Threats to Masculinity

Amy Yount

The two articles for this week (Domesticating Patriarchy: Hegemonic Masculinity and Television’s “Mr. Mom” and Boys Don’t Cry and Female Masculinity: Reclaiming a Life & Dismantling the Politics of Normative Heterosexuality) contained a common theme and that was the fact that men feel threatened by a lack of heteronormativity. In the first article, the stay at home fathers can almost be seen as a threat to masculinity because these “Mr. Moms” are not conforming to the typical gender norms of working hard and ‘bring home the bacon.’

Mr. Mom refers to “the inversion of traditional heterosexual family roles such that the husband stays a home to care for the children while his spouse is employed outside the home to earn the family’s income” (p. 355). However, this inversion of traditional gender norms represent a straying away from the ideal nuclear family where either both parents work outside the home, or the father works outside the home while the mother stays at home to rear the children. And even more interestingly, in order to explain away this “threat” the media explains this decision for the father to stay home as a “choice.” Even if the father was laid off from work and that is why he is staying home, it is still a choice, a decision. However, if it was the mother who was staying home with the children, these same types of explanations would not have to be offered. It would be a much more logical and common decision to come to.

In the second article, the boys who murdered Brandon Teena were threatened by Brandon’s new brand of masculinity. Brandon was sensitive, and shy, and “different” from other men. That is why women fell for him, because he could offer them something different. However, this was a complete and total threat to the men in that city. Brandon felt he had to conform to the traditional ideals of masculinity, such as being aggressive and tough. When he acted just like the other men, he was accepted, even admired. However, when he strayed away from the aggressive behaviors of the other men, his gender was called into question. Because how could a man possibly dare to not act like a “man?” When he stopped acting like the other men, more women began to notice him, especially Lana. And when Lana started to notice him, the other men became jealous, because Brandon was different, and was taking their women from them.

It wasn’t just the individuals in each of these stories who felt threatened by these challenges to traditional masculinity, but it was also the media who felt threatened. This can be seen in the portrayal of Michael Keeton’s character (in the movie, Mr. Mom) as a incapable, almost humorous fool trying to do the laundry and take care of the children. This is almost the media’s way of saying, “see, it’s not natural.” The media couldn’t possibly portray this gender norm inversion as anything other than awkward and abnormal. And even more obviously this can be seen in the coverage of the Brandon Teena case. As we saw last week in John Sloop’s book, Brandon was portrayed as sinister and deceitful, trying to fool the poor innocent Midwesterners. The media has to convince the public that these cases are not normal, and are a threat to traditional masculinity. Unfortunately, mainstream America might seem to still agree with this view, but hopefully that will change someday.