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The penis as a badge
by Justin Ludwig
the Carillon
Disrupting the Male Stereotype
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Welcome to Man-World. We are everywhere. When you turn your head in the grocery store, we’ll be there, with plastic tits on the cover of our magazine that promotes a lifestyle of uninhibited, round-the-clock manliness. We’re beer-swilling, babe-shagging, rugged and virile. It’s a man’s world, baby, and there is no way out.
Or is there? The issue of gender is a stark and uneven battlefield. Throughout history, as women have struggled for equality, they have dealt with radical progression while at the same time coped with being bound to a specific image, cemented into pop culture by Barbie dolls and jeans commercials. It has only been recently, however, in our culture of over-saturated lifestyle-ism, where every thread of our existence has its own magazine and TV channel, that masculinity has seen similar scrutiny and exhibition.
Spike TV and Maxim magazine construct a rather concrete and near-sighted image of what it means to be a man, preoccupied with sports, pretty girls, beer and action movies. Finally the Ken doll has manifested itself into a standard physical and cultural model, with specific attributes that define his maleness. There is an emphasis on under-achievement, carnivorous eating patterns, the notion of brotherhood and the tendency toward brainless fun. But why does there seem to be monumentally less pressure on men to fit into this role? I believe it is because the standard we are expected to live up to is more of a post-modern satire than a universally unachievable goal.
I won’t lie, I am disillusioned with the over-saturation of the market of masculinity. I’m not particularly interested in the air-brushed teaser pics that grace Maxim covers (or the legions of imitators), nor am I eager to use any of their lame sex tips. I enjoy baking cookies on Sunday afternoons and wouldn’t have the slightest clue how to find a carburetor under the hood of a car. I only pay attention to the outcome of sporting events in case I have to make small talk with a bus driver. My friends and I wouldn’t be caught dead in a gym, but our less-than-adequate physiques are a non-issue. Despite my alleged shortcomings, I feel like no less of a man.
It seems as though it is becoming easier to break free from the male cliché at the same time that pop culture is more determined than ever to define, market and exploit it. Why? Because the male cliché was defined by men. As a result there are pieces of the satire that ring true in every man, despite their reduction to a dumb, loud stereotype. It’s like the Canadian stereotype: we are all able to laugh at the image of French hockey-playing lumberjacks, because it is an assimilation of an entire history of cultural imagery but it is not an offensive or overtly inaccurate image, merely simplistic. The problem with the female cliché is that it was also defined by men, so it is more of a masturbatory fantasy than a generalization based on moderately accurate cultural motifs.
But where will it stop? Will lifestyle-ism break the stereotype down even further? Will we see the Man-market divided even further into sub-categories, so eventually The Date Rapist’s Journal or Closet Homosexual Monthly will appear alongside Maxim? How about Skinny, chain-smoking, tattooed, lazy punk who spends all day playing music, writing, and getting drunk digest? I’d buy that.
See, we could go too far. Or we could just forget all these labels, disregard all the money that’s being made perpetuating the stereotype, and embrace our individuality and our gender.
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