What does it mean to be a man? This question was asked in one of my senior classes this past year. Everyone was told to think of three words to describe what a man is. These answers were meant to put a label on what a man should be, how they should act and what should matter to them. The answers, of course, were to be expected from a group of senior students, predominately occupied by men in this classroom. Words and phrases like strong, wealthy, handsome, "has a woman" and courageous were all used. One word that was used multiple times was "manly." Manly? I mean I suppose it must make sense to describe a man as 'manly', right? After all three of the five letters in manly are 'man'. But then I asked myself: "What does 'manly' truly mean?" When our teacher asked what it means to be manly, students answered with the same words used before. Is this really what it means to be a man? Of course, this exercise was meant to show that our society has basically given us a definition for what it means to be a man, but in this current day, is that really how we can describe a man?
According to dictionary.com, the definition for the word 'manly' is "having qualities traditionally ascribed to men, as strength or bravery." The word that many people seem to pass over in this description is the word "traditionally." This is where we should start seeing the connection between our society and the way we see people. Our society is full of traditions. We give presents to people on Christmas. Many of us go to church on Sunday morning. We also look to men as being strong and brave, just as said in the definition. This isn't just the way it is; this is a tradition within our society. We can go all the way back to ancient Greece where men like Hercules and Odysseus are always the heroes in classic tales. If you asked anyone who knew about these two fabled warriors to describe them, they would without a doubt say, '"strong and brave." But this was years ago, is it safe to say that this still applies to today's society? Yes, it is, as long as we keep thinking this way.
Stereotypes may seem like something we talk about when watching a movie or reading about how people were seen in history, but they never truly went away. In fact, they are nowhere near going away. The most obvious and compelling evidence of this is that we still have a feminism movement. You would think in a society that has come so far and has made huge steps towards progress, we would have solved this by now. Women are still getting paid less in the workplace, are still labeled as the ones to take care of a child, and are expected to have a man be their "protector." We are so caught up in our own egocentric world and are influenced heavily by culture and media that we just blindly accept roles given to men and women. This brings me to where I wanted to get with this, that we must start looking at people as people and not for their traditionally given roles and descriptors.
A man is no less of a man if he does not marry a woman. A man is no less of a man if he is not strong. A man is no less of a man even if he is shy. Telling a man that they must be manly just so that they can be with a beautiful woman or be the main supplier of income in a household is anti-progressive. If this is what is expected of men, they will continue to feel as though they must meet these standards in order to be a true man and in turn will affect the way they look at women. If a man holds himself to values built on stereotypes and traditional thinking, then a man will also view women by their society-given values. If we can start to look at people by their qualities rather than by how strong or brave they are, then we can truly start to live in an equal society.
