Masculinity challenged in suburbia

Résumé du document

As we said in class when we talked about Suburban Men, gender is something performed and performances are constructed throughout the things you do. For its part, masculinity means: the trait of behaving in ways considered typical for men (word reference online dictionary). Masculinity changed a lot over time due to different circumstances which include political, social and cultural changes. Actually men's behavior and lifestyle were influenced a lot by suburbia. Masculinity was challenged and it had to conform to the new way of life in suburbs. True, men were always seen as the breadwinner for their family. Indeed, fatherhood is a fundamental thing that helps people to understand masculinity in suburbia, because men gave sense to their lives by attaching notions like respectability, obligation, and responsibility to masculine identity .(Bret E. Carroll writer of American masculinities, a historical encyclopedia).

Extraits

[...] Therefore, men realized that they were under pressure they had to conform a gender stereotype, men who bring money to home and satisfy their wives and support their family were seen as masculine whereas men who did not have a wife and children and even a house were rather seen as not "normal" or even homosexual. Moreover, men did not go shopping it was seen as a feminine activity and as heterosexual person it was just not possible. So, in this way, suburbia challenged men's sexuality, and virility. Margaret Marsh quoted Martha and Robert Bruére in Suburban men and masculine domesticity: "The home is man's affair as much as woman's". Besides, in this suburban context, the definition of manliness had to do with the one of fatherhood. Indeed, according to Bret E. [...]

[...] Actually, men were challenged in suburbia because, as we said in class, women started to act like men, indeed they started to work and as far as it is known, work is a masculine thing and as Margaret Marsh explained in Reading the Suburb, it was disturbing for men acting like women and doing everything for home because this idea of a breadwinning father and a homemaking mother was central in the "old" suburbia, so it was uncommon for that time and difficult to accept for some. Philip Wylie criticized violently the ideal breadwinner accusing women of what he thinks it was a decline of masculinity, he qualifies the phenomenon by womenization American suburbs. It means that to him, manhood was feminized because women took men's place in some works and vice-versa. [...]

[...] Then, the article Consuming The Frontier Illusion: The Construction of Suburban masculinity by Moreno Michael P. can be used to explain that the American male can be called the patriotic consumer living in the suburbs However, what deserves to be pointed out as it is explained in the encyclopedia is that the link between fatherhood and breadwinning served as a pretext for men to have the "monopoly in desirable job while women are consigning to domestic obligations". Actually, suburbia can be seen as an ideal which empowered men in the business world, indeed, in From Separation to Togetherness, the Social Construction of Domestic Space in American Suburbs it is explained that men were seeking for good job opportunities and still in Carroll's encyclopedia it is clearly told that men cultivated external appearance (whence this increasing consumption in fashion in the 21st century) and practiced teamworks in order to achieve success in their professional life. [...]

[...] They also argue that suburbia is trying to preserve social homogeneity and masculine authority. They mean that masculinity was not influenced by suburbanization when they wrote that suburbs have not changed very much since the days of Father knows Best or Leave it to Beaver, those TV shows portrayed an idealized vision of suburban men in the 1950's which is still existing according to Shape and Wallock. Besides, as it is arguing in Playboys in Paradise by Osgerby, men's role always dealt with work whereas women were the ones who went shopping for the home and the whole family. [...]

[...] Carroll writer of American masculinities a historical encyclopedia). Later, men would start to worry about their own virility and manliness when the new suburban ideal was to include men in domesticity in order to reshape the suburban family togetherness (Suburban men and masculine domesticity, a Margaret Marsh article). Besides, in the suburbia of the 21st century, masculinity means being a "team player", it required men to have winning manners and cultivate a willing of big salaries, expensive clothes, etc. In the same way, men started to consume for themselves and to work in order to fulfill their own pleasure. [...]