This is a beautiful photo of the bride and groom at their wedding I recently attended. Their wedding was beautiful, exactly what I have pictured from the movies. Most believe are not really the way weddings are portrayed in movies, but this one was absolutely perfect in that way.
According to Johnson there are eleven myths of sex, love and romance portrayed in wedding films including destiny, love at first sight and differing values don’t matter if its love (2004:360). These movies always depict two soul mates without a trouble in the world, because nothing else matters if they have found each other. “As soon as one investigates, however, which people actually marry each other, one finds that the lighting-shaft of Cupid seems to be guided rather strongly within very definite channels of class, income, educations, [and] racial and religious backgrounds,” (Berger 1963:8). With this thought in mind, it is seen that they do have much of these in common. They came from the same town, with similar educations, etc. Although maybe some of these destiny and soul mate remarks may be true, it is also true that “…class, power, and sexual desire are intricately interwoven,” (Weeks 1989:39). In our society, it is easy to say that majority of people will marry someone of their same class with much of the same things in common. “Simply put, it is through our interaction with others that we learn how t0 interpret and evaluate the world around us,” (Steele 2005:15).
This photo shows how women are “supposed” to be. All the girls are crowded around a small child being motherly and tending to the child. “…In Western societies, we see two discrete sexes and two distinguishable genders because our society is built on two classes of people, ‘women’ and ‘men,’” (Lorber, 569). Society tells us that women are to be feminine and men are to be masculine. However, understanding that gender goes beyond biology and is socially constructed can be difficult. “I am not saying that physical differences between male and female bodies don’t exist, but that these differences are socially meaningless until social practices transform them into social facts,” (Lorber, 569). This is to say that women are to be feminine; motherly and care for children. And this photo shows this perfectly well because all of the girls are yearning for the attention of the child and the approval of being attentive to the child from those around.
“To be born a woman has to be born, within an allotted and confined space, into the keeping of men,” (Berger 1963:46). Women are, in a way, oppressed because they are meant to stay home and tend to the children’s needs. The male is able to go out and work while the women are supposed to stay home and care for the children. This picture has no male in it caring for the child and shows content females caring for the child. “Regarding gender difference, levels of gender inequality, and the amount of violence…Virtually every society known to us if founded upon assumptions of gender difference and the politics of gender inequality,” (Kimmel 2006:2). Adrienne Rich states that the forces in say society “say that women should be nice, play safe, have low professional expectations, drown in love and forget about work, live through others, and stay in places assigned to us,” (1929:610). Though this can be seen as a form of oppression, the majority of women can see themselves as mothers, whether that be in the immediate future, distance future or in the present. Society gives women that idea, that they are to be mothers.
Though the feminism movement is currently fighting to end these social norms that tell women that they do not hold responsibility for themselves, but hold responsibility to their husbands and children. “Our upbringing as women has so often told us that this should come second to our relationships and responsibilities to other people,” (Rich 1929:609).The feminist movement is working to change these ideas, to give women liberation. According to Young, “this understanding of ‘feminine’ existence makes it possible to say that some women escape or transcend the typical situation and definition of women in various degrees and respects,” (Young 2005:31). This picture, however, shows that it is easier said than done. ”Our human nature gives us the ability to learn to produce and recognize masculine and feminine gender displays,” (West & Zimmerman 1987:150). Particularly in our neighborhood, we have seen the mothers be the say at home mom’s while the fathers go off and make the money. Our mothers have put all of us before themselves, and this child in particular has a mother that puts herself before him. It was our human instinct that told us to act motherly and caring to him, just as our feminine mothers have done for us.
This photo was taken at a friend’s wedding with the bride’s younger brother. Each girl is wearing a dress, looking prim and proper while the only male in the picture is dressed in a suit. This is the ideal dress for males and females at many occasions, or as what we believe to be ideal from movies. The females undoubtedly spent time doing their hair and make-up and finding the right dress to wear. The male obviously took the time to shave and to get fitted for the perfect tailored suit. Why did we all spend the time to do this? The mainstream movies tell us this is the way a wedding should be, this is the way a man should dress and this is the way a female should look. Women believe “the ideal was someone tall, thin, white, and blond, a face without pores, asymmetry, or flaws, someone wholly ‘perfect’,” just as they are seen in the movies (Wolf 1991:1).
This idea of beauty comes from the mainstream. We see 6’2″ white models weighing merely 125 pounds that are sexualized by the attention received from males. “The patterns of female sexuality are inescapably a product of the historically rooted power of men to define and categorize what is necessary and desirable,” (Weeks 1989:47). And in this case, it is desirable for women to look that way in order for a male to find her attractive, but utmost, sexually attractive.
This photo can also be seen as almost a mirror image to the ideal date or the dominant cultural script for an ideal sexual encounter. The female should take her time to get ready and look great and the male should take his time to shave and look clean cut. Both should be appropriately bodied; appropriately feminine and masculine. The ideal sexual encounter does go a little farther, however. A private setting, in the evening and should most definitely be for love (Smith:2011). “Heterosexuality is much more than a biological given, or whether or not someone is attracted to someone of another sex. Rules on everything from who pays for the date or the wedding rehearsal dinner to who leads while dancing, drives the car, cooks dinner or initiates sex, all serve to regulate heterosexual practice,” (Igraham 2006:22). This is rarely seen the other way around. Men are always the ones who pick up the girl, drive to the restaurant, pay for the date and everything included in being dominant. Women could definitely be the ones that do this, but the male is not willing to give up the dominant role.
What is masculine? Hegemonic masculinity can be defined with many different traits: men should not have or express certain feelings, all physical contact leads to sex, there is no physical pleasure except sexual pleasure, and most importantly men are heterosexual (Smith: 2011). These traits come about in a comparison to the opposite: the female. “We come to know what it means to be a man in our culture by setting our definitions in opposition to a set of ‘others’-racial minorities, sexual minorities, and, above all, women,” (Kimmel 2009:58).Overall, being masculine means to not be feminine. This photo shows an ideal masculine male. He is tall, muscular and is using a gun, one of the most masculine things in our society. The gun represents power and violence, two characteristics that society believes also represent masculinity. Biology has said males’ high levels of testosterone cause their aggression. However Sapolsky’s research shows that aggression elevates testosterone levels, not the other way around (1997). “Violence is more complex than a single hormone, and it is supremely rare that any of our behaviors can be reduced to genetic destiny. This is science for the bleeding-heart liberal: the genetics of behavior is usually meaningless outside the context of the social factors and environment in which it occurs,” (Sapolsky 1997:4).
Men often hide behind sport, muscle, and competition with other men to mask feminine traits they may posses. They feel that they will be ashamed and embarrassed, not in front of other women, but in front of other men that may posses more masculine characteristics. In this case, he is doing exactly that. Messner explains this very well, “…we were both ‘doing heterosexuality’ as an ongoing practice through which we sought to do two things: avoid stigma, embarrassment, ostracism, or perhaps worse if we were even suspected of being gay; link ourselves into systems of power, status and privilege that appear to be the birthright of ‘real men,’” (1999:392). He never once tried to prove anything to the girls that came along, but rather it was a competition between the males in order to prove their more masculine than the next.
Boys seem to think its funny to act gay. The reason for this humor lies in that fact that it is so ridiculous that such a masculine man could actually be gay. Them finding this act humorous hides any insecurities they may have for actually possessing non-masculine qualities. As masculinity was defined above, one of the most prevalent ways masculinity is maintained is in homophobia and calling out other boys for being feminine. “Homophobia is a central organizing principle of our cultural definition of manhood,” (Kimmel 2009:65). This often brings up the word fag. “When a boy calls another boy a fag, it means he is not a man, not necessarily that he is a homosexual” (Pascoe 2005:342). And the reason this word is so common is because the abuser feels more powerful while making the other feel emasculated and ashamed.
Perpetuating the assumptions of gender characteristics and enabling them to be carried on is not always the right way to go as society believes it to be. It could carry on words such as fag that can be hurtful and unnecessary. The reasoning behind people, especially men, carrying on these gender assumptions is because they do not want to be the liberators. That means they would have to provoke others in to noticing their feminine traits they carry. This means continuing to be ashamed and emasculated by a society that defines only two genders: male and female with only two sets of characteristics: feminine and masculine.
There are, however, many people that challenge these gender assumptions. These people with untraditional sexual deviances support Rubin’s radical theory: “It is up to all of us to prevent more barbarism and to encourage erotic creativity. Those who consider themselves progressive need to examine their preconceptions, update their sexual educations, and acquaint themselves with the existence and operation of sexual hierarchy. It is time to recognize the political dimensions of erotic life,” (1984:35). These people who identify as homosexual, bisexual, asexual, transgendered, etc. should not have to hide who they are anymore. If a person decides to not have a storybook wedding, take on the feminine mother role, take on the masculine fag-calling role, or have heterosexual charmed circle sex then they should not have to. “The sexual system is shifting one again, and we are seeing many symptoms of its change,” (Rubin 1984:34).
