Every Monday morning, I get up early before attending our Sociology seminar class on Student Identity, to volunteer at my elementary school as a teacher’s assistant for my grade 7 teacher. Ever since I had started this volunteering position in October, I have recognized interersting things about the boy students in the class, throughout my two hours spent there.
My experiences in the past two months have been pleasurable and intellectually stimulating, simply by observing the classroom dynamics. During class time, I often witness the boys to be the students who are always tireless, vibrant, and the most spirited. In addition, the majority of the male students would also often raise their hands quickly to respond when the teacher poses a quesiton to the class. Moreover, it is often the boys who volunteer to assist the teacher move boxes around in the kitchen or to help transport some heavy textbooks from the library back to the class.
Moreover, in the two months, I could see the feelings spurring between a female student and a male student. From across the classroom, I can see them eyeing each other while the teacher lectures in front of the classroom. At worktime, as the girl works on her homework, the boy would take glimpses at her numerous times, and once the girl looks over, he quickly retrieves his glance. This would be the same for the girl as well. For instance, there was a time where the boy would get up from his seat to throw out a piece of garbage, the girl would pop her head up, as though she felt his moving presence. I could see that her eyes were following him. But once he turns around and walks back towards his seat, the girl would quickly look back down to her social studies homework. Talk about classroom romance!
From this, it is extremely interesting to me as it relates to Kimmel’s “Guyland” notion of Masculinity. His idea is rooted from the perspective that masculnity is socially constructed. Similar to the boys in the classroom at the elementary school, they reinforce what it “means” to be a “real man”. Clearly, it is suggested through their actions of carrying heavy objects and initiating to help the teacher out. Thus, these characteristics underline the masculine stereotypes: will-power and strength of men and that men are made to be team players. Kimmel describes that Guyland as a period between adolescence and adulthood (16 years old to around mid-20s). However in the case of this, the students are 13 year old gr 7 boys. As a result, Guyland doesn’t appear within a limited timeframe. In reality, it exists prior to 16 years old and is fluid between age groups.
In addtion, what I find also interesting is that there may be an aspect such that the boys in the class are complying to the masculine touches, in order to portray to the ladies that they have what it takes to be “the man”, or to be “manly”. In the case of the crush between the girl and boy, that specific boy more often than not that is the one who would raise his hand up to speak, the one who volunteers to participate in completing math questions on the whiteboard, as well, the one who offers to carry the heavy world atlases from classroom to classroom. Moreover, it is at this point that I recognize that he is unaware of the implications of following such traits. Because masculinity is socially construcuted and is imposed on him, he does not struggle with his true identity and who he really is in an attempt to make themselves look “masculine” because he only sees manliness as the way to go. In other words, because individuals are born and brought up with the image of masculinity, we do not realize that we are following what society has created. In this case, the male student does what he does without his acknowledgement that he is complying to the social order and therefore, doesn’t realize the struggles of fitting into that category.
In contrary, our belief of masculinity is understood by the ladies as well. From what I see between the classroom lovebirds, I believe that it is due to the boy’s behaviors of masculinity, in which the girl is attracted to. With the boy taking the initiatives to respond to questions and hauling heavy boxes in and out, it shows that he is a team player and that he is powerful. Through this, with the help of social media today that reinforces the image of masculinity, the girl sees his actions as right and fitted, thus, increasing her liking towards him. As we can see, as Kimmel states that Guyland typically occurs at the age of 16, boys in fact adhere to this masculine ideal at an earlier age.
Alternatively, Kimmel raises that men also adhere to the “Bro Code” in which “a man’s ‘brothers’ are his real soul mates, his real life-partners.” In relation to thinking about the male students in the class, they often hang out together as a pack in order to, I would say, to put more emphasis on their “coolness” or tough mascunline traits. With this, it allows them to impose power among their other male counterparts in their class. In this case, this reinforce is created by their social in-group behaviors, without thinking the contrary, that can be seen as struggles.
Once again, it is because of the normality of what is means to be masculine, that these kids see these traits as the norm. Due to this idea, these elementary school student’s identities are standardized through the trope of what is means to be masculine by influences of the media and their friends. However in relation to me as an univeristy student majoring in Sociology, my ideas of such social constructions have been unpacked, therefore, I understand more of the truth that lies underneath the social beliefs. From this experience volunteering, I wonder every Monday how my identity would change if I were to just follow such constructions imposed by the world. In other words, how would my life be if I only followed what ‘femininity’ meant in society without the opporunities of being powerful and spirited, like the gr 7 student?
References:
Kimmel, M. (2008). Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men.