Gender identity

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Gender identity is and always will be difficult to define, especially with all the contemporary and modernized changes in society. It is almost impossible to identify a certain gender in a category anymore. With the influence of the mass media and certain people's set essentialist ideologies of gender norms, it is a fine line as to what the role of a man and woman is today. The media is a major if not catastrophic impact on societies beliefs, the media has the ability to manipulate and twist things to make them believable and acceptable to their viewers. Certain types of media like TV have a bigger influence on people, but others like newspapers and magazines are considered reassurances of what TV portrays. In specific regarding gender identity roles, is the role of men in media and how it is portrayed. Since the beginning of time men have always been considered the dominant gender, that thrive on there masculinity. And to define masculinity is to define what a man is. If you were to attack a man's masculinity you would be taking away his sole purpose identity. With reference to the media men have always been portrayed as the tough, overpowering, masculine, in charge type person. With the media portraying men in this way it has lead to societies beliefs that men are exactly this, thus making it extremely difficult to change their perspective of male identity roles. Now that we have an idea of what has been portrayed in the past I will be looking at how magazine media portrays men. I will be looking specifically at the men's magazine genre, this way I will be able get a perspective of what men thank and perceive of other men as well as society as a whole.

The whole idea of masculinity is directly correlated with how the roles of men and their identities are perceived in society. As I said earlier, men used to be considered the generic authoritative and powerful leaders of society. They were the care free, unemotional journeymen that were in control of society. Since the feminist move there has been a significant change in these roles, which has directly affected the identity of male masculinity and what it has become. The main elements that are associated to this shift in male masculinity roles are firstly, the structural changes in society, and the process of racial and gender equality. From an article done by a brazilian author name Marko Monteiro, he states that these changes in masculinity roles of men are correlated through three main elements they are "Economic modernization, that brought increasing numbers of women and races to the labour market and to professional fields that until then were white male-dominated. Secondly, was the so-called wave of feminism that exploded world-wide, that questioned patriarchy and traditional male roles by questioning the inferior position of women in society; this amounts to the construction of a feminist discourse and a feminist subject position consequences. Third, the explosion of gay power movements also world-wide, that questioned patriarchy and compulsory heterosexuality, thus also questioning traditional male identity and creating a new subject position, the gay subject" (Monteiro, Marko Him/Her discourses of masculinity in a Brazilian magazine, 16-17, www.artnet.com.br/~marko/him.html, with socio-cultural).

From reading the works of Norman Fairclough, on Discourse and social change, and Marko Monteiro's article on discourses of masculinity, I believe the change of masculinity, is a result of cultural and historical changes in the roots of society. Furthermore, from this shift of masculinity in society, it has launched the mass media to portray a new and modern male masculinity role in popular culture. With regards to Magazine media's portrayal of masculinity in males, which I spoke of earlier, they have a profound influence on people's ideologies in popular media culture. Magazines have been a form of entertainment and reading for years, since they have come into popular culture. There are many different genre's of magazines, but the one's I am going to be looking at are magazines that are geared towards men, and specifically image and representation issues in society. There may not be as many magazines that are directed towards the male audience as there is the female audience, but there is still enough out there to critique with. Certain male magazines of the past have portrayed men as strong, tough, rugged, care- free, and athletic. They show men to be more concerned with what they have rather than what they are. Even in advertisements like Marlboro, they show this big, rough looking tough guy on a horse, who doesn't care how he looks but rather with what he's doing. The Marlboro man is a good example of how magazine ads portrayed men as a tough masculine man's man. This idea ties into the spectrum of hegemony, as it represents the beliefs of society, where this is the dominant ideology of society as to male roles in popular media culture. With all the different types of magazine's available these days male identity can range from a hard core male to a softer more emotional male.

But to understand the bases of how men interpret or perceive what is being portrayed to them you have to look into the issue of identity theory. In this theory derived by Anthony J. Vigorito in his thesis paper says "that the perspective of symbolic interactionalism, states that it is through interaction that shared meanings are constructed. Individuals act toward reality on the basis of the meanings they give to it, meanings which are constantly modified in social interaction. For example, meanings of terms like 'male' must be found in the meanings persons bring to this category of experience. The central object to be negotiated in interaction is identity, one's perceived social location in reference to others. Individuals use others and the media as sources of information and tactics to maintain identities, and as source s of validation for existing identities. As Mills Horowitz observed, the mass media has become the lens of man-kind through which men see; the medium by which they interpret and report what they see. It is the semi organized source of their very identities. From this, the individual develops a role-identity, "an imaginative view of himself as he likes to think of himself being and acting in a given social position, emphasis original). Hence, men may aspire to hegemonic models of masculinity while rarely attaining the culturally idealized form of maleness" (Vigorito, Anthony J; Curry, Timothy J. Marketing Masculinity Gender Identity and Popular Magazines. July 18, pp. 15-15)

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This past couple paragraphs from the journal article Marketing Masculinity Gender Identity and Popular Magazines by Anthony J. Vigorito and Timothy J. Curry, The Ohio State University, shows how the media can play a huge role in manipulating male audiences of magazines to believe that they are a certain type of person rather than themselves, this ties in with the perspective of gender identity crisis among males in society. gender identity for men traditionally has been associated with the competitive rationality of work rather than the intimate emotionality of family. Masculine gender identity has been tied to family only in terms of how well a man provides for his family. As I said before men are more consumed with material things than emotional things. But this "good-provide role is in decline, because of the increasing participation of women in the labour force. Thus men are now becoming more nurturing and tied to family and household responsibilities.

So to get a better understanding of the influence of media depictions of masculinity on males (specifically magazines) you need to specify how the variables of class, age, sex, and marital status of the target audience are related to gender portrayals. There are two basic variables. The

first dependent variable "percentage of men depicted in occupational roles"

is taken to be an indicator of hegemonic masculinity. The second dependent

variable , "percentage of men depicted in parent or spouse /partner

roles" is taken to be an approximate indicator of a non-hegemonic form

of masculinity. From examining a few issues of Men's Health, as well as many other men's magazine's that I have ever read, I have realized that there is still more of a portrayal of men depicted in occupational roles. A good contrast to this is that men's Health has the diversity to show the softer and more nurturing male. A lot of articles in Men's health are on topics like, getting in shape, healthy foods to eat, and there are more advertisements geared towards fashion and design for men. This is the opposite of what used to be portrayed.

Now you have to look at what the intended target audience of this magazine is, as well as who the target audience actually is. This magazine 'Men's Health" is targeted towards the heterosexual male, but surprisingly more than half the audience of this magazine and a lot of men's magazines is the homosexual male. A lot of the ads that are in this magazine are of half naked athletic men, so it is no surprise to me that the homosexual male is intrigues by this magazine. But in the same respect, the target audience is obviously for heterosexual, because all the articles and writings are geared towards men interacting with women. For example in the March, 00 issue of Men's Health that I looked at, there was an article called " secret sex spots". This article was a guide for men to find areas of desire on women to help them sexually. This is obviously geared for the heterosexual male. Even with all these underlying tones of a heterosexual target audience for this magazine, the audience is split. This goes to show you how the identity of males in society is not necessarily represented in media texts, such as a men's health magazine.

Another study done by Deana Rohlinger called Eroticizing Men Cultural Influences on Advertising and Male Objectification, shows how the changing American values have influenced advertiser practices as they relate to sexualized images of men in mainstream media. Men have become more of an object in advertising as a result of the cultural factors such as the gay liberation movement in the 160's, and the gender identity crisis as of recent. Some advertisers note that sexualized images of men are on the rise in terms of economics. In a post-industrial era, advertisers seek to find new markets. As such, erotic images of men are designed to appeal to liberated women as well as the new male homosexual consumer (Rohlinger, Deana A, February 00, pp. 61-74) This is evident in the apparent up-rise of male figures that are used in ads these days, for example in women's magazine's like Cosmo, they have ads that portray men as sexual objects rather than an actual person. I fell that the shift in The role of men in advertising plays a very important role in the reformatting of male masculinity, because it puts the male body as an object and portrays men's masculinity as more of a sexual object rather than the tough, rugged guy of the past.

Going back to Men's Health magazine, this magazine is made for the modern guy simply because it is a magazine that can attract a lot of the interests of men. It portrays a variety of masculinities of men such as the athletic guy who likes working out, or the business orientated guy who is into politics and business, even the softer and gentle guy who enjoys fashion, and design. Another great link that this magazine has that editors of this magazine have used is what girls have been reading for years and that is 'gossip', men of now are more interested in gossip and hearsay, which brings a whole new light to the identity of masculinity in men in society. I feel that there is almost a convergence of identities between men and women with respect to identities, male masculinity and feminism have come together to form a somewhat unisex identity. Although there still is a huge discrepancy between the sexes, and they are much diverse in gender roles.

In this article by Joseph Sharples called "Are contemporary men's magazines a progressive force in society?", he touches on the ideas that men's magazines are a new trend of diversity, and how the role of masculinities has changed ten fold from what it used to be. He also says how society needs to clearly look at and analyze the content and type of individual articles in an attempt to ascertain possible influence over the reader to initially find how the audience perceives the identity of masculinity that is being portrayed and whether it is the desired result. As well, the essay talks about the issue of whether men's magazine's are a progressive force in society, in the instance of whether it has a positive influence over the reader , towards men coping with personal identity of what it is to be a male in society today, Furthermore, the larger issue of masculinity and what it is to men.

In Conclusion, representation and the media are two very persuasive forms of communication in society, they can twist and manipulate what an audience or viewer sees or interprets. With regards to the representation of male masculinity in mass media, specifically magazines, it is evident that there has been a major shift in the roles and identities of men and there masculinity over the years. With the rise in feminism, racial equality and economic and historical modernization the male identity has a much more diverse and multicultural identity. Magazines now have the ability to portray a wide variety of levels of masculinity in males, from the tough rugged, care free male, to the softer image based gentlemen. The issue that is still in review is how each magazine is perceived by the readers and what they feel the portrayal of male masculinity means to them. With the four issues of Men's Health magazines that I used in my paper, they show a good idea of what the modern identity of males are in a society whether it be heterosexual of homosexual. This magazine has a good grasp on the reality of masculinity of males, although that is subject to change and opinion as is everything in our society.

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