The Damaging Effect of Gender Roles
Question: How does each article portray gender roles and illustrate the damaging effects of gender? Are they damaging in the same way, or different? Use textual evidence to support your point. Paul Theroux's "Being a Man" and Naomi Wolf's "The Beauty Myth" each portray gender roles and illustrates the damaging effects of both gender roles. I believe both gender roles are damaging in the same way. Men have to prove their "manhood" and their worth as a man by being unfeeling, obedient and soldierly while women have to fill their gender role through motherhood and beauty. The gender roles that men and women have to fill force them to change themselves and become something they are not in order to gain acceptance from society. This in turn causes damaging effects to both genders socially, emotionally and internally. In Paul Theroux's "Being a Man", the author states being a man means "be stupid, be unfeeling, obedient, soldierly and stop thinking." He believes the ambition of manliness is crippling and hideous, and I agree with him. The traits of "manliness" illustrates the damaging effects of gender roles. Manliness is emotionally damaging and socially harmful since manliness leads to difference and superiority. For example, boys are taught to play sports and be athletes at a young age. This leads to boys being competitive at a young age and if one boy is not able to compete with others, he is treated as an outcast. On the other hand, if one boy is very athletic he may feel that he is superior than others. The damaging effects of gender roles are further illustrated in the article when the author states "there is no book hater like a little league coach. But indeed all the creative arts are obnoxious to the manly ideal." The author is saying men are so obsessed with possessing the traits of a man that they often ignore the arts. This is socially harmful since men who do participate in the arts are classified as uncompetitive and solitary. In Naomi