Tough Guise 2!

I really enjoyed watching this documentary, especially since it's one of the first of its kind that I've seen. I've seen a lot of documentaries referencing men who break out of the traditional ideas of masculinity, but this was the first documentary that I've seen that gave me solid evidence towards how dangerous these concepts can really be. The striking statistics about violence against women and the rate of likeliness of men to commit sexual and domestic violence as well as murder were especially appalling. I found it both beneficial and informative to see the amount of violence in media nowadays, especially with the male, masculine figures that are revered for being the "manly man" trope.

I liked how a lot of the concepts that Katz discusses in the documentary were also concepts we discussed when reading Dude, You're a Fag. I think it's important to note how all of the terms used to "emasculate" or weaken men are words that are inherently feminine. It's basically noting on a daily basis how being a woman is to be worse than a man, and those words that are frequently used as insults or slurs are made to paint men in a feminine light as to offend them. I never really realized that before taking this course that negative insults towards men usually have a feminine connotation, and I think the clear use of that in both of these works really opened my eyes to the problem with the way the world views women.

Like the discussion we had on Pascoe's book, I think a lot of this education about what masculinity means, and how often these traits can result in violence or an obsession with violence needs to happen in high school. I believe showing this documentary in schools would be an excellent way to demonstrate to young minds what it is that societal norms subject them to since birth.