizing the Curtis brothers of S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders focuses on their household life. While the brothers are confident and capable in their traditional masculine roles of fighters, they are also capable of more feminine roles, such as keeping the household. The brothers’ unusual family situation prompts this adaption of gender roles for the sake of survival. The juggling and taking on of the various roles society has assigned to genders creates a fluid gender identity. This fluid identity reveals that gender roles are less rigid than the societal restrictions often associated with them.

“Fitting In: 25 Years to Life” brings to light how gender identity and the desire to fit in with ones peers influences adolescent Steve Harmon to carelessly associate himself the wrong people. This close reading paper focuses on Myers use of dialogue to illustrate Harmon’s innocence, and differentiate him from his peers, despite having similar demographics and being linked to the same crime.  The paper focuses on Harmon’s relationship with the males in his life, such as his father and friends who he wants to fit in with, linking masculinity as a motive for wanting to fit in and making the poor choices that lead him to face a possible conviction of 25 years to life. The scope of the paper is to focus the specific gender roles adapted by adolescents in 1990’s black Harlem and how that shapes them as young adults.

“Self-Identity: The Highest of All Freedoms” focuses on gender expectations and gender performance in this close reading paper of Gene Luen Yang’s American Born Chinese. Lai-Tsao says the Monkey King had to find his “true form” and “true identity” to be free; Arielle Lana LeJarde analyzes what this means for us in modern day America. LeJarde looks at the issue of learning a gender role based on your biological sex that does not necessarily correlate to the correct gender. She explores the difficulties when self-acceptance and societal-acceptance do not match and how gender roles, as a social construct, should not dictate your unalienable rights and abilities.

Gender is a spectrum full of roles, identities, and stereotypes. While we originally believed our focus would regard women, we realized the male side of the spectrum has to contend with their own gender roles, identities and stereotypes. Women shape male’s gender roles; the independence society expects from men stems from the expected interdependency of women. But gender identity is not clear-cut, as is described in our four essays. In “Manhood and Music,” music preference can create subgroups of men, and represents the ever-changing societal pressures. In “Cake for Breakfast: The Nontraditional Curtis Brothers,” gender identity becomes fluid with the juggling and adaption of both traditional masculine and feminine gender roles. In “Fitting In: 25 to Life,” gender plays into the human impulse of wanting acceptance, and also the consequences of such an impulse. In “Self-Identity: The Highest of All Freedoms,” the difference of sex and gender create a difficult path to self- and societal-acceptance. Additional materials build on both sides of the gender spectrum for a fuller understanding.